Zero Punctuation: Grand Theft Auto 5

[Cpt. Slow]

I've been poked, badgered and belittled with the question: 'Did you get GTA V?' which I respond with a soft no (although, that was the first 10 times people asked me, now they are getting a soft growl instead) I get that people like this game, but stop annoying other people over it.

Really, not everyone shares the same taste or has the time to spend behind an X-Box/PlayStation. I haven't found games appealing the last 6 months, except for Papers, Please because that really got my blood going in a positive way. Either I'm becoming old and boring or just have 'seen it all, been there, done that'. I am leaning to the last part of my previous sentence.

Anyway, maybe I'm going to give it a whirl when it comes out on PC. Or I find a girlfriend, marry and reproduce like there is no tomorrow. Both things could happen, although me playing GTA V would be more likely.

 

[C14N]

I can understand looking for balance in reviews, that isn't really what's going on here though. It feels more like people looking for smug validation that they made the right decision to not play a popular game so they focus on the negative reviews and ignore the positive ones. It's confirmation bias, plain and simple and it's pretty weird.

People aren't happy because someone gave a balanced review of the game, Yahtzee discusses very little at the end of the day, they're happy that he criticised it. It's effectively fanboyism of a different kind. Instead of saying something is good with limited/no evidence and getting mad when people say it isn't we have people saying it's bad with little/no evidence and being smug/condescending when a review agrees with them because they think it shows that they're clever and smart whilst everyone who bought the game is silly sheeple buying into the hype.

Obviously that isn't everyone but an actual discussion about the game hasn't managed to take off because because there's too much "flame shield up" type bullshit from the crowd that I mentioned.

e: Just to quickly add a bit more in here, look at the people comparing SR4 favourably to GTA5. SR4 is the weakest game I've played in the SR series, it's bland, repetitive, glitchy, self referential to an obnoxious degree, set in a location I've already thoroughly explored and the superpowers make guns pointless. People are still comparing it favourably to GTA5 though despite it blowing all the predecessors out of the water.

Maybe it is, I can't really speak for others but for myself, I feel like the GTA reviews were unbalanced. Honestly, even with my own favourite games, I feel like somebody needs to be harsh on them. To me, a game you love is not one that doesn't have flaws, it's just the flaws are ones you personally do not mind or which you actually enjoy. I absolutely loved Metal Gear Solid 2. I'm completely willing to concede that Raiden is annoying, the story is convoluted and ridiculous and much of the acting and dialogue are on par with daytime soap operas but it's still one of my favourites of the generation. I can say there are similar problems with other games I loved like Spec Ops: The Line, The Last of Us and Mass Effect 1.

I think Yahtzee did make some points about the problems he perceived in the game though. I at least got the following from it:
1) There is still little attempt by Rockstar to try and fix ludonarrative dissonance because the sandboxing is inconsistent with their attempts to tell a decent story
2) Childish humour is prevalent
3) Characters are badly written and neither interesting nor likeable
4) Heist missions are a good concept but spoiled by the lack of freedom to be creative
5) Building stats feels pointless because there is no long-term gain
6) Poorly placed tutorials
7) Game is overall a bit disjointed
8) Story isn't very good and tends to repeat itself in new situations
9) Art direction is improved over GTA 4
10) Physics engine and driving have improved
11) Buying property actually makes sense
12) Summary: game is okay but doesn't have any great new ideas that stand out as particularly good

so I think he did talk about the game enough in his comparatively short review (the mainstream ones I watched were all about twice as long). I certainly found it more informative as a review than the ones that told me how long it takes to drive from one end of the city to the other or that listed all the side activities you could do. Certainly, despite dozens of reviews with scores, I didn't hear many of the above criticisms mentioned at all, at least in the sample I read/watched.

You're right about the comments though. Every time a big franchise gets reviewed the number of people saying crap like "here comes fanboy rage" outnumber the actual fanboys about 10 to 1; people know what to expect by now with ZP, the reviews are generally inflammatory and somewhat against the grain. Those comments are also far more annoying than the passionate anger responses, at least the rage is fun to read.

