Defiance
Yes, even in fantastical video game worlds, I find a ruined bridge and some garbage for you.
Of all the games that I play too much of, I play too much of Defiance the most.
That's not to say I really play a ton of Defiance. Did you know it's a show on the Sci-Fi (sorry, SCYFY) channel? That channel with the Sharktopus and the Mega-Lava vs. Ultra-Beetle and of course, Sharknado 2?
Defiance is that kind of game. It used to be a premium, fifty dollar game. Then, one day, when it was 20 bucks, I bought it. I very much like this game. Sure, it was a little wonky, felt a little loose (though a lot of times that was just lag) and minor inconveniences are a serious bother when you're paying for a game - this game handles the required (for the format) issues with speed and a small amount of grace. Yes, you have to be online, yes, it's an MMO.
It's free now, but I don't know what that free world is like. I understand there's stuff you have to buy. Or something? I dunno.
But, it's also an open-world shooter, and you can run around blasting things if you want. (People who do not want this should probably not play this game)
This leads to my favorite aspect of Defiance. There are these spawned, open events called "Arkfalls" - which will be instantly recognizable and understandable to anyone who played Trion's other middling but good MMO "Rift." (Rift is to World of Warcraft as Torchlight is to Diablo) - big things pop up, you go defeat the swarming enemies, and then the thing resolves itself by exploding. People jump in as it goes on, amping up the difficulty level. The waves are timed, Diablo 3 totally didn't rip this off with that thing called "Rifts."
But anyway - back to my favorite thing about Defiance. When a rift spawns, everyone knows, and people drive to it from all over. There's fast-travel that's instant and always available, with plenty of spawn points, so they show up pretty quickly.
You get to spawn vehicles, there is an awkward Dodge endorsement - and yes, you can run down people with your car - running people down with a car is my second favorite way to kill people in a First Person Shooter, which to me is always more of a First Person Puncher and Hit/Run, if possible.
So people are swarming at this Rift - I mean Arkfall - and your cars (thankfully) pass through one another effortlessly - and everyone's hauling ass, ramping hills. Hills and Dukes of Hazzard rules are all over the place.
The actual arkfall has a number of indestructible structures around it. If your car so much as grazes one, it explodes.
You can jump out of your cars right before they explode.
If you don't see where this is going, you probably should just try again, and think about three dozen people who shoot murderous aliens (but they're from Earth! TWIST!) with weird guns and just think about how they'd treat a disposable, respawning car.
Yeah, everyone ramps their cars into the barriers and hops out at the last second as the sky becomes full of the flaming husks of exploded cars that fall and litter the bullet-strewn landscape.
It is a very silly game. Though, as you might imagine, given that my review of Team Fortress 2 was a mash up of The Great Gatsby and Team Fortress 2's voluminous backstory, that is OKAY by me.
People complain about it (because of course they do) and I'm sure that if you're some hardcore FPS purist, or if you get a murderous glint in your eye for all the tiny numbers and status effects the weapons dish out because MATH, then yeah, you'll probably have a problem with Defiance. Some sort of Defiance-defiance? Maybe. That seems to be the sort of problem you'd have.
My only complaint? When you jump out of your car/ATV/rolling deathtrap, you lose all forward momentum. This likely would cause Neil DeGrasse Tyson to pull his hair from his scalp if he witnessed it (my sources say he's more of a Universe Sandbox player) - but also leads to the hilarious sight of people jumping out of a ramping car that is twenty meters off the ground, then just falling straight down as their exploding ride goes arcing off into the sunset. Also, if you time it *just* right you can jump as you exit, and go popping up into the air - straight up - even higher, then fall straight down.
So really, it's more of a weird thing to watch that always gets a chuckle out of my favorite spectacle - mass 'splode-ramping.
You do not take falling damage in Trion games. I APPROVE. However, you cannot rocket-jump. NO APPROVAL.
You can rocket jump in The Secret World, which may well be my next MMO review, because - ROCKET JUMPING.