Zero Punctuation: Grand Theft Auto 5

[IllumInaTIma]

And now I'm really curious what Yahtzee's Game of the Year will be. I mean, The Last of Us and GTA5 were both kinda meh in his opinion, so the only candidate left is Bioshock:Infinite?

 

[JamesStone]

It's interesting how when Yahtzee doesn't want to like a game, he brings up plot points that he doesn't particularly like and focuses on them. He did the same thing with the Last of Us.

Honestly, I miss the days when Zero Punctuation was about criticizing games due to actual issues with the gameplay and mechanics. There was hardly a word here about the gameplay itself. Yeah, the planes handle poorly but that's all that I got from this review. It really just seems lazy to me and an attempt to run against the mainstream. It's like he watched some character footage on YouTube and based the entire video on that.

Yeah, I knew you were going to hate it. Further justification for me to not buy it! Plus I still need to get Saints Row 4.

I can tell you firsthand that Saints Row 4 is absolute garbage and not even accidentally good. It's not even a matter of opinion. It's glitchy, boring, has absolutely no sense of pacing, most of the content is literally copy-pasted from Saints Row 3, the missions are insultingly easy, and the superpowers simply break the game.

Aaaaaahhh, the scout of the fanboy rage finally arrived. Finally gave up on trying to connect to GTA Online mate?

And I won't even bother going into your affirmations (it IS a matter of opinion, a very poorly justified opinion in your case) besides the glitchy part. You do know it's purposefully glitchy? Because they're taking down a simulation? And creating these glitches? Let me guess, it gets glitchier closer to Rift Events [rolls eyes].

 

[Stabby Joe]

"BREAKING NEWS: Comedic critic follows through with his long standing signature style and nitpicks a popular game, fanboys still caught off guard and can't handle it!"

I've never understood fanboys. I'm a fan sure but I don't think anything is infallible. The game has already received the better critical response to date and yet it's being defended like old below average PS3 launch title. It's a good, no, great game but even as a fan, fanboys make me really want to distance myself from the flock.

But what I don't understand is why Saints Row IV keeps getting dragged into it. The series has clearly evolved beyond straight GTA clone. I might as well be comparing GTA V with the last Prototype. In fact the most GTA-like game recently was Sleeping Dogs and people liked it all the same... is it just that SRIV came out the month before?

Anyway I've been enjoying GTA V just fine and I'm glad thisd review pointed out that it has more "colour" than GTA IV. The radio stations FIT this world, for example.

 

[Carpenter]

What he describes is pretty much the perspective I got as someone that never played GTA. Aside from a couple hours in GTA2 with a dozen silly cheats enabled 'cause the missions bored the snot out of me.

I expected the whole sandbox thing to make for more organic "Fuck yeah" moments tho. 'cause otherwise the game looks like a collection of games I already have, just not done as in-depth or with the variety in setting.

So I really bet everything on that "organic gameplay" wildcard that, fickle as it is, apparently just didn't resonate with Yahtzee.


Can someone that actually played (and perhaps even liked) the game elaborate with something specific? "It had great characters" or "shooting the gun feels really good" wouldn't tell me a whole lot.

I could go on for hours on why I love this game.
I can customize the cars, characters, and even the guns which I know isn't new but I have only seen this kind of gun customization in farcry 3. Yeah COD multiplayer had it but I'm not a multiplayer person.

Yes you can play tennis, golf, and racing in other games but to say it's not as in depth is a bit of a stretch. It does have different environments but does that really matter with tennis? Bottom line, I love that I can take a short break from shooting and driving and play a pretty good tennis game without having to switch disks. If it was just "press a to hit ball" I could see your point but it really is a pretty well crafted collection of minigames.

The environment is fun to explore and it helps that there are so many vehicles to explore it with. The game is filled with these peds that have a name and personality and usually some message they are trying to spread. People call it "pointless" but I thought it was a lot of fun to see how the different protagonists would react to them.

The in game internet can be used anywhere with the phone and is a lot of fun to explore and play around with. The Stock market sounds boring but it's just a gambling system that's not easy to cheat with save exploits.

