Get off my lawn!
So, recently I went on a Grand Theft Auto kick. I fired up my old copies of Vice City and San Andreas (sadly, GTA III was too scratched and crashed to hell and back). I discovered that neither of these games suffered from nostalgia glasses (I figured San Andreas would hold up, but was worried about Vice City) and I enjoyed the ever living shit out of both of them (except for the end of Vice City where you have to wait for your money to grow, buy a business, and then beat it's missions to continue to the final mission...that was a load of crap). So, a bit surprised, I decided it was time for the ultimate test: Grand Theft Auto IV.
Sure, I remember it being stupidly good when I first played it and I was sure it would still be fun. However, in the days of Saints Row 2 and 3 (where you can do simply the most ridiculous shit), would I still love the more stripped back, toned down nature of GTA IV?
The short answer: fucking yes.
I was blown away, the game did things that I didn't remember from my last play through. I feel it took the ridiculous nature of Saints Row and the immediacy of modern shooters for me to truly appreciate what GTA IV did. So, journey with me, if you are so kind, and let us see just what it was that brought me to dropping forty-two hours in playtime and falling stupidly in love with this game.
1. This Game Is Beautiful
From everything I have heard and seen, Skyrim is fucking gorgeous to behold. It gives you a whole living world to play in, a world that you actually feel is living and breathing. A nearly flawless organic experience. Something you can truly lose yourself in.
Amazingly, Rockstar managed to do all this back in 2008. This game isn't an RPG and Rockstar didn't need to put such a huge amount of detail into this version of Liberty City, hell most of the time you are flying through the streets in a car chase and won't even notice all the time they put into the city.
Just...just look at it!
But once you do, it is jaw dropping. It first happened for me when I decided to take a cigarette break but figured, 'Hey I can take a cab ride to the mission start, I don't even have to stop playing!' So, I did just that and had fun fiddling around, taking in the sights from the back of a cab. And then something happened. The ash grew to huge proportions at the end of my cigarette and I simply couldn't look away. Every building has unique flourishes, the downtown area is full of dazzling lights, funny billboards add jokes and more depth to the world, the driver chats, jokes, honks, and yells at pedestrians the whole way, the draw distance allows you to see towering skyscrapers in the distance, steam rises from sewer grates, and the sidewalks are full of all the diverse pedestrians going about their business. It was truly incredible. Ever since then, that became my smoke break routine: set a way point as far across the map as I could, hop in a cab, light up, and take in the sights.
The fact that a fucking video game had me so enthralled to fucking sight see never stopped blowing my mind.
2. This Is A Game About Characters
Every Grand Theft Auto game is jam packed with funny, terrible, idiotic, insane, or psychotic characters. It is one of the best parts of the GTA series. However, aside from a stray few here and there, I never truly cared about the characters. All of their motivations were cliche and straight out of mafia/gangster movies. They wanted money, fame, or just to kill a bunch of people.
Now, don't get me wrong, GTA IV has a good handful of characters just like that. However, the majority is, for once, leaning towards characters with (somewhat) honest intentions.
Your character's cousin Roman just wants to gamble, expand his taxi company, marry the love of his life, see titties at the strip club, and generally live up the American dream. He is always trying to get Niko (your character) to stop killing. That is right, a character in a Grand Theft Auto game that wants your main character to let go of his hatred and stop killing, to settle down into a (mostly) normal life.
Brucie is a steroid addled meathead who wants nothing more than girls, fast cars, and shit loads of money. He is one of the funniest characters I have ever encountered in a video game and a really refreshing break from the classic psychopaths you are always running into in these games.
"Genetically different, bro!"
Dwayne is a down on his luck, nearly suicidal, gangster from the past. He is fresh from a prolonged prison sentence and absolutely blown away by how much the world has changed. All he really wants is a friend and just a little piece of his past life back. However, he is so broken up about how much 'the game' has changed that he simply doesn't have the heart for it anymore.
In most of the GTA games, if you end up working for the mob, you generally work for the big cheese. The sharks in a pool of guppies. You are just their hired gun taking down the competition. GTA IV flips that and has you working for a mob member who is a bit of a joke in the family. All he wants is respect and a proper piece of the pie. Sure you end up doing similar crap as you would in any other GTA mob mission (i.e. killing and blowing crap up), but it is the feeling that is different. For once I found myself thinking, 'This guy can't make it without me. He needs me.'
3. Decisions, Decisions and Deception (and they will all break your heart)
Alright, now here there be spoilers. But, this game is three years old, so if you haven't played it yet...too fucking bad, you had your chance.
GTA IV, like many modern games, implements some game changing decisions throughout. However, there is no heavy handed 'morality meter' and nothing as stupid as telling you, 'Choosing this will make this happen and choosing this will make this happen'. The decision all comes down to what you feel is right. The game will roll with whatever you choose, it is only you that will have to live with what you have done.
Here is a great one, remember the aforementioned Dwayne? Well you meet him through Playboy X who was something of a student of Dwayne's. Playboy is dealing in all sorts of sordid affairs to build his empire, but swears he is just doing it long enough to get out of the game and then give it back to the community. When Dwayne comes back, Niko helps him take back a club he used to own. The problem here is that the club is now owned by Playboy X. Playboy (almost begrudgingly) tasks you with taking out Dwayne so as to be sure this doesn't become a recurring problem. Dwayne figures this will happen and asks that you kill Playboy so that Dwayne can have another shot at life.
Holy shit! Playboy may be an asshole for asking you to kill his former friend, but it is coming from a (mostly) business point of view. Plus Dwayne is fairly depressed and may even be suicidal. Maybe you are just putting him out of his misery? But then I thought about how Dwayne has said (several times) that he just wants a friend and to try and scrape his way together in this new world. He is such a sad and lonely man. Could I really put a gun to his head and pull the trigger?
