The Problem With Rockstar Games

ooknabah

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Seeing Red Dead mentioned in the GOTD thread, it has got me thinking about my primary beef with that game, and with Rockstar Games in general:

(This post contains some spoilers to Red Dead Redemption, GTA 4 and L.A. Noire. You've been warned.)

Many people say that what they love about Red Dead Redemption is it's ability to let you live out your cowboy fantasies: You've got a huge playground to run around in and there are countless hours of fun to be had playing in the Wild West sandbox that Rockstar has put together for you. Similarly with GTA4: You've got a fantastic re-creation of NYC (and it is pretty amazing: The parts of NYC that I know personally fit together pretty much exactly as I know them in real life!) with a bunch of things to do.

However, the big issue that have have with these games is that while they give you a huge amount of player choice in between missions, allowing you to fly off the handle and murder and rampage or to abide by the rules and help those in need, ultimately the games take any real player choice away from you.

In both games you find yourself in situations where you're working for people you don't want to work for or have you in situations where there are clearly other solutions that are not being explored. When in player hands your avatar can be a one man army, killing hundreds of people without blinking an eye, but all of that disappears when it's time for a cut scene.

I guess my beef really boils down to the fact that your "freedom" is something that the designers don't really feed back into the game: No matter how many evil things your John Marston does, he will still be a stoic, heroic figure in the cut scenes, incapable of say, attempting to murder the people clearly setting him up over and over and over again. (You kill them in the third act, dummy!)

At least games like L.A. Noire force you into a particular role: Cole Phelps is a police officer, and a pretty damned good one, and you only control him when he's on the job: In the context of that, it makes sense that you don't have a choice to say "Screw this police department!". And then, when it's revealed he's been having an affair, it doesn't feel like choices were taken away from the player: The player never chose what Cole did in his off hours to begin with. All you do is control a man's working hours, and he works as a police man, with a necessary amount of control out of his hands: He doesn't choose his cases, he just tries to solve them.

This makes less sense with Niko however: At a certain point, you've got a million dollars, a loving cousin and things are going along great with your girlfriends: It would be narratively interesting to allow the player the choice to give up the grudge: Even more so if doing so had consequences- But no, Niko persists and the story plays out more or less the same any way you slice it.

Ultimately, at the end of Red Dead Redemption, you take on the role of James Marston and take revenge for the death of your father, to continue a cycle of violence that has consumed your family. The goal is to feel the inevitability of the situation and see how John's choices led not only to his own destruction but to the destined path that his son will take in his shadow. It's a powerful moment, but one whose poignancy was always blunted, to me, by the fact that I never made any of the choices that brought me there.
 

DarkRyter

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They're narrative driven. It's not like they put "Your choices affect the story!" on the box or anything.

The freedom they offer is in the gameplay, and that's the point.
 

badgersprite

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DarkRyter said:
They're narrative driven. It's not like they put "Your choices affect the story!" on the box or anything.

The freedom they offer is in the gameplay, and that's the point.
Yeah. They've never marketed themselves as RPGs, or as a 'create your own character', 'this character is you' sort of thing. You're always playing a very cinematic, film-narrative kind of part, and you're given a clearly defined character, undergoing a clearly defined arc and set of events. It just happens to be set in a sandbox where you can run around and do whatever the fuck you want in between parts of the story.
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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ooknabah said:
However, the big issue that have have with these games is that while they give you a huge amount of player choice in between missions, allowing you to fly off the handle and murder and rampage or to abide by the rules and help those in need, ultimately the games take any real player choice away from you.

In both games you find yourself in situations where you're working for people you don't want to work for or have you in situations where there are clearly other solutions that are not being explored. When in player hands your avatar can be a one man army, killing hundreds of people without blinking an eye, but all of that disappears when it's time for a cut scene.

I guess my beef really boils down to the fact that your "freedom" is something that the designers don't really feed back into the game: No matter how many evil things your John Marston does, he will still be a stoic, heroic figure in the cut scenes, incapable of say, attempting to murder the people clearly setting him up over and over and over again. (You kill them in the third act, dummy!)
Rockstar doesn't make RPGs, if you want character and/or story choice, you have look towards the RPG genre (even though most don't have much actual "role-playing" anyways). Rockstar makes sandbox games, the point is to give you gameplay freedom, not character or story freedom. I actually don't like Rockstar's games either but it's because the main missions in their games are pretty boring and they aren't well design (just go there, kill X amount of enemies). Mercenaries is the best sandbox game I've ever played because the missions were great and offered true gameplay freedom (there was so many ways to complete each mission). You could tell the game was mainly designed from a linear perspective in which each mission and area was designed in a standalone fashion, then each mission was place on the a canvas to make a big map and world instead of how Rockstar does it by making the big map/world first then making the missions.
 

