It has long been a dream that I could play a great GTA-style crime game, do a hit on a mobster - and then have someone try to assault my hideout a few days later while I'm asleep, maybe shouting something about how "This is for my brother!"
I just don't understand why no one has really nailed this concept yet. When it comes to open-world games, we'd rather be the ones who create the stories, not the devs. The only game that has really taken to this concept is Dwarf Fortress, but the learning curve for that game is more like a brick wall to me.
I think it's sign of a decent dev or at least someone in the media field if you study everything in your genre to be honest. I mean when I studying my prof said there's something you can always take away from even the worst films. Sure the regular audience will say it's crap and rightly so but there's always something good from it and the whole point of studying and working in media is to distil the finer points from all that crap and use it effectively and in a better way. If it's done by film-makers all the time, then I see why game devs can't. In fact anyone involved in a creative endeavour would learn from someone else's mistakes more than someone else's sucesss, as the latter tends to unwitting imitation. Not because you think it's good but because something good can imprint itself in your mind, something bad won't but you'll be more objective to learning about it because you're aware of the mistakes.
Anyways enough rambling. Going more on the topic, I think what you said about Godfather 2 was what I was initially interested in but somehow after giving it a rental shot it was just not something I could give more time to just because I couldn't justify a timesink into a mediocre experience when I'm not a dev and need time for other things but yeah it's world was alive and drawing but at the same time so aloof and distant, like it's your world but only not yours even worse than in real life.
I just finished playing Godfather 2 last night. I was talking to my friend about it and even though some things aren't on par with GTA4 and the like, i was really sucked in to the game.
I was telling him how awesome it was that i was in a constant struggle to keep my empire growing and that i felt like things i did mattered in the game. I never had the urge to just run around being ridiculous and killing people like i do in GTA. That's something i like to do in GTA but in The Godfather 2 i was more concerned about making my family more powerful.
I was also telling him that GTA could learn a thing or two from this game. It's weird that this article popped up on here today.
I like this article! When I had GTA4 I did feel a lot like nothing I did mattered, even on the smallest scale, and it is important in a game like that.
And at the same time, I think I apprciate a bad game when it does big things well. A lot of the games I like are generally disliked or have obvious technical features- Disaster Report, for example, is about escaping the man-made Stiver Island in the wake of aftershocks of an earthquake. It's something of a Survival Emergency game, and not too different from the upcoming "I Am Alive". And it has frame rate isues, clunky controls, and is generally ugly. The voice acting is terrible and the character's lines are pretty bad.
BUT! It has a dynamic story(with 7 endings), very creative design going for it, a wonderful mystery, a cool inventory system(think Cache from RE4 or whatever, but in 4 dimensions), and nice gameplay design. So despite it being clunky and slow and ugly and often-times trial and error, it's still pretty great!
So now I'm interested in Godfather 2, if only to see how well it does this, and if that's, for me, good enough to trump the rest of the problems.
I see what he is trying to say but Godfather 2, really? Yeah, a glitchy, ugly and terrible game is clearly better than GTA4 and Infamous. Get back to me when your head isn't firmly up your ass.
@BONERJAM: Saints Row 2 pulled off many features that by all rights had no excuse to not be in GT4, so the idea that GF2 has also done the same is not stunning. Your point is invalid.
@BONERJAM: Games are made up of thousands of little pieces. The ability to see them as individual pieces while looking at the whole is called having perspective.
"It has bland graphics"
"the game's graphics primitive and plain."
Mr. Totilo, please explain. I didn't play the game myself, but based on the imagery shown it doesn't look plain at all for the timeframe they are hitting. Of all the issues with the game you mention, this seemed the most vague and subjective, so maybe someone can elaborate on some specifics.
I can't quite put my finger on what GTA IV got wrong, but a symptom was motorcycle riding; where it was liberating and fun in the past games, it was a painfully clumsy chore in IV.
There were also the clunky controls, the god-awful checkpoint system, and the complete lack of creativity in most of the missions. It was a complete rinse-and-repeat affair, and by the time I finished the painful "I Need Your Clothes, Your Boots, and Your Motorcycle" mission, I put it away to wait for the mood to strike me again.
@the_loxster: Those two things ruined for me what was otherwise a really fun (its other flaws aside) game. San Andreas got the checkpoints right. I remember the "OG Loc" mission where you had to start at Big Smoke's, then go to the police station, then to Freddy's house, which triggered a motorcycle chase. If you had to start over, you could skip from Big Smoke's house straight to Freddy's.
