Hey! I hope you enjoyed the video and are doing alright just now. I'd just like to say a massive thank you to my patrons. Times are rough right now so make sure you're good first and foremost, but if you feel you can, heading to patreon.com/writingongames can get you access to perks like early access to completely ad-free uploads and the like. Your support allows me to keep doing this and I cannot thank you enough for that. Stay safe!
@@tylercouture216 the one second a content warning takes (whether a spoiler warning or a trigger warning or whatever) is always worth it across an audience of hundreds or more.
I think the point of GTA V's story, including the dissonance and abrupt plot turns and deadends, is that it is supposed to be unsatisfying because the real story is player-directed. The missions are optional, a crutch for those without the imagination to live out their own story. You don't have to do anything that is tonally inconsistent with the characters and their setting. If you did, that's on you!
Adam Snee it’s not that Jimmy was a psychopath, but that Jimmy Hopkins’ prankster nature made sense with how people actually played the game while still being a good and even sometimes likable character.
Well, the answer in my opinion is that Trevor isn't totally unhinged, he really, deeply cares about his few selected friends, Michael and by extension Franklin, Trevor doesn't kill Michael because he's too important for him. And Michael doesn't fear Trevor directly killing him or his family, he fears the huge amount of troubles that come with being associated with Trevor. Being friend with Trevor means being at war with the rest of the world, and you can't raise a family in that situation.
Agree, plus Trevor seems to have a really soft spot for Michael's family, he might be insane but he loves Michael and his family too much to hurt them, about Brad, I think that he thought it was "fair" since Michael needed to dissappear to raise his family
@@kendarr yeah Trevor says this to Michael one time that he didn't really care that Brad died it made sense that you know he needed to get away he had a family and stuff so that was the only way out I mean this isn't exactly what Trevor said but it's kind of what he said I'm not going into too much detail on what he actually said though call Brad an a****** I mean it it's kind of true I guess I don't really know Brad that much
I always got the impression that Trevor was supposed to be something of a tragic character by the end. He is the one that fell through just about every possible crack in society and while obviously pretty intelligent, Trevor is also completely, clinically psychotic. He spends the whole game trying to outwardly show his friends how carefree and "real" he is but in reality, the writers kept dropping hints that behind all that bluster and anti-social behavior was a person who deeply wanted to have some slice of that normal life that Michael and Franklin were after. In some of the last scenes of the story (depending on how you play), you see just how utterly broken Trevor is and even worse, that he knows it. People always give me a bit of a funny look when I call Trevor a tragic character but by the time I was done with the story, I could not help but feel that Rockstar made him out to be the guy that just fell through the societal cracks and could never, ever get that normal life with normal friends.
He wants to prove to himself that normality/sanity is an overrated concept that he doesn’t need. That way, the fact that he can never be normal and sane won’t seem so bad, in theory. But being dishonest with himself like that is just making him even more unhinged. He hurts and intimidates people because he’s afraid of being vulnerable. He lives in a desert and pushes people away because he doesn’t want to depend on people who will just use and abandon him. He knows he’s effectively become a disgrace to society. He secretly antagonizes himself, and he takes his self-hatred out on complete strangers, since he blames society for turning him into what he is. It’s pretty sad when you think about it.
That's why I like Luis from The Ballad of Gay Tony. Everyone talks about how much he wants to be respected and respectable by helping Gay Tony run his business, but also that he will turn into a rampaging psychopath the very second violence is an option (and this being GTA, it is always the only option). He even has the most violent gun in any GTA: the automatic assault shotgun with explosive shells.
In my experience of GTA IV, there was no "ludonarritive dissonance". I've never played a Rockstar game for the sake of a senseless rampage as it doesn't really do anything for me. To me Niko really was someone trying to live the American life as best he could whilst being held back by his past turmoil. If GTA IV is guilty of this supposed "ludonarritive dissonance" then so is Red Dead Redemption since like any other open world Rockstar game you are free to go on spontaneous killing sprees whilst playing a character who is also trying his best to live his new life dealing with the events of his troubled past catching up to him.
Pretty much all of Rockstar's games have ludonarrative dissonance because they aim for a straight Hollywood story while bolting an open-world game on top. There's too much player agency in an open world sandbox to pull off a straight story with pre-defined characters without having some thematic disconnect occasionally. It doesn't have to be a bad thing, but if a game like GTA IV is trying to be taken fully seriously then moments like driving a car into a swing-set while it launches you across the map kinda break the game's veil of seriousness. Even simpler examples like cars being so easy to steal or people so easy to kill can make the grimmer tone feel slightly unearned.
>because they aim for a straight Hollywood story The very reason why mainstream\AAA gaming has been slowly going down the drain in the last 10-15 years for me. "Cargo cult" pratices and practitioners that demand of almost every big-budget game to be "movie-like" and "Hollywood-like", with long-winded non-interactive cutscenes that have zero character and\or player agency, over-reliance on, uh, taking notes from film industry in the narrative\direction department, and extremely minimalistic, overly polished game systems\gameplay mechanics ("overly polished" not in terms of balancing and fixing some major flaws, but in terms of playtesting and focus group testing the shit ot of the game and making it "more tight", until it becomes squeaky-clean, void of any quirks and individuality, but perfectly suited for the mass market demands), have been sucking out not only the fun out of a lot of big-budget games for me, but moving it in the wrong direction. And with the recent talk about modern AAA games being too big, too long and generally too self-indulgent, I think that I'm not alone in this. Ok, my crappy rant that is completely unrelated to the topic is over, I'm sorry, but I really needed to vent it out.
i mean i would agree with that statement about RDR. i genuinely thought the plots of both of those games were stupider than most anything i played at the time because they expected me to buy this i'm a good guy trying to change deep down while i'm gunning down authorities.
I think Trevor and his inconsistent nature isn't the reason for the messy story. I think it's how the story itself is structured given his existence - and the two others - that's the problem. One thing that people could've disregarded and probably didn't notice, is the importance of choosing the RIGHT ORDER OF MISSIONS to take that should chronologically cohere with the intended narrative. The series was always known for giving multiple missions to give to the player to trigger. However, due to V having now three characters each with their own missions to trigger, it is unavoidable to sometimes trigger missions that aren't thematically related to the most recent narrative thread. This results in a tonal whiplash which I admit is very jarring to see. That's why I hoped that the three characters would have been given their own singular story thread that's crafted in a self-contained manner with their own personal end goals that can exist on its own but can coalesce with the stories of other characters. As a result, their eventual culmination would have really mattered and felt earned. I would also very much appreciate - if they would still be using multiple characters for GTA VI - that multiple mission triggers for a character would be removed and instead just have one self-contained story thread for a particular character in order to preserve the integrity of the narrative.
GTA V would have been a much better game if the three characters only got to know each other towards the end of the game. Like you said, it's have nhhc better flow of they had their own story threads. Plus imagine the players anticipation of wanting these character to meet up and work together, but only after hours of playing all three of them and getting to know them as individuals. That'd of been cool
The funny thing is you pretty much just described what rockstar did with the DLCs for GTA IV where the three protagonists stories are all separate but eventually become entangled with eachother’s storylines at some point.
@@windmonkey95 YESS!!! That is exactly what I was hoping for with my three-protagonist-structure expectation. I thought how IV handled it was pretty amazing considering there were all self-contained and substantial on their own. However, I hoped GTA V would even build more upon it in that unlike IV where their stories merely tangle with one another, GTA V would then culminate those three standalone stories that would have felt epic and memorable. I think GTA V could have used more missions in exploring each characters with their own stories personally instead of letting them coalesce in just a short period of time without deep character development. But I still enjoyed V's story for what it is. I think Michael and Trevor is still probably one of the series' greatest protagonists and they could have been the best if those aforementioned practices could have been realized.
@@EggEnjoyer Yes! I was hoping for an impression like that. In that the players would be substantially invested in just an individual character that by the end, their coming together would just be so epic and truly an game design milestone. Funny enough, I think Last of Us 2 handled the multiple character protagonist design better. And that's despite me not liking Last of Us 2's story at all.
Basically GTA IV DLC's but it's all in one and you play the game for sometime then get to play another character then back to other one depending on the story xD
The greatest issue with the narrative is that Franklin is almost entirely unimportant to the plot. In the beginning few mission and the very last is he actually important. Everywhere else, it’s the Michael and Trevor show.
i like that he has more of an outside perspective on the relationship between trevor and michael. I think it's interesting that he just meets these two and Michael acts as a mentor, basically giving him an opportunity to abandon the life he pretty much grew up on. His family and friends even judge him for not seeing things the way they do and taking advantage of those opportunities. They'll call him phoney but Franklin sees it as him letting go of the past and focusing on bigger things. Even though I feel like having 3 characters is cool cause it shows you 3 different cultural sides of the area the game is based on, I also think it keeps the story from being focused on any single thing for too long. Like how Tanisha only shows up for a single cutscene even though she was mentioned a lot
That is true, but I think Franklin is supposed to be an audience surrogate. Out of the three he is the most believable one, and in the end he is the one who makes the most important decision in the game.
Franklin's arc is easily missed but it being the Michael and Trevor show is the point. Franklin is a reactionary character, the straight man to Trevor's rage and Michael's neurosis. He starts out as a wannabe don, saying he's too smart for the hood. He was quick to leave Lamar behind after getting that big empty ass house in the hills. Tanisha left Franklin for a doctor who is everything Franklin wished he was. Lamar might get himself into dumb situations but at least he's loyal and makes his own choices. All Franklin does the whole game is take orders like a sidekick. Lamar explicitly points this out near the end. It's not until ending C that he takes leadership and sticks with his friends, ruthlessly taking out their enemies.
My Niko never went around with a rocket launcher exploding civilian cars, in fact he barely stole any cars. Neither did my Michael nor my Franklin. I like to "roleplay" as the character I'm playing. And, yeah, Trevor is very overrated as a character.
That brings up a good point - it could be argued that all and any ludo-narrative dissonance in games is the player's fault, not the game's, if the game doesn't actively encourage you to do it. At least when it relates to GTA games.
Actually, I agree, being given the liberty to do whatever doesn't necessarily mean that you as a player in a characters shoes needs to create chaos and bring inconsistent with the story, that's on the player's need for destruction!
As Dan Houser said so himself, in GTA games, the story served more as a vehicle for fun gameplay. Dan would need to continuesly "write" the characters into situations to create these framings for gameplay experiences. They probably thought about a bunch of the scenarios and missions they wanted to do first, and Dan wrote a story "around" them, to accomodate it. This is contrasted by RDRIIs main focus on the narrative, disregarding gameplay, with a story first approach.
Replay that shit. You may not hold that view. Obviously Niko has an authentic toughness and a great relationship with his brother. Some of the more personal moments with Niko's former mates. But on replay I noticed how predictable the story was even after forgetting the plot. The game jumps from character to character and it never does anything with the ones it had before bouncing onto the next and killing the old. It's frustrating and disappointing frequently. It also ends poorly and had horrible pacing throughout and at times it's desperately in need of a few moments where the player can actually understand where Niko is in the Liberty City underworld.
@@palico004 yes! exactly this. I'm playing all GTA games on PC now and having just finished GTA V and GTA III, I have seen lots of problems with IV's story - especially its inconsistent characterization of Niko and his "errand boy" role. Vice City however, holds up surprisingly well. Tommy is written in a way that justifies some of the "fetch quest" missions which have him explicitly revolt some of them and the characters that tell him to do so but HAS to do them since they're all part of Tommy's own plan.
GTA SA for me, its less about the "artsy/deep" storytelling but more on the quality of experience it had to offer in terms of moving its plot as an open world game. Most GTAs has always been contained in one city, but GTA SA despite being smaller in scale compared to GTAIV or V, it felt like a much bigger adventure because of the constant jump from city to city. Its like hopping from country to country, you only really get to see a small portion of each but you the point is you get to see something new everytime.
I'm replaying GTA IV and Episodes in tandem after about 5 years away from it and I'm really enjoying it. The interconnection between characters and narratives arcs are more fleshed out and detailed than I remembered. Like, I'm going through it this time realizing little details that I didn't notice before--in the end giving me a bigger appreciation for the game. Coming from V, IV and the episodes feels a bit refreshing to right now. I just wish that the main game got the same enhancements that the DLC got like mission checkpoints/replay (without the side objectives though), parachutes, cars, etc.
Trevor is just a discount, more "lol random" Tommy Vercetti, frankly. That guy was also a violent psychopath (having sudden rampages make sense) but had clear motivations and goals, a more defined personality, a far more satisfying story to play through, and didn't establish himself by killing off a fan favorite character. Plus you can't go wrong with that shirt.
@@SM-or1wo nah, he's right. trevor is just an inferior version of tommy. tommy was doing the "represents the average GTA player" 11 years before trevor even existed.
In my experience, Trevor is idiotic, Michael and his family are unlikeable, and Franklin is the most compelling character only by way of him mainly being a blank slate.
They're supposed to represent Id (Trevor), Ego (Franklin), and Superego (Micheal). The three are Freudian archetypes writ large. They kind of went overboard with Trevor, which was a bit of a problem in the writing.
