aspro said:I thougt R* kept the social commentary to their GTA games. Did not really seep into Max Payne 3 or RDR (or even Bully really).
I love/hate GTA games because of the feeling of progression (the same you get with RPGs). You start out powerless and over time you get the abilty to pretty much control the environment.
Eh, if there's social commentary in GTA, there clearly is in MP3 and Bully. Did I do the MP3 podcast with someone else? Anyway, GTA isn't really social commentary either. It's commentary on the media: thus why GTAV can be called politically muddled, because GTA parodies multiple and contrasting political ideologies rather than criticising one and promoting the other. The only two consistent political or social statements made by Rockstar are anti-American or anti-mass media. Which I suppose is a liberal bias? (No, it's English bias.) And for media criticism of America, there's not much better fodder than a Western setting. I can't imagine that RDR is free of such sentiments.
P.S.
Shouldn't you be on gchat?
Foolz said:aspro said:I thougt R* kept the social commentary to their GTA games. Did not really seep into Max Payne 3 or RDR (or even Bully really).
I love/hate GTA games because of the feeling of progression (the same you get with RPGs). You start out powerless and over time you get the abilty to pretty much control the environment.
... The only two consistent political or social statements made by Rockstar are anti-American or anti-mass media. ...
Agreed, except I substitute GTA for R* in that sentence. Bully did not have it, RDR did not have it and I don;t think Max Payne 3 had it, much.
aspro said:Foolz said:aspro said:I thougt R* kept the social commentary to their GTA games. Did not really seep into Max Payne 3 or RDR (or even Bully really).
I love/hate GTA games because of the feeling of progression (the same you get with RPGs). You start out powerless and over time you get the abilty to pretty much control the environment.
... The only two consistent political or social statements made by Rockstar are anti-American or anti-mass media. ...
Agreed, except I substitute GTA for R* in that sentence. Bully did not have it, RDR did not have it and I don;t think Max Payne 3 had it, much.
Yeah, but they still had the whole dissection of media thing going on in Bully to a huge degree (and you could argue that its presentation of the vapid and naive worship of education in America through its collection of absurd stereotypes placed in what was basically an English boarding school was anti-American), and Max Payne 3 was highly anti-American and anti-media if you want to get into symbolism (I should have gone into that more on the podcast, but the anti-noirishness of that annoyed me too much and thus was the focus).
Do you think they do a good job of their commentary? I find it falls a fair bit flat myself. Not juevenile, as many claim, but just... not clever.
aspro said:Do you think they do a good job of their commentary? I find it falls a fair bit flat myself. Not juevenile, as many claim, but just... not clever.
If they're doing straight up, unambitious parody then I think they fling so many jokes at you that enough stick even if a lot, perhaps most, don't. Which kinda fits with the overload of mass media anyway. When they attempt to do more complex satire, then their lack of wit is painfully exposed. As seen in GTAIV. They're also really bad at attempting contemporary themes because they don't have enough source material to copy; or are just ignorant and lazy. Either way. Case in point: the black dude's presentation in GTAV's trailers. Out. Of. Date.
I have Trevor now and he changes everything!!! Now I have so many things to do I cant decide where to go next. All of a sudden now you have bounty missions, races, hidden letters (packages), planes with bridges to fly under, buying buisnesses and having side missions to go with them, hunting, and who knows what else. The country side is just stunning, especially when in the air, you can see everything from up there. The shootouts have been a blast so far and I love how the game is constantly introducing a new gun here, a grenade there, a kind of vehicle in this mission, another in that one. Its all perfectly spaced out so that you have something new happening in every mission.
I also did the first heist and WOW! The heist itself was very simple but its the choices you make that make all the difference. Choice is probably the biggest addition to the GTA formula in this game. I chose to do the mission stealth like and I picked some bums for the gunner and driver but a good hacker. Well I didnt need the hacker cause I cleared the store very fast. Then my idiot driver got lost, took us the wrong direction. I lost the other idiot crew member, he crashed so we lost all the money he was carring. Choose WISELY it makes a major impact to your money earnings. The amount of different ways I could have approached that mission is crazy, to think there is a whole different version of it too.
The heist setup and execution is brilliant, I cannot wait to see more. There should be like 20 of them but there seems to only be 6 or 7 from what I heard, such a shame.