Why GTA IV didn't do it that way is a mystery. "I Need Your Clothes..." really, really needed that old checkpoint system.
@RexMaximus: GTA IV was probably the worst one to come out since III (yes, I put IV below III). The only thing truly GTA-esque about the game was the Lazlow appearance, and even he only had a couple gigs. The cars, the combat, the missions were all far too bland and unoriginal to be considered GTA style. Where's my band robbery with a crew of psychotic, funny members? How about a jetpack or fighter planes? Some katanas and flamethrowers perhaps? There was too much focus on realism and story and not enough on fun.
I think the only game that will successfully recreate the mobster lifestyle will be Mafia 2. The first one surpasses this game in many aspects, and no matter how much of a GTA fanboy I am, I've got high hopes for 2k Czech. I'm not sure if it qualifies as a "true open world" game, but even the slight elements of choosing your own path in between the story elements were very compelling.
"Prototype's New York collapses to its red-sky ruin regardless of your actions. You surf its avalanche, chipping at rocks along the way, but the tumble is brutal and inexorable."
"the swelling revolution that brings its citizens to take up arms against the police authority feels no more the product of your actions than a river's current feels determined by how you swipe your hand through the water."
"Like a good New Yorker, Rockstar's fake New York barely bats an eye at what you're doing in it."
Your use of metaphor, analogy and simile is making me tear up. Anthropomorphism? Kid, I'm giving you an A.
Edit: This is also a terrific idea for an occasional feature. And it's too bad every game doesn't get to be what it wants to be.
@(zombie) buddhathing: hahah agreed, this is a pretty cool idea for features... making note of a few achievements underwhelming games achieve which the leading competitors have not.
@indyit: I kind of think the feature is going to be more eclectic than that, but you're right, a recurring feature about what bad games do well would be an excellent idea.
What Godfather 2 got most wrong was the fun factor. It started off fine, but around the time you're constantly fighting off rival gangs instead of actually doing anything (and let's not even go into the Castro bit) it stops being fun and starts becoming a micromanaging nightmare. I had to actually restart the game to keep myself from throwing it in the trash. Having been attacked at all points almost all the time for hours, I decided I'd just boost my defenses even more (which is bullshit since I already had more guys than I could afford at each location). Maybe they expected me to split my fights and send guys on hit and run missions to keep the bad guys at bay, but I wanted to control ME, not use an overhead map to keep directing no-names.
Of course the sad part is that even with that fault, it's a much more enjoyable game than GTA4 for the most part. GTA was about raw unbridled fun in a big world. Then 4 came out with it's idiotic story (yeah, I said it, fuck you art house types who think it's brilliant) and bland world. Maybe I just outgrew the series or something, but I found myself playing GTA4 to the end in constant hopes that I was still building up to the awesome stuff. Didn't help that half of the game is essentially tutorial. I mean really, I'm 10 hours in and you're STILL trying to teach me how to do stuff? Focus Rockstar. Make your game fun and we'll be there.
That's probably the best written article I have read on Kotaku (from my uneducated point of view anyway).
I like the idea of looking at mediocre/bad games to find good idea's. There have been plenty over the years.
Haze jumps to mind because most of the idea's were great and at the time seemed more unique but it was badly executed and thus the idea's never reached their peak.
I love the idea of this "Hindsight" feature, I hope it continues. I've played so many games that didn't get much recognition because of bugs or broken parts or it just was looked over, but parts of it were amazing.
Off the top of my head, Prey had some of THE BEST set pieces of any game in this generation. Their manipulation of gravity, points of view, 2 different "realities", and awesome weapons, made for some of the best experiences I'd had in a while. I'm still surprised that no other game with more resources has tried to emulate what they did there.
Gaming journalists tend to have a presentist-futurist bias. They seem to only care about the "now" and the "yet to come". It's refreshing to see the press give attention to the games whose time has already passed.
GTA has chosen to become something different from other free-roaming games. Everyone else just wanted to make a fun game. Rockstar wanted to make a realistic one. Looking back at San Andreas, the only real complaints I ever heard were the attempts at making the game more like real life by having gyms and license tests and such. One half of the fanbase hates that sort of thing and hates it when these games take themselves seriously. The other half loves the realism, and hates slapstick-style content in games like Sand Andreas (which pretty much went both ways) and Saint's Row.