I actually found Michael's story to be the most compelling to me at first. I like the idea of a GTA protagonist who used to do all the typical criminal stuff you'd expect from one, except he decided to leave all that behind and start a new life... and his new life is shit, and it's (partially) his fault for not being able to change for real and be a decent human being. Just like you'd expect from someone who had the life he did.
I took Michael's storyline as some sort of satrical dysfunctional family sitcom with a decent ending. Meanwhile, the problem with Franklin's story is that it peaked too early. Once he got the house on the hill, his progression felt more like an expansion epilogue. There's not much excitement going on in his life and he kinda won by making it big and getting out of the hood. If anything, Franklin's the last sane man in San Andreas, what with everyone becoming too satrical or too cartoony for their own good. I feel like his character would have resonated with me better if he were an older OG gangster that failed in getting out during his youth and then becoming dad friends with Michael.
Things I would've liked, Trevor: doing missions with the bikers, o'Neill's, and Aztecs to really drive home the killing them part. Michael: more shooting missions, he's the best shot and we get Facebook, bike riding, and yoga with him, and Franklin more gangster missions since gta was founded on gangster stories. Maybe more street racing or racketeering or something
Tommy got it perfect. you can hella believe the man who killed 15 people with a knife when they tried to kill them would do something as deranged as the mission where you shoot up the mall to show the city you're the boss. But his personable attitude and genuine interest towards things he feels don't need escalation also makes it very believable that he's a little bummed when the printing press he buys out isn't a genuine one. Tommy COULD fly off the handle and beat you to death, but he could also talk it out if it doesn't bother him that much.
i would argue that tommy vercetti is probably the smartest dude in all gaming, every move he made has a reason, specially when lance ask him why he keeps working for diaz, he says "we are learning how to do his job to take it from him, more we learn now less we have to learn later".
i agree with most of your points but 6:58 the game makes it clear trevor loves michael lmao yes michael lied to him but michael's still his best friend and he found he was unable to kill him or let him die. thats probably the most understandable part about trevor imo.
The uploader must have slept through trevor’s characterization. The whole point of him is that he’s diametrically opposed to everything Michael is and stands for. Trevor, as unhinged as he is, is characterized by his loyalty, and Michael his manipulativeness, using everyone around him, including Franklin and especially Trevor. He basically says as much in his first poolside chat with franklin. Trevor’s main motivation is his rejection of the state of society and the vapid, soulless, unfulfilling life that Michael leads. There’s a lot of depth and tragedy to trevor’s character that goes unstated in this video
i feel like part of the reason that ludonarrative dissonance is used as such a "gotcha" in games criticism is because games criticism, as a field, is largely isolated from the larger critical tradition. in any other critical field, there isn't really such a thing as an inherently bad element of a piece. for example, a work of art might deviate from realistic human anatomy. a critic might then come along and point this out as an element that is either detrimental (as it would be in a traditional portrait) or something that is used for a specific effect (as with a mannerist, cubist, or impressionist piece.) similarly, ludonarrative dissonance can be used well (e.g. spec ops: the line) or it can be used poorly (e.g. bioshock: infinite)
I guess there's also the fact that movie, music and art criticism has existed for decades or even centuries, but games criticism has been born in an age of "haha funni british man say the bad word". That, I feel, has influenced what you describe. Spend 15 minutes on YMS or ralphthemoviemaker, and you'll already have a map of what a movie should be, regardless if that's how art works or not (I really like both channels, btw)
This is a dark take, but I also disagree with the presumption that we inherently view “heroism” at odds with “violence.” In football, we admire the team that wins the game, not despite of but BECAUSE of the violence they wrought on the other team to win the game. Gaming just puts our subliminal animal craving for violence at the forefront and in our hands, which is what Metal Gear Solid 1 directly confronts with the famous line towards the end: “You enjoy all the killing.” Our common use of the concept “ludonarrative dissonance” to decry the incompatibility of “heroism” and “violent gameplay” seems to me a diversion from the underlying truth that we, on a base level, admire violence as a facet of heroism. This is why we also compartmentalize game violence in a “good vs. evil” template: to justify violence as “heroic” when done in the service of good to the detriment of evil.
There's a huge difference between drawing characters with weird anatomy and creating a gameplay at odds with your story though. Artists deliberately play with anatomy and usually learn actual human anatomy before that, while ludonarrative dissonance is usually unintended, an oversight. It usually appears when game writers will have a specific story in mind but do not realize that the gameplay will affect of the experience. The games that actually intentionally use it are pretty rare.
@@RYAN-gz1fe Spec Ops went so hard into making continuing to play unpleasant by the end, and went so hard many people stopped playing. It still didn't quite manage to pull it off. Probably the best element is the execution mechanics, which go from calm and precise killings that you could almost justify, to violent moments of rage, to near the end (and well after the player has noticed downed enemies never pose a threat) they are prolonged, psychotic attacks. I ended up stopping doing them entirely halfway through the game and know many others did too, even though that brings real gameplay disadvantage. So, Spec Ops did manage to partially achieve 'playably unenjoyable' when it counts. The industry is fairly young; it took a long time for film to manage to effectively deconstruct itself and a lot of false starts. The obstacle isn't games trying and not really succeeding, like Spec Ops did, but the way the overwhelming majority of creative force in the highest profile area of the medium just don't want to.
I get annoyed when the ludonarrative dissonance concept gets thrown around in a game where most of the civilian murder and extreme violence is optional.
Yeah. To me it's kind of odd people say GTA IV has that ludo diss when you don't HAVE to go around blowing up civilians, and it isn't part of the plot. It's a player decision. I personally never murder civilians or do extreme violence in my playthroughs because that's just not what I like to spend my time doing, so i never found any issues. For me Niko really was a guy trying to do better.
@@Spamhard personally i find the actual missions themselves, where so many missions have you killing dozens of enemies, very ludonarratively dissonant, given the initially somber tone of the game and Niko's consistent talk of starting over, implying he doesn't want exactly what we end up doing, and just the overall world and story trying to portray itself with a lot more realism and intimacy than previous titles. It's very jarring , to be forced into so many deadly shootouts with randos. I prefer the way gta 5 handles things, having a less serious tone with more focus on humor actually passes the world off as a real place much better than what 4 did, at least as a gta game. The story of gta 4 would have fit much better in a noir detective-y adventure type game, which R* also have a tendency to put way too many "action" scenes into (l.a noire). I think dissonance is also a really subjective thing too, like I only notice a teeny bit of ludonarrative dissonance in a game like RDR, even though that game has the protagonist kill just as many people and has an ultimately serious story. I'm guessing it's because since the wild west is mostly known from movies and tv the huge Rockstar shootouts feel more like homages to pop culture instead of an attempt to recreate a real one.
Ludonarrative dissonance (LD) came into focus for me when I played Watch Dogs 2. In that game, you play as Marcus, this kind of goofy, chilled out hackerman. To me it just didn't make any sense that someone like Marcus would go on the usual open world kill sprees...so I didn't; this is the first time ever in a game that the ludonarrative dissonance actually changed the way I played; in the open world I tried not to harm any civilians and in the missions I tried my best to be stealthy and non lethal (an option the game actually gives). But it was because the game gave me that option (lethal or non-lethal), that I was able to confront that dissonance head on. So honestly I think the better way to confront LD is through a game's mechanics, and not necessarily its narrative. Either that or you go full New Vegas and have the story and mechanics account for practically anything the player might do.
To be honest when I first played GTA V I thought Michael's trips to friedlander could be one of the "solutions" to the dissonance. He could open up to friedlander about how he doesn't want to do any criminally psychotic things that the player usually does in free roam but somehow cannot control himself, as if someone else (like a player) were controlling him. Shame it doesn't happen though. As for Niko's story, I wouldn't put it in a gameplay loop similar to GTA, so I disagree with your opinion in that regard, though I agree with everything else. In the topic of GTA and Dissonance I also think of CJ and all the batshit crazy mission impossible tier stunts he pulls during that game. To think that all that would come from a gangbanger from the streets lol.
it's funny that you bring up Michael as a solution to dissonance because I think he works perfectly until that group therapy mission where he reconciles with his family and promises to change for the better, and the game acknowledges this by changing dialogue and cutscenes for him, like having him walk by prostitutes and deny them by saying he's married but then you can instantly turn around and hire them anyway. I think in the end Michael is the most egregious case of dissonance of the whole game.
YoungCrespo eh, I kinda forgot that part to be honest lol. I was referring to the first few visits. I guess my point was how the whole therapy stuff was executed and all, and since the therapy session starts at such an early point in the game, I thought Franklin was also gonna have like, his own version and such.
Man, that idea about Michael and Friedlander is a good one. It's also frustrating because it makes Franklin's entire existence even less coherent. I'm fully convinced he could've been subtracted from this game and it would've been just as enjoyable if not more.
"In the topic of GTA and Dissonance I also think of CJ and all the batshit crazy mission impossible tier stunts he pulls during that game. To think that all that would come from a gangbanger from the streets lol." I think a very lucky gangbanger could pull some of that off, an extremely lucky gangbanger could pull most of those stunts off, and a highly motivated, extremely lucky gangbanger could probably do all of those things. The problem for me is htf was he not put behind bars for 100 years for just a couple things he's done, way before he's got the protection of a CIA agent?
For me when it comes to GTA, Vice City and San Andreas are like Sam Raimi's Spider Man Trilogy. The one that started it all and still to this day it gets admired by everyone, even if it clearly shows it's age. GTA V is like the MCU Spider Man movies. Yes the production and quality is REALLY good and overall it is a very entertaining experience. But there's just something missing that makes you look back at the previous titles. Maybe it's the lack of proper serious moments or the overload of witty sarcastic jokes.
4 года назад+3
And GTA IV is like Andrew Garfield stared The Amazing Spiderman , right?
Because of these never ending GTA V's cutscene jokes, I really couldn't and still can't take GTA V seriously. To be honest, I think that Rockstar should've come up with moments without puns
@ well seeing that I compared GTA to Superhero Movies..I'd say GTA IV is like The Dark Knight. Something totally different yet brilliant at the same time.
@@Oi-bg9bc That is why I started the comment with "For me". I'm just sharing my opinion and experience with this franchise. Basically Vice City and San Andreas are the ones that got me hooked on this franchise and genre of gaming. But yeah I get what you're saying. As we get older, things change and it becomes more and more difficult to keep up, or uphold interest in what this continues evolving society has to offer.
Man you can't win. Traditional character + chaotic gameplay = "ludo-narrative dissonance" create the perfect character to suit GTA's gameplay = "narro-ludative dissonance" Trevor is awesome, and GTA V was the first GTA I felt compelled to play all the way through. The story is messy because the game is messy. If you put a super tight, linear story on top of GTA it feels forced, because the game itself is so open and chaotic. A GTA style game is never going to be The Godfather, it's simply not the medium that can tell that kind of story.
No one is really saying the story had to be tight. The game could have adopted loose story telling and have a good overall story. Plenty of games have loose story telling.
I agree how a super linear story in GTA would feel clunky like L.A. Noire, but even then, GTA V is bad at being chaotic in missions because it doesnt go all the way. You can play missions in many orders, but as soon as you pick one, you HAVE to follow the dotted line or you fail the mission immediately. Previous GTAs always had the "monster of the week" kinda structure, which very few are linked to one another, they had a goal and you were pretty much free to do them in any way. GTA V's missions are more "cinematic" so the events that happen during the mission have to be carefully planned to deliver it.
I feel like in GTA V, the devs lost it's genuine soul and passion from its previous games. All other previous games were both funny and serious, particularly in GTA SA. In Gta SA all characters are pretty likeable and simply had great writing regardless of role.
LMFAO GTA V was literally the most passionate project Rockstar has ever worked on, including RDR 2. Have you even tried to read the articles and interviews for GTA V? The fact that they're gonna bring it on next gen systems further proves how proud Rockstar feels for what they did on GTA V.
I think Trevor could have been handled much better though. Like you didn't need a character AS unhinged as Trevor to represent the chaotic gameplay of GTA. I legitimately think a GTA game purely about a Trevor-like character that goes in depth about his personality and character would be incredibly good, kinda like in Yakuza 0 with Goro Majima.
