GTA 4 is huge. It's interaction space is limited however. The emphasis was put on your feeling that the world is big and you can live like gangster. The main vision for the game is gangster simulation. And huge amount of work was put into cinematic characters and story variety.
The game has a great and funny feel to it. It's obvious though that different parts of the game were designed by different people with different goals. You should make up your mind if you want to make immersive game or fun arcade game. I think that it's the job of creative director. Some things should not be in the game. Instead of doing stuff like arcade machines, games within the game you should develop gameplay more related to the core experience of the game. Variety in this game is huge. But content does not mean quality of design.
Design elements of the core experience stayed basically the same. You shoot people, steal their cars. Every moment you have the chance to get to new content - see new buildings, steal new cars, take new missions. You cannot remember all of it - it provides Flow of the game. The game dumps huge amount of new names on new. Just how life does. Some names do not make sense. Some are just for fun. All car names are made up but they are close copies of something else. So it's fiction that closely resembles real life. It kind of makes you realize that life's complexity and interest follows from the same principles. If you life does not provide enough new content you become bored.
Game cycle - you ride to known location, you watch cutscene, you ride/shoot/fail on a mission, you get money and respect. These steps form game cycle. You repeat it again and again. Shooting and failing provide the most fun. It's challenging. There is always the risk to loose all of your weapons to police. Dying is better than getting caught by police.
Someone is always calling you to hangout, suggest some mission. When you feel bored from missions you can take out your girldfriend on the date. She compliments you when your car or style changes. It's kind of designed by accident to make you feel comfortable when you play and think that you have to socialize outside of the game(this nagging feeling of pressure from your parents when you were young).
Why should you leave this simulation then, you may ask? Because it does not provide enough complexity that exists in life. That's it. Although the game is complex it is very constrained. Doing many different things over and over does not provide you enough deep interactions. You should take one interaction and try to bring meaning to it, make it deep as life. For example at some point I realized that it takes too much time to ride to my previous girlfriend on another island and wanted to ask her move in with me at my new place. This interaction is too complex for this game. I also want to investigate before killing people. The game does not give me this choice. In terms of life these interactions are shallow.
It saddens me that they decided to keep so many shallow things when they are making the fourth game in the series. I understand that these games are successful financialy and thinking of new formula might break things. It's easier to make basically the same game wit a lot more content. Unexpected content is interesting. But I personally would prefer 5 hour game with deep complexity and meaning at doing one thing.
The game has a great and funny feel to it. It's obvious though that different parts of the game were designed by different people with different goals. You should make up your mind if you want to make immersive game or fun arcade game. I think that it's the job of creative director. Some things should not be in the game. Instead of doing stuff like arcade machines, games within the game you should develop gameplay more related to the core experience of the game. Variety in this game is huge. But content does not mean quality of design.
Design elements of the core experience stayed basically the same. You shoot people, steal their cars. Every moment you have the chance to get to new content - see new buildings, steal new cars, take new missions. You cannot remember all of it - it provides Flow of the game. The game dumps huge amount of new names on new. Just how life does. Some names do not make sense. Some are just for fun. All car names are made up but they are close copies of something else. So it's fiction that closely resembles real life. It kind of makes you realize that life's complexity and interest follows from the same principles. If you life does not provide enough new content you become bored.
Game cycle - you ride to known location, you watch cutscene, you ride/shoot/fail on a mission, you get money and respect. These steps form game cycle. You repeat it again and again. Shooting and failing provide the most fun. It's challenging. There is always the risk to loose all of your weapons to police. Dying is better than getting caught by police.
Someone is always calling you to hangout, suggest some mission. When you feel bored from missions you can take out your girldfriend on the date. She compliments you when your car or style changes. It's kind of designed by accident to make you feel comfortable when you play and think that you have to socialize outside of the game(this nagging feeling of pressure from your parents when you were young).
Why should you leave this simulation then, you may ask? Because it does not provide enough complexity that exists in life. That's it. Although the game is complex it is very constrained. Doing many different things over and over does not provide you enough deep interactions. You should take one interaction and try to bring meaning to it, make it deep as life. For example at some point I realized that it takes too much time to ride to my previous girlfriend on another island and wanted to ask her move in with me at my new place. This interaction is too complex for this game. I also want to investigate before killing people. The game does not give me this choice. In terms of life these interactions are shallow.
It saddens me that they decided to keep so many shallow things when they are making the fourth game in the series. I understand that these games are successful financialy and thinking of new formula might break things. It's easier to make basically the same game wit a lot more content. Unexpected content is interesting. But I personally would prefer 5 hour game with deep complexity and meaning at doing one thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment