TurkeyProphet said:
I think Yahtzee criticism's kind of smack of finding a criticism to justify an opinion he already has. He writes about how the characters motivations are hard to follow and they switch between personalities and he can't see much change but you could characterise a lot of stories like that and then call the characters shit. Just as an example let's replace some of what he said with The Sopranos.
"Tony Soprano switches back and forth between monster and free-spirited rogue. Relatedly, Tony can't seem to decide if Christopher is a dangerous threat to him or an protege with whom he must protect. Does Tony want to escape from organised crime and make something of his life, or does he want to stay true to his fellows?"
And let's not get started on the motivation for the characters in the Sopranos because that is a fucking minefield.
It also strikes me as ironic that a game like GTA will get shit on for its fairly weak plot even though its writing is better than the vast majority of games. You wouldn't ever have this kind of discussion about Gears of War or Sonic.
Tony only starts thinking of Christopher as a threat toward the end of the series, and deals with him pretty quickly when he does. It should also be noted that that was part of Tony's "downfall" and paranoia much like how in Scarface, Tony's downfall involves paranoia and not trusting his friends. Tony never makes any attempts to escape from organised crime either. The series shows us quite early on that he wants to be the one running the operation. He doesn't want his kids being involved at any point but he never thinks twice about his own continued career in crime. There is also the fact that Yahtzee did mention that he sees these characters are "inconsistent" rather than "conflicted". I haven't played it but I can imagine what he means (more on that at the end).
Also, motivation is less important in a TV show with many supporting characters. TV shows don't follow the same plot structure as video games or films because from the start there is no definite point at which they end so stories are episodic and there usually isn't one big over-arching plot. Stories generally involve characters just existing day-to-day rather than trying to achieve an goal.
Sonic usually doesn't get criticized as much for the story because most of the games in the last 10 years have just been bad in every way, there's no need to bring up the story. Haven't played Gears of War but Yahtzee does criticise plenty of other shooters for their stories. Not to mention that GTA just has SO MUCH story in it. It isn't a Mario kind of situation where the story is almost non existent and just a bookend in the form of "start: princess is captured", "end: princess isn't captured any more". If you have a game like that in which the story is virtually non-existent (no exposition, no dialogue, no cut scenes, no characters, no plot) then people tend not to care but GTA games generally have a lengthy 20+ hour campaign in which every mission features more talking characters and dialogue, not to mention the plentiful (and imo, generally anvilicious and ham-fisted) satire that is all over the place. So story is a pretty big part of GTA. I would disagree that the writing is better than most games though, at least most plot-based games I've played (I'm sure there are tons of barely-known games with terrible writing) or games in the general 90+ Metascore community.
The main thing I disagree with Yahtzee about is Niko Bellic being a good character. I thought he was thoroughly inconsistent as a character. From the start we're given this impression that he's someone who has done bad things in the past and that he is very regretful and traumatised about them. That's fine by me, even the idea that he kills his old buddy and he's done but that isn't what happens. The problem is that this "regret" thing is completely undone by his astounding willingness to take dozens of small jobs that involve doing more terrible things without any real reason or even bringing up the problems he was having earlier. I get that there's a certain amount of "just when I though I was out" to it, especially since Roman has already gotten himself involved with some shady characters when he arrives but that all wraps up fairly quickly and the majority of the game has him finding new petty criminals to team up with for inconsequential missions that ALWAYS involve more violence and literal mass-murder. He always tells the job-givers he just wants to make money but if that was all he wanted then why not get a job? And if he just wants money then why doesn't he just settle down after the bank heist?
