wraggster
September 16th, 2013, 21:30
Critical Consensus: Rockstar's latest reveals bad people in a beautiful world
It might not be the highest-grossing franchise any more, or even the first name the reactionary media reaches blindly for when looking to hang a blame on video games, but a Grand Theft Auto release is still the industry's equivalent of a new Spielberg film, JK Rowling book or HBO TV series. There will be controversy, there will be excess, there will the frantic baying of fans, but most of all, there will be expectations.
Rockstar knows this. It knows that its poster-boy IP is a system seller, a public event, a release which puts gaming on the radar of all but the least engaged potential customer. GTA is big. GTA is special. GTA is famous. It's the series that editors love, igniting weeks worth of editorial and news coverage, reaction pieces and analyses, paeans, homilies and unnecessarily grandstanding introductions like this one. It doesn't matter if you're one of the adoring masses or the vocally uninterested minority - there's always something to talk about.
We've had plenty of speculative pre-amble already, but with the global review embargo now lifted, the disassembly begins in earnest. Who'll post the inevitable outlying low score? Who'll be the first to accuse them of 'click-baiting'? How long will we spend over the next few days discussing whether a '10' means a game is perfect or not? Is anyone actually going to read any of the reviews before buying anyway?
See? Always something to talk about. But that's not why we're here. Let's take this to the meta-level and discuss what other people have been writing in their reviews, starting with Eurogamer's EIC Tom Bramwell, who opens the bidding at 9/10 in a review (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-09-16-grand-theft-auto-5-review) which expresses clear admiration at the world which Rockstar has wrought and the sharp, acerbic humour displayed in the deconstruction of its subjects, but some disappointment that the great lens of irony never turns upon itself as subject.
"GTA4 took a few swings at fear-mongering 24-hour news, right-wing neo-cons and reality TV, but GTA5 is spoiled for choice and the gag writers go for the jugular"
Tom Bramwell, Eurogamer
"Los Santos takes the basic geography of Los Angeles and files it down into something tight and entertaining to navigate," Bramwell writes. "Where every street has its own story etched in phony colonnades or chain-link fences and landmarks are lifted from real life (Grauman's Chinese, Chateau Marmont) or the silver screen (the house on stilts in Lethal Weapon 2 springs to mind), then woven together with practised ease.
"Layered on top of that is Rockstar's trademark cynicism. GTA4 took a few swings at fear-mongering 24-hour news, right-wing neo-cons and reality TV, but GTA5 is spoiled for choice and the gag writers go for the jugular, skewering TV talent contests, self-help gurus, social media, internet trolls, political hypocrites and our obsession with sex, sex, sex."
The big gambit for this instalment in the series is the introduction of multiple characters, which can be jumped between on the fly. For Bramwell, the tired, frustrated ex-con Michael and the gang-related hood-rat Franklin are the pick of the trio, with late introduction Trevor engendering next to no empathy or engagement at all.
"The problem is that Trevor is an asshole," says Bramwell, leaving little room for misinterpretation. "When you first meet him, he does something so unpleasant that you wonder how you're ever going to empathise with him, and before long you're rotating an analogue stick so he can pull a tooth out of someone's jaw with a pair of pliers. These are serious and intense moments, but Trevor is too shallow and unconvincing to justify them, and instead his antics derail the narrative."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-09-16-summer-in-the-city-gta-v-sizzles-in-the-high-90s
It might not be the highest-grossing franchise any more, or even the first name the reactionary media reaches blindly for when looking to hang a blame on video games, but a Grand Theft Auto release is still the industry's equivalent of a new Spielberg film, JK Rowling book or HBO TV series. There will be controversy, there will be excess, there will the frantic baying of fans, but most of all, there will be expectations.
Rockstar knows this. It knows that its poster-boy IP is a system seller, a public event, a release which puts gaming on the radar of all but the least engaged potential customer. GTA is big. GTA is special. GTA is famous. It's the series that editors love, igniting weeks worth of editorial and news coverage, reaction pieces and analyses, paeans, homilies and unnecessarily grandstanding introductions like this one. It doesn't matter if you're one of the adoring masses or the vocally uninterested minority - there's always something to talk about.
We've had plenty of speculative pre-amble already, but with the global review embargo now lifted, the disassembly begins in earnest. Who'll post the inevitable outlying low score? Who'll be the first to accuse them of 'click-baiting'? How long will we spend over the next few days discussing whether a '10' means a game is perfect or not? Is anyone actually going to read any of the reviews before buying anyway?
See? Always something to talk about. But that's not why we're here. Let's take this to the meta-level and discuss what other people have been writing in their reviews, starting with Eurogamer's EIC Tom Bramwell, who opens the bidding at 9/10 in a review (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-09-16-grand-theft-auto-5-review) which expresses clear admiration at the world which Rockstar has wrought and the sharp, acerbic humour displayed in the deconstruction of its subjects, but some disappointment that the great lens of irony never turns upon itself as subject.
"GTA4 took a few swings at fear-mongering 24-hour news, right-wing neo-cons and reality TV, but GTA5 is spoiled for choice and the gag writers go for the jugular"
Tom Bramwell, Eurogamer
"Los Santos takes the basic geography of Los Angeles and files it down into something tight and entertaining to navigate," Bramwell writes. "Where every street has its own story etched in phony colonnades or chain-link fences and landmarks are lifted from real life (Grauman's Chinese, Chateau Marmont) or the silver screen (the house on stilts in Lethal Weapon 2 springs to mind), then woven together with practised ease.
"Layered on top of that is Rockstar's trademark cynicism. GTA4 took a few swings at fear-mongering 24-hour news, right-wing neo-cons and reality TV, but GTA5 is spoiled for choice and the gag writers go for the jugular, skewering TV talent contests, self-help gurus, social media, internet trolls, political hypocrites and our obsession with sex, sex, sex."
The big gambit for this instalment in the series is the introduction of multiple characters, which can be jumped between on the fly. For Bramwell, the tired, frustrated ex-con Michael and the gang-related hood-rat Franklin are the pick of the trio, with late introduction Trevor engendering next to no empathy or engagement at all.
"The problem is that Trevor is an asshole," says Bramwell, leaving little room for misinterpretation. "When you first meet him, he does something so unpleasant that you wonder how you're ever going to empathise with him, and before long you're rotating an analogue stick so he can pull a tooth out of someone's jaw with a pair of pliers. These are serious and intense moments, but Trevor is too shallow and unconvincing to justify them, and instead his antics derail the narrative."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-09-16-summer-in-the-city-gta-v-sizzles-in-the-high-90s