GTA V

[Zeusthecat]

Maybe it's because I'm only partway through (just did a mission where you have the military attacking you after raiding a bank) but it doesn't seem that bad to me. Certainly nothing worse than I've seen in countless mob/gangster movies. Trevor is just like a dirtier Joe Pesci.

 

Having finished the game I have to agree with this. This is a game where you play as a bunch of murdering, thieving criminals. You are the bad guy(s) in this game and you do the horrible things that bad guys do. I find it strange that so many people had issues with the GTA IV story being at odds with the gameplay (i.e. Niko expressing regret and discomfort when it came to killing people and going on a killing rampage 2 minutes later) but are then repulsed by the next game because it gives you characters and a story that are actually consistent with the gameplay. I think it's perfectly fine to be repulsed by the kind of stuff you do in this game but if that is the case I'm not sure why you would play a Grand Theft Auto game to begin with.

[mikemariano]

I think it's perfectly fine to be repulsed by the kind of stuff you do in this game but if that is the case I'm not sure why you would play a Grand Theft Auto game to begin with.

 

I like to take girls on dates, then drive home across a bridge listening to Godley & Creme.  

[Zeusthecat]

I like to take girls on dates, then drive home across a bridge listening to Godley & Creme.

 

Touchè

[clyde]

The people who complained about the ludo-narrative dissonance in GTA IV aren't necessarily the same ones who complain about how repulsive Trevor is. There are a lot of things to enjoy about GTA V that don't involve killing or maiming (though the mechanics often lean towards those activities). So it isn't hard for me to imagine someone wanting to play the game in order to climb on roofs, do boat races, or walk in detailed environments even though it's named after a criminal activity.

[Zeusthecat]

The people who complained about the ludo-narrative dissonance in GTA IV aren't necessarily the same ones who complain about how repulsive Trevor is. There are a lot of things to enjoy about GTA V that don't involve killing or maiming (though the mechanics often lean towards those activities). So it isn't hard for me to imagine someone wanting to play the game in order to climb on roofs, do boat races, or walk in detailed environments even though it's named after a criminal activity.

 

Yeah, good point. I'm sure there is some overlap but it was unfair of me to lump everyone into the same group.

 

And I agree that there are a lot of things to enjoy that don't involve killing or maiming but if that is what you are playing the game for, why not just ignore the story missions? There has to be some expectation that if you are going to go through them, you are going to do some fucked up shit.

[clyde]

I thought that planes were locked until you do story missions. I could be wrong.

[Zeusthecat]

I thought that planes were locked until you do story missions. I could be wrong.

 

I'm pretty sure you can jump in a plane or helicopter at any point but I don't recall exactly. There is always GTA Online though. You could easily jump in a private session and do a bunch of that stuff right out of the gate without having to go through some morally questionable single player missions.

[SilentBtAmazing]

I don't agree that playing a GTA game necessarily means signing up for the mean spirited shitfest that I found GTA V to be. Maybe it's fuzzy memory but I found GTA IV much less nasty and thought Vice City wasn't anything like this game in terms of just pure MEAN.

Again I am perfectly willing to hear that I am just misremembering the older games but I just don't remember anything turning my stomach like Trevor does.

Edit: damn I hate posting on a phone

[Zeusthecat]

I can't really think of a good response to that so I'll concede my point. If you are going off of the previous games it would be reasonable to be a little shocked at some of the things Trevor says and does. Although, from my perspective he was the most interesting and well written character in the game and, in a way, was the embodiment of what the GTA series is all about (i.e. violent, rude, insane, sometimes serious, and a tad inconsistent).

[Architecture]

It's one thing to watch a movie with despicable characters. It's something else entirely to be forced to play a game as one. I split most of my time between Franklin and Michael and usually only selected Trevor to advance the storyline. His level of perversion is unnecessary. The torture sequence is invalidated by its climax, at which point the game essentially says, "fuck it, go back to doing whatever you were doing before all this."

 

There is literally no way to interact with another character that isn't confrontational. Just standing next to an NPC generates a combat scenario. Contrast this with Red Dead Redemption--a different studio, yes, but still a Houser Bros. game--where pressing the circle button near NPCs tipped my hat and offered pleasantries. I also find their "satire" to be cut-rate, and they are not as deft at skewering both sides as say, Trey Parker & Matt Stone. The game is also flat-out racist and misogynist, probably homophobic as well.

