Recently, I tried to replay GTAIV, but it felt too dated. Not the graphics, which are fine. Some of it is the controls, which are bizarrely maximal (hold A on foot to run, tap A to sprint? Hold X while driving to toggle high beams? You couldn’t ship anything more elegant than that?). Mostly it is badly directed, and given its success, it would seem direction isn’t a thing our medium cares much about yet.
What I mean is that the various parts of GTAIV don’t cohere into a meaningful larger whole. The most striking example is captured by a friend’s comment that “there are two Nikos: the one in the cutscenes, and the one I play.” The Niko you watch is a complex character blending a dark past with a buoyant spirit, fearless loyalty to his friends, and hard-earned criminal wisdom. But the Niko you play needlessly disobeys all traffic regulations, takes preposterous risks violating the law, and commits vehicular manslaughter on an unprecedented scale. Neither of these parts is bad. I’m compelled and absorbed by both of them. I’m just saying that nothing has been done to reconcile them in the game. It’s not like Niko lives in a post-apocalyptic circus of nightmare drivers. Liberty City is simulated in exceptionally sharp relief, and much like the story, the extra dimension it is given is clearly meant to reinforce the idea that it’s a regular city of regular folks.
So a man like Niko, with his pride and self-preservation, isn’t just for the sake of cheap thrills going to act like the Insane Clown Posse in their most cracked-out dreams. And yet, that’s exactly the most fun way to play the game. To embrace the reckless chaos, provoke the interacting rules, throw rocks at the hornets’ nests and squeal away gleefully, get chased into the river and drown. Even if you were inclined, Mormon-like, to deny yourself the pleasure that, genitals-like, the gameplay is clearly intended to provide, you basically couldn’t. ‘Keeping a low profile unless necessary’ isn’t really supported.
Here’s what I bet Rockstar was thinking when it made GTAIV: do the best of everything, and tons of it. Hugest amount of content, best vehicular physics, greatest voice actors. Bring in the most talented writers, animators, modellers. A dozen minigames, a million features. Each part was considered separately with an eye for maximising its entertainment value. We were so dazzled by this accomplishment we easily forgave that too little of it connected thoughtfully with the rest. Media always comes in pieces: chapters, characters, themes, game mechanics. Creative direction is the art of adding them up to something, ideally all flowing from an undeniable impetus ahead of time rather than stitched together after the fact. GTAIV’s achievements in direction were not creative, but maybe financial, production, or pure virtuosity. If a romantic scene has great dialogue, and the reckless driving is incredibly fun, that should be enough.
What direction would make me less whiny? Maybe craft a tone hospitable to relentless anarchy, a city where activity and life only serve as a shallow backdrop to the gameplay. Not real people going to work, just puppets walking down the street for the purpose of being hit by cars. Maybe the story is full of simpler characters consumed by greed, violence and vehicles, subjects that align well with the player’s interactions. Maybe your character doesn’t talk. Oh, that’s GTAIII, a well-directed game that didn’t overwhelm me with the superfluous and in which my tools were a natural fit for collaborating with the story. Whether it was the point or not, GTAIII’s narrow focus spawned a larger meaning: it explored the nature of social consequence by allowing us to indulge in the absence of it. It felt right, a perfectly crafted atomic entity.
The more Rockstar’s games embrace human complexity, the less the GTAIII DNA that still lingers makes sense. You can’t start with a sociopath simulator, bolt on more bells and whistles, and expect to get interactions that capture the essence of a man struggling to redefine himself in a foreign city. They might have needed to do less, not more, and they certainly needed to do different. Say, make it possible for you to drive within the speed limit and still get things done. Allow you to manipulate the flow of underworld politics with tools less degenerate than murder. Have a judicial system more credible than one that gives you a spanking and puts you back on the street.