 

[C14N]

Last of Us does not make you a 'bad guy'. It makes you the anti-hero and it becomes very clear very early, with the 'fuck you got mine' attitude that is practically a requirement for an anti-hero character.

Last of Us ends with our two heroes leaving it all behind and living happily ever after, or as close to it in post-apocalyptia. In Spec Ops you either kill yourself in penance for what you did, or you retreat further into your little delusion, covering what you did with poor justifications.

The Last of Us was legitimately the most depressing ending of any video game I've ever played. It absolutely makes you the bad guy of epic proportions. I was down for about two days after the end because of how awful the stuff Joel does are. I literally cannot think of an ending from any video game that is less "happily ever after" and I've played quite a few. I'm not sure how Yahtzee saw that in it at all, certainly none of the people I've talked to about it did.

I played through Spec Ops twice and really liked it, but it didn't make me feel as bad as The Last of Us did, probably because at least at the end of Spec Ops the bad guy dies (for me anyway).

 

[StriderShinryu]

I think Yahtzee did make some points about the problems he perceived in the game though. I at least got the following from it:
1) There is still little attempt by Rockstar to try and fix ludonarrative dissonance because the sandboxing is inconsistent with their attempts to tell a decent story
2) Childish humour is prevalent
3) Characters are badly written and neither interesting nor likeable
4) Heist missions are a good concept but spoiled by the lack of freedom to be creative
5) Building stats feels pointless because there is no long-term gain
6) Poorly placed tutorials
7) Game is overall a bit disjointed
8) Story isn't very good and tends to repeat itself in new situations
9) Art direction is improved over GTA 4
10) Physics engine and driving have improved
11) Buying property actually makes sense
12) Summary: game is okay but doesn't have any great new ideas that stand out as particularly good

I ended up with pretty much the same impression. Like the game or don't like the game? No big issue to me either way, but to point at this ZP and say that it doesn't actually discuss the game on a meaningful or useful level is a bit silly.

 

[K4mpfschwein]

The scream at the end is creepypasta material...

ZERO PUNCTUATION LOST EPISODE.

I WENT TO AN ALL NIGHT GARAGE SALE DURING A FULL MOON THAT WAS HELD OUT OF A MENTAL HOSPITAL. THERE WAS THIS OLD MAN WITH FANGS SELLING VHS TAPES. I BOUGHT ONE THAT JUST SAID "ZP LE" ON IT. I TOOK HOME AND PLAY IT. IT WAS HIM SCREAMING AND THE EYES WERE LIKE TOTALLY REALISTIC AND THEY BLED NOW I'M DEAD THE END.

Oh god why would you post that. I totally read it in Yahtzee's voice.

 

[Kyle Davis]

So wait......They would not release SR4 in your country but they were all right with GTA5? I don't understand your government at all. They're game censorship doesn't make any sense anymore.

 

[shikakuzetsumei]

I saw that GTAV was coming out and decided it was time to try GTAIV. I enjoyed San Andreas and was interested to see what the hype was all about for GTAIV. Sadly, I never really got into it. The beginning was a bit dry and uninteresting for me, and I never got the motivation to move past those initial five or so hours. Once the summer ended, I just kind of set it aside and forgot about it.

So wait......They would not release SR4 in your country but they were all right with GTA5? I don't understand your government at all. They're game censorship doesn't make any sense anymore.

I wonder that myself.

 

[Sotanaht]

So wait......They would not release SR4 in your country but they were all right with GTA5? I don't understand your government at all. They're game censorship doesn't make any sense anymore.

Obviously R* has more money to bribe them with than Deep Silver. Well maybe not literally but I'm sure in the end it all came down to money, GTAV is a huge title and judging from the advertising Yahtzee described it sounds like they poured a lot of money into the local economy. That plus the cash flow from the actual game sales and they would have to be pretty stupid to block it.

