GTAV is a complicated game. It really does fall in between Watch_Dogs and Saint’s Row IV for me - there are bits of it I loathe with a passion, and yet every hour I’m wowed by the sights, sounds, and simple experience of being in a city as well realized as San Andreas. There are a million little touches that no other developer would ever bother to implement. There are also a million little jabs that seem to exist solely to punch down at the poor, at women, at racial minorities, at trans people, etc. The best metaphor I can come up with is that the game’s a sort of a river of sewage with some genuine gold inside of it - if you can look past the fact that you’re sifting through human shit the gold might be worth your while. There’s no denying the sense of a creative vision here, but there’s also no denying that creative vision’s cowardice and inability to commit to anything more than “everything sucks and everyone’s stupid.” I just wish this engine, this budget, this talented team, and this game could be harnessed to make something that didn’t reflect a spoiled 14 year old’s world view. Ah well.
Here’s the YouTube link! And the script is after the jump. As always, the script doesn’t match perfectly with what I ended up speaking into the mic.
I kiiinda forgot to post the last two episodes on the website. Don’t worry, that’s being taken care of! Because here they are! Here’s my 2014 year in review video, where I talk about whether 2014 was as bad as we all seem to think it was. I also ramble off a list of games I enjoyed in the past year, but it’s by no means all inclusive.
Here’s the YouTube link! And the script is, as always, after the jump.
This War of Mine does a fantastic job of achieving exactly what it sets out to do. It’s definitely one of the best games I’ve played this year in terms of resonating emotionally and nailing a theme through both mechanics and narrative. It sort of makes me want to do an end-of-year top ten list. Hmmmm…
Script below the jump.