LA Noire shows us Rockstar can build gameplay that aligns with a character-driven story. If it wasn’t ready in 2008, then maybe Niko’s story wasn’t right for GTAIV, or maybe the GTA franchise shouldn’t be about nuanced characters. Although related, this topic is different to continuity and fictional justification. Direction is the intent to mean something, a devotion to the sacredness of some idea you have, a willingness to compromise anything that lessens it. By contrast, GTAIV is a largely incoherent pile of top-notch entertainment chunks. Yet it carries one of the highest critical ratings of all time. I think we’re going to look a little stunted until we start demonstrating that it takes more to win our esteem.
Comments
10I think in GTAIV's case, it's quite subjective. I played the game without speeding all the time (if not quite sticking to 30), by paying my bridge tolls, doing taxi fares for my cousin and interacting with in-game women and friends - and I enjoyed it immensely. So when it came to the cutscenes, Niko really wasn't [i]that[i] far detached from how I was playing him.
That's what I always thought was the beauty of GTAIV and Rockstar's greatest achievement with it - the game could be as coherent as you wanted it to be. You have an idea what the character is like from the off so it's up to the player to instill some order to him.
That said, I agree that if the player did choose to go off the rails as Rockstar allowed (and which most people probably did) then I could see the disparity between in-game and cut-scene Niko.
I agree. I played the game with a certain moral obligation, so to speak, and it was coherent. However, I did encounter two Niko's while playing. The other would appear just after saving the game and proceed to cause carnage for ten or so minutes before I turned the game off and had my tea.
But LA Noire's limits on your characters behaviour meant that the free-roaming levels were little more than scenery; you couldn't get out and interact with anything except in a few pre-selected events. In GTA IV you could go shopping, find side-missions, phone & go out with friends, and interact with people - ok, the interactions almost all involved thuggery, but at least the city felt alive. LA Noire's levels were so devoid of action that I ended up just driving to the next mission as directly as I could.
i agree with randy. if gta v wants to write an story of an old criminal, you need to be an cop too
I'm happy to read this, GTV IV put me off Rockstar for years and I only just played Red Dead Redemption because off it. However this is a game, that really works, blending everything much better. The lead character (cutscenses) and it's in game actions sort of make sense. You have a horse instead of a car meaning no constant mayhem, but a much more believable way to move around the world. Also a real story. L.A. Noire did blend the characters and the actual game much better than GTA IV and I liked it much better. But in fairness a lot of that was due to a more sedate and restricted gameplay experience. It was well worth the trade for me and I enjoyed the interogations and what not, but I can see how people will want something different for GTA 5.
In GTA 4 the potentiol of Nico's character and a more life like new York were what drew me in. However delivering the same old game almost immediately broke that. When his nephew's house was on fire i used my mobile phone to call the fire department, this however only meant for a truck to show up, sort of like you just made a prank call. If you're gonna have the players house on fire and you're gonna have a phone with the fire department number in it: bloody well do something with that. Also healing through hotdogs is really poor design.
Lastly I was really let down with the way the story progressed, it was really just work your way up again, maybe killing an employer along the way.
I do agree the game was feature rich and kind of good looking, but it lacked direction, focus, it perhaps wanted to please a little too much. Which made it what it was, dumb fun for the masses.
cor blimey, Randy says GTA4's various parts, gameplay mechanics and media don't form a meaningful world?
IMO.. it's the one of the best directed and coherent games ever made, with graceful, sublime controls, a control system refined over several generations of GTA, which reached a level of near perfection in GTA4 when Rockstar finally perfected the camera and targetting controls, that previous games in the series struggled with, or rather players did. glitch and bug free (at least on my 360) GTA4 is one of the all time greatest games. besides I quite like being able to hammer the @ button to make Nico run (or swim) even faster
The plot is plausable, gripping, and even dynamic in places, the story has depth and is told in some of video gamings best ever directed cut scenes. Play GTA4 properly and its several hours before you even pick up a weapon, the game allowing story and character to shine through. The story has depth, humor, pathos and when the action does ramp up it fits into the story and by then you have become involved with the characters,
The way the different media forms are intergrated and interconnected is frankly astonishing, a simulated internet so large you can spend days online, television's playing adverts for 'pisswasser' larger between satirical, subversive television shows, later cruising the streets passing pisswasser billboards and hearing pisswasser adverts on the radio, inbetween listening to a huge selection of classic tunes from every genre and era. and catching news reports on the radio detailing recent events you have been involved in, Yeah! thats a poorly constructed gameworld that doesnt knit together.