I even recall a rousing debate (read: flame war) over whether or not the next game in the series should have limited fuel for cars, along with working gas stations.
@BubbleF**kingBuddy: Mafia had the whole limited fuel thing. Didn't really notice it. I think it's because I never drove a car for more than a few minutes.
@BubbleF**kingBuddy: Maybe this is one of my problems with the whole GTA series. The Uncanny Divide that ruins it for me.
See, I have just the opposite opinion. Rockstar may have been going for realism, but it just isn't.
There are no guys running around blowing up police helicopters with missiles, or driving nuts around the city wiping out pedestrians. Sure there is a cop mechanic where you get busted, but there is not really much of a price that you pay since the game is centered around your one character.
I bring up the uncanny divide, because it is one of the situations where the city feels real, but the actions feel out of place. I feel like as soon as I gun down those first 3 cops I shouldn't be able to show my face in town. I could be terrorizing the town, but it would be a constant manhunt to bring me down. But GTA doesn't do that.
I think that is one of the reasons that I loved Crackdown so much more than GTA. They sent the city completely over the top. There is no uncanny divide, it is pure fiction, and it was more believable because of it.
@BubbleF**kingBuddy: But realism, by and large, is boring. Life is filled with tedium and monotony. There are, of course, moments and experiences that transcend the normal, where joy, pain, and excitement overwhelm the senses and leave lasting impressions. It is these moments that games should pursue, if they choose to emulate the real.
Going to the gym? Pumping gas? Taking care of my whiny bitch of a cousin? Not so much.
"Hey cousin, want to go see some beeg American tee-tees?"
@BubbleF**kingBuddy: Yet there are those, seemingly in limited quantity, like myself that can enjoy both spectrums of raucous free-roaming violence.
Just as a person can enjoy a rousing "brain-dead" summer blockbuster movie they can also enjoy a stimulating and thought provoking art house film. It's not entirely a subjective claim of tastes but moreso moods. Am I in the mood to get down and gritty, skulking through alley ways hugging my limited ammo hoping for an escape vehicle, or do I want to load up with an arsenal, commandeer the nearest military chopper and rain death down upon hapless people while singing away to 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun'? Depends, entirely, on how I'm feeling at that given moment.
All too often though people are bereft of the thought that, just perhaps, other people enjoy differing things, thus ensues the arguments. The Grand Theft Auto IV style can sit happily side by side with the Saints Row 2 formula. The world would be a better place if people just accepted that it can be as fun knee capping someone and stalking after them into a ditch while they plead for their life as it is to parachute in on some yakuza dressed as a clown and wielding midgets.
Hell, I'm all for the limited fuel in a vehicle concept. Just as long as I have other games to counter balance that by having fuel that only comes in the "turbo" variety.
@BubbleF**kingBuddy: I hated GTA IV for all the "realism" crap. If realism in games just boils down to a colour palette that consists of brown, browny-green, and more brown, and a shoe-horned "friends" mechanic with crappy mini-games, then I want nothing to do with it.
I absolutely loved San Andreas, it didn't take itself too seriously and was really great fun to play as a result. GTA IV just sucked, it was bland, it had the most boring main character of any game I've ever played, and it bored me from beginning to the point I gave up playing (around the point you reach Algonquin). I guess Rockstar managed to get their heads too far up their own asses to realise what made the GTA games so great.
Having said this.. GTA IV Multiplayer is really quite fun, I can ignore the depressing visuals when playing with friends, and there's just so much to do. You can literally make your own fun. I pretty much never play the pre-set game modes.. We always make up our own in Free-mode.
@†FunkBrothaDee†: Mafia had the whole limited fuel thing. Didn't really notice it. I think it's because I never drove a car for more than a few minutes. Truthfully I'm torn. I wouldn't mind a hyper-realistic GTA just as long as they give me shit I care to do. A city that just invites you to fuck around in it and explore. That immerses you in such a way you feel that what you do has real impact not just to you but some NPCs as well. I found LS too samey and dare I say it, boring.
And I'm kind of an anomaly in that I found the 'realism' in The Getaway to be really fun.
I didn't even mind the shitty controls 'cause I found myself too drawn in to the story and what was happening around the characters. With GTA it was strange cause it went for a 'mature' route and failed completely I guess. I found myself not caring for Niko Bellics whiny ass or his drongo of a cousin Roman.
