NeoGAF

Originally Posted by Fjordson

Not really. Just a matter of different opinions.


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.

Well there are also a lot of incredibly trite and shitty comedies making big numbers at the box office (Adam Sandler's) so it's not like i don't believe it.

GTA can be funny when it's not trying too hard to be satire and relies more on the performance than the writing.
Trevor, Yusuf, Roman..

Originally Posted by Derrick01

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.

This is something I haven't been able to get over. There are so, so many places all around the map that were obviously painstakingly detailed and combed over pixel by pixel in a very deliberate manner. And they're never used. You'd never find them unless you were deliberately trying to bore yourself by walking all the generic wilderness to find it.

There's one that stands out more than others-- In one of Trevor's character-swap cutscenes he wakes up on this gorgeous beach off in the far northeast corner of the map. So far off that it was an area of the map that I hadn't even revealed with even a flyby late in the story. The water effects are simply incredible. Areas are cobbled or piled up with rocks that all look a tiny bit different. There's a spot in a cove that's obviously supposed to represent a hidden hot spring. Incredible greenery. The sort of backdrop an RPG would kill to have.

But why is it there? There's no way to get away from the place other than swimming or running for several minutes and you would never have seen it had you not been dropped there at random. There are no activities. There are no people. No roads, trails or even unmarked paths anywhere close. I eventually rocket-suicided to respawn. It's the ultimate example of R* trying way too hard merely for the sake of saying they did. For all intents and purposes it's just a tech demo of how good they could make stuff look at the end of this generation.

I definitely disagree with the humour point, maybe that makes me a terrible human being, I dont know.

I love the brash nature of it, and I didnt really tire of it throughout the 50+ hours I put in.

To dismiss the humour as just that is fairly disingenuous actually, there is a lot of subtleness to counter the more in your face examples.

I'd also argue that GTA is better written than 95% of videogames out there, regardless of whether you agree with it's subject matter or not.

Seanbaby is entitled to his opinion though, however much I disagree with him.

I like the article and had fun reading it, thanks for posting!

Originally Posted by aspiegamer

This is something I haven't been able to get over. There are so, so many places all around the map that were obviously painstakingly detailed and combed over pixel by pixel in a very deliberate manner. And they're never used. You'd never find them unless you were deliberately trying to bore yourself by walking all the generic wilderness to find it.

There's one that stands out more than others-- In one of Trevor's character-swap cutscenes he wakes up on this gorgeous beach off in the far northeast corner of the map. So far off that it was an area of the map that I hadn't even revealed with even a flyby late in the story. The water effects are simply incredible. Areas are cobbled or piled up with rocks that all look a tiny bit different. There's a spot in a cove that's obviously supposed to represent a hidden hot spring. Incredible greenery. The sort of backdrop an RPG would kill to have.

But why is it there? There's no way to get away from the place other than swimming or running for several minutes and you would never have seen it had you not been dropped there at random. There are no activities. There are no people. No roads, trails or even unmarked paths anywhere close. I eventually rocket-suicided to respawn. It's the ultimate example of R* trying way too hard merely for the sake of saying they did. For all intents and purposes it's just a tech demo of how good they could make stuff look at the end of this generation.

Why is this an inherently bad thing though?

It's not like the rest of the world feels lazily designed or rushed.

Part of the fun of open world games is exploring off the beaten path. Why would you want anything BUT well designed and imaginative environments, regardless of usage.

GTA isnt perfect, but criticising its world design and usage of locations seems ridiculous.

Originally Posted by TheOGB

Ha, good stuff.

Rockstar's response to the article

lol these Houser brother writers must have watched a lot of Boondocks.

Originally Posted by Kadayi

GTA IV scored off the charts as well, but lets face it pretty much everyone ragged on the dismal quality of the storytelling of that. Sure GTA as a franchise does great numbers, but then so do Michael Bay movies. Doesn't mean anyone's going to be handing him a best picture academy award anytime soon though. If anything the high scores are indicative of how skewed game reviews are towards technical aspects like graphics & game play and how little regard is given to story-line etc. Until there's more of a re-balance in that regard and metacritic ratings are impacted there's very little incentive for developers to really make an effort when it comes to creating better game narratives.



