NeoGAF

Originally Posted by MormaPope

What are you talking about? The characterization in past GTA's is razor thin. Ken Rosenburg is a coked up lawyer that's cowardly, that's his entire character. Big Smoke, without spoiling anything, is a obese gang banger who is lazy and for the most part cowardly.

I didn't mind that they weren't complicated characters (sandbox games like GTA never will have them, I think) but my point is there was more effort in the writing, they literally didn't say what they were, it was suggested. Remember the party on the yacht at the start of Vice City? You are introduced to several other characters and you hear a little of them talking that pretty clearly illustrates what kind of person they are, without totally telegraphing what the writer was trying to do with them.

I don't think those games were masterpieces in terms of writing but the quality was much higher than the last couple of games.

Originally Posted by MormaPope

The same exact thing could be said for every single male character.

With the exception of the three mains, I sorta see your point.

Disclaimer: I haven't finished the game's story, so I can only comment on what I've played.

Originally Posted by Neiteio

Oh man... Seanbaby makes me want to dig up my old EGMs. His articles and the Hsu and Chan strips were the best!

Hell yeah. Used to have tears streaming down my face reading his articles in EGM back in high school. Especially the one about the 10 worst games of all time.

Originally Posted by Guerrillas in the Mist

With the exception of the three mains, I sorta see your point.

Disclaimer: I haven't finished the game's story, so I can only comment on what I've played.

The three main characters aren't heroes in any sense of the word, it would be incredibly challenging to say otherwise.

Originally Posted by Trickster

The stuff he says in point 4. Size. Is absolutely spot on. GTA5 is the most detailed, and probably one of the biggest open world games ever. And it full of nothing

It really is.

Originally Posted by zeioIIDX

Hell yeah. Used to have tears streaming down my face reading his articles in EGM back in high school. Especially the one about the 10 worst games of all time.

Same. His new stuff gets me to chuckle a bit. I wonder if that's because I've changed or he's changed.

This article isn't bad.

The part about the comedy was spot-on.

And I'm glad somebody bothered to mention how ridiculous the UI/cab-calling mechanic is.

I'm don't think GTA is even satire - it's silly and exaggerated but I have trouble seeing how it's criticism of any kind.

There's a difference between being satirical and reveling in over-the-top stereotypes.

Originally Posted by w00twood

I didn't mind that they weren't complicated characters (sandbox games like GTA never will have them, I think) but my point is there was more effort in the writing, they literally didn't say what they were, it was suggested. Remember the party on the yacht at the start of Vice City? You are introduced to several other characters and you hear a little of them talking that pretty clearly illustrates what kind of person they are, without totally telegraphing what the writer was trying to do with them.

I don't think those games were masterpieces in terms of writing but the quality was much higher than the last couple of games.

Having replayed Vice City and San Andreas in the last year, I disagree wholeheartedly. The cutscenes in past GTA's are extremely boring and plodding, the worst part of the older GTA's are story bits and cutscenes. Vice City and San Andreas still have a lot of excellent elements, but the stories and writing are snoozers.

Spot on with a lot of points. GTA series is honestly getting a little long in the tooth(at least with the current direction).

Originally Posted by MormaPope

Having replayed Vice City and San Andreas in the last year, I disagree wholeheartedly. The cutscenes in past GTA's are extremely boring and plodding, the worst part of the older GTA's are story bits and cutscenes. Vice City and San Andreas still have a lot of excellent elements, but the stories and writing are snoozers.

Yeah, I don't get. I mean to be fair I don't get 99% of the complaints on GAF about GTA, but GTA V's main trio is 100 times more interesting than any protagonist in the PS2 era.

Originally Posted by Trickster

The stuff he says in point 4. Size. Is absolutely spot on. GTA5 is the most detailed, and probably one of the biggest open world games ever. And it full of nothing

Hell there's a ton of locations in the map that aren't even used in story missions or side missions. They exist just to...be there I guess.

Hilarious article! Seanbaby's still as great as ever, in fact this might be some of the funniest stuff he's done.

It's simply wrong to look at GTA5 as a social satire. It's dumb to look at is as actual commentary and you're an idiot if you say it's actually smart and well done commentary. It honestly scares me to see various reviewers praise it like that.

But think about it. What would the game look like if they got rid of any of the weird extreme parallels to the real world? It'd be downright boring. The connection between the real world and the video game isn't going to benefit the real world, but it sure as hell does benefit the game.

The in game facebook company is a perfect example of this. When you do the facebook mission you aren't learning that real life facebook is a bad company, but you are using your own experience with facebook to understand that the in game facebook is a bad company. If they put a generic evil corporation up there it wouldn't be nearly as fun or interesting.