 

Sections of GTA V are absolutely brilliant, but I was grabbed by the smaller, personal moments. I found flying a plane across the Los Angeles skyline at dusk with Tangerine Dream in the background far more affecting than any pre-determined event in the entire game.

 

Technically astounding and mechanically competent, yes, but not particularly well-written or insightful. I completely understand the praise for this game and don't begrudge anyone for liking it. I just think it reinforces a bunch of negative stereotypes and offers no other way to play than as a fucking murdering asshole.

[Frenetic Pony]

I'd call your problem, not a case of playing it wrong, but of perceiving the game wrong.

 

It's not actually supposed to "put you in the shoes of" your character. You aren't actually supposed empathize with any of the NPCs. They're more of an abstraction, you don't care if you kill orcs in a game do you? Well the NPC's in GTA are just as fake. Just as non existent, the only real difference is the mesh, some texture work. A lot of games have you play a murdering asshole, to call out GTA for it just because it models more on familiar life is... it's a problem of personal perception rather than anything objective.

 

Not that I don't get it. I used to not hunt in video games, because somehow my brain empathized with the animals even though they were virtual. But eventually I realized I was just being kind of dumb. Those animals no more existed than any of the people I'd run over in GTA Vice City or blew away in any number of other games. So there was no objective reason to treat them any differently. Which made the hunting part of The Last of Us awesome.

 

Or think of it this way. If you play Counterstrike: That's a "real world" setting, with real world looking characters, that doesn't even try to be an abstraction like GTA does. Odds are you don't care how many people you shoot in CS. So why should you care about the "people" in GTA? If you are on the T side your, hypothetical window dressing, job is literally to murder and terrorize, but you don't care. GTA is similar, if you think about the world as some attempt at presenting a real world analogue your missing the point. It's really not, it's more of a familiar abstraction and sandbox. A chance to let that little insane voice in your head loose that says "I should ramp off that" or "I wish I could just run this light" or "man that guy that just cut me off is an asshole."

[Architecture]

Because GTA isn't attempting abstraction--it's attempting to recreate our world. GTA is a simulation--a satirized, hyper-real one, yes--but a simulation nonetheless.

 

A competitive shooter like CS of Call of Duty strives for a certain verisimilitude (holy shit, I spelled that correctly!) but the core mechanics and goals are quite abstract. I know that probably comes across as having it both ways, but there's nothing as vile as Trevor in any of those games (excepting 13-year-olds flinging expletives over chat, of course). Not even No Russian manages to be as reprehensible. The player is given more agency in that instance than the narrative moments of GTA.

[Frenetic Pony]

Because GTA isn't attempting abstraction--it's attempting to recreate our world. GTA is a simulation--a satirized, hyper-real one, yes--but a simulation nonetheless.

 

A competitive shooter like CS of Call of Duty strives for a certain verisimilitude (holy shit, I spelled that correctly!) but the core mechanics and goals are quite abstract. I know that probably comes across as having it both ways, but there's nothing as vile as Trevor in any of those games (excepting 13-year-olds flinging expletives over chat, of course). Not even No Russian manages to be as reprehensible. The player is given more agency in that instance than the narrative moments of GTA.

 

It's a simulation to you, because you are treating it like a simulation. Others, who enjoy it, treat it like an abstraction. You can look at it either way is my point, but the way you get fun out of it (unless you actually are a psychopath) is to just look at it like an abstraction. While I suspect Rockstars intentions are obviously making it the way people have fun with, it's art so it honestly doesn't matter what their intentions are, what matters is how you take it.

 

Many people find Trevor hilarious, because he's a kind of representation of how they play GTA brought into a character. People don't see him as vile, they see him as all the chaos they have fun creating, and then turned into a satire, like what you might view how other people play GTA as. But to most it's just a satire, they actually aren't living out a fantasy of being a deranged mass murder, which they would be if they had your point of view. But do you honestly think so many people enjoy it by doing that?

 

Of course not! They enjoy it the way I enjoy it, the way I'm getting you to try to view it. You can view GTA any way you want, just like you can view a painting any way you want. I'm saying my way, viewing it as an abstract playground full of toys that sort of resemble the real world, is probably a lot more fun than yours. 

[SilentBtAmazing]

Sure obviously that's ok. I am just arguing that people on the other side are also not being crazy since the previous GTAs don't go as far as Trevor (in some way that makes hooker killing less repulsive???)

