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I hope GTA6 goes the RDR2 route
- Thread starter NTGYK
- Start date
I just hope GTA6 is fun. RDR2 was a good story but a terrible game. It put realism and beauty above actual gameplay which some may applaud (and have, vocally) but I just believe ruined the entire thing. GTA5 was janky in some aspects and that made it fun to me. It didn't control amazingly but it was still fun at its core.
RDR2 is...just not a good video game. It's a good movie, though.
So I guess I agree with you, OP.
RDR2 is...just not a good video game. It's a good movie, though.
So I guess I agree with you, OP.
Same.
I hope the main story characters and storylines are more serious tone, while the "strangers and freaks" are more of the silly storylines. I think RDR2 struck the right balance here.
I also don't need buildings named "GETALIFE" and other stupid 10th grader penis puns. Those were fine when I was in 10th grade playing GTAIII, and whne the Housers were young guys writing for a teenage male audience, but they ring lame and hollow to me now as a middle aged person, and I don't think today's 10th graders particularly find that hilarious either.
Above all, I want GTAVI to not take the perspective of GTAV where it's perpetually trolling the people playing it. GTAV is one of the few games that seems to hate the people playing the game and have no respect for them. I didn't notice this till my second playthrough, but the game perpetually lies to you, over-promises, and under-delivers on every aspect of "Game-iness." It treats you like you are an idiot with the narrative; within a few missions you can pretty quickly tell that the entire game is a setup... A satire of a vapid, fake American Dream. Where GTA:SA and Vice City are a romanticism of the American Dream, GTAIV and V are both criticisms of it, but they're criticisms that ultimately aren't fulfilling or rewarding because once you get the joke, you're just suffering through mission after mission that doesn't deliver. You, the player, aren't an idiot, but the characters you're controlling are all idiots. The story is utterly nihilistic with almost zero likeable characters. It's like if you're playing Ori and the Blind Forest, and you get through this particularly challenging part where you're normally rewarded with a new ability, a powerup, a unique item, or some mission reward, and ... instead, you get to that area where you normally get your new power and the game gives you nothing. And then it does this over and over and over again for 50 missions. "Lol!! Can't believe you're still playing this!!" is the tone of the game. Every character in the game is unlikeable and trolls the player, in every mission, with no payoff.
There are rewards in the game, but they're arbitrary: Franklin gets a mansion in the Hollywood Hills for no reason. Contrast this with GTA:SA where you usually get major rewards for completing unique, difficult, or climactic missions. When CJ gets his mansion in the Hollywood Hills it's the climax to a subplot involving a rapper, a person who wronged, a rival gang, then having to make that right, with a "difficult" mission in the 3rd chapter. The reward is a unique house with power-ups and a heli-pad in the Hollywood Hills, a sense of accomplishment. Likewise with the casino missions, the airport hanger missions, the jet pack missions: Every big mission has a big payoff. In GTAV, it's the opposite, and it's done intentionally to take the piss out of the player and make a satire on gaming tropes or the American dream, or what have you, but after 5 or 6 missions it rings hollow. There's a nihilism to the game that it might be a clever joke when you experience it two or three times, but basing an entire game around this sort of nihilism ultimately makes the game annoying.
Contrasting this to RDR2 where there's basically ... one immensley unlikeable character, and almost every character in your camp has varrying degrees if likeability. At least, you can understand why those people would be a tight knit family. As opposed to GTAV, where it makes no sense why any of the people in the story would want to interact with each other, they're all unlikable caricatures of human beings.
I hope the main story characters and storylines are more serious tone, while the "strangers and freaks" are more of the silly storylines. I think RDR2 struck the right balance here.
I also don't need buildings named "GETALIFE" and other stupid 10th grader penis puns. Those were fine when I was in 10th grade playing GTAIII, and whne the Housers were young guys writing for a teenage male audience, but they ring lame and hollow to me now as a middle aged person, and I don't think today's 10th graders particularly find that hilarious either.
Above all, I want GTAVI to not take the perspective of GTAV where it's perpetually trolling the people playing it. GTAV is one of the few games that seems to hate the people playing the game and have no respect for them. I didn't notice this till my second playthrough, but the game perpetually lies to you, over-promises, and under-delivers on every aspect of "Game-iness." It treats you like you are an idiot with the narrative; within a few missions you can pretty quickly tell that the entire game is a setup... A satire of a vapid, fake American Dream. Where GTA:SA and Vice City are a romanticism of the American Dream, GTAIV and V are both criticisms of it, but they're criticisms that ultimately aren't fulfilling or rewarding because once you get the joke, you're just suffering through mission after mission that doesn't deliver. You, the player, aren't an idiot, but the characters you're controlling are all idiots. The story is utterly nihilistic with almost zero likeable characters. It's like if you're playing Ori and the Blind Forest, and you get through this particularly challenging part where you're normally rewarded with a new ability, a powerup, a unique item, or some mission reward, and ... instead, you get to that area where you normally get your new power and the game gives you nothing. And then it does this over and over and over again for 50 missions. "Lol!! Can't believe you're still playing this!!" is the tone of the game. Every character in the game is unlikeable and trolls the player, in every mission, with no payoff.
There are rewards in the game, but they're arbitrary: Franklin gets a mansion in the Hollywood Hills for no reason. Contrast this with GTA:SA where you usually get major rewards for completing unique, difficult, or climactic missions. When CJ gets his mansion in the Hollywood Hills it's the climax to a subplot involving a rapper, a person who wronged, a rival gang, then having to make that right, with a "difficult" mission in the 3rd chapter. The reward is a unique house with power-ups and a heli-pad in the Hollywood Hills, a sense of accomplishment. Likewise with the casino missions, the airport hanger missions, the jet pack missions: Every big mission has a big payoff. In GTAV, it's the opposite, and it's done intentionally to take the piss out of the player and make a satire on gaming tropes or the American dream, or what have you, but after 5 or 6 missions it rings hollow. There's a nihilism to the game that it might be a clever joke when you experience it two or three times, but basing an entire game around this sort of nihilism ultimately makes the game annoying.