No, I do not agree. You see, even though, Trevor is batshit insane, 1) He's not stupid; He manages to eliminate virtually all his black market competition, often through more cunning and underhanded ways than charging into an establishment all alone. He knows that if he were to just shoot Devin then and there it would be his death; It's just that, unlike Franklin and Michael, he's not afraid of him; Or Steven; Or any other powerful figure, he knows he can take them on. However, he also knows that if Franklin and especially Michael were to turn on him out of their own fear (exactly what happens in one ending), he would likely not be able to survive both of them. It's not that he doesn't give a crap about consequences whatsoever, more that he's putting up a very convincing image of it, so that he is feared by friend and foe (Kinda like a very dickish and vicious version of Majima). 2) He's not the devil himself, in fact, compared to Michael he seems almost like a good person, in a way. Throughout the story, it's explicitly shown that, unlike Michael, he actually _cares_ about some people, like, has genuine compassion for them. The wife of that Spanish guy, the torture victim, Brad, Franklin, but above all, his old, and best, friend, Michael himself. That's why he doesn't just straight up kill him; He really wants to get his revenge, to make him feel the pain and sorrow he felt after the first heist and upon finding out the full extent of his treachery. That is why, when Michael is captured, Trevor just can't resist the temptation anymore; He betrays him and leaves him to die, like Michael did to him so long ago. It is very clearly shown that even though Trevor has few qualms about physically and psychologically abusing those he deems unsympathetic, he has quite a bit of compassion for the skilled (like Michael, Franklin, and Lester), and for the downtrod (like Franklin and the torture victim). Because, admittedly Franklin's character is indeed a bit of a blank slate (not that there's nothing there though; Franklin's struggle is that of what 'success' even means for a poor black guy in the bad side the town; Does it mean being forcibly inducted into a gang, winning petty victories for years, earning the "respect" of the same guys who will cap you without a second thought when your luck eventually and inevitably runs dry?), and the biggest, meatiest part the story (for me) really is not just Trevor and Michael, considered separately, but rather, the evolution of their relationship, and how Trevor essentially helps Michael overcome his flaws that are causing his family issues and his extreme ennui verging on depression, by teaching him how to be honest, to lash out, express himself, and articulate his feelings. And it is perhaps because _I_ am still haunted by these same flaws following some very dark times of my own, that I see quite a bit of myself in Michael, and so in Trevor I see the kind of friend that I myself could not find in my time of need.
One of the best example of the correct way is Yakuza series. In that series, the protagonist is not allowed to do anything that the character won't do, and every activity you did is canon, which means its something that the character will do. And you know what, it works! You never feel lose or breaking character in Yakuza.
I've always found it mind boggling that people love the character of Trevor. To me, the most interesting character in the game is Michael, and I wish they'd have fleshed him out more. Trevor was just anarchy for the sake of it, and while I know a lot of people had been crying out for more of that in GTA, it just didn't make for a fully realised 3D character, and he came across so one note and archetypal.
I agree. I often find myself playing Michael more than the other two. I think if there was one protagonist for V either Frank or Mike could hold the story themselves from their point of view. As much as I like Trevor and enjoy playing him I don't think the game could be played with him as the sole character. You need the structure that Michaels character brings to the story to make it work.
@MrILIKEBACON Oh yeah, I know that, I just didn't find that all too compelling and ultimately it kind of removed me from a lot of investment in the game. I didn't the character, I just can't understand people heralding him as the greatest character in all of gaming.
@@UltimatePerfection Michael wasn't really a typical rich asshole. If he was, he would've never developed a connection with Frank and wouldn't have done many things like tearing down that villa, or crashing into the car dealership. He lived a life of crime thinking having a rich life was his goal, yet had no idea that he lived that life because he is that person, which he realises now that he's living the rich life to which he's unadjusted. He's a dog who caught a car and found a pup chasing cars.
@MrILIKEBACON to be honest, i don't think that trevor supposedly representing the average player was ever rockstar's intention. they just threw whatever ideas they had into trevor to make him crazy (cannibalism, rape, enjoying torture, naked hangovers) and then people just assumed he was crazy because they too act crazy when they play GTA. when people play GTA, they spread chaos in free roam, sure. but the problem is that they don't eat, torture or rape any people, nor do they have any interest in doing so (i hope so anyway....). they would find doing these things in free roam gross. so this idea that trevor represents the average player is a complete myth.
Weirdly, this got me thinking about Breath of the Wild. Nintendo's solution to having a character in an open world game where you can do anything is, basically, don't have a character. Who is Link? Depends on how you play him and what you do. The only defining character trait that I can think of that is true of link no matter how you play the game is "ambiguous". It's not that he doesn't react or emote in the cut scenes, but rather that his reactions and emotions can read so many different ways. You can roleplay him pretty much however you want. The only thing he cannot be is sadistic and evil, and that's only because Nintendo doesn't want the player killing NPCs. You can project almost anything onto the character of link, and nothing in the story will necessarily break the story that you are telling yourself (unless you want him to be a serial killer or a cannibal). Link doesn't even have to be a "he". Link is intentionally designed this time around to be androgynous. You could imagine Link as a woman, or non-binary, and everything still makes sense. Even getting kicked out of Gerudo town could be interpreted as Link not being female presenting enough, and the people there misgendering Link because of their cultural differences. Even the order in which you do things informs how you might interpret the motivations of characteristic of Link as a protagonist. Just a very interesting contrast to Trevor. They ultimately seek to fill the same general role, a character that embodies the players agency. Two totally opposite approaches.
Christian Killgore I like the way it makes all your mistakes when playing him seem canonical. Every time Link gets yeeted off a cliff by a moblin, it makes sense to me, as in my head he’s a clumsy kid whose greatest strength is his perseverence.
@@thomascrawley5972 my Link, like myself, is hyper obsessed with collecting everything he can pick up no matter how small. He is very into fashion, and dies all his clothes, and he will avoid a fight whenever possible. I just find it interesting how thematically both these characters occupy the same philosophical space, but are executed totally differently. They both are commentaries on the behaviors of the player. They both set out to make any potential choices you make line up with the narrative regardless of what those choice might be. The most interesting thing to me though is that Trevor is the developers projecting their idea of the player onto the player character. Link on the other hand is the developers facilitating the player projecting themselves onto the player character. Trevor is Rockstar's commentary on how certain people choose to play their games. Link is Nintendo's commentary on the idea that the player might do anything, and leaving the player to fill in the blanks. The weirdest part of this, and I know this is a nitpick, but Breath of the Wild is the one Zelda game where you have the most choice, but you are stuck with the name Link. So many other Zelda game, no matter how linear, let you choose your own name for the protagonist. But they wanted voice acting in this one, and they needed Zelda to say the name Link in the opening cutscene, so Link it is. I'm sure they could have written around this for the dialogue, but I suppose it was just easier.
This is also why Gordon Freeman was a great protagonist in Half-Life, especially the first one where you can mercilessly kill any NPC you come across. He is an extension of the player and the game accounts for pretty much all actions they can take.
Hol on. Let's get one thing straight. Bioshock didn't promote Objectivism, it was a scathing critique of it, that's why you were helping Atlas topple Ryan. I thought the dissonance had more to do with harvesting/saving little sisters. Or something like that.
@Jordan Ghill It openly mocked it? I saw it in the same way that wolfenstein mocked Nazi's though going for a bit of a different tone however even if still mocking or scathing.
@Jordan Ghill Maybe. But it wasn't ludonarratively dissonant from that perspective. The mechanics were not in conflict with the general damning of Objectivism, which was consistent throughout the whole first game.
He's saying the critique was in the story, while the GAMEPLAY was sort of Objectivist, that's why he showed gameplay where you were hacking and stealing and killing to empower yourself. All of them help you succeed!
Honestly I would argue it wasn't Trevor's existence and who he was that was the problem. The story itself is just sloppy. They could have had Trevor with his exact same personality type and style and written a good story around him and the other characters. They just didn't.
The concept of “ludonarrarive dissonance” is rather absurd. I could see what it’s creator was trying to say but video games in their very nature are meant to break it. For example, a game can design a character’s story and motivation to perfectly match the gameplay yet the player can control them to walk in a small circle for 3 hours. I highly doubt any game would reasonably justify the player walking in a circle for 3 hours. Niko Belic is perfectly written character, and for that matter I think John Marston is as well. They are people who have done bad things and are trying to now do good, but it would make sense that their past ways get the best of them from time to time. Plus critiquing GTA IV for allowing a well meaning immigrant to use a rocket launcher on the police also doesn’t make sense. As realistic as the game worlds of GTA may appear, I believe they’re almost as fantastical as a world like Skyrim’s or The Witcher. The world of GTA is not the same as earth, hence why New York is called Liberty City and California is called San Andreas. These world are extreme, hypersexualized, zany parodies of our reality. Mass murder sprees are the norm, the police give up on world class crime after five minutes, and all the npcs have no personality. Within the ridiculous context of the game world, criticizing niko for going on a rocket launcher spree is rather daft
Smug Anime Girl yes! I couldn’t have said it more perfectly myself. Unfortunately I feel like we live in a day and age where people are obsessed with Latinate words. It’s problem that extends far beyond gaming imo.
@@babyyeed5674 O, Mighty seeker of offense where none is to be found, where shall ye travel next? I wish to know thy itinerary, to bask in thy larking about.
Walking in a circle for three hours isn't as jarring as shooting people 30 people with a rocket launcher, as soon as you start to play the game the way the devs set up for you, the theoretical game you talk about should go back to being a completely believable experience. Just because you CAN break a rule in a game doesn't mean the creators of the game aren't trying to get you to experience something a certain way. It's pretty clear Rockstar was trying to create something that was more realistic with GTA 4, and I don't think GTA 4 is as zany as you make it out to be. I could spend an hour or two just "walking" and i would only see npcs talking, cars honking, trains running on schedule, and some interactions like people getting arrested. Not 1 npc shooting others with a rocket launcher. Yes there will be some ridiculous stuff, like the humorous signs, and some unbelievable bits like people running on subway lines, but that's just a currently unavoidable side effect when making any open world with a lot going on. The intent for a more realistic experience over 3, VC and SA was still pretty apparent. So the more violent parts really did clash when they happened. I don't mind the violence you can cause voluntarily in free roam, it IS a gta game after all, but the story parts did not mesh with what Niko was doing or what he said he wanted, and so many forced shootouts just became less believable as time went on. This probably effected me more than others since I find corridor shootouts really boring and tiresome. I think LND is more subjective in this way, it can be ignored when you're invested in a game, and compounded when you're not You can call ludonarrative dissonance anything, like "gameplay-story contradiction", "why are being forced to do x when the character says he doesn't want to do x" or "why are we doing x when the character is a y, in real life a y like this would never do x, i dont like this y anymore'. Either way it gets in the way of my enjoyment of a lot of games ( tomb raider, and ESPECIALLY uncharted), mostly games that have developed characters to be believable and likable yet have them killing tons of people. I thought it was a common phenomenon, especially in current games where graphics are amazingly real and characters are more developed than ever. You can rationalize it, excuse it or ignore it, and call it whatever you want, but I've seen plenty of people complain about it besides me, even when they're not explicitly using the words ludonarrative dissonance.
Ludonarrative dissonance is such a silly problem for open-world games when you put it all together: "We want to write a good story with interesting characters, but we also have to leave open the ability for our main character to become a serial killer."
I was particularly interested in Franklin, they could have done much more with him and his relationships, but he became reduced to mere bust boy. Trevor started off really good, the problem lies with the overall story and his characterization. They could have explained why he is the way he is, and really open him up as a person. Michael turned out to be the best character of the three imo. They could have tied his movie stuff to the main story a little bit more, but whatever lol
You haven't paid attention, haven't you? His dad wasn't really there for him (as seen in the mission where Trevor meets Floyd's girl, Debra I think) and his own mother is a drug addicted b*tch (I'm only censoring this word because I don't want YT removing the comment over it, not because I have any problem saying it or putting it in writting), as seen in one Steanger and Freaks visit when she visits Trevor and when he tries to give her affection she kicks him like a dog. Then literally LOCK HIM OUT OF HIS OWN HOUSE until he goes and finds her a fix. This is why Trevor is the way it is. Psychopaths aren't born. They are MADE.
They hinted very nicely at his psychopathy being a result of a missing father figure and a, both physically and emotionally, abusive, drug-addicted prostitute mother, and a system that failed to take people like him into account. He is depicted as a character who was alone against the world from the get go and thus feels no need to care about the world. Even when he did care for someone, they died, betrayed him or had to exit his life in a different way.
I felt like Franklin was supposed to have been developed more since single player dlc was supposed to come but since rockstar ditched it Franklin just fells really incomplete(combined with the fact that Lamar was supposed to replace Franklin but didn’t due to his voice actor being busy)
@@mrvespuccia.k.ameganite1747 I think he's perfectly finished if you pick the ending in which you become Michael and Franklin applies his final lesson from Michael and turns into him.
The secret to a good GTA playable character is the resenting rage of a straight man. They need to be calm on the surface but severely pissed off underneath. Tommy Vercetti, Carl Johnson and Jimmy Hopkins all fit this description. This is because GTA is meant to be cathartic, supposedly you are just a normal person playing this game to let a bit of steam off.
I think there's one consistency with trevor, that explains why he blows up just at certain moments, and that makes for a really good contrast with Michael: He's loyal. He never betrays you, he never leaves anyone behind, he does his best to be as much of a team player as possible. The only thing he wants is for his friends to be loyal to him as well. That's why he absolutely despises Michael, why he gets mad when Franklin laughs at them. He lacks morality, he will murder anyone he doesn't respect, like any random civs or Floyd and Debra. He's a psycho, but if you earn his respect, you will be safe. That's why he's still hesitant to kill Michael, even if part of him really wants to. That's why he won't murder the mexican guy, Devin and the FIB fuck, because he knows his team still needs them. He's loyal, he's still a team player. He lacks morality, but you can trust him as long as he trusts you. Michael, even if closer to the "sane" side, is not someone you can trust, is willing to throw others under the bus, and that's shown from the start of the game.