 

[Adultism]

/FANBOY STAMPEED

WHERES THE NEXT EPISODE?!?!?!?!

OT: Ahahaha, nice review. I pretty much spend all my time in GTA using the pratfall system to hurt Michael all day.

 

[ERaptor]

So, if the fact that Yahtzee also bashes Games he likes hasnt tipped you off, maybe a quote from one of his videos will help:

"But you dont call a sewage-Technician to redecorate your bathroom. And you dont call ME to hear how a game is GOOD."

He points out even the nitpickiest sh*t he can find. He liked Arkham Asylum and then proceeded to hate on the BOXART off all things. And sorry, im not taking the whole "You're not supposed to like the protagonists!"-thing. It just sounds like an incredibly lame excuse for bad writing. And dont get me wrong, i dont think the Protagonists are sh*t, but Yahtzee's guess that we were given three because "Then they SURELY will have one they like" feels very spot on. And as others have said, he does critiques, not Reviews. So he he isnt _trying_ to give some kind of all-including fair "Review". Case in point FFXIII, where he abandoned the game way before the so called "Good Bits".

So yeah, let the butthurt flow trough you.

 

[Sotanaht]

While I certainly understand that Yahtzee will nitpick the shit out of even the best game ever, I don't really get the feeling deep down that he liked this one much. That especially comes from the point where he basically calls the game a complete mess and not in a good way like SR4.

 

[webby]

I think Yahtzee did make some points about the problems he perceived in the game though. I at least got the following from it:
1) There is still little attempt by Rockstar to try and fix ludonarrative dissonance because the sandboxing is inconsistent with their attempts to tell a decent story
2) Childish humour is prevalent
3) Characters are badly written and neither interesting nor likeable
4) Heist missions are a good concept but spoiled by the lack of freedom to be creative
5) Building stats feels pointless because there is no long-term gain
6) Poorly placed tutorials
7) Game is overall a bit disjointed
8) Story isn't very good and tends to repeat itself in new situations
9) Art direction is improved over GTA 4
10) Physics engine and driving have improved
11) Buying property actually makes sense
12) Summary: game is okay but doesn't have any great new ideas that stand out as particularly good

I see your point but the issue is that not all those points are accurate or even true. The game gives you a nutter to do your insane sandbox stuff with to diminish the whatever whatever dissonance thing and this is an inherent flaw with any game where a character has a personality but lets me control them. It's GTA so the humour varies wildly from clearly adult to kinda silly, the characters aren't badly written, stat building does have a noticeable effect when you play the game, the flight school thing Yahtzee mentions can be done at any time or not at all so it isn't a "Tutorial" (the mission you do is effectively the flying tutorial) and finally I thought the story and missions provided a lot of variety (a lot more than previous GTA or SR games anyway).

So yeah, whilst a lot of points can be dragged out of the video most of them are throw away comments that have left an inaccurate representation of the game, so whilst I understand that it's Yahtzees job to pick the things he doesn't like about a game whilst ignoring the good stuff I feel like lately (and in this video in particular) he's just outright lying to be able to say "I don't like this game". Plus, I imagine the video spent more time moaning about advertising than it did discussing all of the points you mentioned combined.

Even things I agreed with (like the heist stuff) comes with a massive addendum of "but they are cool as hell". Added flexibility would've been nice but it may have come at the cost of losing some of the cooler moments. As has been pointed out, one of the heists involves you fighting your way through a burning and collapsing skyscraper before rappelling down an elevator shaft, it would be reeeeeeally tricky to programme in that sort of "holy fuck" moment without it being somewhat linear. I kinda like the combination of "do what you like" and "now do what we say" because it lets me make my own fun by doing silly things in the world whilst still having major set piece events to guide me through doing something cool. I found that games like Thief or Hitman degraded into boring slogs with me eventually just shooting everyone in the face or save-scumming my way to success which isn't really that much fun.

 

[Hellfireboy]

I loved this video but I have one question; where the hell is the one for this week? Zero Punctuation is the only series on this site that I really look forward to so... what?