Can you maybe highlight some of the better and worst games there.

Do I really need to? The individual cutscenes in comparison to other titles speaks volumes about their quality.

Many games use such events solely as an opportunity to progess the plot, GTA and a select few others (TLOU springs to mind) also attempts to build on characterisation, etc.

Theres a reason why so many people viewed the ending choice as such a no brainer.

outstanding game with a range of layers and level of detail unlike anything we've seen before

that being said

if it beats TLOU for GOTY it will be a crime

Originally Posted by aspiegamer

This is something I haven't been able to get over. There are so, so many places all around the map that were obviously painstakingly detailed and combed over pixel by pixel in a very deliberate manner. And they're never used. You'd never find them unless you were deliberately trying to bore yourself by walking all the generic wilderness to find it.

There's one that stands out more than others-- In one of Trevor's character-swap cutscenes he wakes up on this gorgeous beach off in the far northeast corner of the map. So far off that it was an area of the map that I hadn't even revealed with even a flyby late in the story. The water effects are simply incredible. Areas are cobbled or piled up with rocks that all look a tiny bit different. There's a spot in a cove that's obviously supposed to represent a hidden hot spring. Incredible greenery. The sort of backdrop an RPG would kill to have.

But why is it there? There's no way to get away from the place other than swimming or running for several minutes and you would never have seen it had you not been dropped there at random. There are no activities. There are no people. No roads, trails or even unmarked paths anywhere close. I eventually rocket-suicided to respawn. It's the ultimate example of R* trying way too hard merely for the sake of saying they did. For all intents and purposes it's just a tech demo of how good they could make stuff look at the end of this generation.

When Trevor wakes there, it should be beside a campfire with 4 or 5 dead people and a boat which are unique to that moment. Most of those scenes have small stories, a vehicle or people or just unique art (like the hotel helicopter crash at Paleto Bay) that are unique to that switch. Also, a lot of the seemingly content-free areas have content in the side missions or GTA Online. I've completed the game 100% and I think almost all the the GTAO missions, and there's very little map space that doesn't have at least some random event, kidnapping, shootout, gang war, police chase, wake-up scene, etc.

I suspect a lot of people miss this content because it's so outside the general GTA V storyline.

Originally Posted by Kadayi

The opinions of the silent majority are just that silent. Among gaming aficionados generally on the whole IV isn't well regarded based on the sites I frequent. There's little reason to suspect the bell curve is any different when extended.



You seem to be conflating production values with actual writing quality.

No I'm not, regardless of quality I'd still praise those segments.

GTA is one of the few games where I WANT to hear every line of dialogue, be it in a cimematic or a car ride during a mission.

The lack of such content is actually part of the reason why I view online as a fairly shalllow experience at present.

I'm not naive enough to think my opinion is in anyway factual, but the game seems to get a fair amount of unfair criticism levelled towards its writing, when I consider it leagues above many others.

Originally Posted by Fjordson

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.

I was going to disagree, but you're sort of right. The GTA V characters themselves are interesting, but they all have one big problem CJ didn't have to deal with: their surroundings make them boring. They're all out of focus.

Michael's an interesting, competent guy when you get him away from his family (who feel like MacGuffins for the majority of the story.) But when he's around them, the narrative dies (since the arc's as well integrated into the overall story as the love subplot from any Michael Bay film) and he turns into a bipolar mess of a man who switches between quiet snark and screaming obscenities that gets old after about the second time. And he's not that good at it. Hell, he can't even call out his wife on being an unfaithful hypocrite when she accuses him of the same thing. Mike's arc rests on his relationship with his family (and to its credit it's got some genuinely good moments) but it's hard to give a damn about it when his family's that annoying, which makes it hard to give a damn about him.

Franklin has a similar problem. He rejected the 'street life' mentality at the outset, which immediately puts him at odds with everyone he knows. That's interesting and gives him something to struggle with. His arc's about ambition versus loyalty, but we only see this play out a few times, none of which cast his street life (the thing he's supposed to be loyal to) in a good light. Tonya abuses his charity, Lamar uses him as a crutch for his own stupidity though realizes it later and manages to somewhat redeem himself towards the end of the story. Hell, at one point Franklin's ex comes by to shame him for straying from the hood/his roots when she's doing the exact same thing by marrying a doctor and moving away. Outright tells him that wanting more makes him a phony, that killing and doing favors for people who've done nothing but drag him down is "who he is". And it works. He feels bad about his actions and does what she says. There's no way to relate to this. It's a schizophrenic mess of a theme.