The only trouble with that it he thinks everything in the world is also his property, which means the only rational way to act toward him is to kill him.
he doesn't murder floyd, you should listen to the news report on the radio, floyd was shot by debra, trevor took floyd's knife and stabbed debra to death....
@@-Tony-Gunk- That's so much better. He squats on a civilians apartment, causes a situation in whch the owner wants her boyfriend out for allowing a psychopath into her place and when she shoots him ehen he doesn't leave he murders her. The man is a saint.
GTA V isn’t a crime movie, it’s reality TV (hence all the cutscenes being shot on a handheld camera). Instead of being a satire about America, it’s more like a caricature. They made a horrible city devoid of culture, and they made these three murderers the only relatable people because they’re the only ones to see the city for what it is. It’s not about the narrative, it’s about following them on their journey to achieve their awful “American Dream”
The way I look at it: ludonarrative dissonance is a design tool. You can choose to have it in your game or not. If you choose to have it, or not have it, deliberately, then it can help serve your story. If you don’t consider it, and so your game has it or lacks it accidentally, that’s when it’s a mistake.
Personally, I kinda hate Trevor as a concept due to a very specific scene: in GTA its all about fun, mindless *cartoon* violence. I play it to turn off my brain and just enjoy some mayhem. The torture scene in GTA 5 was *not* GTA and the only reason it exists in the way it does is cuz Trevor exists. I despise being required to *graphically* torture someone in a game about mindless mayhem. I DONT wanna examine the violence that I do to characters in that game cuz its just... not what im there for. Ill play something like Spec Ops for that
@Christian Tompkins the difference is that on one hand we have fictional videogame cartoon violence where im walking down the streets of los santos with an RPG making people pinwheel across the streets because, hey, why not. On the other hand is pulling a dude who repeatedly tells you he doesnt know anything about what youre asking him about into a dark basement, violating his human rights (that you are required to provide inputs for while it is lovingly rendered in front of you) and then play it off as a joke. If you cant catch the tone difference there, then we cant have a conversation
@@Eagledude131 You really didn't get the point. It reminds me of far cry 3 and that torture scene where you're forced to torture your little brother to advance into story . Gtav's torture scene is like that . It's a satire , it tests the players' limits , throwing disgustingly violent scene , asking " why do you keep playing , don't you have enough of that violence "
@@Eagledude131 People like you have enough of this and are repulsed by it ( rational thoughts ) . Other people love this stuff and the game gives them more . Also you play as villains the whole time , you're not supposed to like those characters . It reinforces why you keep playing the game and what games in general make you go through ( unecessarilly so ) to progress into the story . There was no reason to torture that guy but you did it anyways , how do you feel ?
@@dylana.9057 if it was thematic or important to the story in any way, it wouldve been talked about *at all* after it was over. No one talks about it. Ever. It was an entirely superfluous addition to a game that revels in violence and thought that intimate sadism and fucking up an innocent person for life are things most people would find "in character" for the series and "engaging."
Like any GTA fan, I devoured press about GTA V before it was released... and I'm not sure where, but I'm certain that I remember somewhere saying that Trevor was intended to represent the "average GTA player". I just don't remember where it was written, nor whether it was someone from Rockstar explicitly saying that or an interpretation by the press member. I was practically raised on GTA games, and it's hard for me to tell whether I hold the narratives of San Andreas and IV in relatively high regard more because of nostalgia or more because of their legitimate qualities. Either way, I replayed both IV and V recently, and my opinion on both hasn't really changed. The only standard by which the campaign of V matches SA and IV is how good the writing *technically* is, in the sense that it feels very natural when the actors perform those scenes. And that's really an accomplishment on the actors' part as much as it is on the writers' part. There's no way of quantifying where the script ends and where the actors' personal spin on the lines begins, after all. Otherwise, the narrative in V indeed devolves into a mess when the paths of Michael and Trevor collide as the video points out, and the way Michael's story gets going in the first place is not terribly convincing either. And as good as the actors are, all of the important characters are either various shades of sociopath or victims of said sociopathy, with practically no other traits beyond that. That's probably my biggest issue with V - I find there's no one in it to like. Sure, Niko and CJ are sociopaths too. But they were also motivated by their need to find resolution and their loyalty to family both literal and figurative, respectively. Conversely, I'd argue that there's no aspect of the motivations of the three MCs in GTA V that isn't ultimately rooted in their sociopathy. Trevor is merely the one MC with whom this is blatantly obvious. Also, the "scathing satire" in GTA V is akin to South Park if its writers were lobotomized. The satirical parts of GTA V are so lacking in subtlety that it feels like an insult to the player's intelligence.
No one at Rockstar claimed that "Trevor represents the average GTA player", that was the games press, specifically Cracked in one of their videos on GTA 5. They were really supposed to be the freudian trio, Id (Trevor), Ego (Franklin), and Superego (Micheal). They kind of went overboard on Trevor being the unrepressed Id. In contrast, I can't help but feel that much of Franklin's story got left behind on the editing floor. GTA4 had a good story, but the whole "maintaining relationships" mechanic was so annoying it brought the whole game down for me. Being in the middle of a mission and having someone call you up and ask if you can hang out together, only to refuse because you're in the middle of "work" is annoying, and then having it negatively affect the relationship is unfairly punitive. I get that ignoring your friends is a bad thing, but when it happens because you kept getting shot on a mission and spent a week in the hospital recovering from bullet wounds, only to have a GF break up with you for that, that was game-breaking for me. My favorite was Vice City, which was a great game except for the problem of protagonist Tommy Vercetti being so aqua-phobic that he can drown in waist deep water. I'd love to see a remake of that game, with a swimming mechanic added.
@@joshuarichardson6529 in GTA IV you'd never get a call in the middle of a mission that wasn't scripted where Niko would deny the offer with a humorous play on words, which wouldn't cause your relationship status to decrease.
It's not at all true that the characters lack personality besides sociopathy and it's victims. Michael is a man who lived a life of crime, thinking it was a means to a life of riches, and is having a crisis realising that he was doing crime for the sake of doing crime, as the aspects inherent to such a life were the only thing that fulfilled him. He's a dog that caught a car pretending that the car was the goal, and denying that the chase is what fulfilled him, which is eating him up from the inside. Until he finds a pup who would like to catch a car of his own and finds new meaning in life. I'd further the allegory with the movie industry being a bone, and another dog who gave him that bone threatening to take away all of his bones including that one, but it was 5:06 am by the time of writing this and my creativity is at its limit. Trevor is a mentally deranged person who got to where he is because he never had a father figure and had an emotionally and physically abusive, drug-addicted prostitute as a mother. He didn't recieve proper care and the world instead rejected him. He only saw the world against him and thus provided no courtesy nor mercy towards it. Naturally he very easily feel into the world of crime and drugs, where he, broken in the way he was, flourished. The few people he loved and actually allowed in his walled off heart either died, betrayed him, or had to leave his life in a different way. Franklin was more of a grounded straight man in the story, cynical of his life and the life of those around him and the pup from the previous allegory. Over the game he takes the same path Michael takes, culminating in him becoming Michael completely if you choose ending A. His straight man personality contrasts well with the other two's personalities.
@@MyAccount217 Yeah it was a thing you could do but was more of an oversight. The ones where they called you while doing certain missions was pretty funny. If they would of had the hangouts calls come in like 3x less often it would of been better. Than you have gta online where if you dont own many of the properties and stuff, you get spammed with calls, texts, emails, and in game popups about said properties and stuff, like 3x as often as they appeared in gta iv. :D
The issue is the very idea of ludonarrative dissonance. In most games the most exciting story will be your story, the emergent narrative that comes from mechanics - how you killed a boss with a lucky critical hit at 1 hp, or how you got thay longest killstreak the other day... The idea that "story" and "gameplay" are separate at all IS the problem, this naive approach that thinks that "story" is something told in cutscenes and dialog, rather than organically created by totality of the game experience.
That's rather the point, isn't it? Ludonarrative dissonance is when the players actions and the game's explanation of what the player "was supposed to be" doing are at odds. Those two things are innately linked. Gameplay design ideally should account for the narrative in a fundamental way, and the narrative should account for the gameplay. That's a lot more forgivable when the player is intentionally doing so, of course - it's great when the narrative notices and accounts for it, but it can't always account for you running around naked to abuse i-frames. The problem is when the game's mechanics enforce a certain playstyle. Like throwing a hundred guys at the player, and all your attacks are really violent, but the characters "didn't kill anyone", or they have mercy for the boss but not the hundred faceless dudes you just murdered.
Cognitive dissonance is when you hold two contradicting ideas. Ludonarrative dissonance is a real thing. The player can do one thing, while the story does the opposite. However I don't think it should be used as a critic. Instead an inherent aspect story based interactive entertainment. People who like to think themselves smart love to write about it. But really we as humans don't mind. When you play Uncharted, you don't care that Nathan has killed more people than the villain. You understand that this, at the end of the day is a video made for entertainment and that there will ways be a divide between gameplay and story. Doesn't make the story any less great
@@EggEnjoyer "you don't care that Nathan has killed more people than the villain. You understand that this, at the end of the day is a video made for entertainment and that there will ways be a divide between gameplay and story. Doesn't make the story any less great" Yeah, no. As a human being I inherently avoid injuring any "innocent" bystanders in all my games. I very much fucking mind when a tells me my player avatar, which I invested time and effort into, and maybe even a good bit of emotion if it's a very character with some depths, either in its in-game interactions with the game-world, or animations, dialogues, etc.. Ludonarrative dissonance is an inherent impedement for my enjoyment of a game when it feels like I'm fighting a futile battle against the overall narrative to be the character I want it to be.
To me, Franklin felt like Niko except with no reason to be Niko . Niko is in America for a reason, everything he does is somehow related to that goal (even if the relation is just that he got roped into it along the way), and he can't reach his goal through legal means. Franklin, on the other hand, starts the game with a steady and (semi) legal job, when he loses that job he still has an opportunity to look for another legal job, but instead he goes to Michael and digs himself into a position where he has no choice but to commit heists and get into shootouts.
I thought the main thing with Franklin was that he had no other options. In his words “It’s either this or selling dime bags in the hood” at least with these shoot outs, he gets to live in a mansion.
I thought the ending of GTAV was really cool in that you're playing throughout the game as these 3 characters separately, but with intertwined stories, which by the end of the game having you take control of all three at the same time to push DW's car into the water was a pretty good payoff for me.
I think there's a connection between dissonance, suspension of disbelief, and plot holes. Most fantasy is filled with plot holes, yet it doesn't stop us from enjoying the fantasy if the narrative grabs us. People seem able to forgive inconsistency, strangeness, even contradictory events so long as the narrative works. Talking about plot holes and dissonance is fun, and may even add to the narrative instead of detracting from it.
Honestly I think the introduction of Trevor is when the last shred of interest I might have had in the GTA series died. I can revel in the chaos of a Just Cause game, become deeply invested in the drama of a Yakuza game, and even go wild in a Saints Row game. When I look at GTA, though, it just seems so empty. Maybe it is just me.
I don’t think it matters that GTAV’s story is a mess. The story in a game like that is more of a framing defice for crazy stuff. I doubt anyone was looking for War and Peace. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try making a story in a game like this, but having a story should be a praise rather than a standard.
I thought the same thing till a few days ago. I played it on 360 back in 2013 when it came out and though it was pretty meh. Replayed it on pc recently and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. And I also played GTA 4 a month ago and it was just so bad... the pc port was terrible and like all Rockstar games it was to long and drown out for it's own good but 5 was just better.
I enjoyed GTA V's story (so much so that I've played through its roughly 30-hour campaign twice), it's dumb fun. But, let me be honest for a second: it has not aged gracefully. When you look past its ambitions, it doesn't hold up all that well. There are a lot of inconsistencies -- like the ones you pointed out in this video -- and I only ever found myself engaged with its plot because the loop of finishing missions so I could get to the next one appeals to me for some odd reason. Add onto that that its satire hasn't aged so well, either, and it's mehhhh
Never forget the sheer stupidity of the Paleto Score and invading the IAA research facility. We need to rob the military (killing several soldiers in the process) in order to rob a bank in order to buy a military helicopter. And this all happens when Michael is too afraid to go into Los Santos because of Martin Madrazo. Gameplay wise, the Paleto Score is one of my favorites, but the story is just so dumb.
Even at the time I was heavily unimpressed with GTA V. Not graphically or mechanically, of course; it’s a masterpiece. But the story was bland. Imo, the zany parts were heavily overdone and felt a lot less organic than they were in GTA SA (still the gold standard for me). TBOGT, the second DLC for GTA IV, had gotten a lot right with regards to wacky gameplay and cool characters - I really had high hopes for V, especially with the heist mechanic. But it ended up so drab that I never find myself thinking about GTA V anymore.
Also because you totally had to to get around, there was no GPS in SA so you HAD to memorize all the routes. In the newer ones you can just set the GPS and just follow the line, or get in a taxi and just have them drive you to where you're going. Older GTA games YOU had to get to where you were going and know how to do it.
