GTA and Immersion

[Bi0ha2ard_q8]

I'll be honest this is about why I despise GTA V.

I never want to spend time in GTA V's world, and for a while I thought I was just another GTA IV fanboy who just wanted what he's used to. But having played through V twice now I realise what's wrong (IMO).

 

I liked IV because I had a connection with Niko Bellic, his story and world. It was depressing, but it made sense to make it bleak. Rockstar responded to the realistic graphics by giving us a multilayered grounded look at the life of a criminal in a globalist world. Most of the side activities that Niko did made sense for him as a criminal. His views on America were mirrored by Rockstar's satirical view on the country. The city and the character's all fit together. Other than the grey literary slavic view of world, there were themes on immigrant exploitation, post 9/11 America and friendship/family. He felt like a real person.

 

With GTA V, rockstar gave the masses what they wanted. Side activities that made no sense in the criminal setting of the game. An unfocused boring story spread over three characters that were never individually relatable because they did their own thing. And a big boring world with automated - blip on mini map- unnatural "random" events/encounters that made the world less immersive and engaging. And worst of all the games missions had no emotional heft, your either going after money, because the protags are empty greedy one dimensional characters, or your a bi*tch for some government agency. It's like the developers are reflecting how they sold out by creating a world for sellouts.

Michael and Franklin feel like empty boring shells, Trevor is an exaggerated "look at us we're controversial" character.

 

Sure Niko and all the other GTA protags liked money, but all their stories had emotional depth because they wanted vengeance and something else. Power for Tommy, Respect for CJ, Closure for Niko. But "M", "T" and "F" were mostly winging about their circumstances or their relationships.

 

The game/world was clearly made for Online exclusively.

 

So I hope your happy, GTA is now an empty boring money making MMO for all the swearing idiots who are blessed with opposable thumbs and 60$.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Bi0ha2ard_q8

[Blennerville]

They are both bad.

GTA5's world, atmosphere and immersion isnt great, but my god GTA4's is god awful.

 

Question for you; Do you like the movie Payback with Mel Gibson over Lethal Weapon 4 ??

Edited May 3, 2014 by Blennerville

[Bi0ha2ard_q8]

Neither...I see your point.

But at least they tried with IV, for what it is.

They added depth and layers to a game about stealing cars and shooting people.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Bi0ha2ard_q8

[Blennerville]

To me GTA4 was like playing Schindler's List The Videogame.

GTA5 was a big improvement, but it was still lacking, i was dissapointment with a lot of it but i can see that they trying. To me it seemed like they rushed it out in the end to get it released before the new consoles came out. GTA5 could have used another full year of development imo.

 

I liked The Ballad of Gay Tony the best of the HD era.

[universetwisters]

With GTA V, rockstar gave the masses what they wanted.

 

I agree. All these characters from IV popping up, holy sh*t. Talk about fanservice.

[Drunken Cowboy]

You're right about the satire in IV. Even if sometimes it seemed misdirected or incorrect (Europeans love to think we're racist and sh*t on immigrants, but they do it ten times worse), it was subtle and didn't detract from the story. That rampant fear of "TERRORISM!", hearing Weazel news talk about it or pedestrians chat about it was entertaining but believable enough.

Devoting an entire mission in V to killing the Mark Zuckerburg parody...

1) WHY? Cheap laughs? Alright. I've had enough of closing porn pop-ups and being a hipster by giving the finger to modern popular culture, let's keep going.

2) You're making us focus on this to progress in the story? What?

Same goes for a lot of things... all the missions with Lazlow, saving Jimmy from the cyber vigilantes, the minute men with Trevor, the satire is way too heavy, misdirected, and really should not have been part of a story that's already shallow to begin with.

Also, with the characters, they have three main problems.

1) They're largely unlikable and undeveloped to begin with.

2) The game is short so we have less time to see them develop.

3) The game splits over the three so we have even less time to see them go somewhere.

Not to mention their forced and unnatural friendship. It never seemed like R* intended to go anywhere with Trevor or Franklin but didn't mind working them into Michael's more serious story.

 

I've complained about this all before here. If you have six hours it's a fun read.

[The Odyssey]

You're right about the satire in IV. Even if sometimes it seemed misdirected or incorrect (Europeans love to think we're racist and sh*t on immigrants, but they do it ten times worse), it was subtle and didn't detract from the story. That rampant fear of "TERRORISM!", hearing Weazel news talk about it or pedestrians chat about it was entertaining but believable enough.

Devoting an entire mission in V to killing the Mark Zuckerburg parody...

1) WHY? Cheap laughs? Alright. I've had enough of closing porn pop-ups and being a hipster by giving the finger to modern popular culture, let's keep going.

2) You're making us focus on this to progress in the story? What?