Trevor's is...I don't know. I'd say his arc is about wanting stability and control when he needs to realize that it's impossible, but honestly, his story's as all over the place as his actions. He's a comedian without a straight man (at least when Nervous Ron's not in the picture) and the story doesn't give us enough grounding with him to figure out who he is other than "crazy guy", "Mike's friend" or "evil Hunter S. Thompson megalomaniac". He's probably the best of the three because he's got initiative (something protagonists NEED, no matter what the medium) and gets things going/done, so he isn't hampered by his lackluster supporting cast. The biggest flaw there is that he wastes time doing things that are of no consequence. His time with Floyd goes nowhere, his heist does nothing but reiterate that Meriweather is evil, he takes over a strip club because...why not, he kidnaps the wife of a drug kingpin who pisses him off which starts off a long chapter of the trio in exile that ends abruptly, and his attacks on Meriweather never garner anything useful until the end of the game and even that's an accident as it's just the newly promoted president of the company recognizing Trevor's reputation and agreeing to back off with the murder squads, which is something Trevor caused in the first place. Having so many failures usually teaches a character humility or allows them to hone a skill, but Trevor doesn't do that. The only thing that changes about him is that he begrudgingly learns to accept Mike's betrayal (and that actually happens twice somehow) which has nothing to do with anything above. So many places to go with a character like this and they ended up going in circles.

Compare that with CJ. He might not be as well written in the dialogue department, but his story, relationships, and world are all focused around a theme (duality of community and individuality). His early relationships are all about his status as a former gang member and they all stick with him throughout the game. He's alternately dealing with bridges he burned with his brother/friends, re-assuming responsibility for the hood he left behind, and trying to make something of himself as an individual while everyone, friend and foe alike, keep trying to stymie him. As the game goes on, the early relationships fade into the background or take on new contexts outside of the hood and CJ grows as an individual, acquiring money and a reputation while the hood rots away behind him. It isn't until after CJ's exiled from LS and swings all the way around the map (picking up the contacts and resources to fix all of his problems) that he realizes his responsibility to his family and friends extends beyond his own abilities. Afterward, he works with his friends and (now extended) family to fix the many problems that arose in the hood during his absence. Broadly speaking, everything in GTA:SA ties back to the core conflicts of CJ's arc and it makes CJ a more compelling character as a result.

TL;DR: The GTA V characters are good(ish), but lack the proper framing devices that would let them shine.

Originally Posted by RedRedSuit

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.

Vice City's charm comes from the broad strokes, not the details. It's mostly schlock but adds up to an impressive monument to the 1980's (As Seen On TV).

Grand Theft Auto V's writers read the instructions on a rape kit and decided they knew everything they needed to know about women and comedy.

Spare me.

Originally Posted by woolley

I found GTAV funny. And of course they're gonna use the most noticeable stereotypes for the game because it needs to be things that people from all around the world have to recognize. Most people have never actually been to LA or know much about it.

That's not a good reason for lazy stereotypes. It's not like millions of people will stop buying a game because they didn't get some jokes. You're underestimating how much the world knows about LA, Hollywood, and all that culture. USA's entertainment is one of their biggest exports to the world.

Originally Posted by Ravensmash

I'm not naive enough to think my opinion is in anyway factual, but the game seems to get a fair amount of unfair criticism levelled towards its writing, when I consider it leagues above many others.