The physics are a lot of fun to play around with, tons of little secret things to figure out. You can flip people off in your vehicle, aim it at people, and they react usually by trying to pull you out of your vehicle and beat you down. If you hit B (or circle) after jumping you can do a prat fall type of thing. Sounds pointless, it is, but again it's a lot of fun.

Shooting feels good may not be a selling point but yes, shooting feels good. Despite what people may think, there is an art to designing a game to "feel" a certain way when you fire a gun. Compare it to something like Duke Nukem forever where it somehow feels like you are shooting pellets and you will get what I am saying. Even the starting pistol feels like it has a lot of power, which is how it should feel.

The three protagonists isn't just an excuse to play missions with different skins, each character plays differently beyond the obvious special ability differences or stat differences. Franklin can stealthily unlock a vehicle's door while the other two just smash the window and try to quickly hotwire the thing.

Stealth actually works in this game and can be used in a lot of missions although the game rarely reminds you (but I like when a game doesn't constantly hold your hand when it comes to alternate ways of dealing with situations) and the wanted system is the best I have seen in any open world game so far.
It feels like a "Drive" video game when you are trying to evade police. Instead of a "search circle" each cop has a vision cone on the radar but it's not about just staying out of the cone because you can be in their "vision cone" and still be out of sight if you are behind something. In other words, it feels like you are actually hiding from police and it helps that the police don't just rush straight to you but actually search the area of the reported crime and check various alleys looking for you, giving you plenty of opportunities to use different tactics, such as waiting for a cop car to pass before making a mad dash to the alley across the street or losing an army of cops for just long enough to switch vehicles before they find you (which can get the heart pounding when they are nearing your position and your character is struggling to get the car started) allowing you to drive away without an issue as long as you don't get too close to a cop car.

There is no "vigilante" side mission but you can play an actual vigilante by going around the city and hunting down thieves, muggers, and gangsters. It does a lot of the random pedestrian crimes and events that red dead redemption did.

Like I said, I could go on for hours. I love ZP but I wouldn't use his videos as a reference for the games I would enjoy. I like to have fun while playing a game, I like to put myself into a role (not just the one assigned by the developers) and see how it plays out.

It may not be your type of game, but personally I love games like this. I finding strange little details put in for pedestrian AI or the game physics that wasn't widely advertised.

I also like the challenge. You die quickly, meaning you won't have the long killing sprees that apparently made GTA famous. That may be a deal breaker for many but personally I got really bored in other GTA games when I just felt near invincible. The way it's set up here, it actually feels fun to go on the occasional spree because it's so hard to keep it going that managing to stay alive during a non mission police shootout for a few minutes feels pretty satisfying.

If you're not into this type of game I could understand that but personally I always loved GTA since I played GTA 1 for the first time and this is a collection of things I always wished a GTA game would do.

Keep in mind I haven't touched online, I don't have a gold account, so I don't know if there's anything on that end that would be a deal breaker. I play for single player, I have been playing obsessively for, I think, about a week and still only have about 30 percent completed. I feel like I got my money's worth and for a 60 dollar game that's extremely rare for me.

 

[Lieju]

The thing I've noticed in all the advertisements is that they are all about a blonde chick in a bikini. I don't even know who she is (maybe the daughter of one the the playable characters?), but it seems whoever is behind that decision doesn't think the protagonists are appealing enough to sell the game.

 

[Teoes]

So is G-Tit sitting in Escapist Towers loudly proclaiming (not for the first time, no doubt) that "Suuuuuuure, it's ok when Ben does it!"?

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Aaaaaahhh, the scout of the fanboy rage finally arrived. Finally gave up on trying to connect to GTA Online mate?

And I won't even bother going into your affirmations (it IS a matter of opinion, a very poorly justified opinion in your case) besides the glitchy part. You do know it's purposefully glitchy? Because they're taking down a simulation? And creating these glitches? Let me guess, it gets glitchier closer to Rift Events [rolls eyes].

It's funny how you call me a fanboy. First off, this is the first GTA game I've ever purchased. I've never even played any of the other ones for more than half an hour. I liked Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire, but that would hardly make me a fanboy. You won't even go into anything else I say because absolutely nothing I said would have pinned me as a fanboy, you're just looking for a random insult. I also haven't even tried connecting to GTA online yet because I knew it was going to be a mess ever since they announced that there would be an online mode.