Same goes for a lot of things... all the missions with Lazlow, saving Jimmy from the cyber vigilantes, the minute men with Trevor, the satire is way too heavy, misdirected, and really should not have been part of a story that's already shallow to begin with.

Also, with the characters, they have three main problems.

1) They're largely unlikable and undeveloped to begin with.

2) The game is short so we have less time to see them develop.

3) The game splits over the three so we have even less time to see them go somewhere.

Not to mention their forced and unnatural friendship. It never seemed like R* intended to go anywhere with Trevor or Franklin but didn't mind working them into Michael's more serious story.

 

I've complained about this all before here. If you have six hours it's a fun read.

You do realize that your topic isn't that long? Stop making it out to be the bible of GTAForums posts.

 

OT: I appreciated the map's visual detail and beautiful interpetation of a city and surrounding countryside, so the immersion is their for me. I would have asked for more interiors more than anything else on the map, but I'm still not disappointing.

Edited May 4, 2014 by The Odyssey

[.Ryan.]

but my god GTA4's is god awful.

I'm going to hunt you down...

[Bi0ha2ard_q8]

 

but my god GTA4's is god awful.

I'm going to hunt you down...

 

People who say that didn't relate with Niko.

Their either apathetic , autistic or blindly privileged. Yay for Trevor.

[Blennerville]

ill be waiting.

 

check this out

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=812713

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2014 by Blennerville

[Bi0ha2ard_q8]

There are some things that are wrong:

So real gameplay only in missions according to him?

The gameplay and mechanics haven't changed, you walk around, steal cars and shoot people.

So what chaos is missing exactly? Is he complaining about the relatively realistic police reaction?

 

The whole do story missions to progress mechanic existed since GTA III... I guess they thought it necessary in a 3D realized world.

 

The satire, narrative and gameplay do not clash...

He Complains that the tone is inconsistent well, Isn't life full of misery and comedy?

Or in the last part of the video where they show Niko being remorseful about the war juxtaposed with him shooting up a warehouse...he turned into an animal because of War.

And he's trapped in that career with that skillset with an ugly childhood spent in a civil war where Yugoslavians mass murdered each other. That was the idea, they created a protag that can both be psychotic and human, who would conceivably flip out on a rampage yet show emotion. As opposed to Trevor.

 

I understand what he's saying though. He wants an upbeat world where madness and craziness are possible, where you can just jump in and blow sh*t up like the original GTA's...and that's fair. But don't we expect change? don't we want game play and story that correspond with our demands for movie like graphics?

How ridiculous would it be if the game graphically looked like real life but behaved in a cartoony way.

 

To demonstrate what I mean, what would happen if the "squish" noise came back in the HD universe, you know when you run over a pedestrian. It would ruin the experience, make it surreal and absurd, the same thing applies with the fun balls out chaos he demands. Notice how Saint's Row remains cartoony and cell shaded, it's to remove us from the world and allow ourselves to suspend belief.

 

It's basically the age old argument, Tradition vs. Progress (We often have this debate in the Arab world. And guess who's winning and f*cking us all)

We expect a game series to evolve and mature. We demand it.

 

But yah...I don't necessarily want a sandbox madhouse game as much as I want a roleplaying game, where I can feel like a criminal in that world.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Bi0ha2ard_q8

[Blennerville]

The simpsons and Two and a Half Men have also evolved, and they have never been worse.

 

GTA evolved into this

 

 

 

GTA just doesnt have the magic anymore just like The Simpsons doesnt.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Blennerville

[Bi0ha2ard_q8]

 

Edited May 4, 2014 by Bi0ha2ard_q8

[UrbanAdventuring]

There is nothing wrong with GTA V's map. I just didn't like how it was used. Big prison - not used, big military installation - barely anything, a bunch of mansions you can't buy in single player, and few buildings you can enter. It was a small story for such a big map. Three heroes spread the story thin. The map has a lot of "look but don't touch" eye candy. I don't like the direction they are going with online.

Edited May 5, 2014 by UrbanAdventuring

[killdrivetheftvehicle]

ill be waiting.

 

check this out

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=812713

 

He is being negative, because he doesn't want anything to change. He is complaining about inconistancies in a game, where the player can do stupid things, while the cut scenes are serious. Really? If the game didn't allow him to be an idiot, he would complain too.

 

There are many ways of playing GTA. Some, like me play it for the story and don't attempt crazy stupid things, like he does. The story of V is bland and there is no immersion, because it has been accomodated for every player. If I was as stupid as he was, I would be complaining that Michael was wrongly accused of cheating, because "my Michael" never hired a hooker. But I'm not, because I realize some idiot might have done that and R* wanted to accomodate the story for them. But yeah, immersion is for others, some just like to laugh at nothing and then complain.

Edited May 5, 2014 by killdrivetheftvehicle