Phlakes

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This isn't a problem with the games, it's a problem with your expectations. You can't criticize a purposely linear game for being linear. Well, you can, but that still doesn't mean there's anything inherently wrong with it.
 

ooknabah

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Ghostwise said:
From the sound of things you just don't like games in general lol. Make your own!
A well reasoned and useful response. Thanks.

badgersprite said:
DarkRyter said:
They're narrative driven. It's not like they put "Your choices affect the story!" on the box or anything.

The freedom they offer is in the gameplay, and that's the point.
Yeah. They've never marketed themselves as RPGs, or as a 'create your own character', 'this character is you' sort of thing. You're always playing a very cinematic, film-narrative kind of part, and you're given a clearly defined character, undergoing a clearly defined arc and set of events. It just happens to be set in a sandbox where you can run around and do whatever the fuck you want in between parts of the story.
Maybe I just aspire for them to be more? Really, the lines of "is an RPG", particularly with games like Mass Effect kicking around, are blurred as hell. So let's got get into that particular issue, but rather break it down this way:

Mainly: Wasted Opportunities-
In GTA4, you DO make some decisions, which ultimately end in either killing Roman or your girlfriend. Those are earned moments in the game that actually have some impact- Why not do that more? Designed smartly, there are plenty of ways to tie a players hands that don't make it feel like you're making all the choices for them. Yes, Niko will always be the stoic man with the dark past haunting him, much in the same way that Commander Sheppard is always the bad-ass war hero who will use the best tools in front of him to win the day, but letting the player have some freedom within those confines goes a long way towards giving the dramatic events that play out in the game some weight. You were a part of that!

If there were even minor consequences for your actions outside of the main story: A character berates you for your outrageous actions or commends you for laying low, along with some in game perk for your actions, I think that would really add a lot to the game and have a feeling that everything you did had some ultimate consequence or weight- It doesn't have to be big enough to change the narrative sweep of the story, but enough so that the game is paying attention to what you're doing.

Ultimately, the test of any game design is to trick the player into feeling like their choices matter- weather those choices to be to forge an undying union between formerly warring factions, or to take cover early, use grenades and sniper rifles to destroy the enemy with minimal casualties- Acknowledging the players actions is the best way to ensure that the whole experience is a single, evolving story. It doesn't need to take much! Otherwise, you might as well just put Geometry Wars between missions.

"Congrats! You beat the mission! Now you can play Geometry Wars!"

"Oh... does this affect anything for me?"

"No, but you can play it as long as you want! We don't make those choices for you!"


Phlakes said:
This isn't a problem with the games, it's a problem with your expectations. You can't criticize a purposely linear game for being linear. Well, you can, but that still doesn't mean there's anything inherently wrong with it.
I expect games to continue to get better. I expect games to understand their medium. I expect games that rely on narrative to understand narrative. I'm not saying that Rockstar games fail entirely, but they miss opportunities to tell the stories they are telling in the most effective way. Yes, the ultimate path is that I will end up taking the mantle of James Marston and killing my father's killer. If I feel like that was my choice (no matter how much it is NOT my choice) that is a more successful moment.
 

ooknabah

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Phoenixmgs said:
Rockstar doesn't make RPGs, if you want character and/or story choice, you have look towards the RPG genre.
At this point, pretty much everybody makes "RPGs": You play a character that you build up in ability over time while completing objectives, many of which are non-essential, going about it in the manner of your choosing. Rockstar play with the same toolbox that the RPG designers do, they just don't go (in my opinion) far enough with it. I think this prevents their games from being as good as they could be.

I guess what I'm looking for here is to see if there are people who don't find the narrative affected from the disconnect created here. I know many gamers just want to tool around and blow up shit until they get bored, but to the people who actually go to the end of the game, doesn't it seem like a near miss on something that could be great?
 

predatorpulse7

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ooknabah said:
Seeing Red Dead mentioned in the GOTD thread, it has got me thinking about my primary beef with that game, and with Rockstar Games in general:

(This post contains some spoilers to Red Dead Redemption, GTA 4 and L.A. Noire. You've been warned.)

