This entry comes courtesy of Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal and kicks off a new round of the most interactive Vs. Mode yet
Whoever said that you can’t improve perfection never met the staffs of Level Up and Multiplayer. For the newest installment of Vs. Mode, in which we spar over “Grand Theft Auto IV,” we’re doing something different. Because as much as we enjoy the clack-clack of our own deep thoughts being typed out for your edification, we like mixing it up in the comments with you, our Dear Readers, even more. So to help make Vs. Mode less dueling monologues and more of an open dialogue, here’s how we’re tweaking the formula.
Rather than just throw you into the deep end of mine and Stephen’s opening exchange, we’re kicking off this series with today’s brief introductory post to both preview our debate of “Grand Theft Auto IV” and solicit some comments and questions from you. Then, on the final day of our debate, Stephen and I will not only engage each other, but we’ll also tackle any statements or questions that you’ve posted on our respective blogs. Today’s topic is “Who Moved My Sandbox?” in which we discuss whether “GTA IV” has gotten too far away from the series’ sandbox roots. Some excerpts of what you’ll see in full on Tuesday:
Stephen Totilo: This new “GTA” was made to be more sophisticated, more grown up, I think. It introduces moral choice. It skips rainbow afros and giant sex-toy weapons for a story that, initially, is a barely violent exploration of the eyes-just-shut start of the American dream. It’s a more mature “GTA.” Yet there’s a guy at work here at MTV who is inconsolable over the exclusion of planes and tanks in “GTA IV.” He wants to wreak mayhem. He sees a “GTA” as the sandbox it was once hyped to be. He wants unhinged “GTA.”
N’Gai Croal: I want Rockstar to take the possibility space that is Liberty City and keep building on it. They can experiment with tone: one expansion pack could be primarily comic; another tragic; another brutal; another frothy. They can set one in the 1970s; another in 2020. I said that Rockstar is showing its maturity by realizing that it doesn’t have to be all things to all gamers, but let me revise that statement: it doesn’t have to be all things to all gamers at all times.
Based on these excerpts, who do you agree with?
Does “GTA IV” need a wilder, richer sandbox, or did Rockstar North get the balance right? Let us know what you think in the comments below. And check back tomorrow for Round 1 of Vs. Mode: GTA.
June 16th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I loved the story and then game engine was top notch, but I too was disappointed with the sandbox part of the game. I miss the Kill Frenzies, Hari Krishnas, fire fighting, pizza deliveries, tanks, planes, and a dozen other little things added to the games over the years that encouraged/required exploration and added to the mayhem. I think this is the consequence of adding more and more realism. You add that much detail and exploration becomes a chore and why GPS became so necessary. I’m not sure how you balance it.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I think the attempts at realism in the gameplay sphere - friends, social activities, etc. - were a noble experiment, but ultimately weakened the game by taking away from its central appeal, freedom. You just don’t feel like an No Rulez urban cowboy when your cousin is calling you every hour wanting to play darts. It also opened the door to those hilarious ads from Saints Row, which are completely on point.
It may be obnoxious to plug my review here, but at least it’s on topic, so click on my name there to have a look.
June 16th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I don’t think the excerpt from N’Gai Croal does him much justice in this case, so I’m more apt to side with what is provided on Stephen Totilo’s behalf. As a game, GTA IV doesn’t really hold up to San Andreas as an entry, and you can’t really call that progress for all the love and accolades the game receives. I want to do more with my money than buy clothes and guns.
Specializing, if that’s what N’Gai meant in that quote, takes away from the scope of what Grand Theft Auto tries to achieve and I was under the impression that with this hardware jump to next generation would involve more than just flashier presentation. It certainly felt that way, when I left GTA IV with the feeling that this was just San Andreas sans the RPG elements and several sorely missed features.
As a player that focuses on the game, there’s a lot more to resonate with regarding Grand Theft Auto, in terms for asking for a better sandbox because that eventually means more things to do outside of appreciate a presentation of story. Presentation ends when the story is over, so what game is there left to appreciate when that’s all said and done with? Again, I think there’s a lot to resonate with there as far as asking for more variety, more options, and a better game because of those things.
June 16th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Let’s get some things out of the way first. Grand Theft Auto 4 was a great game with a great story. It was bathed in a sort of gritty realism that really went for the more ‘mature’ tone they wanted their story to have.
But was that direction keeping with the Playstation 2 series of games? I’d say no. They scaled back on a lot of what you could do, which I think ultimately hurts them because a lot of the replay value is gone. Sure, they added multiplayer, but the vast majority of people don’t play Grand Theft Auto online. Once you kill all the pigeons and do all the jumps, what else is there for you to do? Date? Hang out with friends? Bowling? No thank you.
For the game they wanted to make, I believe it was necessary to cut stuff like that to have the story and world be consistent. It was much more serious and down to Earth. In order for the story and the world to be believable, there needs to be some consistency between the narrative and the world. They didn’t want to throw more stuff in just for the sake of adding more things to do. That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss being able to fly a jet pack and rain down death on gangsters.
I think that N’Gai is onto something with his idea of making different GTAs with different tones and settings. Even if you look back at the Playstation games, they all are substantially different and the look of the cities help to give the game a different feel. It could be fun to experiment with. It’s not like it wouldn’t sell 300 million copies.
Here’s one never gonna happen suggestion… Grand Theft Auto: Gotham City.
June 16th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Making the Rules - Games to play vs. games to be played.