Contrasting this to RDR2 where there's basically ... one immensley unlikeable character, and almost every character in your camp has varrying degrees if likeability. At least, you can understand why those people would be a tight knit family. As opposed to GTAV, where it makes no sense why any of the people in the story would want to interact with each other, they're all unlikable caricatures of human beings.
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I just hope to god, beyond anything, that GTAVI does not follow in the footsteps of GTA Online, aka Saints Row: Los Santos.
This is Era affect. As someone whose really into RDR2 and stay current with the RDR2 OT, there's a very interesting effect where now a year later, every new page of the thread is filled with people posting "I gave up on RDR2 in the first chapter because I didn't like it, but gonna give it a go again now..." And then within a few posts later, so many people return to say something like "Holy shit this is the best game I've ever played..." ANd then a page or two later they're posting emotional screenshots of Lenny or Arthur or Dutch or any of the other characters.
It's a been awesome to watch. But I also get why that first impression is divisive, and I also fully understand the dislike a lot of people have for it. Oddly, I think that the things that are negatives at first end up ... making the game better, or at least, internally consistent as you play through the story. I get why they're divisive and people don't like them, though.
This is Era affect. As someone whose really into RDR2 and stay current with the RDR2 OT, there's a very interesting effect where now a year later, every new page of the thread is filled with people posting "I gave up on RDR2 in the first chapter because I didn't like it, but gonna give it a go again now..." And then within a few posts later, so many people return to say something like "Holy shit this is the best game I've ever played..." ANd then a page or two later they're posting emotional screenshots of Lenny or Arthur or Dutch or any of the other characters.
It's a been awesome to watch. But I also get why that first impression is divisive, and I also fully understand the dislike a lot of people have for it. Oddly, I think that the things that are negatives at first end up ... making the game better, or at least, internally consistent as you play through the story. I get why they're divisive and people don't like them, though.
I mean they could easily do both which is something I prefer. GTA 5 was a very edgy game with its story and while it was funny at times there was nothing really memorable and it also didn't really have anything to say. RDR 2 told a great story that was serious but had lighthearted moments but more importantly made itself memorable and had something to say.
If the writers at Rockstar could write a GTA game that was still whacky and satirical while also having something worthwhile to say, that would actually be awesome
If the writers at Rockstar could write a GTA game that was still whacky and satirical while also having something worthwhile to say, that would actually be awesome
There are dozens of us!
No, but really. I like the more grounded tone.
I'm all for GTA being satire but only if it's done right, the 3 characters in GTAV were a fucking joke.
I want GTA VI to be nothing like RDR2.
Not in controls, narrative, or anything else.
They really need to nail the gameplay. It needs to be fluid, fast, precise, and fun. RDR2 was a beautiful world, but I struggled to finish the game because the entire control scheme made it feel like Arthur was covered in molasses.
Not in controls, narrative, or anything else.
They really need to nail the gameplay. It needs to be fluid, fast, precise, and fun. RDR2 was a beautiful world, but I struggled to finish the game because the entire control scheme made it feel like Arthur was covered in molasses.
The first two posts nail it.
As interesting as it was story-wise, RDR 2 was a chore to play all around, with archaic level design and TPS game+cover mechanics. I understand they might have wanted the players to have full immersion, but it impacted my overall enjoyment of the game. š
I agree.
I think the Housers have often confused puns for satire, or perhaps the gaming media has confused it. Making homoerotic wordplay on "Pitchers and Catchers" for a sports bar is not satire, it's a pun. There's nothing satirical about that joke, maybe beyond like a 7th grade level of satire (e.g., "sports guys are actually secretly gay rofl rofl rofl"). Calling the "MET LIFE" insurance company "GETALIFE Insurance" is not satire, it's stupid wordplay. Having the satue of liberty holding a starbucks coffee cup and looking like Hillary Clinton is the most base level of stupidity, it's not satire, and it disrupts what's supposed to be a semi-serious tone of GTAIV. Imagine an immigrant coming to the United States to make a better life for himself, boats past Ellis Island and sees the famed "Statue of Happiness," and she's holding a Starbucks coffee cup? Is the protagonist going to get off the boat and say, "Well maybe life will be better here?" No, it breaks the entire narrative which is supposed to be an upending the American dream, a recognition that the American dream is not fulfilled. But when you bash people over the head with that in every opportunity, it ends up undermining your original point: What characters would look to follow the American dream in a country were an insurance company is called "GETALIFE" or the symbol of liberty is holding a coffee cup? You can't setup a satirical storyline if you're constantly undermining the basis for the satire.
The Godfather II is a rebuke of the American Dream. It tells two simultaneous stories, Vito coming to America with nothing, following the traditions of the old country, establishing himself based around the concept of family, and realizing the American dream. While, simultaneously, Michael is born into the American dream, has replaced those values of the old country with Americanized-plastic values, and his family devolves around him -- his wife has an abortion, members of his family are literally killing each other -- and the American dream is nothing: He's sitting on a bench in Tahoe, with all of the money in the world, utterly alone. Vito, at the end of Godfather I, dies while playing with his grandson. ROckstar gets none of this.
The writing in a lot of Rockstar games, both GTA and RDR( though much more so RDR) can be really good for a videogame. There's dialog between Franklin, his friend, and his aunt in GTAV that is really good dialog/writing for a videogame, same with between Michael and Trevor. I think RDR2 is brilliantly written, especially given just how much writing they have in the game, it's insane how much good writing the game has from start to finish.