ooooooooooooooh

Seriously though, I thought GTA's tone was feeling a decade out of date even in 2013. It just stinks of the late 90s and early 2000s, specifically of early South Park

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    This may piss off a lot of freeze-gamer but I'll say it anyway: I've been put off by the GTA series ever since the early 3D one (yes, there was a 2D original game too) that had the chud-chortling mechanic of running over sex workers to get money back. Like "Postal," it was misanthropic edgy shit for its own sake and I haven't bothered to check back in decades later.

    Later Saints Row games were at least funny and weird and that helped.

      • Redcuban1959 [any]
        ·
        1 month ago

        Theres an ad in GTA SA or 4 about how the only way to change the world is by voting, and it mocks people who refuse to vote in the US. Really fucking cringe lib mindset.

        I think 4 had a better story than all other GTAs, it sucks that Niko's gay friend is a steriotypical 2000's gay man, but kinda cool that Niko and Roman defends him bc they are friends, but there are no more interactions beside him being there at Roman's wedding.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        1 month ago

        That's the vibe I got when I tried it, especially when I had some of my chuddier friends-of-friends at social gatherings running people over while letting out empty chuckles for HOURS.

        • SkingradGuard [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          1 month ago

          That's the vibe I got when I tried it

          It's especially clear if you listen to the in-game radio stations, it's just like South Park.

          • UlyssesT [he/him]
            ·
            1 month ago

            It's especially clear if you listen to the in-game radio stations, it's just like South Park.

            Isn't that one of the most celebrated features that got expanded upon more and more over time? It used to be just "ironic" music if I remember correctly, like opera.

            • SkingradGuard [he/him, comrade/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              1 month ago

              It used to be just "ironic" music if I remember correctly, like opera.

              Yeah it does, it also has current-year hits, classics etc., but it also has in-universe advertisements and like, fake talkshow type things. It is very on the nose when it comes to these two things.

              • UlyssesT [he/him]
                ·
                1 month ago

                Yeah it does, it also has current-year hits, classics etc., but it also has in-universe advertisements and like, fake talkshow type things. It is very on the nose when it comes to these two things.

                I'm glad I have been staying away because a bunch of "haha caring about things is stupid check out this farcical version of a hysterial and triggered person being emotional for your amusement!" Howard Sternesque shit would only make GTA even worse for me.

                • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 month ago

                  IIRC for GTA5 it was all satire aimed at mid 2000s Fox, both the trashy reality TV side of it and Fox News. I'm not gonna say it doesn't revel too much in the spectacle of just taking something that's already awful and dialing it up a bit, but it's more in the style of the Onion where most of the bits are taking the mask off an institution or trend and having it honestly portray itself as what it is (like the Fox News expy literally having the tagline "confirming your prejudices" or an American Idol expy literally just being assholes reveling in cruelty) than South Park style nihilism - it has a point to make and that's that American culture is reactionary and repulsively self-centered and consumerist, even as it is itself reveling in being trashy slop.

                  You've got to remember, everything after GTA3 was written in the context of the Bush era and none of it was written after gamergate: it has the sort of incoherent dirtbag quasi-left contemporary counter culture stance of recognizing the US as bloodthirsty, pointlessly cruel, and deeply unserious but also not having any sort of framework for understanding or addressing that and being entirely too libertine and chauvinist on top of that. It's kind of alien to anything we have now, because that whole counter culture basically got wiped out by gamergate crystalizing the chauvinist libertines into open fascists baying for blood and forcing everyone else to stop tacitly tolerating them.

            • Aria 🏳️‍⚧️🇧🇩@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              1 month ago

              “ironic” music if I remember correctly, like opera.

              Hey, I actually liked listening to opera/classics more than any other music while driving on my car/vehicle in these games. >:T /nm

              • UlyssesT [he/him]
                ·
                1 month ago

                That's fine. I can see the appeal.

                I still believe its inclusion in GTA was meant for le irony purposes.

        • Aria 🏳️‍⚧️🇧🇩@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          chuddier friends-of-friends at social gatherings running people over while letting out empty chuckles for HOURS.

          I never understood the "fun" of running people harmless pedestrians over in games with vehicles on them and laughing about it. Are these people kids or smth?

          • LocalOaf [they/them, ze/hir]
            ·
            1 month ago

            Running over bad guys in Halo is very fun, and it's ludonarratively appropriate since they're either genocidal aliens or red/blue bad guys that are also trying to run you over in multiplayer

            • Aria 🏳️‍⚧️🇧🇩@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              1 month ago

              that's true, but i was talking about running over civilians/pedestrians that are minding their own business in games like GTA. i just don't get what's so fun about that.

              maybe i should've clarified this.

                • Roonerino
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 month ago

                  deleted by creator

              • LocalOaf [they/them, ze/hir]
                ·
                1 month ago

                Ah. Yeah, that never appealed to me either. I'm the kind of dork that tries to obey all the traffic laws in GTA like games though. At least in LA Noire driving like an asshole is appropriate since you play as a the-pigs

                • Aria 🏳️‍⚧️🇧🇩@lemmygrad.ml
                  ·
                  1 month ago

                  I’m the kind of dork that tries to obey all the traffic laws in GTA like games though.

                  I remember trying to do that in good 'ol Vice City, only for pedestrian-driving vehicles/cars to ignore them and speed on through (sometimes even hitting my vehicle/car in the process). The funniest part is I didn't even aggravate them or had cheats on, yet they still did it anyway. :^)

                  • booty [he/him]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    1 month ago

                    I'm pretty sure one out of every 1000 cars randomly (maybe more likely than that) in gta 5 is specifically coded to drive like a complete maniac. I've seen them do a lot of wacky shit. Wouldn't surprise me if that was a feature all the way back

          • UlyssesT [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            Me neither.

            Similarly, "Postal" was such a disgusting pile of misanthropic shit that I never ceased to be baffled that the series is somehow considered a classic among freeze-gamer.

            I enjoy Civvie 11's Youtube videos but even after seeing pretty much all of the non-Postal ones, I still find his Postal playthroughs unwatchable.

          • MaoTheLawn [any, any]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            Ragdoll physics. Euphoria is a great physics engine. It's morbidly silly, and feels taboo.

          • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
            hexagon
            ·
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            GTA's solution to make regularly recreating those ISIS truck attacks on busy sidewalks feel less morbid is making sure every NPC comes across as incredibly vapid, stupid and repulsive

            All the stuff the NPCs blurt out makes them sound like awful, shallow people

            It all gets a bit tiring after a while

            • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
              ·
              1 month ago

              After a while of that, my headcanon became that it's actually hell, with the player and all the npcs there to punish each other, where nothing ever changes

    • Redcuban1959 [any]
      ·
      1 month ago

      In GTA 2 theres a mission for the Russian Mob (who are mostly a parody of Slav and Soviet stuff, they even have a place called Crimea lol) that you kidnap random people and watch them get shot only to be served as hot dog.

      Which makes no fucking sense even for a non-sense game like GTA 2. In the PS1 port they changed so you attack rival gang members instead of random civilians.

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      Play Red Dead Redemption 2. It abandons the edgy satire and what Grimbeard would call "smelly boy humour" that Rockstar made their calling card previously

      Even Red Dead Redemption 1 still leans into that GTA tone

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        1 month ago

        My wife likes the series, so that's probably a good sign.

        A grim setting can be cool and good, especially if it feels like it's going somewhere (even if that somewhere is a fated shootout) with some narrative satisfaction.