So yeah the game is now completely amazing.
Foolz said:If they're doing straight up, unambitious parody then I think they fling so many jokes at you that enough stick even if a lot, perhaps most, don't. Which kinda fits with the overload of mass media anyway. When they attempt to do more complex satire, then their lack of wit is painfully exposed. As seen in GTAIV. They're also really bad at attempting contemporary themes because they don't have enough source material to copy; or are just ignorant and lazy. Either way. Case in point: the black dude's presentation in GTAV's trailers. Out. Of. Date.
What? You know what the black man in the hood of america is like right now? 
Its not out of date, I am playing the game and it fits the very little I know of that culture currently.
Dvader said:Foolz said:If they're doing straight up, unambitious parody then I think they fling so many jokes at you that enough stick even if a lot, perhaps most, don't. Which kinda fits with the overload of mass media anyway. When they attempt to do more complex satire, then their lack of wit is painfully exposed. As seen in GTAIV. They're also really bad at attempting contemporary themes because they don't have enough source material to copy; or are just ignorant and lazy. Either way. Case in point: the black dude's presentation in GTAV's trailers. Out. Of. Date.
What? You know what the black man in the hood of america is like right now?
Its not out of date, I am playing the game and it fits the very little I know of that culture currently.
You realise that Dan Houser is English (now living in New York, not California) and thus has little reason to know much more of such matters than me, right?* And you knowing "very little" and agreeing with him doesn't make it seem like much of an argument in favour of his depiction. Are you seriously trying to tell me that nothing has changed culturally in California since 1992? Because he was presented in the trailer as a character from San Andreas: conspicuously so, with all the other characters presented in more contemporary forms. So, Californian culture: evolved since 1992, except for blacks. Whether that's a marketing ploy or a satirical imitation of mainstream media's racist stereotyping, it's blatantly untrue. Maybe he's not depicted like that in the game?
*GTA is not known for its research: they couldn't even get Niko's accent right in GTAIV.
P.S. I think you'll find that those people prefer to be referred to as African Americans. Racist. 
I still find it amazing that its made by the Scottish and the game is considered so American.
gamingeek said:I still find it amazing that its made by the Scottish and the game is considered so American.
English, Scottish, same thing.
Tell the Scots that, they want independance. I blame the Iron Bru
So does New Zealand, but they're still just Australian at the end of the day. They don't even have any carbonated beverages to blame for their delusions of grandeur.
Foolz said:
*GTA is not known for its research: they couldn't even get Niko's accent right in GTAIV.
They could not even spel his name right. There are no double Ls in Serbian Languange. Bellic is wrong it should to be Belic. And another thing, Niko is a Croatian name and not Serbian. It should have been something like Nikola Belic. So much fail!
Foolz said:gamingeek said:I still find it amazing that its made by the Scottish and the game is considered so American.
English, Scottish, same thing.
They really should do a GTA London again. Who better than the Scottish to thrash the English culture?!
I was in a crazy shootout and proceeded to blow up an entire building while doing the awesome walk away from the explosion only to hop into my getaway vehicle which had "What a fool believes" playing when I started it up. I cracked up, it doesn't match at all, and its little things like that that make GTA so special.
Got to work going to be away from the game for a day. I miss it already.
It has definetly hit its stride in every way, so much side stuff to do and excellent story missions. The as stiry has been excellent since Trevor showed up, a lot of tension. I have to give credit to the mo cap and animation easily some of the best I have ever seen in gaming. Looks like its becoming the game I hoped it would be. The missions are already way better than most open world games and I havent even gotten 1/4th of the way through.
I am really hoping it arrives this morning so I can play it before I go on my next trip. Are you and I the only ones playing it here?
The three main character voice actors. Can you guess who is who?
I want to play as those guys!!!
aspro said:I am really hoping it arrives this morning so I can play it before I go on my next trip. Are you and I the only ones playing it here?
I saw Leo on it for a little bit. I have never in my life seen a friend list full of everyone playing the same game until yesterday.
I thougt R* kept the social commentary to their GTA games. Did not really seep into Max Payne 3 or RDR (or even Bully really).
I love/hate GTA games because of the feeling of progression (the same you get with RPGs). You start out powerless and over time you get the abilty to pretty much control the environment.