@@happyveliz That is the exact reason I turn GPS off when I play 5 now and only take taxis very occasionally. When I go back to 3 and SA now I still know my way around and have been trying to get the same effect with 4 and 5.
A. Micheal seems to be the only character in GTA V that goes through legitimate change in the story (Like his family life is better and ties up the loss end with Trevor by the end of the story) B. GTA IV is better then GTA V in my opinion
Music teaches us how dissonance can be one of the richest forms of meaning in art! An Add9 suspension can turn your boring power chords into "holy crap I'm on a desert island maaaaan" in message in a bottle, but throw in a maj/min7 and now it's spooky cowboy campfire time, gost riders be riding that storm, you know?
Kinda reminds me of The Boss from the Saints Row series In Saints Row 2, Boss is portrayed as this criminal supervillain and a terrifying sociopath in the story. Sure they do joke around a bit, but they are mostly a very angry, revenge-driven person, sometimes portrayed in a manner that makes them genuinely scary. This is a person who has no problem making an enemy gang leader unknowingly crush his own girlfriend to death with a monster truck then crippling his best friend just to hurt him. All of this because the Brotherhood offered you a 20/80 split on the weapons shipment and later killed ONE of your friends. A complete sociopath who still deeply cares for their gang and values their friends, willing to go to horrifying extremes to punish those who would harm them. However, in the open world, Boss is much more easygoing and humorous. They tried to solve this “problem” in Saints Row 3 and 4 by making Boss act more lighthearted and goofy in the story too. But it drained a lot of the intimidation factor that Boss used to have. Not only that, but Boss feels out of character. When Johnny Gat is “killed”, they have an almost non-reaction and don’t seem to care much about getting revenge. And when a character who WORKED FOR THE GANG THAT “KILLED” HIM basically tells Boss that they’re responsible for three of their friends dying, Boss doesn’t get angry at all, doesn’t lash out, and doesn’t even point out the hypocrisy of the person indirectly responsible for their friends death saying that said death is their fault. Boss just says “okay, fair point.” None of the major villains in Saints Row The Third are intentionally killed by Boss either. Matt Miller is spared due to being useful (fair enough, even though the Saints already have 2 skilled hackers), Philippe is killed by complete accident, and Killbane canonically gets away and escapes Steelport. In fact, the ending option where Boss kills Killbane is also an ending where Shaundi will die, as if to suddenly tell us “bro, revenge BAD.” There’s also the fact that Boss just suddenly decided to stop trying to go after Dex, even though Dex is one of the biggest traitors to the Saints and part of the reason Boss got blown the fuck up and put into a coma at the end of the first game. Made even worse in Saints Row IV, where the game tries to portray the Saints as “heroes” which completely defeats the appeal of playing as a gang leader. I’ve seen some defend some of this by saying “bro Killbane and Dex die when Zinyak blows up the earth in IV” But how the hell is that satisfying at all? It’s literally the least satisfying way for an antagonist to die EVER: they die because the antagonist of the new game blew up the entire fucking planet that these people just so happened to live on, with no intent to kill them specifically, while also killing a few of your friends who were also on the planet. Not gratifying at all. SR3 and 4 are still really fun games, but I’m really hoping the upcoming new game takes a direction closer to SR2 and strays away from dick jokes and pop culture references every two seconds.
Pretty good and I agree, ludonarative dissonance is a real thing but often 1) Is used wrong (calling something dissonant while it isn't) 2) Isn't nearly as bad a dealbraker as some critics make it out to be. That isn't even taking into consideration that such dissonance can be used intentionally and though I can't think of such a game from the top of my head right now, I think this possibility is quite interesting,
I think comparing GTA with something like Uncharted is a bit... Untrue to form. Those GTA wild acts of rampage are totally player choice and take part 'outside' of the story. Whereas in something like the Uncharted, it's hard to deny that it's hard to connect with Nathan after he gunned down the entire population of a small Latino village for a bit of l00t as part of the actual story.
I never once worried about my character behaving differently in cutscenes compared to when I controlled them. I never felt like Trevor was more like my play style. I never switched to Trevor to go on a murder rampage or anything. So imo it really doesn't matter.
I felt Trevor was conflicted when it came to Michael. They were super close as seen at the beginning where he didn’t wanna leave him behind. After grieving, he finds out Michael faked his death. Trevor was super angry but also happy that his best friend was brought back to life basically. He struggled with hating Michael for lying to him but couldn’t bring himself to kill him because of their past. It’s like an toxic relationship. You hate the person for what they did but can’t fully walk away because of the history and “good times” you had. Some people just can’t pick one side or the other, it’s normal. Thinking Trevor is inconsistent because he can’t bring himself to kill his best friend is missing the point.
I think Micah Bell is a much better narrative representation of the same sort of character. Especially when RDR wants you to take its world with more seriousness and grace compared to GTA, Micah is the perfect example for why the runnin', gunnin', chaotic insane criminal is the WRONG way to play the game.
I think we're well past the point of using "Ludonarrative dissonance" as a criticism term, and now in the phase of life where everyone's too afraid to bring up "Ludonarrative dissonance" even when it's entirely appropriate to do so.
The real problem in GTA games is actually lack of tone. Emergent narrative is made to be goofy cathartic mass murder fun where you can't even die because you respawn at the hospital, while the predesigned narrative pretends it's a realistic gritty crime story with dire consequences. Games like Far Cry, Saints Row and Just Cause realize that, and put you in shoes of hinged characters living in an unhinged, over the top world. GTA5 tries the opposite, resulting in tone changing from moment to moment - and that part isn't fixed by having unhinged protagonist in a realistic story world.
After watching this, I think I know what Rockstar may have tried to do: Have you play as Trevor, with the invincibility, when you wanted to wreak havoc and kill everyone, as Franklin with car slow motion, when you wanted to drive really fast, but then I'm not sure about Michael (Bullet Time) if that were the case. Maybe that's not the case at all or Rockstar is too segmented and story, gameplay, and mechanics aren't designed together whatsoever
To me it depends on the game and it's intent to judge if there is a dissonance or not. In games like Uncharted, I see the gameplay as just means to gap the fun Indiana Jones style story, the story itself doesn't make comments on the gameplay or player actions (except for a throw away line in U2 at the final boss "How many people have you killed just today?") so I can easily separate both. Same goes for a overwolrd in old JRPGs where you could travel the planet in minutes but the game never mentioned it and it was a secret agreement between player and designer that you actually covered miles of distance on said world in three minutes. At the same time games like Spec Ops: The Line has a narrative that uses the gameplay to explain itself and therefore I can't separete my actions from what I see. Prey is another game that I think does the mix nicely, everything there, from your powers to the station design and all it's crew is present and makes sense story wise so for everything I see or do in that game I always expected that there would be a reason for it. That is where The Last of Us Part 2 failed me. It wanted to be a commentary on the violence but not acknoledging the gameplay that makes sure to be violent and real. If you gonna make a character feel bad for killing someone don't do this after 10 hours of slaughtering people with no remorse. I've never felt the agreement that my actions in game where different of what the characters had done since the game makes sure to make it feel like every action you did was part of the journey, from taking the gun out of your backpack in the middle of a fight, long and detailed animations for gun crafting to keep it real just to find out that all this realism actually was not happening and so my "suspension of disbelief" for that case was broken. Great video as usual and I just wanted to throw my two cents at the discussion and just seeing Yakuza being mentioned anywhere warms my heart haha
The Lat of Us 2 is the Gold Standard of terrible ludonarrative dissonance. You can tell that Ellie's kill-count factors into the overall story because of how hard Naughty Dog forced you to feel about every kill. From realistic death animations, the name callouts, and the dogs these were all factors that only highlighted the contradictory nature of the story and the "cycle of violence". It only makes the game's cutscenes and ending all the more jarring. But what do I know clearly I'm a bigot.
great video. and to your comparison to Niko Bellic's story, I've always loved GTA IV even while the larger public perception of it has soured a bit over the years
Why has nobody talked about how amazing Trevor's introduction is? You hear all this buzz and whispers about Trevor from Michael and Lenny, calling him psychotic and insane, the softest of all of them being called a "sick puppy". Then Michael and the FIB agent panic and freaked out when Michael ends up on the news about the possibility of Trevor coming back. Then we get introduced to Trevor at this point, who is wanting this on the news while fucking a girl over his kitchen counter. And what she perceived to have a bipolar conversation with Johnny from GTA IV which results in his brutal murder by Trevor's own hands. Then he proceeded to taunt, chase down, and kill the entirety of the MC.
The intro we get to Trevor in the game was my version of the current last of us drama. He kills johnny from the old gta 4 dlc in the grossest most insulting way possible, 18 year old me was offended as hell haha. That’s johnny kibbutz, 180lbs of jewish biker wtf! Turned me against trevor forever immediately I never want to play as him, always chose the ending where he burns alive lmao
I think that was the worst part of GTAV. Not the sole fact that Johnny died, but that it goes against everything that has been established in Lost and Damned for his character. In the end of that DLC he broke up with Ashley and decided to remove himself from the gang. Reasons why he was still in the gang were never explained.
Nice vid. I enjoy when you go off the beaten path of talking about direct writing or storytelling in games mechanics and explore critical thinking trends. I also agree: Dissonance in video games is...commonplace? Like I'm not saying we need it or don't, but just that if we're still talking about it today, we clearly haven't evolved our critical thinking about video games too far, just like video games at times haven't.
The ludonarrative dissonance was actually in evidence in GTA in San Andreas. CJ is a sympathetic character who expressed more of a moral grounding than Tommy from Vice City. And so it clashed there too, before Niko's turn. I remember thinking it at the time that the cracks in the storytelling are showing because they tried to make CJ "nicer" and more of a good guy than Tommy. I never felt in line with the backlash to "ludonarrative dissonance". It's a legit phenomena in gaming. And because games are interactive and so very often violence-based in how that interaction happens, we're always going to be faced with how that clashes with basic a morality of "not killing hundreds of people". Most of the time this dissonance is just going to clash to varying degrees. Except in the times where they can work it directly into the theme as in Spec Ops The Line. But that's not always possible so yeah, it's always going to feel weird when "good guys" kill dozens or hundreds of enemies. It's ignorable if you want to ignore it, but that doesn't make it go away as a potential weakness of gaming as storytelling medium. If the story is a big joke anyway (Saints Row) or absurdist (Yakuza) then it can clash far less, obviously. But when a game is presenting a serious, grounded front it's always going to be a potential issue that is potentially immersion-breaking. And undermine in-game concerns of characters about doing right/wrong. Games haven't really developed as extensive mechanics for engaging core gameplay loops that create tension and stakes for the player while not having it be violence-based. Shooting/stabbing/beating other people is simply one of the easiest ways to create fun, consistently-engaging gameplay. Farming, building and exploration games do to varying degrees. Delivery/driving games are actually among the most fertile ground to not have this dissonance while still requiring the moment-to-moment engagement similar to that of a fighting game or shooter. And I'd put Death Stranding into that (even though it has combat) as one of the most unique and compelling attempts by taking the idea of traversing an environment as a moment to moment gameplay loop out of vehicles and placing it directly into the human form.
This basically covered why I enjoyed GTA V more than GTA IV, but stopped playing it more quickly. Playing as Niko Bellick wasn't particularly fun, but he never actually made me angry as a character. I don't expect a lot of roleplaying from a GTA game, but I do need to be able to empathise a little. A game doesn't have to give you a morally wonderful character, but it DOES have to give you a character that you don't mind playing. Whenever I had to play as Trevor, all I could think was "Man, virtually everything in this game would be easier if my character was dead." I think you're right about critics getting a bit too goggle-eyed and obsessed with ludonarrative dissonance, and I think the best illustration of that comes from a game like Saints Row 2. That game understands that if the player chooses to play the game stark-naked except for a tiger-print top hat, they know that they made that choice. So when it takes a dark or tragic turn, it doesn't treat the fact that you've chosen to undermine it completely as a flaw - it's a feature. The series went off the rails almost immediately after that, mainly by writing the wackiness into the game rather than letting the player choose to do it. But still, there was clearly an understanding that a mature audience can not only handle but ENJOY ludonarrative dissonance, not in spite of but precisely *because* it messes up the tone of the game. Allowing us to turn a solid piece of melodrama into an ironic farce isn't a problem. I dunno, as you say, writing Trevor into GTA V seems like a childish response to the idea of ludonarrative dissonance. The mature response is to understand that you can never really control how a player plays your game. Making you play as a psychopath isn't really the.
I think you're not meant to take GTAV seriously at all. It's very very good at being dumb fun. The character of Trevor is just one form that can take. He isn't a commentary on the nature of ludo-narrative dissonance; he's just a vessel to poke fun at it. The story is mostly a series of dumb-fun events with genuinely funny writing.
Bioshock was a prolonged skewering of Randian objectivism, not a promotion of it. There's a reason rapture is a hellhole when you show up- bioshock does not think this is a good philosophy to run a civilization by. The fact that altrusitic co-operation is an mechanically better option than being a self interested murderer is not ludonarrative dissonance, because that's the point of the game.
