I bought GTA IV, played it for a week and then stopped. Some of it is Rock Band’s fault, but mainly the game doesn’t do it for me anymore. GTA III was an amazing experience. Vice City was more of the same fun. By San Andreas, it just feels like work: go here, get this, do that, drive around. Even driving around looking for new stuff doesn’t thrill me. I bought the most recent copy hoping all the glowing reviews reflected something new. Junot Diaz sums it up for the WSJ:
GTA III was the tipping point: Everything else after was, no matter how awesome, just another better brighter, smoother version of the same . . . What else is the new GTA not? Well, despite all the critical adulation over GTA IV’s characters and purported subtlety, this isn’t a game that is nuanced or subtle.
If you like the article even just a tiny bit, I heartily recommend Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And it’s nice to think of the WSJ copyeditors having to ok the article’s language as is.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Kinda like Phish post-millennium. It’s never gonna be the same but you’ll still be excited when the announce the reunion.
July 27th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
The sandbox stuff is definitely played down in GTA IV, to help keep you focused on the story. I miss being able to jump in a cab, take some fares, run a guy over, wait for the ambulance to come to save him, and then steal the ambulance and become a paramedic.
My biggest disappointment in GTA IV was when I saw a garbage truck and carjacked it, only to find there were no trash missions: I just had a big garbage truck.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Clearly there’s an unexploited work-a-day fantasy that would appeal to middle-class info workers, the romance of the garbageman.