factual opinions

So I just completed GTA. And, despite my earlier comments on how fun it was, it turned out to be a pointless exercise in nothingness. A huge number of people slaved over this game for several years and crunching for more than a whole year!, to give birth to this weird monstrosity. I liked many of the mechanics: driving, shooting, flying, sniping guys from afar. And it never failed to impress me to drive or fly through downtown at dawn. But the rest man…

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Like, take the missions. The missions suck. You don’t see it at first, but they never break free from being these uninspired, tepid little linear exercises in movie-making, with more exceptions to the core mechanics than I thought possible. Once a while you get to shoot a guy as he’s driving away, but more often your rocket explodes harmlessly on their vehicle because they’re scripted to survive a little longer. If only the stories were good at least, but some of them are just outright goddamn atrocities, incapable of even providing a basic reason to complete the mission! Like this stupid fucking cliched idiot gay guy who drags me out to to his boat all panicky to ask me… to join him for a relaxing time of fun! I almost exploded in rage at this point; I’m busy barely surviving against gangsters and shit and I’m trying to enact my revenge on my life-long enemy and this guy fails to comprehend any of that?? He can go fuck himself!! But no, Niko ends up convinced that fun would in fact be appropriate. I promptly firebombed that dipshit and his boat, but of course the whole thing resets and there’s no way out of doing it.

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What really got to me was how absurdly the game outstays its welcome. The levels drone on and on, people are in soooo much need of help for reasons I really couldn’t give a shit about, but the game never reacts to what I want. It’s too busy playing this sub-sub-sub par cheesefest of a movie, where suddenly, somehow, I’m in love with a girl. A girl I’ve barely seen outside a couple cutscenes. Oh I did meet her once, to shoot her in the face with a shotgun for calling me all the time. That was not a date she particularly liked I might add. And I never even took those calls from her, I literally had no interest or clue about her personality. But no we’re in love, and the story trundles onwards to a comically bad ending.

An ending, at least the ending I got, that had Niko feeling heartbroken and wretched. They say a good story makes you feel as the actors on screen, and in this at least I must give kudos to Rockstar. I truly felt heartbroken and wretched as the credits came about, almost teared up at their simpleminded and frankly offensive attempt at storytelling. The game starts off so good, Niko is a great character!, but then they spend twenty hours fucking hammering you with stupid scripted linear bullshit over and over again.

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There are many amazing things about the game but completing it will drain all that joy from your body. It never ever deserved the 10/10’s it got in reviews (deduct a point for lack of checkpoints alone!), but after completing it I’d score it around the 6.5 area. Maybe 7 if I concentrate on the good times.