 

[FiveSpeedf150]

The "Gamblers Fallacy" coins going "Nope" "Nup" "Fuck you" was a snarf-worthy moment.

 

[C14N]

I see your point but the issue is that not all those points are accurate or even true. The game gives you a nutter to do your insane sandbox stuff with to diminish the whatever whatever dissonance thing and this is an inherent flaw with any game where a character has a personality but lets me control them.

Not necessarily. It's really thinking inside the box to just say "we can do nothing about this glaring problem so lets just not bother trying to fix it". A problem doesn't just not count because you couldn't think of a solution and a game with the budget and development time of GTA could try to do something to patch it up. From what I've heard it works okay with Trevor but that still leaves two relative straight-men who are completely different in the player's hands than the game's. Also, you can get away with it if you just play it as a straight comedy.

It's GTA so the humour varies wildly from clearly adult to kinda silly

Humour is something that is very subjective but clearly Yahtzee didn't get much of a laugh out of GTA's. Personally, I found the humour childish in previous GTAs too. Stuff like a beer called "Pisswasser" seems like the joke is just "ha! they said 'piss' because bad beer tastes like urine!" and most of the satire seemed about as sharp and edgy as a beach ball. Again, this is completely subjective and lots of people enjoy it, which is fine, but that doesn't mean everyone has to.

the characters aren't badly written

That's a pretty brief way to refute such a large issue. Yahtzee gave a clear example of why Franklin was badly written (and it sounded very similar to the problems with Niko in GTA 4) and Michael's motivations for wealth don't make much sense (again, like Niko in GTA 4).

the characters aren't badly written

I thought the story and missions provided a lot of variety (a lot more than previous GTA or SR games anyway).[/quote]

Maybe, but clearly not enough that he thought it was worth mentioning. You even had to qualify the statement yourself by saying that it was only good by the standards of the previous games in the series.

whilst I understand that it's Yahtzees job to pick the things he doesn't like about a game whilst ignoring the good stuff I feel like lately (and in this video in particular) he's just outright lying to be able to say "I don't like this game".

The rest of your post I can see where you're coming from but this is just bullshit. You think that just because you liked a game, that means nobody else could possibly have disliked or even just thought it wasn't great. This is a major problem in the gaming community and it's the same stuff that made a load of people rage at the reviews that gave the game a 9 instead of a 10 because deep in their heart, those critics must have actually thought GTA 5 was the very pinnacle of gaming as we know it and they're just saying it's not quite to get attention. In the last few years Yahtzee has actually been giving plenty of pretty good reviews, this just wasn't one of them.

Plus, I imagine the video spent more time moaning about advertising than it did discussing all of the points you mentioned combined.

It's pretty hypocritical to complain about Yahtzee blowing negative aspects out of proportion when you say stuff like this. 34 seconds of a 320 second video were spent on the advertising, which was the introduction and served the point of commenting on how ubiquitously popular GTA has become.

Even things I agreed with (like the heist stuff) comes with a massive addendum of "but they are cool as hell". Added flexibility would've been nice but it may have come at the cost of losing some of the cooler moments. As has been pointed out, one of the heists involves you fighting your way through a burning and collapsing skyscraper before rappelling down an elevator shaft, it would be reeeeeeally tricky to programme in that sort of "holy fuck" moment without it being somewhat linear. I kinda like the combination of "do what you like" and "now do what we say" because it lets me make my own fun by doing silly things in the world whilst still having major set piece events to guide me through doing something cool. I found that games like Thief or Hitman degraded into boring slogs with me eventually just shooting everyone in the face or save-scumming my way to success which isn't really that much fun.

Yahtzee did have the addendum of the heist missions being pretty good, but "cool as hell" is not good terminology for any professional critic, least of all this one. And this stuff is all just your opinion. You might like explosive, pre-planned set pieces but not everyone does. Similarly, not everyone appreciates the absence of any actual sand box elements in the main quest. You need to accept that while your opinions are completely valid, they aren't indisputable facts.

