Remember when Grand Theft Auto IV came out? Remember the massive critical acclaim, followed by increasing backlash on the part of players who deemed it too negative, too dour, too boring? Well I’ve been playing it again and I’ve rethought some of that, which I had largely subscribed to.
Let me be clear, I think GTA4 is a masterpiece either way. It’s vast, brilliant, important, and though the humor is a bit less stark, still has plenty of laughs. Now, I appreciate that those who loved San Andreas (i.e. those who played San Andreas) would possibly miss the craziness which that game became, especially in the endgame. Understandably so: Stealing jetpacks and airplanes was hilarious, and the antics of CJ (Especially when he was terrifically obese and dressed as a truck driver) were just insanely enjoyable. I still think San Andreas is the better game, and I think given the iterative return to craziness in The Lost and Damned, and The Ballad of Gay Tony, that Rockstar listened to the reaction from the public.
But in replaying GTA4 I’ve been playing along with what it asks. I’ve been using the subway to get around, taking cab rides, going on mandates with friends, all that jazz. And it works. It really does. When I got into the mindset it really started to all click into place in a way which it hadn’t before, however much I had enjoyed it. Last night I was doing the mission The Snow Storm, where an attempt to retrieve a ridiculous amount of coke goes very south. I had an epic, massive chase across Algonquin (The game’s stand-in for Manhattan) which ended with me disappearing into the subway to avoid the cops. And when I rode that train across to Bohan (The Bronx), with the sun coming up and the city bathed in dawn light, with barely any health left, the bag of coke slung over my shoulder… I really felt the game in a way I hadn’t done before.
So to give this post a point beyond my own reflections, have there been any games which you have really had to adopt a particular mindset to fully enjoy? Anything where you’ve gone back with a new approach that really meets what the developers had in mind, and found it better? Or am I all alone here?
The best recent example I can think of is 3rd gen Pokemon (Emerald). I quit about halfway through my initial playthrough when it first came out because it was just so… different to the first two Pokemon games and for some reason it didn’t sit right with me. I didn’t pick it up again until several years later, at which point I started a new game and and let myself be immersed by the differences rather than put off by them. I purposefully avoided FAQs or spoilers or walkthroughs of any sort, just letting myself discover the whole game on my own.
And you know, it made me feel like playing through my first Pokemon game for the first time again. That whole sense of discovery and wonder and exploration. So good <3
I haven’t played a GTA game since, well, Grand Theft Auto. I just don’t find them very much fun for whatever reason. But that’s not why I’m commenting. Two points I’d like to make:
* First, it boggles the mind that the (digitally-rendered) character in the post image can be referred to as “terrifically obese”. I honestly don’t want to know how someone who was actually obese would be described!
* Second, “diet soda” would have been a better gag in the caption. Just saying.
:)