[Thrik]

I honestly don't see the issue with Trevor. Sure he's a sicko, but I think that's kind of the point: there's enough charm in him for you to actually like him as a character, which many people do — despite them completely disapproving of what he does. To re-use my earlier example, it's a lot like characters found in things like Scarface, Goodfellas, and The Sopranos: they are truly arse holes, yet you like them. GTA5 takes that a step further by having you play as such a person, which Rockstar delights in making as conflicting on the soul as possible.

 

I like it. There's none of the pathetic attempt to make the protagonist seem like a good guy, much like there isn't in the aforementioned films and TV shows. The fiction revels in them being bad people, yet still makes you side with them. Fiction that can do that is good. Unless you just hate the character, I guess. But that's what makes some people unable to enjoy things like The Sopranos too. How many people hated to admit they liked Richie and Tony despite some of the truly horrifying things they did during the show?

 

I guess if you're just unable to separate the interactive aspect from the morality and feel like it's somehow a reflection on your beliefs as a person to play as such a character, it really isn't for you. I personally don't think that the interaction of games separates them from film and TV as much as some (especially those who blame games for social violence) do.

[Gormongous]

I guess if you're just unable to separate the interactive aspect from the morality and feel like it's somehow a reflection on your beliefs as a person to play as such a character, it really isn't for you. I personally don't think that the interaction of games separates them from film and TV as much as some (especially those who blame games for social violence) do.

 

I think you're boiling it down too much, Thrik. There is a huge difference for me, in terms of my comfort level, between watching a torture or a rape scene in a movie, for whatever reason, and being forced to torture or rape someone in a video game, usually for no good reason to me as a player, so that a video game writer can tell their story the way they want. There's a level of complicitness that really highlights the limited nature of video game interactivity, because a writer can (and usually does) demand that I adopt (or at least imitate) a certain moral character through my play if I want to advance the story. You could almost say that they need my help to tell their story, no matter what my feelings toward the story are. A movie doesn't stop playing if I become uncomfortable or disgusted with a scene. I can skip ahead in a book if it's too much. With a video game, the rape or torture stops happening if I stop doing it, but the game won't move on until I do it to satisfaction.

 

I don't think anyone is a bad person or morally compromised for playing those questionable sections in GTA V without qualms, but it takes no effort at all for me to see how people's lines are being uniquely crossed by them.

[clyde]

I would have enjoyed the game more if the Trevor missions were optional, not because I think people who enjoy playing as Trevor are psychopaths (I don't). For me, playing as him felt gross like watching surgeries or videos of puking.

[Thrik]

I agree that the torture scene was perhaps a bit unnecessary, but at the same time if that's the story the game's writers wanted to tell then should they not have the freedom to do that in the same way as in any other medium? The interactive aspect certainly does make it feel very conflicting — much like I felt a bit weird when performing the shower and sex scenes in a certain David Cage game — but I see that as a unique opportunity that games have to challenge us in this regard.

 

After all, it's easy to dust aside horrifying behaviour when reading a book or watching a film, but when you're physically pushing things forward it takes on a whole new level of meaning. Indeed, I think that a really interesting area that Rockstar has (to varying success) touched upon is the difference between liking someone such as Tony Soprano who you've seen do disgusting things, and liking someone such as Trevor who you've done disgusting things as. I would say that the result is that some people are able to distance themselves in the same way, whereas others are morally sickened by it and the interactive element is too much.

 

I don't know, I'm not saying that I want every game to include a character like Trevor, but I certainly see the value in exploring such psychotic mindsets in an interactive way that not only doesn't take the easy option of making them a truly contemptible side-character, but makes them a front-and-centre main character that you end up rooting for (which you can easily find yourself doing in GTA5). As I said, film and TV have done this for years and to this day I don't know whether to cheer for or lament the fate of Joe Pesci's character in Casino.

 

Ultimately, it's the overall story arc and the overall journey of a character in a piece of fiction that really matters. I guess I'll find out when I complete the game what Rockstar does with Trevor in the end, but I know where most characters of this kind end up: dead.

[Gormongous]

I don't know, I'm not saying that I want every game to include a character like Trevor, but I certainly see the value in exploring such psychotic mindsets in an interactive way that not only doesn't take the easy option of making them a truly contemptible side-character, but makes them a front-and-centre main character that you end up rooting for (which you can easily find yourself doing in GTA5). As I said, film and TV have done this for years and to this day I don't know whether to cheer for or lament the fate of Joe Pesci's character in Casino.