Such as? And in what way do you feel the criticisms about it are unfair? Can you elaborate

Originally Posted by Kadayi

Such as? And in what way do you feel the criticisms about it are unfair? Can you elaborate

In comparison to the other titles around it. I feel it's sometimes brought up in a disproportionate manner when I consider it to be far more engaging than the bulk - nuances and nitpicking aside.

typing on this phone is horrible, thus my short responses :p

Originally Posted by gurudyne

Compare that with CJ. He might not be as well written in the dialogue department, but his story, relationships, and world are all focused around a theme (duality of community and individuality). His early relationships are all about his status as a former gang member and they all stick with him throughout the game. He's alternately dealing with bridges he burned with his brother/friends, re-assuming responsibility for the hood he left behind, and trying to make something of himself as an individual while everyone, friend and foe alike, keep trying to stymie him. As the game goes on, the early relationships fade into the background or take on new contexts outside of the hood and CJ grows as an individual, acquiring money and a reputation while the hood rots away behind him. It isn't until after CJ's exiled from LS and swings all the way around the map (picking up the contacts and resources to fix all of his problems) that he realizes his responsibility to his family and friends extends beyond his own abilities. Afterward, he works with his friends and (now extended) family to fix the many problems that arose in the hood during his absence. Broadly speaking, everything in GTA:SA ties back to the core conflicts of CJ's arc and it makes CJ a more compelling character as a result.

I think you put more thought into writing that than Rockstar even did...

I mean, I loved San Andreas. I've probably put close to 500 hours into it. But I've never even given a shit to finish the last few missions: I only ever bothered with the story to unlock new content or areas of the map. I've played the game 4 times and the story was never more than some asshole cops and backstabbing friends as part of an entire joke cast used as nothing more than excuse to move you around the map so you can drive and shoot in different scenery.

GTA V's approach to storytelling, regardless of quality, is distinctly fundamental and conventional.

I agree that the humor is unsubtle, but there is a great irony in Seanbaby being the one to point that out.

Rockstar hasn't changed their punchlines through the generations. What they have done, though, is really improve how they convey that message to gamers. It's hard to argue that their scene direction and ability to plug gamers INTO the scenes has gotten significantly better.

red dead redemption was also a big,empty and boring game.But people loved it.So why change now?

Originally Posted by Majukun

red dead redemption was also a big,empty game. But people loved it. So why change now?

RDR being big and empty played to the genre. The west is a lawless frontier with sparsely populated areas, so being empty was as necessary as the skyscrapers were to GTA IV. But there was still stuff to do there. Hunting, gathering flowers, side quests, treasure hunting, clearing out bandit strongholds, racing, duels. It felt meaningful, in-line with what you expected from a western game.

GTA V can't skate by on the same design philosophy. It takes place in a civilized age in one of the most technologically advanced and culturally significant areas on Earth. Players should be drowning in options and activities, but we get large swathes of land that have no purpose other than to look pretty. Or maybe they have darts. Or yoga. It's just wasted space and time, both from the designing end and from the time it takes to navigate through those areas to get somewhere meaningful.

Originally Posted by pakkit

I agree that the humor is unsubtle, but there is a great irony in Seanbaby being the one to point that out.

The difference is the Seanbaby is punching upwards, whereas GTA V generally aims low.

Did people really feel like there weren't enough things to do in GTA V?

Originally Posted by gurudyne

RDR being big and empty played to the genre. The west is a lawless frontier with sparsely populated areas, so being empty was as necessary as the skyscrapers were to GTA IV. But there was still stuff to do there. Hunting, gathering flowers, side quests, treasure hunting, clearing out bandit strongholds, racing, duels. It felt meaningful, in-line with what you expected from a western game.

GTA V can't skate by on the same design philosophy. It takes place in a civilized age in one of the most technologically advanced and culturally significant areas on Earth. Players should be drowning in options and activities, but we get large swathes of land that have no purpose other than to look pretty. Or maybe they have darts. Or yoga. It's just wasted space and time, both from the designing end and from the time it takes to navigate through those areas to get somewhere meaningful.

I don't even think the game needs to have players "drowning in options and activities," it just needs SUBSTANTIAL side activities that adhere to the theme of the game, and influence the economy in meaningful ways. The whole "millions of stuff and thangs" style of open world design got utterly milked to the dephs of hell and back by Ubisoft and Volition this gen. IMO, it's time, ironically, for open world games to focus. Aside from random events and strangers, GTAV gets all the rest of it's side content wrong. They're boring and pointless.