So for me, I really don't have a problem with that side of it. Sure I'd like it to have been actually smart and informative commentary, but that doesn't mean I don't like what GTA5 is doing instead. You could probably count on one hand games that actually do accomplish smart commentary, so I don't get having expectations for GTA5 to do it.

Originally Posted by JimmyRickard

It really is.

This is how I've always seen open world games (which is why I don't play them)? And apparently, GTAV's is the best?


Don't get it.

Originally Posted by MormaPope

The three main characters aren't heroes in any sense of the word, it would be incredibly challenging to say otherwise.

I meant more in that they are a step up in complexity compared to the game's supporting cast, which I guess makes sense considering they're the main characters!

B- b- but.... Sessler said it's the Dickens of our time!

Hilarious article. And oddly enough I agree with most of it. Still enjoyed the game immensely, but I do think that a lot of it was a little to on the nose with its humor. I'm not sure if they had gone the opposite route if it would have honestly made a better or worse game though.

That said its a bit of a balancing act isn't it? Too clever and its going over your average gamers head. Too up front and its going to get reactions like this.

I will say though I really like his discussion on the torture sequence. The section after it where the game does basically lay out everything it was trying to say and apologize for it really killed the message they seemed to be implying. I'm not saying the torture sequence was a good idea to begin with, but you definitely destroy some of the impact of your implication by having to explain it as bluntly as you possibly can, and then again apologize for it.

He's also right about how there's SOOOO much shit to do but most of it is pretty boring.

But guys, this will be remembered like Dickens.

Originally Posted by MormaPope

Having replayed Vice City and San Andreas in the last year, I disagree wholeheartedly. The cutscenes in past GTA's are extremely boring and plodding, the worst part of the older GTA's are story bits and cutscenes. Vice City and San Andreas still have a lot of excellent elements, but the stories and writing are snoozers.

San Andreas was solid. Funny characters and a nice story arc.

Vice City was definitely nonsense though. It was just a bunch of good actors saying really hacky lines. It was a bit embarrassing.

Originally Posted by Astral

He's also right about how there's SOOOO much shit to do but most of it is pretty boring.

San Andreas was worse for this. It was one of the reasons why GTA4's stripped back, focus on the basics approach was so refreshing (in my opinion, anyway).

R* shit the bed with gta online.

If only american media didn't portray the rest of the world with footnote stereotype after footnote stereotype, this would actually mean something.

And the article, I mean it reads funny, but at the same time it feels a bit defensive on the whole social commentary bit. Like it's coming from a place of work, where sublime commentary is your daily diet.

Originally Posted by MormaPope

The same exact thing could be said for every single male character.

No not really, the three main characters are power fantasies. No matter how much you throw the word "satire" in front of what they do it cannot be denied the game wants you to feel excitement and power when pulling off a complicated heist. The female characters are not individuals you wish to be or emulate in any form.

Originally Posted by EdibleKnife

As always, Seanbaby is hilarious.



I literally cried.

omg so much this. The overuse of the n word was ridiculous.

He may be right, but dear God that was painful to read.

Originally Posted by ChawlieTheFair

Coming from New Orleans (lotta black people here) Franklin's use of the n-word seemed accurate, though i've never been to LA.

I'm in Oakland and based on my next-door neighbor's high school kid and his friends, it's accurate. What's amazing, though, is how many times they also say "brah." I guess they just like the vocative case.

What I find funny is that his humour is essentially the same, perhaps this is an application to join Rockstar.

Spent a ton of time in GTAV but that was despite the story and dialogue which were poorly written, at times cringeworthy. The Cracked writer is spot on with a lot of points, especially the mundaneness of a lot of the tasks and fact they constructed this huge detailed world where there is nothing to do. A lot of the time it felt like the devs were just taking the piss. Even the discoverables, instead of making it a fun treasure hunt based on clues, becomes a chore of point to point trekking while consulting an online map.

The game was kind of summed up for me when I entered a random convenience store and discovered a safe in the back. Cool, I'll use a sticky bomb and blow the safe. But the game doesn't let you. There is no reward for the discovery. A huge open world game full of limitations and restrictions, where you must follow a tightly controlled script when playing out missions.

While I don't agree with everything there I definitely agree with the "satire".

This here is a good example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA7DZ3hTNYY

I almost got a concussion from them slamming it in my face

Definitely agreed about the satire and use of humor, and characterizations of NPC's in the game.

It's so blunt and mean spirited it almost comes out like they did it on purpose.

To be more clear, let's say there are four things that make a great lover*.

*All four of them are inches, ladies.

Oh, Seanbaby.

God, Seanbaby's still got it.