In fact I think I hated almost all the characters except Little Jacob. It seemed like R* was confused about whether they wanted to be mature GTA or a silly GTA.
On one hand you have Niko talking about Roman's mother bieng raped and killed on the other you have the stereotypically campy gay dude. Or Kate screaming about her shitty family and Packie being a super drug fiend. Ummm.... What was the topic again?
Anyway I think pseudo-realism can be fun you just got to know how to balance it.
Far Cry2 is one game I think did this relatively well. Killzone 2 is a kick ass psuedo-realistic sci-fi romp. It can be done people. BELIEVE!
/end incoherent wall of text
@Luke Michael Timothy: If San Andres was online playable (on consoles) with the full functionality of the single player mode including taking over gang territory, I'd never have to buy another open world game again.
This is a great concept for an article study. I also love the game question surveys plus follow-up breakdowns you've been doing. Keep up the great work Kotaku.
09/01/09
I just don't understand why no one has really nailed this concept yet. When it comes to open-world games, we'd rather be the ones who create the stories, not the devs. The only game that has really taken to this concept is Dwarf Fortress, but the learning curve for that game is more like a brick wall to me.
09/01/09
Anyways enough rambling. Going more on the topic, I think what you said about Godfather 2 was what I was initially interested in but somehow after giving it a rental shot it was just not something I could give more time to just because I couldn't justify a timesink into a mediocre experience when I'm not a dev and need time for other things but yeah it's world was alive and drawing but at the same time so aloof and distant, like it's your world but only not yours even worse than in real life.
09/01/09
I was telling him how awesome it was that i was in a constant struggle to keep my empire growing and that i felt like things i did mattered in the game. I never had the urge to just run around being ridiculous and killing people like i do in GTA. That's something i like to do in GTA but in The Godfather 2 i was more concerned about making my family more powerful.
I was also telling him that GTA could learn a thing or two from this game. It's weird that this article popped up on here today.
09/01/09
And at the same time, I think I apprciate a bad game when it does big things well. A lot of the games I like are generally disliked or have obvious technical features- Disaster Report, for example, is about escaping the man-made Stiver Island in the wake of aftershocks of an earthquake. It's something of a Survival Emergency game, and not too different from the upcoming "I Am Alive". And it has frame rate isues, clunky controls, and is generally ugly. The voice acting is terrible and the character's lines are pretty bad.
BUT! It has a dynamic story(with 7 endings), very creative design going for it, a wonderful mystery, a cool inventory system(think Cache from RE4 or whatever, but in 4 dimensions), and nice gameplay design. So despite it being clunky and slow and ugly and often-times trial and error, it's still pretty great!
So now I'm interested in Godfather 2, if only to see how well it does this, and if that's, for me, good enough to trump the rest of the problems.
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09/01/09
"the game's graphics primitive and plain."
Mr. Totilo, please explain. I didn't play the game myself, but based on the imagery shown it doesn't look plain at all for the timeframe they are hitting. Of all the issues with the game you mention, this seemed the most vague and subjective, so maybe someone can elaborate on some specifics.
09/01/09
There were also the clunky controls, the god-awful checkpoint system, and the complete lack of creativity in most of the missions. It was a complete rinse-and-repeat affair, and by the time I finished the painful "I Need Your Clothes, Your Boots, and Your Motorcycle" mission, I put it away to wait for the mood to strike me again.
09/01/09
09/01/09
Why GTA IV didn't do it that way is a mystery. "I Need Your Clothes..." really, really needed that old checkpoint system.
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
"the swelling revolution that brings its citizens to take up arms against the police authority feels no more the product of your actions than a river's current feels determined by how you swipe your hand through the water."
"Like a good New Yorker, Rockstar's fake New York barely bats an eye at what you're doing in it."
Your use of metaphor, analogy and simile is making me tear up. Anthropomorphism? Kid, I'm giving you an A.
Edit: This is also a terrific idea for an occasional feature. And it's too bad every game doesn't get to be what it wants to be.
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
Of course the sad part is that even with that fault, it's a much more enjoyable game than GTA4 for the most part. GTA was about raw unbridled fun in a big world. Then 4 came out with it's idiotic story (yeah, I said it, fuck you art house types who think it's brilliant) and bland world. Maybe I just outgrew the series or something, but I found myself playing GTA4 to the end in constant hopes that I was still building up to the awesome stuff. Didn't help that half of the game is essentially tutorial. I mean really, I'm 10 hours in and you're STILL trying to teach me how to do stuff? Focus Rockstar. Make your game fun and we'll be there.