I just need a fwiend.
Decisions like these are peppered throughout the game and all of them are very hard to make. Not because you are worried about how some silly morality bar will slide and not because you are worried how the game with play out (though there are some slight changes, this isn't an RPG...the game will move right on along). The choices are tough because they actually make you think. They build these characters as humans (even the pricks) and you actually have to think to yourself, 'Which one of these poor bastards can I forgive myself for putting in the grave?'
Think I am bullshitting? I was drunk when I played the Playboy vs. Dwayne decision and drunk me said, 'Fuck it, it's a game. I bet Playboy will give me a bunch of money if I kill Dwayne.' So, I went over to Dwayne's where he only had one lowly bodyguard armed with a bat, Dwayne himself didn't even fight back, and he didn't plead, all he said was, 'I thought we were friends. I guess the world really has changed.' When I pulled the trigger, Niko looked away. My fucking character didn't even want to kill him! I didn't even hesitate, I turned the game off and reloaded my file. I sacrificed the five hours I had just played to avoid that heart wrenching moment. I eventually made up my lost playtime, made it to the decision, and of course Playboy has several well armed bodyguards, he fights back, and then he runs into the street begging and pleading for his life. Neither Niko nor myself hesitated to put him down.
4. Niko
Niko is the main protagonist and the character you play as through the game. He hails from the Balkans, participated in the Yugoslav war, saw a bunch of awful shit, had his entire unit killed in front of him, and eventually follows his cousin, Roman, to the States in search of a better life.
Pictured: a better life
Eventually he learns two others survived his unit and figures one of them sold out the others for money.
You are playing as a character who is looking to leave his old life behind and find closure by discovering who betrayed his unit. Yes, many missions involve shooting a bunch of dudes but they have to because this is a Grand Theft Auto game. If you are able to roleplay a bit and get into the character (which I did), you won't find a lot of joy in running down civilians or shooting up random people (unless you are drunk, because the ragdoll physics are hilarious). I was playing a character who just wanted to do what he needed to do to build a better life for himself and his cousin.
He is cynical to his employers, always questioning why someone needs to die, and will generally try to argue his way out of being an errand boy. When his cousin is kidnapped, you get to see the fury of Niko Bellic and it is beautiful.
You travel to an abandoned warehouse and shoot it out with the kidnappers while Niko is constantly shouting things like, 'I live here with my cousin!' Rockstar does such a great job of showing how much love he has for his family and those that truly mean something to him.
Literally everything you do in the game (getting drunk, playing missions, shootouts, playing pool) will build more pieces of his character and you will fall in love with him. You will truly want to take care of the character you play as and see to it that he does well in the life the game pads out for him.
Then comes the big moment. You discover who betrayed you, Darko Brevic, and he is given to you bound and standing right in front of you. He reveals that he sold out the unit for a thousand dollars, Niko can't believe this but is called a hypocrite when Darko asks, 'And how much do you charge to take a life, Niko Bellic?' He then begs Niko to kill him, to free him from his demons. Roman asks Niko to walk away, reasoning that letting him live is a worse punishment than death. You are now given a choice, walk away or take your revenge? I did it. I pulled the trigger. Niko shoots him twelve times (once for each of his lost friends?) and then walks away. In the car ride home, Niko tells Roman that he doesn't feel any better. that he now simply feels empty. I failed Niko. I didn't give him what he wanted. And this time, I couldn't bring myself to reset because I had passed a really tough mission I didn't want to do again since the last time I had saved. I felt like I had let down an entirely fictional character made up of polygons and pixels. I had never had that happen before.
.jpg)
I'm sorry, cousin.
That level of connection between character and player is absolutely beautiful and very rare in the video game culture.
5. You Don't Win
So many video game developers are absolutely terrified of delivering a truly sad, dramatic ending. It is seen as alright to do in cinema because the cost of admission is cheaper for the consumer and it only requires a couple hours of your time. Whereas in video games, they can require anywhere from eight to forty plus hours of your time. It is figured that no one wants to invest that much time to see a sad ending.
Rockstar has shown that that is simply not true with Grand Theft Auto IV and continuing in Red Dead Redemption (I will probably be writing about that in the near future).
In most Grand Theft Auto games, money eventually becomes a joke. In Vice City I finished with about 800 million dollars for fuck's sake. Grand Theft Auto IV is different. You will finish the game with more money than you or I could make in a year, sure. But you won't break a million bucks by the end of the game (especially if you choose the 'I actually have some morality left' choices). This isn't a 'rags to riches' story. This is a 'rags to doing alright' story.
On top of this, no matter what you do, someone close to you is going to die. In the end you can choose revenge which results in Niko's beloved Kate getting killed. Or you can choose to make a deal with the villain, which results in your cousin dying.
Him?
Or her?
Most cruelly, these choices make you think that that specific character won't get killed. It is your cousin that wants you to make the deal so that you can get a shitload of cash and help give Roman and his fiance a lavish honey moon. It is Kate who tells you not to go back on your morals and refuse the deal. So you go with what you feel is right and the person most represented by that ideal ends up dead. Holy shit!
"Kate, we have to go back!"
So you go on this final ride, get revenge on the ass that killed your cousin or beloved but that is it. You have some money and a few friends. But what did you really gain? What did you lose? Was it worth it? And, if you are anything like me, you will be pondering the decisions you made throughout the game over and over, long after the credits roll. Which to me, says that the developers did everything right and created a video game that truly transcends the ideas of what a video game is capable of as a medium for entertainment.
No comments:
Post a Comment