expecting a puddle, and i got a poodle
May. 13th, 2008 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chronovorePlaying more GTA IV last night and this morning, I realized that the game isn't really what I'd expected.
My earlier comments on the change in tone from over-the-top parodying of American culture to something which is maybe a more cinematic interpretation of American culture still stand. Even cinéma-vérité is not real life, and Hollywood movies are even less realistic. But it's really the Hollywood approach they've taken to their storytelling, where the GTA III-era games were more like a comic book such as Tank Girl or Those Annoying Post Bros. But they've really backed off from the craziness, and amped the realism.
Looking back, what I expected from IV, what I wanted, was similar to these Multi-Theft-Auto mods the fan community had been crafting from abandoned wreckage of the previous PC versions of GTA III-era games. In those games it was fun and easy to just wreak havoc and laugh at the cartoon violence. In IV, when I crash into another car, or a crowd of people, it's disturbingly realistic. It's not fun, or funny, I just feel bad. The boss characters' motivations don't really play as comedy, either. I don't think there will be an instant of Donald love EATING the roasted remains of the deceased mayoral candidate.
Hey...? THERE IS NO AMMU-NATION. Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot? If there was anything that I considered a hallmark of the series, it was that there was a 24-hour convenience store which would sell armor and weapons to you at 03:00 a.m. when you've just been pursued into the store by the FBI and tanks from the National Guard. In IV you buy your weapons from a black market dealer in a back alley; I don't know if it's realistic or not, but it looks just like the set used in BURN NOTICE when the hero is tracking Libyan arms smugglers. So. For whatever that's worth, the game's left some of its roots behind.
My earlier comments on the change in tone from over-the-top parodying of American culture to something which is maybe a more cinematic interpretation of American culture still stand. Even cinéma-vérité is not real life, and Hollywood movies are even less realistic. But it's really the Hollywood approach they've taken to their storytelling, where the GTA III-era games were more like a comic book such as Tank Girl or Those Annoying Post Bros. But they've really backed off from the craziness, and amped the realism.
Looking back, what I expected from IV, what I wanted, was similar to these Multi-Theft-Auto mods the fan community had been crafting from abandoned wreckage of the previous PC versions of GTA III-era games. In those games it was fun and easy to just wreak havoc and laugh at the cartoon violence. In IV, when I crash into another car, or a crowd of people, it's disturbingly realistic. It's not fun, or funny, I just feel bad. The boss characters' motivations don't really play as comedy, either. I don't think there will be an instant of Donald love EATING the roasted remains of the deceased mayoral candidate.
Hey...? THERE IS NO AMMU-NATION. Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot? If there was anything that I considered a hallmark of the series, it was that there was a 24-hour convenience store which would sell armor and weapons to you at 03:00 a.m. when you've just been pursued into the store by the FBI and tanks from the National Guard. In IV you buy your weapons from a black market dealer in a back alley; I don't know if it's realistic or not, but it looks just like the set used in BURN NOTICE when the hero is tracking Libyan arms smugglers. So. For whatever that's worth, the game's left some of its roots behind.
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Re: To war!
Date: 2008-05-29 04:36 am (UTC)