The dangers of nostalgia?

[Thomas Vercetti Esq]

I have good memories of my first two playthroughs of San Andreas (and I didn't get into the GTA games until maybe 5,6 years ago, so it's not like I played them when they came out), but now I'm doing it for a third time, I'm starting to think that nostalgia is a dangerous force when it comes to games. 

While the story of San Andreas will always be good, and the voice acting absolutely top-notch (not hard with that lineup), and there's a ton of great music there - and as I'm British, I love the puerile jokes ("Vank Hoff hotel", "Wang cars")...the game itself can be absolutely infuriating. And I'm not necessarily talking about the more infamous missions.

 

Take "Photo Opportunity". Drive for ages to get to Cesar. Drive his car, which is so sensitive that it will spin 180 degrees if you so much as fart, half way across the county to Angel Pine. Then if you mess up on even one of the photos (you basically have to memorise which direction everyone will come from, or you'll miss a shot)....back to Cesar's car and another drive trying to avoid making contact with anything whatsoever. Miss a photo a couple of times and that's easily a half hour wasted. 

 

I reckon (for me, anyway) GTA4 marks the spot where the games controlled well enough to not ruin the gameplay, so replaying 4 is always fun. But San Andreas, in that respect, has aged pretty darn badly. Worse than VC, in some ways.

 

Anwyay. Rant over, feel free to join in!

 

 

[GhettoJesus]

1 hour ago, Thomas Vercetti Esq said:

Then if you mess up on even one of the photos

I've never seen or heard of anyone messing up the photos. Most of the time you can even zoom in on their car before they get out, giving you enough time to snap a picture of them once they are out of the car. This part sounds like a skill issue tbh.

 

I agree that it's a bad mission, and there are a couple of other bad missions (Key to Her Heart for example), but the experience SA gives me makes it worth it for me

[Lioshenka]

1 hour ago, Thomas Vercetti Esq said:

nostalgia is a dangerous force when it comes to games.

Not for me! I failed the damned "Photo opportunity" so many times during the first playthough because of the terrible car physics that no number of replays is going to change my view on the game. At least not based on this mission

 

If anything, to me SA only gets better with time. Back then I knew that new games will come out, utilising better technologies and surpassing SA in enjoyment and visuals. 20 years later, and I now know that no game developer will be able to surpass SA.

[cant remember]

My main gripe with SA is the twitchy traffic, especially the highways. But when I play games for nostalgia reasons I don't mind if the game aged badly, because I'm not really so much enjoying the game itself but I'm enjoying remembering the times when I played it alot.

 

For me too IV marks the point where the games hold up well enough I can enjoy them just the same as when they came out.

[Lippeth]

Part of what has always made each game in the series so compelling for me is the balance between fun and frustration, and how things can either work for or against you (usually against). Any mission in III or VC that requires you to exit a boat seems to have a small yet real chance that you'll have to start over again for what seems like no reason, but the random element of physics and ai can often come together in unexpected ways to create some truly entertaining and one-of-a-kind moments.

 

I'd say I get just as nostalgic for the frustrating aspects as I do everything else. All those "ah, I remember this and how bs it is" moments can really hit the spot. I'm currently taking a break from the frustration of "Rigged To Blow" from III, where you have to drive from Shoreside Vale to Portland without hitting anything more than like three times, with trails on, in a 4:3 480p, at 30 frames per second.

 

I still can't think of Vice City without being reminded that I was never able to beat "The Driver" mission where you have to race someone to convince them to be your getaway driver for a bank heist. At least a hundred tries, and I could just never beat him.

[E Revere]

Well, I'm a bit perplexed by your thread because you didn't actually go into the topic you laid out in the title. But just to answer that question first, I'm not blinded by nostalgia. I don't have issues admitting it when a game has aged poorly and I can demonstrate why I like each GTA game. To put a long story short, games like VC, SA and such are still appealing to me mainly because they're games that you can just pick up and play. You can do whatever you want in them without being handheld or restricted which is not the case for many newer games. Each game from VC to IV at the very least hit that sweet spot where the games are modern enough to have comfortable controls and gameplay and just enough sprinkling of jank that they're charming without being unplayable.

 

There are a lot of games that I played decades after their release dates that I love just as much as there are old games that I hate. I don't have problems distinguishing between them. For example, III indeed aged terribly and I don't enjoy playing it.

 

Now for the mission you listed, yeah. It's notoriously problematic because of the long drive involved. Cesar's car does handle terribly and I've failed it a bunch of times because of that too lol.

Edited January 7 by E Revere