Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Tell me 'cause I'd like to know..

Many had seen it as a clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas.
I don't give a shit about Grand Theft Auto 4.

I feel like this series is kind of undeservedly popular. Which is to say that its popularity is not in reasonable correlation with its quality.
The Penny Arcade I posted yesterday was speaking to a part of my problem with the series, which is better sentencized by Tycho :
"We're always impressed by each world's livingness, but historically the story structure - the obvious thread that we can grip and pull ourselves along - is hung about the neck with frustrating, repetitive gameplay. We end up burning out on free roaming in a couple days, taking random missions or sitting in a parking lot listening to the radio."

Another part is that some of my friends and I had what essentially amounts to the exact same idea for a video game (we have a legal pad with pages and pages and pages of notes and sketches and such for this game we imagined) a number of years before the first GTA even came out. The shift in gameplay that came in GTA3 was more what our idea for a game resembled.
Look, all I'm trying to say is GTA3 was the game that really made this series what is today, and we had that idea waaaay before they'd even made the first game, which really bares no resemblance to the series today.
That's not really important though. I don't really hold any grudge on that, and to be honest, I don't really care I just wanted to get it off my chest.

Really, my biggest problem with the games is that I just don't like being a bad guy. I don't mind killing people in video games if they are the bad guys and I'm trying to save the world or something, but when it's just "Here drive around and shoot cops and steal people's cars" I'm just not interested, you know?
I don't mind it when they're monsters or aliens or terrible bad people trying to kill me (or Goombas), but just killing regular folk for no reason has never sounded like fun to me.
I've had people try to tell me that it's all in how you play it, but having sex with hookers to get my life-meter recharged and then killing the hooker and taking my money back sounds like something a psychopath would do.
One of the other things that bugs me is how angry people who like the series get when you tell them that you aren't interested in it. Especially if it's for the kind of reason I just talked about. I mean, red-in-the-face angry.
I think they think I'm saying they are psychopaths... and honestly, the way some of them react I might not be too far from the mark if I were to think that.

I'm not saying that though.

Curt asked me if I wanted to go to the midnight release at the GameStop near where we live last night, and I don't think he's a psychopath.

All I'm saying is it's not for me.
I'm sure there are aspects of the game I could enjoy. A friend let me ride around on a motorcycle in one of them for a few minutes once and that was fun up to when I crashed into a car and flew off the motorcycle. Then it was funny.

Really, all I want from video games is a game where I can be Superman that doesn't suck.
One where I feel like I am Superman.
If they could just make that, I'd be done with video games.
I'd buy that one, and then I wouldn't have to buy anymore.
I'd just play it.
Forever.

9 comments:

thomas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
thomas said...

I swear this is exactly how I feel.

I just generally don't like games where I shoot any people at all. War games and games like this and such don't do anything for me. I don't want to shoot at people. Aliens, turtles with wings, vampires, okay. But don't put a human face in front of me and ask me to put their brains on the wall. That doesn't appeal to me.

Jason Quinones said...

i don't mind watching somebody play the game. it's like watching a bad or boring,depending on who's playing, violent movie. but i wouldn't play it myself. i don't have the patience for these rpg games and more often than not i'd rather go out and enjoy real life as opposed to vicariously trying to live out some pathetic thug life fantasy through some pixelated 2 dimensional character.

i also think most games like these just cater to types who eventually become bullies,cops, or government sponsored, thrill seeking soldiers for hire. like blackwater.

borderline sociopaths basically

M.Sea said...

I am not good at videogames, and like you said, I am not really into playing someone evil. That doesn't float my boat.

Dylan Todd said...

I appreciate the expansiveness of the GTA world but yeah, it's a bit misanthropic, innit?

chrishaley said...

This was the longest thing I've written in a while, and I'm really glad to see that you guys bothered reading it.
I'm also glad I haven't started receiving any death threats from GTA fans yet.

That's a joke, GTA fans.

chrishaley said...

"i also think most games like these just cater to types who eventually become bullies,cops, or government sponsored, thrill seeking soldiers for hire. like blackwater.

borderline sociopaths basically"

To all the borderline sociopaths reading this, I'd like to point out that Jason said that, NOT me.

Anonymous said...

i'm coming to kill you! i am a borderline sociopath!!!

only kidding.

you echo my thoughts exactly. i actually used to be a fan of the GTA series but the only thing i really enjoyed doing was driving around crazily and watching the car i was in slowly disintegrate as i crashed into various things. after that, i was kind of bored with the game.

nice post.

chrishaley said...

Josh - Sometimes one of the best benefits of doing this blog is being reminded that there are people out there that agree with me.

Good to see you back 'round these parts.