 

I do want to say, I am very interested in a game that has you play a character who is morally compromised and who, through your complicity in his or her actions, makes you question your supposedly neutral and impartial position as the theoretical audience of a work, like SpecOps: The Line but in a way that actually hangs together. I think a truly compelling "bad guy" protagonist is something games have yet to explore in full but is also something truly interesting. That said, I don't think a psycho Jack Nicholson expy is the best way to go about such a thing, although it might be the best way for a GTA game, which are always a little bit at cross purposes anyway, to go about such a thing.

 

I don't know, I'm really just not compelled by a game forcing you to do terrible things, then whipping out a mirror and saying, "Look at what a terrible person you are!" If there's some artistic message about agency, about complicity, about pragmatism, about morality, then great, sign me up. If it's just about making the player feel like a bad person for playing a video game about bad people, I've already got French extremist horror for that. Not that I'll ever, ever watch Martyrs or Inside again.

 

Actually, Martyrs is quite good, but only ever once.

[Zeusthecat]

For me, going through those gross things that Trevor does was a big part of what made me appreciate his character so much. I am glad the game made me feel uncomfortable and forced me to do horrible things to progress through the story. Having the game force me to do some of those things made the gravity of the situation much more impactful than some torture scene in a movie that I can choose not to watch or just write off because it is some horrible thing that the bad guy is doing. In this game though, you are forced to experience the story as a completely insane psychopath. That is what Trevor's character is and I think the game is better for not letting you escape that. As I played through this game, I naturally hoped and expected that there would be some justification, something to assure me that the things I was doing were somehow necessary. But that never came. Instead, the game drove home that no, you really are a psychopath and there is no escaping it. And because of this, the little moments where Trevor shows unexpected compassion were that much more powerful and made his character that much more complex.

 

I don't know if I can think of any other game where the credits rolled and I was left feeling that almost everything I did was done for horrible and selfish reasons. The story may not have been very good but I think it accomplished something significant in making me feel the way I did and forcing me to accept that, in the game, I was just a bad person.

 

Edit: Missed the two posts above mine so sorry if I'm repeating what others have said.

[SilentBtAmazing]

I hear you guys and again I don't think you are monsters but as previously stated I just don't "buy" that GTA V was at all thoughtful about this stuff. I can see how you disagree or it doesn't bother you but I just found it distasteful and lacking in the sort of redemptive or instructive ways you guys are talking about.

Also I really don't think there are many people who do nasty shit on the scale or frequency that Trevor does, making me really wonder even if you are right that a game like this can make us understand them -- so what? If a certain amount of sadism and sociopathy is baked into human nature and we can't do anything about it then I don't really understand the value of exploring it. I personally don't think "empathy for soiopaths" is really something worth trying for unless it is somehow expanded in the direction "empathy for sociopaths in some way that lets us put a stop to them."

Sorry not sure I am adding much, just all these months later I wish I wasn't so out off by this because I really enjoyed a lot of the rest of this game.

[Thrik]

Leaving behind the topic of the game's content, I decided to listen to the score in isolation today. Man, this really is one of the better game soundtracks I've heard; of course, the fact that it greatly resembles the work of some of my favourite artists like Herbaliser and Shpongle helps.

 

Minor Turbulence in particular worked incredibly well in-game, with the music building to a huge climax and then immediately being offset by soft piano music when you hit the parachute button. Great use of dynamic track shifting, although sadly many of the tracks don't get enough time to breathe so you only hear a little bit of them. I guess the standalone score fixes that — and it's all on Spotify.

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHy5QHIPy1s

[Architecture]

Listening to the music just reminds me that I wish the game had had stronger nods to Driver.

[Sno]

I just started playing this a few days ago, Trevor makes me uncomfortable. Does the game want me to like him? I can't tell, it seems like it's going back and forth on that.

Lots of little things have been bugging me, i don't like trying to figure out which character should buy which properties, for example. It feels like a pointless and obnoxious choice. I think the character specific powers are kind of dumb too, and Michael seems like he got the short end of the stick on those.

It's probably a dumb thing to notice, but the in-game internet is probably less than half the size of the one in IV. A lot of the dumb little world-building nuances from IV feel kind of vestigial here. Mission scripting also feels very rigid, and i don't like the driving model as much as GTAIV's.

I don't know how i feel about GTAV so far, I think i like it, mostly? It's definitely not clicking with me the way GTAIV did. It's a goddamned technical marvel, at the very least. San Andreas is beautifully rendered.

[Architecture]

Real estate is mostly useless in this game, save for Trevor's airfield. Preferring GTA IV's driving model, however, leads me to question your sanity.