I still haven't played GTA5 because I don't have the time and I almost never buy games at full price but I could still love it. Either way, I'm not going to go accusing people who disagree of lying for the sake of trying to get attention.

 

[MCHG]

How can he complain about ludonarrative dissonance in this game when he liked Bioshock Ininite?

 

[Harmor]

Oh well Yahtzee - your reviews have been better. As of late he seems more inclined to appeal to the masses of ZP fanboys than objectiveness (aka rambling). When for example he critizises GTA V's writing because Michael apparently is rich and there's no reason for him to once again drop into a life of crime, he kindly ignores the fact (most likely so that he could get this line out in the first place) that Michael ends up 2.5 mil Dollar in debt to some mobster after ruining the guy's house. Yahtzee NEVER mentions this storyline reason for Michael to once again go down his criminal path, yet bashes storytelling in the game - right. That's cheap borderlining on the obnoxious, no more, no less and yep - can in actual fact be qualified as lying.

Next up, there will ALWAYS be discrepancies between characters and the way players use them in open world games. Well duh - it's the nature of the beast. If it bothers you so much, why not stay in character with either Michael, Trevor and Franklin? It's called roleplaying and ppl do that if otherwise they'd feel their actions wouldn't work with character A/B/C. Yes, incredibly linear missions in a sandbox game are indeed quite ... meh, this being the one point I agree on with Yahtzee, but over the course of this review he is simply trying too damn hard to stick to his 'Incredibly hard to please' game critic shtick. Yeah it is funny but as I said before, it sometimes comes across as trying too damn hard.

My short review of this episode would be that while it is funny it is also not only misleading but contains false information (see above) about storyline presentation. So far, Yahtzee hasn't resorted to such lows to get his point across - once again, trying too damn hard. Having played GTA V for about 10 hours now (less than I would have liked but there's this real life-thing interfering more often than not) from this ZP episode it seems to me Yahtzee played a completely different game than I. Considering the fact I have a few of the games Yahtzee has reviewed over the years, this is a novelty - but perhaps one that was to be expected...

Edit: Almost forgot this @ C14N: How in the world can you criticize the dude who disagrees with Yahtzee and thinks the characters ARE, in fact, well done (I think the same) when you haven't even played the game? All I see in your post is ... 'But Yahtzee said' and 'But Yahtzee thinks' - it doesn't MATTER what Yahtzee thinks. Why? Because when I like something in a game I have actively played, no single person is going to convince me otherwise. So in this case, Yahtzee doesn't like the characters - fine, but his opinion in this case means nothing to me because I DO like them. Who is objectively right? No one - it's a matter of taste.

 

[IronMit]

Last of Us does not make you a 'bad guy'. It makes you the anti-hero and it becomes very clear very early, with the 'fuck you got mine' attitude that is practically a requirement for an anti-hero character.

Last of Us ends with our two heroes leaving it all behind and living happily ever after, or as close to it in post-apocalyptia. In Spec Ops you either kill yourself in penance for what you did, or you retreat further into your little delusion, covering what you did with poor justifications.

The Last of Us was legitimately the most depressing ending of any video game I've ever played. It absolutely makes you the bad guy of epic proportions. I was down for about two days after the end because of how awful the stuff Joel does are. I literally cannot think of an ending from any video game that is less "happily ever after" and I've played quite a few. I'm not sure how Yahtzee saw that in it at all, certainly none of the people I've talked to about it did.

I played through Spec Ops twice and really liked it, but it didn't make me feel as bad as The Last of Us did, probably because at least at the end of Spec Ops the bad guy dies (for me anyway).