There's a lot of truth in this article, but the last paragraph about GTAV somehow being objectively a 10/10 game because of reasons is total garbage. If the game wasn't fun and you took issue with it, call that stuff out. If someone asked me what's my FAVORITE movie versus what's the BEST movie, my answers would be one and the same because stating otherwise is just attempting to fool myself and bow to some kind of consensus that I don't agree with.

This article is wittier and better written than anything in GTAV.

Originally Posted by Eidan

Did people really feel like there weren't enough things to do in GTA V?

His complaint is that most of the things that you can do are boring and pointless. I can't disagree.

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 went to school from Kindergarten to college in Orleans Parish, and while offensive it didn't come across as much different than I've heard at times around town. There's a lot more laughably painful dialog from, well, basically every other character in the game than Franklin or Lamar. That said, it was indeed too much for those of my black friends who played it.

Originally Posted by EmCeeGramr

He's spot on about the humor. 90% of the jokes on the radio and in a bunch of the side missions consist of a dumb one dimensional stereotype of a thing flat out saying "I'm dumb and conform to this stereotype!"

I made this observation once and was immediately told this is how GTA is and that's how people like it. I saw that as a pretty good point to not bother trying to have that conversation.

Originally Posted by gurudyne

RDR being big and empty played to the genre. The west is a lawless frontier with sparsely populated areas, so being empty was as necessary as the skyscrapers were to GTA IV. But there was still stuff to do there. Hunting, gathering flowers, side quests, treasure hunting, clearing out bandit strongholds, racing, duels. It felt meaningful, in-line with what you expected from a western game.

GTA V can't skate by on the same design philosophy. It takes place in a civilized age in one of the most technologically advanced and culturally significant areas on Earth. Players should be drowning in options and activities, but we get large swathes of land that have no purpose other than to look pretty. Or maybe they have darts. Or yoga. It's just wasted space and time, both from the designing end and from the time it takes to navigate through those areas to get somewhere meaningful.

I find this a little confusing because it seems to suggest that the only 2 variables relevant to game production here are design philosophy and location setting.

I mean, if GTA V's map is too empty, it's a good thing we have all those other open world games with 30 hour stories and worlds covered in fully realized gameplay systems and living procedural content.

Fucking hilarious!

Originally Posted by nailbombxx

His complaint is that most of the things that you can do are boring and pointless. I can't disagree.

Eh, I enjoyed the Strangers & Freaks missions, races, and parachuting myself. Even the random events were a nice touch. At least for me, I never felt like I had nothing to do, or that the things to do were boring.

Originally Posted by aspiegamer

This is something I haven't been able to get over. There are so, so many places all around the map that were obviously painstakingly detailed and combed over pixel by pixel in a very deliberate manner. And they're never used. You'd never find them unless you were deliberately trying to bore yourself by walking all the generic wilderness to find it.

There's one that stands out more than others-- In one of Trevor's character-swap cutscenes he wakes up on this gorgeous beach off in the far northeast corner of the map. So far off that it was an area of the map that I hadn't even revealed with even a flyby late in the story. The water effects are simply incredible. Areas are cobbled or piled up with rocks that all look a tiny bit different. There's a spot in a cove that's obviously supposed to represent a hidden hot spring. Incredible greenery. The sort of backdrop an RPG would kill to have.

But why is it there? There's no way to get away from the place other than swimming or running for several minutes and you would never have seen it had you not been dropped there at random. There are no activities. There are no people. No roads, trails or even unmarked paths anywhere close. I eventually rocket-suicided to respawn. It's the ultimate example of R* trying way too hard merely for the sake of saying they did. For all intents and purposes it's just a tech demo of how good they could make stuff look at the end of this generation.

I have not played the game yet, but this sounds like something we should support, not criticise. If every single bit of content in a game was just the minimum amount needed to paste the story missions or side activities on top, then it would feel utterly contrived. More often than not, I appreciate the additional things a game does that it didn't need to, but still did anyway. Perhaps more so than the actual content at times.

Seanbaby still so funny. Pretty insightful too. Haven't read a whole cracked piece in a while.

I used to actually read cracked articles, now sometimes I skim through their lists and just read the headings of each list entry, lol.

Originally Posted by Gestahl

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

Maybe, but without bothering to at least take a different point of view like that Fox show.