Many people say that what they love about Red Dead Redemption is it's ability to let you live out your cowboy fantasies: You've got a huge playground to run around in and there are countless hours of fun to be had playing in the Wild West sandbox that Rockstar has put together for you. Similarly with GTA4: You've got a fantastic re-creation of NYC (and it is pretty amazing: The parts of NYC that I know personally fit together pretty much exactly as I know them in real life!) with a bunch of things to do.

However, the big issue that have have with these games is that while they give you a huge amount of player choice in between missions, allowing you to fly off the handle and murder and rampage or to abide by the rules and help those in need, ultimately the games take any real player choice away from you.

In both games you find yourself in situations where you're working for people you don't want to work for or have you in situations where there are clearly other solutions that are not being explored. When in player hands your avatar can be a one man army, killing hundreds of people without blinking an eye, but all of that disappears when it's time for a cut scene.

I guess my beef really boils down to the fact that your "freedom" is something that the designers don't really feed back into the game: No matter how many evil things your John Marston does, he will still be a stoic, heroic figure in the cut scenes, incapable of say, attempting to murder the people clearly setting him up over and over and over again. (You kill them in the third act, dummy!)

At least games like L.A. Noire force you into a particular role: Cole Phelps is a police officer, and a pretty damned good one, and you only control him when he's on the job: In the context of that, it makes sense that you don't have a choice to say "Screw this police department!". And then, when it's revealed he's been having an affair, it doesn't feel like choices were taken away from the player: The player never chose what Cole did in his off hours to begin with. All you do is control a man's working hours, and he works as a police man, with a necessary amount of control out of his hands: He doesn't choose his cases, he just tries to solve them.

This makes less sense with Niko however: At a certain point, you've got a million dollars, a loving cousin and things are going along great with your girlfriends: It would be narratively interesting to allow the player the choice to give up the grudge: Even more so if doing so had consequences- But no, Niko persists and the story plays out more or less the same any way you slice it.

Ultimately, at the end of Red Dead Redemption, you take on the role of James Marston and take revenge for the death of your father, to continue a cycle of violence that has consumed your family. The goal is to feel the inevitability of the situation and see how John's choices led not only to his own destruction but to the destined path that his son will take in his shadow. It's a powerful moment, but one whose poignancy was always blunted, to me, by the fact that I never made any of the choices that brought me there.
Let me just say this: Freedom in games is an illusion. It could be argued that it is the same in the real world as well.
 

demoman_chaos

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ooknabah said:
Mainly: Wasted Opportunities-
In GTA4, you DO make some decisions, which ultimately end in either killing Roman or your girlfriend. Those are earned moments in the game that actually have some impact- Why not do that more? Designed smartly, there are plenty of ways to tie a players hands that don't make it feel like you're making all the choices for them. Yes, Niko will always be the stoic man with the dark past haunting him, much in the same way that Commander Sheppard is always the bad-ass war hero who will use the best tools in front of him to win the day, but letting the player have some freedom within those confines goes a long way towards giving the dramatic events that play out in the game some weight. You were a part of that!
You mean how making 1 choice in a mission just before the one you are referencing that changes between the 2 final mission sets? The one where Niko goes kill-crazy over a woman I never had him bother with? It really isn't any different than in Demon's Souls where you could walk away or kill the Maiden in Black at the very end. Nothing up to that point mattered. You could kill all NPC's you came across and be more evil than Lex Luther (he took forty cakes, that's as many as four tens and that's terrible) yet still get the same ending as Mother Teresa.
 

Racecarlock

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Well, how exactly would you have every decision effect the game and have random and non linear contacts while still having a story? Even if you were to pull off all of that writing and make every choice direction and ending satisfactory, there would still be a disk space issue. We're simply not at the point where narratives can be completely dynamic yet, so we really shouldn't expect it right now. Maybe 3-10 years down the line, but definitely not now. The reason games like frontier elite and vega strike are non linear is because they just randomly generate news stories and war progression and AI ship entry timing. Even then, dialogue choices are limited as to feel somewhat like an actual conversation rather than a linear one. Lower your expectations for now.
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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ooknabah said:
Phoenixmgs said:
Rockstar doesn't make RPGs, if you want character and/or story choice, you have look towards the RPG genre.
At this point, pretty much everybody makes "RPGs": You play a character that you build up in ability over time while completing objectives, many of which are non-essential, going about it in the manner of your choosing. Rockstar play with the same toolbox that the RPG designers do, they just don't go (in my opinion) far enough with it. I think this prevents their games from being as good as they could be.