And really? Purposefully glitchy? I wasn't even talking about the graphical glitches. I'm not stupid. I'm talking about the fact that sometimes cars would literally run me off the road for no reason. There were times when I saw a car stuck under a semi freaking out until they both exploded. Cars were stuck in trees. Bullets often simply didn't connect. You can't just say "well it's a simulation so it's supposed to happen!" And you call me a fanboy.

 

[Carpenter]

Hmm okay, he didn't like it that much I guess.

One thing I don't understand though, why is Saints Row considered 'fun' and the later GTA aren't? Because you can run around with a dildo and other wacky stuff? That's wacky. Not necessarily fun. I didn't play GTAV of course (having only a PC and stuff), but I definitely had tons more fun with GTA IV then SR2+3 combined and if GTA had the same stupid wacky humor everywhere, I'd like it less.

It's mostly a question of what's being done with the sandbox tools.

Saints Row IV is the last milestone in a progressive effort to put fun ahead of any kind of lofty socio-critical or "socio-satirical" goals, so all of the wackiness you feel doesn't really bring much to the table is a reflection of Volition trying to cram in as many individually fun mechanics as possible.

It works, for the most part. You don't *have* to customize the Boss so he looks like Pennywise the Clown, but you can. You don't *have* to pack tentacle dildos and alien rifles, but you can. You don't *have* to meld into the setting's general craziness and you can design a straight-man or woman persona - but you also can choose to simply wing it and follow along. It's a big pile of inclusive mechanics that's just begging to be explored.

As for GTA - the focus is squarely on satire. If that's more up your alley, so be it. It's a horrible and horribly shallow version of America and Western culture as a whole, but that's largely the point. I, for one, don't exactly feel like playing a game that endlessly pokes fun at habits that might not be so bad, if they're used sparingly and responsibly. The LifeInvader functions being the best example of that. Rockstar is implicitly telling us that social networks favor exhibitionism or stalking behaviours, but the fact is that we all *choose* to use that service or not, and we all can choose what to put in our Facebook profiles.

For instance, I use a sock puppet-esque account, myself. Facebook is largely a tool for me to keep up with family photos and the whereabouts of a few travelling friends. I don't obsess over my amount of friends and I'm not about to start running after near-complete strangers from my elementary or high school years so I look like I'm "in" with the social networking crowd.

Considering, the game's parody of Facebook doesn't touch me. It feels contrived, like an annoying and self-deluded would-be funnyman who keeps poking you and going "HEY. HEY. LOOK. I'M BEING META. OR CLEVER. OR POSSIBLY BOTH. HEY."

Again, that's just my opinion, but "clever" writing is of lesser importance to me than the general sense that the game isn't born out of some pool of negativity. GTA V feels like it was written by dissatisfied thirtysomethings on the verge of pulling a Tyler Durden, whereas SRIV feels silly and self-assured enough to be the work of someone who loves the idiosyncrasies of popular culture and life in general.

The whole idea that Saints row puts "fun above all else" is kind of silly. It's not like games like GTA are not designed to be fun, it's just that it has a story to go with it.

Saints Row put more effort into the story and the social commentary then people give it credit for because they take their advertising campaigns at face value. It's actually kind of sad. Saints row 2 and up were not just "stupid fun" it was only fun because it was meticulously designed by hard working people to be fun. It had nothing to do with being able to spray poop on things, everything was balanced in paced in a very specific way.

This whole "SR versus GTA" thing is nothing short of silly. It's like pretending that Skyrim and Dark Souls are competing games. A person is perfectly capable of enjoying both, I think I'm living proof of that. This whole idea that you need to knock one game because you like another is just childish.

 

[porous_shield]

Over time as I've gotten immune to Yahtzee's shtick (or either he has just gotten less funny) it has left me wondering whether he is actually reviewing things or whether he is reviewing things as this character Yahtzee would review them.