Though, I speak only of the radio/TV humor in IV. Not sure what V's deal is... will play it once it's on PC or next-gen.

Originally Posted by gurudyne

Vice City's charm comes from the broad strokes, not the details. It's mostly schlock but adds up to an impressive monument to the 1980's (As Seen On TV).

Sure. That's the thing, though -- sure, it looks like Miami Vice and has a mission straight from the ending of Scarface and has a ridiculously awesome 80s soundtrack, but when it comes down to the actual plot elements and dialog, it's really boring and by-the-numbers stuff. Really it's a huge waste of voice talent.

I remember when San Andreas was coming out I had no expectations for a competent story or competent writing. III was atrocious (within very low expectations however) and Vice City was... see above. Yet San Andreas really delivered way beyond expectations for that series. That was really the beginning of the GTA series being taken seriously as a story delivery mechanism. It had a reasonably involving story with reasonably involving characters -- some really funny -- but still wasn't too caught up in driving home some kind of message or elevating the genre or whatever. It was a nice video game story and a cool period piece... that's it.

Then in IV they clearly went for the "serious artist" thing, and it didn't work very well. It seemed overwrought, and the satire element on the radio and such fell really flat.

Originally Posted by TheJohann

I have not played the game yet, but this sounds like something we should support, not criticise. If every single bit of content in a game was just the minimum amount needed to paste the story missions or side activities on top, then it would feel utterly contrived. More often than not, I appreciate the additional things a game does that it didn't need to, but still did anyway. Perhaps more so than the actual content at times.

Ehhh... no... it's still a video game. Areas like this in other games often feel strange and depressing. Hidden nooks and crannies are fine, but it has to be within reason. There has to be a gameplay reason to be able to be there, if not because of a side mission then at least as an opportunity to do SOME kind of emergent gameplay there.

San Andreas (in the eponymous game) used, from what I recall, every part of its huge map. And it was glorious.

Originally Posted by Ravensmash

In comparison to the other titles around it. I feel it's sometimes brought up in a disproportionate manner when I consider it to be far more engaging than the bulk - nuances and nitpicking aside.

Well come back when you're not on your phone with a fuller response. I'd like a bit more of an in depth explanation as to why you feel it's such a narrative high point versus other titles in truth. Maybe cite some examples of what makes it so exemplary in your view.

Originally Posted by RedRedSuit

Ehhh... no... it's still a video game.

What does this mean?

Originally Posted by RedRedSuit

Areas like this in other games often feel strange and depressing. Hidden nooks and crannies are fine, but it has to be within reason. There has to be a gameplay reason to be able to be there, if not because of a side mission then at least as an opportunity to do SOME kind of emergent gameplay there.

Why can't exploration be a form of gameplay? I couldn't enjoy exploration in Far Cry 3 because I knew that every cave I entered would house some loot that I never wanted in the first place. Going out to explore and stumbling upon rare loot is only enjoyable when you didn't expect to get anything out of it; I find value in simply wandering around. I understand that not everybody appreciates that, though.

Originally Posted by gurudyne

No, I wasn't being that reductive. All I meant to imply was that many GTA V's activities in particular felt unsatisfying or tacked on because they're divorced from the setting and vice versa. They lack impact or relevance to the world, offer no insights about the world or characters or are just pointless busywork with little to no payoff other than the "fun" that can be had by playing them.

At least for Trevor, you learn a lot small things about him. His character-switch scenes are a lot more detailed, and feature a lot of small events or rare scenes. Most people have seen the chases but stuff like the meth house cooking, Scooter Brother, island party, hotel helicopter crash are minor but add nice flavor and certainly relevant. At any given time, there's likely 10-15 different other-character events you can see by switching or finding them in the world, and they become miss-able or just rotate every.. maybe, 5-10 missions, I'm guessing? Some only exist for a couple missions, such as the meth house one (I've tested than maybe 150 times, reloading saves and switching characters after each mission, at different times of day, etc), so it's easy to miss some of them. Most of them add flavour to his personality, where as Michael's actually say more about the story at hand. Even Michael's which are a lot more aesthetic than Trevor's, feature a lot of small details about his family, therapist, and general character development. There's dozens of these. I know this is small but we're looking at relevance, not just quality.