I guess what I'm looking for here is to see if there are people who don't find the narrative affected from the disconnect created here. I know many gamers just want to tool around and blow up shit until they get bored, but to the people who actually go to the end of the game, doesn't it seem like a near miss on something that could be great?
Actually, very few developers make RPGs. RPGs are not about battle systems (there doesn't even need to be any battling), leveling up characters, getting new abilities, getting new armor, etc. The core of what makes a RPG a RPG is the actual role-playing; choosing what your character says, decides, and does. Basically, almost every JRPG is not a RPG because almost of all them feature no actual role-playing, everything your character(s) say and do is predetermined (Note: I'm not hating on JRPGs, I like them, but they ain't RPGs). I laugh at all the "Is Mass Effect a RPG?" topics because Mass Effect is one of the few games that gives you lots of dialogue choices and narrative choice. There isn't much narrative choice for the main storyline itself, but those side stories do give you quite a bit of choice. The reason not even Mass Effect gives you a lot of decisions to make in the main storyline is because every big choice you give to the player makes the story that much longer and more complex. Just one REAL branching story point (that's not at the very end of the game) alone requires a ton more writing. Yahtzee wanted to make a visual novel called Fork [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/7319-Extra-Punctuation-Interactive-Storytelling] that featured just 6 choices but that would basically require him to write 64 stories to do that.

The main point of a sandbox style game is not to let you do whatever the fuck you want and have it affect your character and the storyline, it's to give you a massive amount of freedom in how to complete mission objectives. Just something like go to point A and kill a group a thugs could be done by walking there and shooting them, getting in a helicopter and killing them, blowing up the building they are in, etc. You still kill the thugs no matter what, you are basically a killer then no matter how you went about completing the objective (there is no Batman option to knock them unconscious). So, no matter how you did it, your character's development is the same and the story is still the same.

Pen and Paper RPGs allow this kind of freedom because the game is being run by a human. If one of the other players does something that screws up the game master's intended storyline, he/she can on-the-fly alter and redirect the story. A computer program cannot do that, EVERYTHING has to pre-programmed for it to be able to handle stuff like that.
 

valleyshrew

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My 3 favourite games of all time in order are GTAIV, RDR and LA Noire. But I agree with you. They could do more with role playing elements. They're strongly influenced by film, tv and music and haven't explored the mediums potential for narrative interactions very deeply yet. But, it's an unfair criticism because there's less than a handful of games that have. People love these days to have this complaint, yet other than bethesda, bioware and quantic dream no one has really tried at narrative interactivity so it shouldn't result in a lower review score. I would absolutely love GTA to offer more role playing, but as it is they offer by far the best narrative experience available, even better than the few games that do allow player choices, and I can imagine if they did role playing it would make the games less perfect and a lot more flawed. I don't want forced good and evil type shit, I want more culturally significant, creative and memorable characters like Rockstar is known for and no other developer comes remotely close at creating.

They're alreadiy spending $100m, to create a satisfyingly interactive narrative GTA it would cost at least twice that. I think the episodes from liberty city created a nice difference from each other and all together they're an amazing piece of entertainment. I actually changed how I played with each character. Nico I was very conscientious and killed almost no pedestrians and went out of my way to avoid them. Johny I didn't care whether I killed any because he was more criminal, and Louis I deliberately killed as many as I could at all times because he was a psychopath. There was an incongruity with Nico being such a nice person and yet killing a minimum of 70 odd people in the game, but I think it's just a necessary flaw of the medium as a whole. LA Noire would have been a better game to try giving you the option to kill 0 people. Metal gear solid can get away with it because of stealth gameplay, and fallout can get away with it because of it's depth of role playing. Many fans would not like it if GTA tried it, but I would. I'm a little worried GTAV is a response to the backlash from fans and will have more crazy gameplay things that I don't want and less of the culture and relationships that made GTAIV not only my favourite game ever, but imo the most significant work of art and piece of entertainment in human history.
 

putowtin

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valleyshrew said:
My 3 favourite games of all time in order are GTAIV, RDR and LA Noire. But I agree with you. They could do more with role playing elements.
The problem with Rockstar is the fact that they don't have to try anything new, they know that fanboys (and girls) will go out in masses and buy their games, day one.

valleyshrew said:
I'm a little worried GTAV is a response to the backlash from fans and will have more crazy gameplay things that I don't want and less of the culture and relationships that made GTAIV not only my favourite game ever, but imo the most significant work of art and piece of entertainment in human history.
fanboys like you!
 