This was a particularly poor review and I actually agree with a lot of the points. It doesn't seem to have a very strong structure (there's not the usual rise to power arc), the heists felt too linear and tonally it does struggle between being serious, satirical and then just plain silly. However a lot of what he said was either irrelevant, hyper critical{/b] or just false. The characters were genuinely entertaining even if the plot was a mess and I think the reason he doesn't bother to gave any serious explanation for that comment is because he can't come up with one. In a medium where a lot of protagonists don't even speak it seems bizarre to write off some well acted and written characters so dismissively. Some of the other things he said felt like he hadn't even played it properly: the flying training missions were optional side quests so you could learn how to do some tricks not a perquisite for flying a plane.

If you're going to start of a review by comparing the people that like it to brainwashed pigs eating shit you had better bring out your most intelligent stuff.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not but hyper critical is seriously one of your complaints about his review? All the Zero Punctuation videos are like that. Also, they aren't reviews either and more like comedic nitpicking commentary.

 

[Carpenter]

The thing I've noticed in all the advertisements is that they are all about a blonde chick in a bikini. I don't even know who she is (maybe the daughter of one the the playable characters?), but it seems whoever is behind that decision doesn't think the protagonists are appealing enough to sell the game.

You realize that this is a staple of the GTA games, right?
I have seen no advertisements using the "bikini women" to sell the game but it is on the disk and the load screen for the same reason that it was used for SA and VC.

People want to talk about fanboyism, it seems like people that never tried the game are jumping on a nitpicking bandwagon because of a ZP video. You realize nitpicking is his thing right? He did the same with the orange box, I doubt that means Half Life 2 is a bad game.

Difference between his nitpicking and yours is that he knows how to be entertaining and clever. Maybe you do, but if that's the case you certainly don't seem to be putting in the effort.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Sounds like I was right to avoid this, for the moment at least. Also sounds about on the same sort of wavelength as Tito's review too. Interesting to see that it hasn't had the same amount of fanboy rage about it.

 

[Carpenter]

Over time as I've gotten immune to Yahtzee's shtick (or either he has just gotten less funny) it has left me wondering whether he is actually reviewing things or whether he is reviewing things as this character Yahtzee would review them.

This was a particularly poor review and I actually agree with a lot of the points. It doesn't seem to have a very strong structure (there's not the usual rise to power arc), the heists felt too linear and tonally it does struggle between being serious, satirical and then just plain silly. However a lot of what he said was either irrelevant, hyper critical{/b] or just false. The characters were genuinely entertaining even if the plot was a mess and I think the reason he doesn't bother to gave any serious explanation for that comment is because he can't come up with one. In a medium where a lot of protagonists don't even speak it seems bizarre to write off some well acted and written characters so dismissively. Some of the other things he said felt like he hadn't even played it properly: the flying training missions were optional side quests so you could learn how to do some tricks not a perquisite for flying a plane.

If you're going to start of a review by comparing the people that like it to brainwashed pigs eating shit you had better bring out your most intelligent stuff.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not but hyper critical is seriously one of your complaints about his review? All the Zero Punctuation videos are like that. Also, they aren't reviews either and more like comedic nitpicking commentary.

I think his point was that there are criticisms to make but this just came of as lazy.

I don't agree, I enjoyed the video, but that is the opinion he was presenting. If you really feel the need to defend Yahtzee against every criticism, maybe read the criticism before attempting a defense. If a strawman argument is the only way you can defend it, maybe rethink why you are putting the time into defending a video you had nothing to do with making in the first place.

 

[Stabby Joe]

This whole "SR versus GTA" thing is nothing short of silly. It's like pretending that Skyrim and Dark Souls are competing games. A person is perfectly capable of enjoying both, I think I'm living proof of that. This whole idea that you need to knock one game because you like another is just childish.

Pretty much got it one.

Just like Dark Souls before Skyrim, Saints Row IV came out in the month before GTA V so apparently they must MUST be compared and enjoyed exclusively, where the mere existence of another title means only one game can be BEST EVER and the other WORST EVER!

It will be interesting to see how many pages this goes. Hopefully less than GTA IV, MGS4 and Smash Bros. because no one remembers those ultimately meaning nothing.