Trevor is not just a "crazy-dont-give-a-fuck-person": he's got serious mental illnesses. The game never makes that explicit, but it's obviously implicit in many cutscenes, especially in a mission later in the game when he finally meets his long gone mother (did she abandon him, right? Dont remember clearly). And of course she's only a vision, an illusion caused by the brain of a man without medicines - and I think it's the first time we're told Trevor takes medicines. So, we have this man, with terrible psychological disorders, never loved by anyone. Of course he'd be strongly attached to a friend who gave him particles of love and understanding, and a purpose to Trevor's life (just compare his will to live before and after knowing Michael is alive). To me, it's a clear explanation regarding Trevor's actions. I think GTA is way misunderstood by its players, because most of its themes is being discussed in the subtext, in the details behind all the "on our faces" satire. Even the ending works in this fashion. The "Death Wish" option appears to be kind of a "superheroic" and lazy way to tie the various elements of the story. However, there's much niihilism over there: the act of the three characters finally facing their nemeses, knowing it's only a short-term win, reflects how they dont care about a possible future (because they're criminals and actually there'd never be a future for them). Standing their ground against those who moves the engines of this corrupt society is a way of saying "I cant stand living like this no more". So powerful.
tbh, it was also just badly written. Saints Row takes the dissonance and makes an anarchic playful universe around it, rather the totally un-shocking edginess of Trevor.
I am very weird. I have done GTA4 "kill only who I have to runs." And roll play play Nico's life. I actually prefer Nico's story, but really love Trevor. He is a very loyal, clever and broken character.
Honestly I feel like gta4s clunky gameplay is so at odds with its actually pretty good story that it becomes difficult for me to see either in isolation
I've never had a problem with narrative dissonance and have always seen it as a small issue even when I first heard of it. While I do believe it is a real issue for developers to tackle I've never thought it that important since I prioritize gameplay anyways. I've also always treated the story and gameplay of video games as separate where games like Bioshock get huge props from me for interweaving the two but ultimately a game can (imo) separately have great gameplay and great story like metal gear solid or the GTA games
I think the most important thing that the creator of the term ludonarrative dissonance ignored is that it only becomes a problem when the dissonance between the gameplay and story creates a dissonance between the PLAYER and the story. Framing much of the drama of the early part of GTASA around corrupt cops framing CJ for the murder of a police officer becomes a funny thing to remember as you realize Officer Tenpenny could just get CJ for any of the dozens of cops he's ACTUALLY killed. And that's not just something you CAN do it in the game, it's something you HAVE to do to progress in the game. When you have to kill an honest cop set to testify against the corrupt cops, CJ goes along with it without any problem (because he's a snitch), and kills that cop when he could just as easily kill the two cops forcing him to do their dirty work for them. Even within the context of some mission storylines, CJ is forced to do horrible things (like murdering guards to steal a rhyme book for his wanna-be friend) that seems totally out of line with the character presented in cutscenes. And yet, despite having a protagonist arguably less narratively likely to go on these rampages than GTA4, GTASA gets a pass. Niko... doesn't really get that. Niko's reluctance to do bad things because he wants to be a better person, but he has done bad things before, so it's nothing new to him. His whole story is about how he's really bad at not doing bad things. Even the things he needs to do in missions seems like something the character would do. The methods the player uses to accomplish those goals might not, but THAT gameplay dissonance is easily ignored by the player. It's not, like... say... the new Tomb Raider series, where the cutscenes constantly frame Lara as struggling against massive odds and constantly being injured and all the other stuff those games were criticized for... while having a gameplay where she's an unstoppable combat god. THAT is ACTUAL ludonarrative dissonance. The gameplay serves as a near antithesis to the themes of the story. For me, just driving around in a Need for Speed game like NFS: Heat, where you're just trying to get your player from your apartment to the shops to buy something... but still speeding around at 200mph like some insane lunatic in an illegal midnight street race... is far more dissonant than anything Niko ever does. Yeah, you typically have the same lack of regard for traffic laws in NFS: Heat as you do in GTA, but a disregard for traffic laws isn't the crux of the story line in Heat. Street racing has gotten so bad in this city that they have dedicated Street Race Police. You'd think the street racers would be a bit lower key during the day when they're not street racing.
If people complains about characters not matching up with the gameplay they either deserve trevor or don't deserve their freedom at all. That's How Game dev sees it as a solution.
I recently replayed the campaign. I had forgotten how annoying Trevor really is. Many times I did not know if I was supposed to be laughing or horrified about many of the things he does. I think Rockstar tried too hard to shock us, while at the same time trying to make Trevor likeable. I think Trevor could have been just as funny and likeable but more tolerable if Rockstar would have toned down his over the tope violence a bit. For example, the part where he crushes the head of a previous GTA character was totally unnecessary and made no sense to the overall story.
I think Franklin was grossly underutilized and would've worked much better as the central protagonist of V. He would've been a great straight man to all the other nonsense going on.
I honestly think if the game was only focused on Michael and Franklin it would be better because then you get Franklin, a character who is getting further involved in this world of crime and who is ruining his life in the process unknowingly . Then Michael a man who sees where Franklin is going and wants to help because he’s been there and knows how it actually does ruin your life. Then Trevor, now not a player character but now the villain and man from Michael’s past who represents what will happen if Franklin if he doesn’t stop. In this hypothetical game I would give Trevor the job of being the person who gives Franklin the final decision, except now the decision is just Michael or death wish, also if there was a morality system for Franklin like Arthur in rdr2 where how you act directly impacts how your character acts around others and how they act around you to represent how far gone you are in this world of crime. This is basically fanfic for a 8 year old game but I liked the idea.
There are many things you can criticize about GTAV, but imo, Trevor is not one of them. He, for me, actually makes the most sense. He is a highly intelligent person who had a fucked up childhood and for his whole life, looked for something like stability, the normal life. But everything went wrong for him. He got declined for the Air Force because of his childhood traumata, met Michael and with him, had stability. They would rob banks together, and Trevor considered Michael his one true friend, as hinted at numerous times throughout the story. He even declines to help Franklin kill Michael, because he still only wants to be best friends with him again. On the other hand, Michael backstabbed and wronged him at first possibility and planned for him to die. Further evidence of Trevor's life fucking with him at every possible instance. Trevor's motivations also stay the same over the story progress. He wants to become friends with Michael again and find out what happened to their gang. IN THAT ORDER. That's why he's so shocked when he finds out that M is actually behind everything, the one person he considered a friend and that gave him stability.
I never cared about the gameplay being at odds with the story in Rockstar games. It’s part of the fun. I can engage with this serious story when I want to and also goof off in the open world when I want to. I’ve always seen it as a pretty essential part of the charm to an open world game
Ironically Trevor causes more dissonance for me than most other GTA characters because I generally play most games as relatively neutral. I never spend much time harming civilians and try to keep most chaos to a minimum. I prefer to do whatever I set out to do with minimum fuss and casualties. So Niko makes way more sense to me, although Tommy from Vice City was always my fave and felt most relatable to how I play. Saying that I do somewhat roleplay as whatever character I have, so I'll feel a whole lot less guilty running over masses of civis while as Trevor, for instance, because I know he wouldn't care. :P
I think another big problem with Trevor is that if his intention is to capture the average "rampage" crime sandbox game player, he doesn't quite fit the bill. Trevor is more sadistic than capricious. He humiliates and kills victims in brutal ways. I felt genuinely bad for a lot of the victims at his mercy. The average mayhem crime sandbox player, however, is more capricious than sadistic. They might randomly pick fights or beat up pedestrians, sure, but they usually get the most joy out of watching cop cars explode or driving a dump truck through a park. And while Trevor seems mostly driven by hair-trigger rage and repressed tragedy, your average GTA player does what they do because it's fun, or it's funny, or they're driven by a curiosity to see just "what would happen if I did THIS? CAN I do this?" So there's STILL that PC-player dissonance even if you're causing mayhem as Trevor. The Boss in the Saint's Row games does a fairly decent job of avoiding PC-player dissonance in a crime game. But yeah, I think you might be correct that Niko actually works quite fine in a game like GTA, whereas Trevor causes both story problems without fixing "dissonance" problems.
Having your main character to be a "random funny evil guy" isn't good writting, he was the most annoying character I have ever seen, he was just made to make kids relate more to the game "haha he's crazy like I am crazy when I kill in the game!" Maybe as a villain he could have been decent but his character is just shit.
Fantastic video! For me I feel like Trevor deeply wants meaningful human connections but his abusive abrasive anti social personality keeps getting in the way of that for him. He considers Michael and Franklin not just as friends but as the people he wants to be able to rely on and feel consistent comfortable and safe with. (as safe as you can be in the world of gta😅) they are like family to him and you can see just how much it destroys him when he finds out about the grave. The jobs they do are less about the money for him and more an excuse to be with his friends. It's really sad
My issue with GTA IV in terms of its ludonarrative is that it screwed with the mission design in service for the more serious story. Going back to it the missions were mostly dull shootouts or follow the marker with very little variety unlike the previous games and V. This is in service of a story that doesnt gell well with the gameplay anyway. This becomes VERY apparent playing ballad of gay tony where because the tone lightened up the mission variety was MUCH better.
Hey! I hope you enjoyed the video and are doing alright just now.
I'd just like to say a massive thank you to my patrons. Times are rough right now so make sure you're good first and foremost, but if you feel you can, heading to patreon.com/writingongames can get you access to perks like early access to completely ad-free uploads and the like. Your support allows me to keep doing this and I cannot thank you enough for that. Stay safe!
not really because I don't agree with you
but everyone has their own opinion
for me gta5 has the best story
It was pointless to state spoilers for gta5 the game been out 7 years no need to kick it like everyone hasn't played it already
@@tylercouture216 the one second a content warning takes (whether a spoiler warning or a trigger warning or whatever) is always worth it across an audience of hundreds or more.
I think the point of GTA V's story, including the dissonance and abrupt plot turns and deadends, is that it is supposed to be unsatisfying because the real story is player-directed. The missions are optional, a crutch for those without the imagination to live out their own story. You don't have to do anything that is tonally inconsistent with the characters and their setting. If you did, that's on you!
Funny thing is, Rockstar actually already nailed what they were trying to accomplish in Trevor with Jimmy Hopkins in Bully.
I never thought of Jimmy as a psycho. Methodical, sure. But he was too level headed to be like Trevor. It feels like a silly joke that got out of hand
Tommy also got the idea right
Adam Snee it’s not that Jimmy was a psychopath, but that Jimmy Hopkins’ prankster nature made sense with how people actually played the game while still being a good and even sometimes likable character.
still waiting for bully 2
shame rockstar keeps milking gta online and forgot bully
Luckily GTA 5 is coming to the PS5. I was worried Rockstar couldn’t milk that game even more.
@Francisco A G excuse me what
@Francisco A G The PS5 hasn't been released yet, and it would be more expensive than the ps3 and ps4.
@Francisco A G Thank you for the compliment!
@Francisco A G hey! At least the ps5 will have one game.
Hopefully you'll be able to play skyrim remastered for the ps5 as well
They had us on the first half, not gonna lie
Well, the answer in my opinion is that Trevor isn't totally unhinged, he really, deeply cares about his few selected friends, Michael and by extension Franklin, Trevor doesn't kill Michael because he's too important for him. And Michael doesn't fear Trevor directly killing him or his family, he fears the huge amount of troubles that come with being associated with Trevor. Being friend with Trevor means being at war with the rest of the world, and you can't raise a family in that situation.
Agree, plus Trevor seems to have a really soft spot for Michael's family, he might be insane but he loves Michael and his family too much to hurt them, about Brad, I think that he thought it was "fair" since Michael needed to dissappear to raise his family
@@kendarr yeah Trevor says this to Michael one time that he didn't really care that Brad died it made sense that you know he needed to get away he had a family and stuff so that was the only way out I mean this isn't exactly what Trevor said but it's kind of what he said I'm not going into too much detail on what he actually said though call Brad an a****** I mean it it's kind of true I guess I don't really know Brad that much
I always got the impression that Trevor was supposed to be something of a tragic character by the end. He is the one that fell through just about every possible crack in society and while obviously pretty intelligent, Trevor is also completely, clinically psychotic. He spends the whole game trying to outwardly show his friends how carefree and "real" he is but in reality, the writers kept dropping hints that behind all that bluster and anti-social behavior was a person who deeply wanted to have some slice of that normal life that Michael and Franklin were after. In some of the last scenes of the story (depending on how you play), you see just how utterly broken Trevor is and even worse, that he knows it.
People always give me a bit of a funny look when I call Trevor a tragic character but by the time I was done with the story, I could not help but feel that Rockstar made him out to be the guy that just fell through the societal cracks and could never, ever get that normal life with normal friends.
I agree
Finally, someone who gets it.
Yup
He wants to prove to himself that normality/sanity is an overrated concept that he doesn’t need. That way, the fact that he can never be normal and sane won’t seem so bad, in theory. But being dishonest with himself like that is just making him even more unhinged. He hurts and intimidates people because he’s afraid of being vulnerable. He lives in a desert and pushes people away because he doesn’t want to depend on people who will just use and abandon him. He knows he’s effectively become a disgrace to society. He secretly antagonizes himself, and he takes his self-hatred out on complete strangers, since he blames society for turning him into what he is. It’s pretty sad when you think about it.