The humor in the game just felt old

The criticism against the humour and the boring-ass "variety" is exactly why I will never enjoy this franchise.

I'd rather marathon the worst Family Guy episodes of all time than sit through GTA's idea of satire.

Originally Posted by Kenshin001

Spent a ton of time in GTAV but that was despite the story and dialogue which were poorly written, at times cringeworthy. The Cracked writer is spot on with a lot of points, especially the mundaneness of a lot of the tasks and fact they constructed this huge detailed world where there is nothing to do. A lot of the time it felt like the devs were just taking the piss. Even the discoverables, instead of making it a fun treasure hunt based on clues, becomes a chore of point to point trekking while consulting an online map.

The game was kind of summed up for me when I entered a random convenience store and discovered a safe in the back. Cool, I'll use a sticky bomb and blow the safe. But the game doesn't let you. There is no reward for the discovery. A huge open world game full of limitations and restrictions, where you must follow a tightly controlled script when playing out missions.

That's fair enough, but it's also true of basically all games in this genre.
In Sleeping Dogs you can't do shit outside of missions, in Saint's Row 4 you can't do shit outside of missions and so on.
The extra stuff is almost always busy work.

Even going outside of the genre boundaries, Assassin's Creed is mostly the same, you have to go into full RPG territory to have a case.
Although i'd argue most of the stuff you get to do in Skyrim is boring as shit.

Originally Posted by w00twood

I don't think those games were masterpieces in terms of writing but the quality was much higher than the last couple of games.

What? Until V grasp at being portraying itself as a drama, the stories of the series' games were an after thought with little more cohesion than a season of Seinfeld and about as much relevance to the experience as the plot of a porn.

Good to see this is getting more attention. The games are just really, really poorly written, and a bad reflection on gaming in general.

Red Dead Redemption was great (and Houser was involved with that), but I can honestly say I've thought the rest of his stuff was crap. He wouldn't be writing the games were he not the co-founder of Rockstar. Whoever said he sounds like "a fan of the Daily Show who also happens to be a hack" was right on the money.

But how can anyone not laugh at the brilliant BAWSAQ?

Gold, just gold.

Originally Posted by Pyronite

Red Dead Redemption was great (and Houser was involved with that), but I can honestly say I've thought the rest of his stuff was crap. He wouldn't be writing the games were he not the co-founder of Rockstar.

:lol yeah, probably. I mean it's not like Rockstar's games are always critically lauded and sell incredibly well, so I dunno why they stay the course creatively.

Oh, wait....

Originally Posted by Fjordson

:lol yeah, probably. I mean it's not like Rockstar's games are always critically lauded and sell incredibly well, so I dunno why they stay the course creatively.

Oh, wait....

You're right – I left out the alternative, which is that gamers have shit taste and/or don't care about the storylines, and therefore the games are successful despite their amateurish writing.

Originally Posted by Fjordson

:lol yeah, probably. I mean it's not like Rockstar's games are always critically lauded and sell incredibly well, so I dunno why they stay the course creatively.

Oh, wait....

There are many reasons to buy a GTA game outside of the satire, though.
I know i can barely stand it at this point, but i am still excited for every GTA, because i love the games.

If they made a mute GTA, something like GTAIII i'd be as happy as ever, probably.

Originally Posted by RedRedSuit

GTA IV also had very flat obvious "satire" type humor. Sort of like it was written by huge Daily Show fans who happen to be hacks.

Was hoping V would be different.

I liked San Andreas. It was more of an homage than a satire. It had a heart.

So basically modern GTA is like that Daily Show ripoff Fox slapped together that one time in terms of writing

These games are incredibly stupid and the humor is really juvenile, but people play them because they are fun sandbox games on a scale almost unmatched by other console games.

I swear there's a conspiracy in the gaming community to elevate the critical importance of these games and promote the "SATIRE" and blah blah "reflection of our culture" aspects so we all don't seem like we just enjoy running over people in golf carts and seeing how long we can last in shootouts with the cops.

Originally Posted by Pyronite

You're right – I left out the alternative, which is that gamers have shit taste and/or don't care about the storylines, and therefore the games are successful despite their amateurish writing.

Not really. Just a matter of different opinions.

Originally Posted by UrbanRats

There are many reasons to buy a GTA game outside of the satire, though.

Sure, but I'd bet there's also a ton of people out there who enjoy the humour/story. I know I did and, call me crazy, but I highly doubt I'm alone there. I mean the game has already shipped 29 million copies.

When a game starts to reach an audience that massive it's bound to resonate in different ways with different people (or fail to resonate). It's simply impossible to speak for the entirety of an audience that large.

True, The map size was actually a huge frustration

Ha, good stuff.

Rockstar's response to the article