Streamline or Kitchen Sink?

With the huge explosion of GTA V (that’s five not ‘v’ for those of you who called GTA 4 ‘GTA I-V’), there’s been much talk about the new features of GTA V from its predecessors. For example, we now have three characters whom we can seamlessly switch between to access different missions. The Edinburgh developers have also promised the largest Rockstar map to date, especially when including topography.

Argh, Shudder...

We are also to see many returning features, as expected. The key here is many and not all. With the excitement of new features, most of us have accepted that some features will not return. In particular it is the romance and changing physique that will not return (amongst others I’m assuming). Romance has existed since GTA San Andreas, the most important being a mission where you had to seduce a bondage loving casino worker to obtain here security code (which was particularly impressive on my part as I did this walking round in nothing but heart spotted boxers). It is common for games to drop unpopular features, notably planet scanning from Mass Effect 2 (from which I still have nightmares), but romance was nothing of the sort. You could argue it was a little bland, after all, getting Niko to take his girlfriend bowling didn’t quite match up to the feats of ‘Four Leaf Clover’. However, it was, for the most of it optional, and a nice feature to have, a good change in pace in gameplay, to show that your character was not just a maniacal killer who suddenly gained morals at each cut-scene, only to lose them again afterwards. It added to the experience of being an immigrant coming to terms with American life or being a gangbanger who wanted to get out of the game. To get rid of it didn’t initially make sense.

When playing GTA IV, I felt the loss of features considerably. San Andreas is still to this date, one of my favourite games of all time, so GTA IV had a lot to live up to. In San Andreas we were almost witnessing GTA becoming a third person shooter, RPG, simulation, so in the words of my causing “GTA IV should’ve been a cross between GTA and The Sims”. Essentially that is what I was expecting, I was expecting more freedom, more development and essentially more stats. However, as good as IV was I felt let down. I had fun, but I’d always feel restricted, knowing that I wasn’t gaining respect, wasn’t getting built (or fat) and that I couldn’t buy more properties (which I could even do in Vice City). As much I liked IV, it felt like a step in the wrong direction.

However, I thought, it’s Rockstar, those Scots must have a reason for having done this and for also doing it in GTA V. What makes GTA different is it’s so story driven. The story often has a deep political commentary and this often shapes what you do in the game. I’m assuming each GTA starts with the Houser brothers writing the story and then giving it to the development team to work on. Hence, unlike other games, it’s a case of ‘how can we use new features to promote this social commentary and complement our story’ rather than ‘here’s some new ideas, let’s weave a story around it.’ Thus, the features have to match the story and the message of the game. Vice City was heavily based on increasing you property portfolio because the story was about drug cartels, earning dirty money and mass materialism in the 80s. 

San Andreas on the other hand was about the gulf of rich and poor in LA and the way capitalism destroys the poor and teaches to fend for themselves on nothing. This lead onto the gang territory feature in San Andreas, which implies that those in poverty stick together (in gangs) to protect their communities (leading to turf wars). It was also about CJ getting out of the hood and making a better life for himself, hence why you could improve CJ’s stats, to make him better, to get him out of Ganton (Compton of the GTA universe) and into Vinewood (Hollywood). 

"I have millions in the bank, but I like living in a rat-filled cesspool"

GTA IV was about immigrants finding a life in America and the difficulties they face in fitting into American culture. It was not about improving yourself, it was not necessarily about dirty money (though there was a lot of it) it was about becoming an American. Hence, Rockstar streamlined the features to suit the gameplay to the story, which invariably meant cutting some great features out. It is possible that the lack of some previous features was just Dan Houser presenting a very harsh reality to immigrants, that no matter how much money you accumulate, you will always be an immigrant, you will never quite fit in and you may never quite make life better for yourself. Hence why even after accumulating millions, Niko still has a belly and lives in a grotty old flat.

So, I can understand why GTA V has missed out romance and many of the features of San Andreas, though they do promise that money will be more useful. The characters in GTA are middle aged(ish). In a time of recession (which is where the game seems to be focussed at) you don’t need to improve yourselves, people just want more money in a new way because their previous means has been destroyed – thus being the reason for the focus on heists. 

Rockstar has always been one of the great innovators of the industry. It created open world games (arguably) and introduced us to political messages in games. Video games started as pieces of technology, the idea in technology is to put all the best features into a flagship model, the kitchen sink approach. However, as video games mature, they become more and more of an art, where we are less limited by technology and developers pick and choose what they want to put it. They streamline their product to be exactly what they want, to be exactly how they envisioned it, essentially, missing out features in games could be a sign of the evolution and maturing of video games.