{"id":470,"date":"2012-10-28T02:08:43","date_gmt":"2012-10-28T09:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/?p=470"},"modified":"2019-04-26T16:08:25","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T23:08:25","slug":"a-retrospective-as-grand-theft-auto-v-nears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/a-retrospective-as-grand-theft-auto-v-nears\/","title":{"rendered":"a retrospective as Grand Theft Auto V nears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The approach of Grand Theft Auto V makes me reflect on the series.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Highest and purest style: GTA: Vice City<\/li>\n<li>Ridiculously gargantuan sandbox: GTA: San Andreas[<a href=\"#footnote\">*<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>Best damn radio patter: GTA: Liberty City Stories (Dan Houser and Lazlow&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikiquote.org\/wiki\/Talk:Grand_Theft_Auto:_Liberty_City_Stories\">finest moments<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Craziest car stunts and most engrossing side missions: GTA: Vice City Stories (Infernus and Empire building).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I bought a PS3 and a new TV and stood in line at midnight to buy GTA IV, but it wasn&#8217;t that great. Rockstar upped the detail so you could feel Nico&#8217;s gritty lifestyle, but they dropped dozens and dozens of features from San Andreas.[<a href=\"#footnote\">*<\/a>] The story is sweeping and well-told, but a dreary bummer. With &#8220;The Ballad of Gay Tony&#8221; Rockstar did a solid job of coming up with a story and characters that work better in the constricted game world, but once the story wraps it&#8217;s a realistic but dull place to be, far short of GTA:SA. No triathlons, paramedics, fire missions,.. meanwhile there&#8217;s an entire Coney Island funfair that <em>doesn&#8217;t work<\/em>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But GTA IV has the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wF2m4B1ubtw#t=11m40s\">best radio ads<\/a>. El Chamuco Roboto! Dan Houser and Lazlow are brilliant writers and parodists.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On the basis of that arc, it looks bad for GTA V. Developing the 3-D assets for the level of detail demanded by the latest consoles seemed to exhaust their creativity and fun. Maybe a less ambitious cartoon like Saints Row is the way to go (I liked SR2, I haven&#8217;t played Saints Row The Third). But then, a non-GTA game restored my faith in Rockstar:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Best storyline, characters, cut scenes: Red Dead Redemption by a mile.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[<a name=\"footnote\"><\/a>*] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gtaforums.com\/index.php?showtopic=515102\">70+ features in this list<\/a>, not to mention that San Andreas comprised most of California + Las Vegas. The change in the light and haze in the different areas is phenomenal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Masculine in the front, feminine in ze back.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Music is life and we snort it until we O.D., again und again&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;At least in the 80s they could play their instruments and there were two ambiguously gay men beating a synthesizer who were up for a go&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8211; Reni Wassulmaier, transsexual film director turned DJ on Flashback FM in GTA:LCS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The approach of Grand Theft Auto V makes me reflect on the series. Highest and purest style: GTA: Vice City Ridiculously gargantuan sandbox: GTA: San Andreas[*] Best damn radio patter: GTA: Liberty City Stories (Dan Houser and Lazlow&#8217;s finest moments) &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/a-retrospective-as-grand-theft-auto-v-nears\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-videogames"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":855,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions\/855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}