The level of depression caused by 'the last of us' may be partly down to how much the player relates to the protagonist. This would be the setting, situation and how this ties into his motivations;

For me, everything that happened and was happening explained why Joel was doing what he was doing and re-enforced his actions. When I/Joel tortured and killed those guys immediately it felt completely natural. If Joel did that 5 minutes into the story with no build up, with no empathy from me it would have failed. After experiencing everything up to that point it would have annoyed me if that's how things didn't go down.
At end when I/Joel had to choose between humanity and Ellie, I had the same emotional gut response to save her. If there ended up being a 'choice' I would fully expect Joel to shoot himself in the head as he walked out of that hospital.


I personally don't define protagonists as heroes or anti-heroes. I just care weather the actions they take are logical to them.
To me stories like these feel like some sort of social experiment on each audience member; How do you feel about the extenuating circumstances this specific character is going through. Can you relate, is it logical? If the answer is yes you should somewhat appreciate or even enjoy the story by default. But you can still have differing opinions on it, as you two that I am quoting are having. You can even criticise a story for not being effective enough to emote the intended response from the audience.

But to actually come to the conclusion that a 'depressing' story was supposed to be a 'happy ending' or Joel is supposed to be a black and white good guy is a complete failure on the audience members part. Obviously, a story can fail even if it's depressing on purpose but TLOU is so obvious in it's intent to show Joel as a non-typical hero and the ending not to be a happy.

I really don't like taking an elitist high ground and telling people they 'just didn't understand it' but it clearly went over Yatzhee's head or he intentionally skewed it with his new found extra anti-console agenda this summer and Uncharted ludo-narrative dissonance expectations.

How can the same guy praise Spec Ops:the line for the same thing you criticise TLOU for. And praise Bioshock:Infinite after you immediately mow down hundreds of cops/security. If he had argued that the way TLOU went about it wasn't as effective as Bioshock or Spec ops I could have just disagreed but to ignore all similarities in the narratives and criticise one game for the same thing you commended another for is a bit of a joke.

 

[Varrdy]

I'm sorry but how can anyone say that the driving physics have improved?!? I got this game today and the driving physics are terrible! If anything, RockStar should be congratulated for achieving the impossible and actually making them worse than GTA IV's! Honestly, I've played crappy movie tie-in games from the 90's with better driving than GTA V's - the prospect of many more hours of this really doesn't appeal to me at all!

Maybe it's too harsh of me to judge as I've only been playing the game a few hours but so far my first-impressions are not good. Leaving aside the horrible driving physics for a moment, I have to say that this game has been boring me so far. GTA IV had me laughing pretty much from the get-go with it's in jokes, radio stations and scathing satire and I've barely raised a smile so far while playing GTA V; I'm not that hard to impress or amuse, either!

Also, are RockStar getting a dollar for every time someone says the "N" word?!? Seriously guys I've been playing the game for a few short hours and pretty much every other word from Franklin's "homies" has been "n****r"! OK so it's not as bad when an African-American says it but, really, that much? There's parody and then there's painful.

I will go back to GTA V later and see if it gets better. Right now I am not in the mood...

 

[TheUnbeholden]

This review just seems really lazy, I was willing to let it slide in The Last of Us because he actually did give us a gameplay round down in that one (stealth mechanics, throwable weapons, AI ect).

Its not a review, its a critique. He's picking out the things he really did like and the things that he didn't like and telling them to us.

As for gameplay? I don't have GTA 5, but he told me exactly what I needed to know in that department. Its identical to all the other GTAs, the flying is still crap and 4's "heavy" cars have been fixed. Tada!

But Yahztee has always atleast mentioned the good things about a game in a critique. Always. Yahztee very much comes off as trying hard to go against the majority opinion, but in doing so he comes off a bit up himself if hes not willing to talk about the very issues of society that the game is mostly point out. This game is satire of society, and yet Yahztee is talking about pseudo issues the game has. The characters in GTA V are the way characters have to be in games like these, very much reminiscent of Vice city and San Andreas. They are not going to have a coherent storyline because its like a tv series, lots of little stories loosely connected to each other, not so much inconsistent characters as they are conflicted characters who end up getting together because regardless of what you may see as a "perfect partner" you can't make it big on your own. They need each other whether they admit it or not.