Thats why I prefer kill trevor ending. It adds more depth in storyline instead cheesy third way and making no sense death of michael
That's why I like Luis from The Ballad of Gay Tony. Everyone talks about how much he wants to be respected and respectable by helping Gay Tony run his business, but also that he will turn into a rampaging psychopath the very second violence is an option (and this being GTA, it is always the only option). He even has the most violent gun in any GTA: the automatic assault shotgun with explosive shells.
I think CJ with a minigun would disagree with that. :D
Yeah Luis’ arsenal was insane. The gun play and driving and everything physics based was so much better in 4
@@XiledGamer00 hey I remember you from Josh's discord!
@@joycemerlynjm HI!
Lol assault shotgun
In my experience of GTA IV, there was no "ludonarritive dissonance". I've never played a Rockstar game for the sake of a senseless rampage as it doesn't really do anything for me. To me Niko really was someone trying to live the American life as best he could whilst being held back by his past turmoil.
If GTA IV is guilty of this supposed "ludonarritive dissonance" then so is Red Dead Redemption since like any other open world Rockstar game you are free to go on spontaneous killing sprees whilst playing a character who is also trying his best to live his new life dealing with the events of his troubled past catching up to him.
Pretty much all of Rockstar's games have ludonarrative dissonance because they aim for a straight Hollywood story while bolting an open-world game on top. There's too much player agency in an open world sandbox to pull off a straight story with pre-defined characters without having some thematic disconnect occasionally. It doesn't have to be a bad thing, but if a game like GTA IV is trying to be taken fully seriously then moments like driving a car into a swing-set while it launches you across the map kinda break the game's veil of seriousness. Even simpler examples like cars being so easy to steal or people so easy to kill can make the grimmer tone feel slightly unearned.
Its why I love the yakuza series, the player cannot be able to attack random bystanders because thats something Kiryu wouldn't do
>because they aim for a straight Hollywood story
The very reason why mainstream\AAA gaming has been slowly going down the drain in the last 10-15 years for me. "Cargo cult" pratices and practitioners that demand of almost every big-budget game to be "movie-like" and "Hollywood-like", with long-winded non-interactive cutscenes that have zero character and\or player agency, over-reliance on, uh, taking notes from film industry in the narrative\direction department, and extremely minimalistic, overly polished game systems\gameplay mechanics ("overly polished" not in terms of balancing and fixing some major flaws, but in terms of playtesting and focus group testing the shit ot of the game and making it "more tight", until it becomes squeaky-clean, void of any quirks and individuality, but perfectly suited for the mass market demands), have been sucking out not only the fun out of a lot of big-budget games for me, but moving it in the wrong direction. And with the recent talk about modern AAA games being too big, too long and generally too self-indulgent, I think that I'm not alone in this.
Ok, my crappy rant that is completely unrelated to the topic is over, I'm sorry, but I really needed to vent it out.
To be honest I always felt that what happened outside of story was non-canon.
i mean i would agree with that statement about RDR. i genuinely thought the plots of both of those games were stupider than most anything i played at the time because they expected me to buy this i'm a good guy trying to change deep down while i'm gunning down authorities.
I think Trevor and his inconsistent nature isn't the reason for the messy story. I think it's how the story itself is structured given his existence - and the two others - that's the problem. One thing that people could've disregarded and probably didn't notice, is the importance of choosing the RIGHT ORDER OF MISSIONS to take that should chronologically cohere with the intended narrative.
The series was always known for giving multiple missions to give to the player to trigger. However, due to V having now three characters each with their own missions to trigger, it is unavoidable to sometimes trigger missions that aren't thematically related to the most recent narrative thread.
This results in a tonal whiplash which I admit is very jarring to see. That's why I hoped that the three characters would have been given their own singular story thread that's crafted in a self-contained manner with their own personal end goals that can exist on its own but can coalesce with the stories of other characters. As a result, their eventual culmination would have really mattered and felt earned.
I would also very much appreciate - if they would still be using multiple characters for GTA VI - that multiple mission triggers for a character would be removed and instead just have one self-contained story thread for a particular character in order to preserve the integrity of the narrative.
GTA V would have been a much better game if the three characters only got to know each other towards the end of the game. Like you said, it's have nhhc better flow of they had their own story threads. Plus imagine the players anticipation of wanting these character to meet up and work together, but only after hours of playing all three of them and getting to know them as individuals. That'd of been cool
The funny thing is you pretty much just described what rockstar did with the DLCs for GTA IV where the three protagonists stories are all separate but eventually become entangled with eachother’s storylines at some point.
@@windmonkey95 YESS!!! That is exactly what I was hoping for with my three-protagonist-structure expectation. I thought how IV handled it was pretty amazing considering there were all self-contained and substantial on their own. However, I hoped GTA V would even build more upon it in that unlike IV where their stories merely tangle with one another, GTA V would then culminate those three standalone stories that would have felt epic and memorable.
I think GTA V could have used more missions in exploring each characters with their own stories personally instead of letting them coalesce in just a short period of time without deep character development. But I still enjoyed V's story for what it is. I think Michael and Trevor is still probably one of the series' greatest protagonists and they could have been the best if those aforementioned practices could have been realized.
@@EggEnjoyer Yes! I was hoping for an impression like that. In that the players would be substantially invested in just an individual character that by the end, their coming together would just be so epic and truly an game design milestone. Funny enough, I think Last of Us 2 handled the multiple character protagonist design better. And that's despite me not liking Last of Us 2's story at all.
Basically GTA IV DLC's but it's all in one and you play the game for sometime then get to play another character then back to other one depending on the story xD
The greatest issue with the narrative is that Franklin is almost entirely unimportant to the plot. In the beginning few mission and the very last is he actually important. Everywhere else, it’s the Michael and Trevor show.
He is super important to the kill Michael or kill trevor mission
But those are non cannon
i like that he has more of an outside perspective on the relationship between trevor and michael. I think it's interesting that he just meets these two and Michael acts as a mentor, basically giving him an opportunity to abandon the life he pretty much grew up on. His family and friends even judge him for not seeing things the way they do and taking advantage of those opportunities. They'll call him phoney but Franklin sees it as him letting go of the past and focusing on bigger things.
Even though I feel like having 3 characters is cool cause it shows you 3 different cultural sides of the area the game is based on, I also think it keeps the story from being focused on any single thing for too long. Like how Tanisha only shows up for a single cutscene even though she was mentioned a lot
@@MyAccount217 2* cutscennes and a couple of emails.
That is true, but I think Franklin is supposed to be an audience surrogate. Out of the three he is the most believable one, and in the end he is the one who makes the most important decision in the game.
Franklin's arc is easily missed but it being the Michael and Trevor show is the point. Franklin is a reactionary character, the straight man to Trevor's rage and Michael's neurosis.
He starts out as a wannabe don, saying he's too smart for the hood. He was quick to leave Lamar behind after getting that big empty ass house in the hills. Tanisha left Franklin for a doctor who is everything Franklin wished he was.
Lamar might get himself into dumb situations but at least he's loyal and makes his own choices. All Franklin does the whole game is take orders like a sidekick. Lamar explicitly points this out near the end.
It's not until ending C that he takes leadership and sticks with his friends, ruthlessly taking out their enemies.
My Niko never went around with a rocket launcher exploding civilian cars, in fact he barely stole any cars. Neither did my Michael nor my Franklin. I like to "roleplay" as the character I'm playing.
And, yeah, Trevor is very overrated as a character.
That brings up a good point - it could be argued that all and any ludo-narrative dissonance in games is the player's fault, not the game's, if the game doesn't actively encourage you to do it. At least when it relates to GTA games.
Actually, I agree, being given the liberty to do whatever doesn't necessarily mean that you as a player in a characters shoes needs to create chaos and bring inconsistent with the story, that's on the player's need for destruction!
@@AlphaGarg Under the condition that the player is given liberty to act as he pleases.
Same here
But with Trevor, utter chaos ensues
As Dan Houser said so himself, in GTA games, the story served more as a vehicle for fun gameplay.
Dan would need to continuesly "write" the characters into situations to create these framings for gameplay experiences.
They probably thought about a bunch of the scenarios and missions they wanted to do first, and Dan wrote a story "around" them, to accomodate it.
This is contrasted by RDRIIs main focus on the narrative, disregarding gameplay, with a story first approach.
umm not really disregarding gameplay for rdr2 but ok
Still hold the opinion that GTA IV is the best the series will likely ever get narratively.
Replay that shit. You may not hold that view. Obviously Niko has an authentic toughness and a great relationship with his brother. Some of the more personal moments with Niko's former mates. But on replay I noticed how predictable the story was even after forgetting the plot. The game jumps from character to character and it never does anything with the ones it had before bouncing onto the next and killing the old. It's frustrating and disappointing frequently. It also ends poorly and had horrible pacing throughout and at times it's desperately in need of a few moments where the player can actually understand where Niko is in the Liberty City underworld.
@@palico004 yes! exactly this. I'm playing all GTA games on PC now and having just finished GTA V and GTA III, I have seen lots of problems with IV's story - especially its inconsistent characterization of Niko and his "errand boy" role. Vice City however, holds up surprisingly well. Tommy is written in a way that justifies some of the "fetch quest" missions which have him explicitly revolt some of them and the characters that tell him to do so but HAS to do them since they're all part of Tommy's own plan.
GTA SA for me, its less about the "artsy/deep" storytelling but more on the quality of experience it had to offer in terms of moving its plot as an open world game.
Most GTAs has always been contained in one city, but GTA SA despite being smaller in scale compared to GTAIV or V, it felt like a much bigger adventure because of the constant jump from city to city.
Its like hopping from country to country, you only really get to see a small portion of each but you the point is you get to see something new everytime.
You haven't played GTA 5.
I'm replaying GTA IV and Episodes in tandem after about 5 years away from it and I'm really enjoying it. The interconnection between characters and narratives arcs are more fleshed out and detailed than I remembered. Like, I'm going through it this time realizing little details that I didn't notice before--in the end giving me a bigger appreciation for the game. Coming from V, IV and the episodes feels a bit refreshing to right now. I just wish that the main game got the same enhancements that the DLC got like mission checkpoints/replay (without the side objectives though), parachutes, cars, etc.
Trevor is just a discount, more "lol random" Tommy Vercetti, frankly. That guy was also a violent psychopath (having sudden rampages make sense) but had clear motivations and goals, a more defined personality, a far more satisfying story to play through, and didn't establish himself by killing off a fan favorite character.
Plus you can't go wrong with that shirt.
What? Tommy Vercetti has literally little to no personality, it's nostalgia doing the trick for you here.
@@SM-or1wo or the fact he is played by ray liotta
@@SM-or1wo nah, he's right. trevor is just an inferior version of tommy. tommy was doing the "represents the average GTA player" 11 years before trevor even existed.
@@SM-or1wo I'll never understand why people use the word "literally" in an effort to exaggerate.
Your mum Language evolves.
In my experience, Trevor is idiotic, Michael and his family are unlikeable, and Franklin is the most compelling character only by way of him mainly being a blank slate.
They're supposed to represent Id (Trevor), Ego (Franklin), and Superego (Micheal). The three are Freudian archetypes writ large. They kind of went overboard with Trevor, which was a bit of a problem in the writing.
I actually found Michael's story to be the most compelling to me at first. I like the idea of a GTA protagonist who used to do all the typical criminal stuff you'd expect from one, except he decided to leave all that behind and start a new life... and his new life is shit, and it's (partially) his fault for not being able to change for real and be a decent human being. Just like you'd expect from someone who had the life he did.
I took Michael's storyline as some sort of satrical dysfunctional family sitcom with a decent ending. Meanwhile, the problem with Franklin's story is that it peaked too early. Once he got the house on the hill, his progression felt more like an expansion epilogue. There's not much excitement going on in his life and he kinda won by making it big and getting out of the hood. If anything, Franklin's the last sane man in San Andreas, what with everyone becoming too satrical or too cartoony for their own good. I feel like his character would have resonated with me better if he were an older OG gangster that failed in getting out during his youth and then becoming dad friends with Michael.
@@Kaine852 well said
Things I would've liked, Trevor: doing missions with the bikers, o'Neill's, and Aztecs to really drive home the killing them part. Michael: more shooting missions, he's the best shot and we get Facebook, bike riding, and yoga with him, and Franklin more gangster missions since gta was founded on gangster stories. Maybe more street racing or racketeering or something
Tommy got it perfect. you can hella believe the man who killed 15 people with a knife when they tried to kill them would do something as deranged as the mission where you shoot up the mall to show the city you're the boss. But his personable attitude and genuine interest towards things he feels don't need escalation also makes it very believable that he's a little bummed when the printing press he buys out isn't a genuine one. Tommy COULD fly off the handle and beat you to death, but he could also talk it out if it doesn't bother him that much.
i would argue that tommy vercetti is probably the smartest dude in all gaming, every move he made has a reason, specially when lance ask him why he keeps working for diaz, he says "we are learning how to do his job to take it from him, more we learn now less we have to learn later".
i agree with most of your points but 6:58 the game makes it clear trevor loves michael lmao yes michael lied to him but michael's still his best friend and he found he was unable to kill him or let him die. thats probably the most understandable part about trevor imo.