Perhaps Randy has underestimated the number of people who played the game with a sense of moral responsibility. the temptation to 'go postal' is tempered by the fact that it almost certainly ends in death somewhere between, the SWAT teams arriving and running out of grenades. The reason it is tempting to derail the game is precisely because it is such a well constructed world with; brilliant pathfinding, AI and world physics, that create a delightful level of emergent chaos when you do cross the line. but it is a clearly defined line, let a cop spot you running a pedestrian over and see the consequences, or try driving when drunk. the cops will bust you faster than you can slur DUI. the game clearly give's you the option to 'keep a low profile' when driving and often in missions. A mission to assasinate a bank manager is a perfect example. Shooting him causes a rapid, violent response that quietly stabbing him doesn't- alowing you to quietly slip out of the building
Finally moving on to whining on about GTA3 and LA noire being better more coherent rockstar games, really? honestly? GTA3 was briliant and ambitious but also flawed and comes nowhere near to recreating a dynamic city you live in as well as GTA4 does. LA noir, don't get me wrong I loved the game, the story the frankly astonishing facial animation system, which enabled the facinating interigation system.. but the LA game world itself felt flat, the game having nowhere near the same depth and attention to detail that make up GTA4's world.
I spent months playing GTA4 when it came out, by the time I finished the game I had picked up a slight russian accent, I could go on about the brilliant progression to the lost and the damned or the cartoon mayhem of the ballard of gay tony but I'll shut up and go and play one of them now.
I think. Rockstars games sell millions of copies because the gaming public know that they will get a coherent massive, deep, bug free game. something that many games still struggles to offer today. honestly, Randy what a load of codswallop :(
I could be wrong, it's been a while, but I was sure there were quite a few glaring inconsistencies. Things like missions having you kill dozens of goons, then in the next cut scene a minor loan shark will threaten you. Being able to go back to Broker and not be attacked by the Russians disappointed me too.
Minor quibbles though, still an amazing world. I'd certainly rather have these problems than the consistent dullness of LA Noire.
I personally have long thought GTA IV was massively overrated. Whilst the world was convincing, the actual gameplay structure was average at best. The save and checkpoint system was especially awful.
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have the time nor the inclination to play a 30-odd minute mission only to unfairly fail right at the end and have to start all over again. GTA IV had numerous scenarios like this and, in the end, I just gave up on it.
Red Dead Redemption, on the other hand, I found to be an absolute pleasure to play through and the sort of game I dreamed of playing 20 years ago. Not only was it well realised, but, to me, the idea of wandering through the Old West is much more appealing than yet another gangster-filled city.
GTA has always been a fascinating and technically astonishing experience wrapped around a mediocre, repetitive, clunky and frustrating video game. IV was no different.
The graphics, social commentary, soundtracks and general ambience are al somewhere between excellent and jaw dropping, but like its prequels, the main flaw is that we have to endure the actual game itself in order to get to the good stuff.
I played GTAIV as a character who is making his way in the world but with
most missions he has to undertake the usual kill i played him more as a professional assassin. Got me the usual agent style 47 suit. black sadan. To make me blend into the crowd I did the red light stopping and toll bridge paying.
Treated the cab driving as a cover job from my real underworld seedy assassin job. It worked for me.
for a 12 year old it probably is a murder simulator to them but i played it with a bit more panash, more flair and more style which i think contrbuted more to me as a game.
**spoiler**
i cacked myself when i realised valory or what ever you were dating was a cop, My Roleplaying meter shot off to the stars, moved my primary car and save house after that.