09/01/09
I like the idea of looking at mediocre/bad games to find good idea's. There have been plenty over the years.
Haze jumps to mind because most of the idea's were great and at the time seemed more unique but it was badly executed and thus the idea's never reached their peak.
09/01/09
Off the top of my head, Prey had some of THE BEST set pieces of any game in this generation. Their manipulation of gravity, points of view, 2 different "realities", and awesome weapons, made for some of the best experiences I'd had in a while. I'm still surprised that no other game with more resources has tried to emulate what they did there.
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
I even recall a rousing debate (read: flame war) over whether or not the next game in the series should have limited fuel for cars, along with working gas stations.
09/01/09
09/01/09
See, I have just the opposite opinion. Rockstar may have been going for realism, but it just isn't.
There are no guys running around blowing up police helicopters with missiles, or driving nuts around the city wiping out pedestrians. Sure there is a cop mechanic where you get busted, but there is not really much of a price that you pay since the game is centered around your one character.
I bring up the uncanny divide, because it is one of the situations where the city feels real, but the actions feel out of place. I feel like as soon as I gun down those first 3 cops I shouldn't be able to show my face in town. I could be terrorizing the town, but it would be a constant manhunt to bring me down. But GTA doesn't do that.
I think that is one of the reasons that I loved Crackdown so much more than GTA. They sent the city completely over the top. There is no uncanny divide, it is pure fiction, and it was more believable because of it.
09/01/09
Going to the gym? Pumping gas? Taking care of my whiny bitch of a cousin? Not so much.
"Hey cousin, want to go see some beeg American tee-tees?"
09/01/09
Just as a person can enjoy a rousing "brain-dead" summer blockbuster movie they can also enjoy a stimulating and thought provoking art house film. It's not entirely a subjective claim of tastes but moreso moods. Am I in the mood to get down and gritty, skulking through alley ways hugging my limited ammo hoping for an escape vehicle, or do I want to load up with an arsenal, commandeer the nearest military chopper and rain death down upon hapless people while singing away to 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun'? Depends, entirely, on how I'm feeling at that given moment.
All too often though people are bereft of the thought that, just perhaps, other people enjoy differing things, thus ensues the arguments. The Grand Theft Auto IV style can sit happily side by side with the Saints Row 2 formula. The world would be a better place if people just accepted that it can be as fun knee capping someone and stalking after them into a ditch while they plead for their life as it is to parachute in on some yakuza dressed as a clown and wielding midgets.
Hell, I'm all for the limited fuel in a vehicle concept. Just as long as I have other games to counter balance that by having fuel that only comes in the "turbo" variety.
09/01/09
I absolutely loved San Andreas, it didn't take itself too seriously and was really great fun to play as a result. GTA IV just sucked, it was bland, it had the most boring main character of any game I've ever played, and it bored me from beginning to the point I gave up playing (around the point you reach Algonquin). I guess Rockstar managed to get their heads too far up their own asses to realise what made the GTA games so great.
Having said this.. GTA IV Multiplayer is really quite fun, I can ignore the depressing visuals when playing with friends, and there's just so much to do. You can literally make your own fun. I pretty much never play the pre-set game modes.. We always make up our own in Free-mode.
09/01/09
And I'm kind of an anomaly in that I found the 'realism' in The Getaway to be really fun.
I didn't even mind the shitty controls 'cause I found myself too drawn in to the story and what was happening around the characters. With GTA it was strange cause it went for a 'mature' route and failed completely I guess. I found myself not caring for Niko Bellics whiny ass or his drongo of a cousin Roman.
In fact I think I hated almost all the characters except Little Jacob. It seemed like R* was confused about whether they wanted to be mature GTA or a silly GTA.
On one hand you have Niko talking about Roman's mother bieng raped and killed on the other you have the stereotypically campy gay dude. Or Kate screaming about her shitty family and Packie being a super drug fiend. Ummm.... What was the topic again?
Anyway I think pseudo-realism can be fun you just got to know how to balance it.
Far Cry2 is one game I think did this relatively well. Killzone 2 is a kick ass psuedo-realistic sci-fi romp. It can be done people. BELIEVE!
/end incoherent wall of text
09/01/09
09/01/09