Forgetitnow344

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ooknabah said:
James Marston
I see you hated the ending enough to forget Jack's name. I had to play through a shitload of challenges as him because I was so eager to finish the story. I will never forget him and how hard he WORK YA DAMN NAG!

If I could tell myself a year or so ago one thing, it'd be to hold off on that last mission...
 

Funkysandwich

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I don't have a problem with that at all, I'm perfectly happy having the freedom to do whatever I want even if it doesn't make sense with how the character acts in cutscenes.

putowtin said:
valleyshrew said:
My 3 favourite games of all time in order are GTAIV, RDR and LA Noire. But I agree with you. They could do more with role playing elements.
The problem with Rockstar is the fact that they don't have to try anything new, they know that fanboys (and girls) will go out in masses and buy their games, day one.

valleyshrew said:
I'm a little worried GTAV is a response to the backlash from fans and will have more crazy gameplay things that I don't want and less of the culture and relationships that made GTAIV not only my favourite game ever, but imo the most significant work of art and piece of entertainment in human history.
fanboys like you!
Yeah, because Rockstar obviously haven't broken any new ground with any of their games ever.
 

ChupathingyX

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ooknabah said:
Ultimately, at the end of Red Dead Redemption, you take on the role of James Marston and take revenge for the death of your father, to continue a cycle of violence that has consumed your family.
1. His name is Jack.

2. That mission is optional.

3. Like everyone else has said, Rockstar games are not RPGs, so you shouldn't really go into them expecting heaps of choice.

Phoenixmgs said:
Mercenaries is the best sandbox game I've ever played because the missions were great and offered true gameplay freedom (there was so many ways to complete each mission).
Just out of curiosity, but are you referring to Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction?
 

putowtin

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Funkysandwich said:
I don't have a problem with that at all, I'm perfectly happy having the freedom to do whatever I want even if it doesn't make sense with how the character acts in cutscenes.

putowtin said:
valleyshrew said:
My 3 favourite games of all time in order are GTAIV, RDR and LA Noire. But I agree with you. They could do more with role playing elements.
The problem with Rockstar is the fact that they don't have to try anything new, they know that fanboys (and girls) will go out in masses and buy their games, day one.

valleyshrew said:
I'm a little worried GTAV is a response to the backlash from fans and will have more crazy gameplay things that I don't want and less of the culture and relationships that made GTAIV not only my favourite game ever, but imo the most significant work of art and piece of entertainment in human history.
fanboys like you!
Yeah, because Rockstar obviously haven't broken any new ground with any of their games ever.
I'm not saying that they havn't broken ground, GTA III is a prime example of how RockStar have made a massive impact on the gaming world.

What I was saying is that there are fanboys (and girls) out there that won't hear a word said against RockStar, and whilst a company only hears those voices that praise them, they won't change what their doing.
 

RipRoaringWaterfowl

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putowtin said:
Funkysandwich said:
I don't have a problem with that at all, I'm perfectly happy having the freedom to do whatever I want even if it doesn't make sense with how the character acts in cutscenes.

putowtin said:
valleyshrew said:
My 3 favourite games of all time in order are GTAIV, RDR and LA Noire. But I agree with you. They could do more with role playing elements.
The problem with Rockstar is the fact that they don't have to try anything new, they know that fanboys (and girls) will go out in masses and buy their games, day one.

valleyshrew said:
I'm a little worried GTAV is a response to the backlash from fans and will have more crazy gameplay things that I don't want and less of the culture and relationships that made GTAIV not only my favourite game ever, but imo the most significant work of art and piece of entertainment in human history.
fanboys like you!
Yeah, because Rockstar obviously haven't broken any new ground with any of their games ever.
I'm not saying that they havn't broken ground, GTA III is a prime example of how RockStar have made a massive impact on the gaming world.

What I was saying is that there are fanboys (and girls) out there that won't hear a word said against RockStar, and whilst a company only hears those voices that praise them, they won't change what their doing.
GTAIV actually was trying something new, as was L.A. Noire and arguably Red Dead Revolver (spiritual predecesor to Red Dead Redemption).

GTAIV's new angle was to give you a deeper character, provide satire instead of parody, and really keep up with the times. San Andreas also partly moves in that direction.

L.A. Noire was a big risk, being that the point and click style adventure games hadn't seen any form see the light of day for years, and it was new intellectual property.

And Red Dead Revolver, alongside Gun, proved that western sandboxes could work. This was a frame towards the rinky dinky time sinky Red Dead Redemption, who was in a genre that hadn't seen day since the Revolver and Gun.