for truly open ended look at elite - wasted many days of my life on that - but enjoyed every minute. Apparently they're making another one maybe multiplayer. All new space sims are compared to elite and rarely has another game got close.
I personally like to get enveloped within the game such as in the FF series where you end up caring a little about what happens.
I also like mindless fun so san anreas for me at the minute and kotor2 looks pretty good at the mo.
I'm with Van B about programmers these days - everything is so inefficient. C64s and Spectrums - you had to be able to justify every single byte in agame.
aa them were the days
All Hail the Glory of the HypnoToad
XP Pro - Radeon 9000 Mobility- P4 3.0ish