Rockstar North orchestrated GTA 4 to be the most immersive, yet this goal defeats its gameplay design. In comparison to previous grand theft auto games, IV draws a more clearly defined player character in a less forgiving world. Gone are the stars to lose wanted levels, replaced by a system where the goal is to escape action, rather than confront it. In general, the missions are scripted to deliver engaging experiences, but these experiences are at the hands of rockstar’s designers, no the players own. One of my own best experiences from grand theft auto was vice city, where I decided to jack a bus and charge it head first into a convoy of army vehicles. I slammed that %??@~~ so hard it literally flew into the sky, off the map. That is the type of magic that you won’t see in the new grand theft auto, where Niko is more likely to crash out the front windshield than ram a %??@~~ into the stratosphere.
The experiences that matter in video games are the ones we can reflect on and say, “oh damn, I did this.” Whether nailing a warthog carrying our flag with rockets, setting up an elaborate trap in BioShock to kill some splicers, or solving a puzzle in professor layton by drawing a diagram or chart, these were all experiences I had, games in which I created the answer - and thats the real story that I want to tell and be told.
> For more on the topic, read Richard Terrell’s “I”: Videogame’s Greatest Character:
http://critical-gaming.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-videogames-greatest-character.html
June 16th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I guess branching out on the idea of different tones and settings would be great, but does that mean different game types using the name as something of brand recognition? Sounds rather Final Fantasy, when you think about it.
Why games and players should have to suffer for story concessions rather than seeing a developer strike a balance is far beyond me. Watching the making of Halo 3 and the making of Bioshock showcases some rather nice ideas regarding each development team’s particular approach to game design. I think Bioshock ended up having a lot more heart as a single player experience, but most players I know have moved on to better games.
Does that say anything meaningful about replay value versus a singular, wonderful experience? Or if the latter, as a game, can produce the former? I think multiple worlds would be interesting for Grand Theft Auto, but by and large I think the sentiment is worthless if Rockstar can’t produce a decent follow up game in reference to a past title in the very same series.
June 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
@everyone
This stuff is great. N’Gai and I will tackle it all in the final entry. You’ll see much more in our first official round tomorrow morning on this blog and on his.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I’m kind of split on this. San Andreas was most definitely a bigger sandbox, but partly because of that, I felt like the game was very unfocused, and many aspects about it unpolished. It felt like they were throwing everything they could at the wall to see what stuck.
GTA IV felt like a realization that they had ventured too far, and that they needed to scale back. But yes, they ended up scaling back way too far, and started losing a lot of the sandbox feel to the game. No taxi missions? No property to buy? The hell? And if you ask me, what we gained in storytelling doesn’t compensate for the loss of freedom, but that’s a different topic.
I am intrigued by N’Gai’s idea of specialized expansions though. I’m curious to see where he goes with that thought.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:08 am
I do think Rockstar ultimately missed the mark with the sandbox elements in GTA IV. While the Most Wanted and Assassinations were quite fun, most of the other elements seemed like a lot of development time spent for very little reward. Random character meetings that obviously have no basis in any other aspects of the game? Inferior bowling and pool minigames? While the radio is incredible in GTA IV, the TV shows were an absolute waste of time. It feels like Rockstar stepped forward a generation with their storytelling and game realism, but took two steps back in their sandbox design.
A fully realized sandbox game and a game with a deep, intellectual story are mutually exclusive, especially on the scale of a GTA, with years of development and millions of dollars spent. The sandbox of GTA IV is already incredibly anachronistic to its story elements, making it more so wouldn’t have a significant effect on the main story of the game.
With the amount of work that Rockstar put into the sandbox content they could have made something special. Unfortunately, from a design and polish standpoint, they fell short of actually making that content compelling.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Er, I meant to say that a sandbox game and good story are NOT mutually exclusive!
June 18th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Gta IV was a simple reboot to the series much like GTA 3 was to the series back in 2000. I think from here on out in the next Grand Theft Autos we can expect Rockstar to expand on the features and gameplay value.
Looking back on GTA 3 now, we say
“Woah, what a landmark, but basically featureless game compared to San Andreas”
In the future thats what we will say to GTA IV.
Its a series reboot. A landmark but relatively overhyped perhaps too realistic in some areas, and too unrealistic in others game.
Rockstar is in the process of changing what we know a game to be, and with GTA IV they started. Who knows whats next?
June 18th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I think the problem with the ‘moral choice’ was that it more or less gets abandoned half-way through the game. I had to a mission for a street rapper I met where within seconds I was told I had to kill some people who tormented him. No option to disagree (except to fail the mission and therefore ‘lose’)- no option to just disarm and warn them. A couple of times I was in situations where I’d chased the target and felt that they didn’t deserve a bullet- yet the option is only there when the game artificially decides. It’s not a true moral choice if you can’t exercise it when you want within the game, it’s only ever crops up when the game contrives to give you a simple yes or no decision.
Niko may start out with moral depth, but as the game progresses he’s quite happy to commit mass murder for cash alone, without any questioning of what he’s doing. I’d love GTA games to genuinely introduce moral quandaries, just as I’d love to them to actively pursue a more open approach where mass slaughter isn’t the usual answer to any problem. GTAIV isn’t that game though- “Kill Mr A or Kill Mr B” ends up being more of a game choice than a moral one (which death will benefit my playing experience). A third option (kill neither, face the personal consequences) would have at least given some deeper scope.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the game and full credit and praise to Rockstar North for their knocking yet another game out the park, but the supposed moral choice part really didn’t figure in my game, no matter how hard I tried to buy into it.