 

[Carpenter]

Saints Row IV is the last milestone in a progressive effort to put fun ahead of any kind of lofty socio-critical or "socio-satirical" goals

However, the question is - what is 'fun'? For everyone, it's something else.

But for some reason, it's taken for granted that fun means stuff like creating a pink fat avatar, beating people up with dildos, shooting a dubstep gun, throwing shit at houses (literally) etc. etc. like you can do in SR.

But why is this supposed to be the default meaning of fun?

Because I'm not having fun in SR.

I'm having fun in GTA IV because the driving mechanics are good, because the game at least resembles a normal story (and the episodes made the story quite great IMO). Because I can ride my bike in the night and it actually feels like a real city (albeit it's a satirical copy).

In real life, I was in a really lovely city a few months ago and some parts of Liberty City reminded me of that. It's pretty much the only way for to see such environments again.

So yea, I'm having fun in GTA IV (and other games) because it's my kind of fun and I'm not having fun in Saints Row because it's not my kind of fun.

So you can call Saints Row wacky, or random, or stupid (in a not-bad way), or whatever. But I object to simply calling it 'fun' just because it's like this. However most reviews do just that - call the mechanics in SR fun and be done with it.

I'd like to have and play GTA V because it feels like it's my kind of fun again, while I'm not interested in SR4 - for me, it's not fun.

See, I used the word fun so many times it literally lost its meaning.

BTW as for the satire in GTA series, I don't even feel it's all that relevant since it's not tied to the game mechanics anyway.

That's another good point that rarely gets brought up.

People saying "SR is about fun" kind of miss the point that different things are fun for different people. To be honest, I forgot about all the people acting like it's fun to use the dildo weapon and make silly avatars that talk like zombies. That was always the least fun way to play SR3 personally, I had much more fun trying to craft a thug dictator type of avatar and having battle tactics that matched that type of character.

Some people have fun role playing, I know I do, hence why I have more fun with GTA 5 than I have with any SR game, although I still love SR.

 

[Carpenter]

Sounds like I was right to avoid this, for the moment at least. Also sounds about on the same sort of wavelength as Tito's review too. Interesting to see that it hasn't had the same amount of fanboy rage about it.

Did you read Tito's review? It wasn't "fanboy rage" and was well justified considering Tito gets paid to review games and he makes a review that does nothing but complain about the story, state things that are demonstrably false (I explained this in the "worst reviews" thread if you care to know what I am talking about) and then ends it by giving it a good score.

If he didn't like the game, that's valid, but doing nothing but complain about one aspect of the game and then giving it a good score shows a whole new degree to unprofessionalism that I had only seen on Gamefaqs user reviews before that.

But yes, call it "fanboy rage" and say that people were just "mad it didn't get a perfect score" because apparently strawman arguments are the norm on the Escapist forums and from the Escapist staff.

 

[Carpenter]

So basically the impression I got from this was this did not deserve that billion dollars in sales it got and was basically just GTA IV minus the escort missions.

Yeah....I'll just stick to Saint's Row from now on. GTA has lost me as a franchise.

That's not even close to anything the video was stating.

Yes, please stick to saints row. Starting to see why people don't appreciate the work that went into that game either.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I hooted like a loon at that final joke. I'm a bad person.

Having more than 2-3 people writing a single character's dialogue is a terrible idea. Even then, it's really one writing and two editing.

 

[Goliath100]

...other open world games...

I'm getting really tired of this, especially when professionals do it to. What others exactly?

 

[Carpenter]

I hooted like a loon at that final joke. I'm a bad person.

Having more than 2-3 people writing a single character's dialogue is a terrible idea. Even then, it's really one writing and two editing.

So comics are a horrible idea?
You know how many people have written dialog for spiderman? Still manages to be a consistent character.

I love ZP but if you believe the characters are poorly written just because Yahtzee told you so, maybe you should avoid games as a whole.

 

[Evonisia]

The thing I've noticed in all the advertisements is that they are all about a blonde chick in a bikini. I don't even know who she is (maybe the daughter of one the the playable characters?), but it seems whoever is behind that decision doesn't think the protagonists are appealing enough to sell the game.

She's not even a character in the game, unless she's just one of the random NPCs. I guess just showing a pair of breasts will attract people to your game.