You learn small details about Trevor's character through the bounty hunts if you take the time to stop to listen to all the conversations, get some small flavour about his politics or morals from border patrol, even get character commentary from deer hunting if you text the pics to people other than Cletus. Franklin and Michael's aren't very good though, and a lot of it isn't really relevant. But you get at least a bit from them elsewhere. Most of the side-quests available to all the characters have varying dialogue, too, which speaks to their character. You pick up Tatiana with Michael, and he is very elusive and careful in how he speaks, and Trevor speaks much more blatantly. Same applies to almost every random event, of which there are, what, 45? There's one for almost every area of the map... and there's pretty unique dialogue for each character that helps tell the story, or a unique event that's cool to see (especially some of the shootouts that feature more than just combat and at least limited 15-20 second scripting). Small but again it at least helps.

Then there's the Hangout or sort of easily miss-able story content, too. A lot of this is missed because Rockstar's dumb idea to make you unable to hangout so often, but there's a lot of small story details to learn about if you make the effort to hangout regularly not only with the main characters but side characters like Lamar. Or stuff that you miss because the story continues, like Marriage Counselling where it's pretty typical to just drive too far and have the dialogue end to quickly, but if you actually don't drive off after the big event, Trevor and Michael talk for like 5 minutes. A bunch of these, actually, like the bounty missions, too. Or, in Urban Jungle, there's a fairly long dialogue tree varying on which character you escape with (if you even do that, because the game sort of suggests to go yourself and based on a Youtube search, clearly almost every does that). But there's a decent conversation varying on your choice, and a lot of missions have small details like this can are easily missed on your first playthrough.

Also stuff that's a bit to subtle, like Hanging out with all 3 characters in free roam or the non-obvious gang turfs wars (Koreans, Vagos, Ballas, etc all have them) or just enemy hangouts (like the Lost at Hookies), the business missions (most are junk but there's a few chases or shootouts that are at least set in underutilized areas, or add more story text and background to some of the underutilized gangs, cartels). Or of course the heist approaches: they can use the very different areas so without beating the game twice, you miss a lot of content related to mines, work yards, trains, etc, and then also affect the stock market (and therefore the news and radio) differently. Again, all tiny things that are minor and easily criticized in quality, but still technically they at least help address the concerns here. And then there's Online: there's a lot of content there for the map that was still technically part of V and its development, regardless if it's a good or bad decision to exclude it from the story.

Just to be clear, I'm not speaking to quality here, nor good game design. I really don't want to debate that, especially in a topic about a Crack article. If folks don't particular like the story or how it's told, that's OK. What I'm more getting at is the less subjective stuff, like measurable content and whether it's technically related to the story or not. So I wanted to try comment on that a bit and highlight at least the quantity and topic of content (rather than quality) a bit more.

Originally Posted by Ravensmash

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I'd also argue that GTA is better written than 95% of videogames out there, regardless of whether you agree with it's subject matter or not.
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Seanbaby gave it's writing relative kudos actually; compared to most game's writing. It was the satire/joke writing that he specifically panned.

Blunt obtuse humour is what GTA is all about. It's always been about mocking stereotypes and a very campy, over the top commentary. GTAIV erred by straying away from this, and in fact for many it became very dissonant when GTAIV presented a grounded, serious story in the face of comical gameplay. GTAV recaptured that balance

spot on

I agreed with some of this and thought he was an idiot for other things. But good read nonetheless.

Originally Posted by GoodCoffeeJoey

The difference is the Seanbaby is punching upwards, whereas GTA V generally aims low.

Well, the butts of the jokes in GTAV are rich people, corrupted government agencies, criminals, racists, classists, celebrities, bigots, media personalities, narcisists, the protagonists themselves...
I heard this criticism of GTAV "punching down" before, and it seems to be based only on the fact that women are portrayed almost as awful as the men in the game (even though the only two named characters who are not portrayed in a grotesque way are both women). I find it funny, because for all its bluntness, GTAV's satire is so politically targeted that I wouldn't be surprised if some conservative would call it "liberal propaganda". But in a field as videogame criticism is hard to expect much capability of judging the political dimension of media apart from shouting "problematic!" left and right.