You see it when he throws his gun at micheal instead of shooting him after finding micheal where as micheal shot at him
@@brainman67 It always bothered me that Michael tried to shoot Trevor right there and then, even though he was unarmed and running away.
The uploader must have slept through trevor’s characterization. The whole point of him is that he’s diametrically opposed to everything Michael is and stands for. Trevor, as unhinged as he is, is characterized by his loyalty, and Michael his manipulativeness, using everyone around him, including Franklin and especially Trevor. He basically says as much in his first poolside chat with franklin. Trevor’s main motivation is his rejection of the state of society and the vapid, soulless, unfulfilling life that Michael leads. There’s a lot of depth and tragedy to trevor’s character that goes unstated in this video
i feel like part of the reason that ludonarrative dissonance is used as such a "gotcha" in games criticism is because games criticism, as a field, is largely isolated from the larger critical tradition. in any other critical field, there isn't really such a thing as an inherently bad element of a piece. for example, a work of art might deviate from realistic human anatomy. a critic might then come along and point this out as an element that is either detrimental (as it would be in a traditional portrait) or something that is used for a specific effect (as with a mannerist, cubist, or impressionist piece.) similarly, ludonarrative dissonance can be used well (e.g. spec ops: the line) or it can be used poorly (e.g. bioshock: infinite)
I guess there's also the fact that movie, music and art criticism has existed for decades or even centuries, but games criticism has been born in an age of "haha funni british man say the bad word". That, I feel, has influenced what you describe. Spend 15 minutes on YMS or ralphthemoviemaker, and you'll already have a map of what a movie should be, regardless if that's how art works or not (I really like both channels, btw)
This is a dark take, but I also disagree with the presumption that we inherently view “heroism” at odds with “violence.” In football, we admire the team that wins the game, not despite of but BECAUSE of the violence they wrought on the other team to win the game. Gaming just puts our subliminal animal craving for violence at the forefront and in our hands, which is what Metal Gear Solid 1 directly confronts with the famous line towards the end: “You enjoy all the killing.” Our common use of the concept “ludonarrative dissonance” to decry the incompatibility of “heroism” and “violent gameplay” seems to me a diversion from the underlying truth that we, on a base level, admire violence as a facet of heroism. This is why we also compartmentalize game violence in a “good vs. evil” template: to justify violence as “heroic” when done in the service of good to the detriment of evil.
Per my point: we still enjoy the violent gameplay of Spec Ops, even after the ludonarrative commentary has been revealed
There's a huge difference between drawing characters with weird anatomy and creating a gameplay at odds with your story though. Artists deliberately play with anatomy and usually learn actual human anatomy before that, while ludonarrative dissonance is usually unintended, an oversight. It usually appears when game writers will have a specific story in mind but do not realize that the gameplay will affect of the experience. The games that actually intentionally use it are pretty rare.
@@RYAN-gz1fe Spec Ops went so hard into making continuing to play unpleasant by the end, and went so hard many people stopped playing. It still didn't quite manage to pull it off. Probably the best element is the execution mechanics, which go from calm and precise killings that you could almost justify, to violent moments of rage, to near the end (and well after the player has noticed downed enemies never pose a threat) they are prolonged, psychotic attacks. I ended up stopping doing them entirely halfway through the game and know many others did too, even though that brings real gameplay disadvantage. So, Spec Ops did manage to partially achieve 'playably unenjoyable' when it counts.
The industry is fairly young; it took a long time for film to manage to effectively deconstruct itself and a lot of false starts. The obstacle isn't games trying and not really succeeding, like Spec Ops did, but the way the overwhelming majority of creative force in the highest profile area of the medium just don't want to.
I get annoyed when the ludonarrative dissonance concept gets thrown around in a game where most of the civilian murder and extreme violence is optional.
Exactly, its just to have fun in the game.
Yeah. To me it's kind of odd people say GTA IV has that ludo diss when you don't HAVE to go around blowing up civilians, and it isn't part of the plot. It's a player decision. I personally never murder civilians or do extreme violence in my playthroughs because that's just not what I like to spend my time doing, so i never found any issues. For me Niko really was a guy trying to do better.
@@Spamhard personally i find the actual missions themselves, where so many missions have you killing dozens of enemies, very ludonarratively dissonant, given the initially somber tone of the game and Niko's consistent talk of starting over, implying he doesn't want exactly what we end up doing, and just the overall world and story trying to portray itself with a lot more realism and intimacy than previous titles. It's very jarring , to be forced into so many deadly shootouts with randos. I prefer the way gta 5 handles things, having a less serious tone with more focus on humor actually passes the world off as a real place much better than what 4 did, at least as a gta game. The story of gta 4 would have fit much better in a noir detective-y adventure type game, which R* also have a tendency to put way too many "action" scenes into (l.a noire).
I think dissonance is also a really subjective thing too, like I only notice a teeny bit of ludonarrative dissonance in a game like RDR, even though that game has the protagonist kill just as many people and has an ultimately serious story. I'm guessing it's because since the wild west is mostly known from movies and tv the huge Rockstar shootouts feel more like homages to pop culture instead of an attempt to recreate a real one.
👍
Ludonarrative dissonance (LD) came into focus for me when I played Watch Dogs 2. In that game, you play as Marcus, this kind of goofy, chilled out hackerman. To me it just didn't make any sense that someone like Marcus would go on the usual open world kill sprees...so I didn't; this is the first time ever in a game that the ludonarrative dissonance actually changed the way I played; in the open world I tried not to harm any civilians and in the missions I tried my best to be stealthy and non lethal (an option the game actually gives). But it was because the game gave me that option (lethal or non-lethal), that I was able to confront that dissonance head on. So honestly I think the better way to confront LD is through a game's mechanics, and not necessarily its narrative. Either that or you go full New Vegas and have the story and mechanics account for practically anything the player might do.
People use "ludonarrative dissonance" so much because it makes them feel smarter,every open world game has some level of dissonance,its inevitable.
To be honest when I first played GTA V I thought Michael's trips to friedlander could be one of the "solutions" to the dissonance. He could open up to friedlander about how he doesn't want to do any criminally psychotic things that the player usually does in free roam but somehow cannot control himself, as if someone else (like a player) were controlling him. Shame it doesn't happen though. As for Niko's story, I wouldn't put it in a gameplay loop similar to GTA, so I disagree with your opinion in that regard, though I agree with everything else.
In the topic of GTA and Dissonance I also think of CJ and all the batshit crazy mission impossible tier stunts he pulls during that game. To think that all that would come from a gangbanger from the streets lol.
it's funny that you bring up Michael as a solution to dissonance because I think he works perfectly until that group therapy mission where he reconciles with his family and promises to change for the better, and the game acknowledges this by changing dialogue and cutscenes for him, like having him walk by prostitutes and deny them by saying he's married but then you can instantly turn around and hire them anyway. I think in the end Michael is the most egregious case of dissonance of the whole game.
YoungCrespo eh, I kinda forgot that part to be honest lol. I was referring to the first few visits. I guess my point was how the whole therapy stuff was executed and all, and since the therapy session starts at such an early point in the game, I thought Franklin was also gonna have like, his own version and such.
Man, that idea about Michael and Friedlander is a good one. It's also frustrating because it makes Franklin's entire existence even less coherent. I'm fully convinced he could've been subtracted from this game and it would've been just as enjoyable if not more.
"In the topic of GTA and Dissonance I also think of CJ and all the batshit crazy mission impossible tier stunts he pulls during that game. To think that all that would come from a gangbanger from the streets lol."
I think a very lucky gangbanger could pull some of that off, an extremely lucky gangbanger could pull most of those stunts off, and a highly motivated, extremely lucky gangbanger could probably do all of those things.
The problem for me is htf was he not put behind bars for 100 years for just a couple things he's done, way before he's got the protection of a CIA agent?
@@lcmiracle I'm pretty sure a gangbanger couldn't pull off a solo assault on the GTA version of Area 51.
The endings for GTA 5, there’s only really one “good” ending, and lots of people always choose it anyways
For me when it comes to GTA, Vice City and San Andreas are like Sam Raimi's Spider Man Trilogy. The one that started it all and still to this day it gets admired by everyone, even if it clearly shows it's age.
GTA V is like the MCU Spider Man movies. Yes the production and quality is REALLY good and overall it is a very entertaining experience. But there's just something missing that makes you look back at the previous titles. Maybe it's the lack of proper serious moments or the overload of witty sarcastic jokes.
And GTA IV is like Andrew Garfield stared The Amazing Spiderman , right?
Because of these never ending GTA V's cutscene jokes, I really couldn't and still can't take GTA V seriously. To be honest, I think that Rockstar should've come up with moments without puns
Well, no more typical GTA jokes because Dan Houser left!
@ well seeing that I compared GTA to Superhero Movies..I'd say GTA IV is like The Dark Knight. Something totally different yet brilliant at the same time.
@@Oi-bg9bc That is why I started the comment with "For me". I'm just sharing my opinion and experience with this franchise. Basically Vice City and San Andreas are the ones that got me hooked on this franchise and genre of gaming.
But yeah I get what you're saying. As we get older, things change and it becomes more and more difficult to keep up, or uphold interest in what this continues evolving society has to offer.
Man you can't win. Traditional character + chaotic gameplay = "ludo-narrative dissonance"
create the perfect character to suit GTA's gameplay = "narro-ludative dissonance"
Trevor is awesome, and GTA V was the first GTA I felt compelled to play all the way through. The story is messy because the game is messy. If you put a super tight, linear story on top of GTA it feels forced, because the game itself is so open and chaotic. A GTA style game is never going to be The Godfather, it's simply not the medium that can tell that kind of story.
No one is really saying the story had to be tight. The game could have adopted loose story telling and have a good overall story. Plenty of games have loose story telling.
I agree how a super linear story in GTA would feel clunky like L.A. Noire, but even then, GTA V is bad at being chaotic in missions because it doesnt go all the way. You can play missions in many orders, but as soon as you pick one, you HAVE to follow the dotted line or you fail the mission immediately. Previous GTAs always had the "monster of the week" kinda structure, which very few are linked to one another, they had a goal and you were pretty much free to do them in any way. GTA V's missions are more "cinematic" so the events that happen during the mission have to be carefully planned to deliver it.
I feel like in GTA V, the devs lost it's genuine soul and passion from its previous games. All other previous games were both funny and serious, particularly in GTA SA. In Gta SA all characters are pretty likeable and simply had great writing regardless of role.
Except for Sweet. Sweet is a busta.
OG Loc? OG Joke is more like it.
Catalina and loc are really annoying
Maccer the jaccer
LMFAO GTA V was literally the most passionate project Rockstar has ever worked on, including RDR 2. Have you even tried to read the articles and interviews for GTA V? The fact that they're gonna bring it on next gen systems further proves how proud Rockstar feels for what they did on GTA V.
I think Trevor could have been handled much better though. Like you didn't need a character AS unhinged as Trevor to represent the chaotic gameplay of GTA. I legitimately think a GTA game purely about a Trevor-like character that goes in depth about his personality and character would be incredibly good, kinda like in Yakuza 0 with Goro Majima.
No, I do not agree.
You see, even though, Trevor is batshit insane, 1) He's not stupid; He manages to eliminate virtually all his black market competition, often through more cunning and underhanded ways than charging into an establishment all alone. He knows that if he were to just shoot Devin then and there it would be his death; It's just that, unlike Franklin and Michael, he's not afraid of him; Or Steven; Or any other powerful figure, he knows he can take them on. However, he also knows that if Franklin and especially Michael were to turn on him out of their own fear (exactly what happens in one ending), he would likely not be able to survive both of them. It's not that he doesn't give a crap about consequences whatsoever, more that he's putting up a very convincing image of it, so that he is feared by friend and foe (Kinda like a very dickish and vicious version of Majima). 2) He's not the devil himself, in fact, compared to Michael he seems almost like a good person, in a way. Throughout the story, it's explicitly shown that, unlike Michael, he actually _cares_ about some people, like, has genuine compassion for them. The wife of that Spanish guy, the torture victim, Brad, Franklin, but above all, his old, and best, friend, Michael himself. That's why he doesn't just straight up kill him; He really wants to get his revenge, to make him feel the pain and sorrow he felt after the first heist and upon finding out the full extent of his treachery. That is why, when Michael is captured, Trevor just can't resist the temptation anymore; He betrays him and leaves him to die, like Michael did to him so long ago. It is very clearly shown that even though Trevor has few qualms about physically and psychologically abusing those he deems unsympathetic, he has quite a bit of compassion for the skilled (like Michael, Franklin, and Lester), and for the downtrod (like Franklin and the torture victim). Because, admittedly Franklin's character is indeed a bit of a blank slate (not that there's nothing there though; Franklin's struggle is that of what 'success' even means for a poor black guy in the bad side the town; Does it mean being forcibly inducted into a gang, winning petty victories for years, earning the "respect" of the same guys who will cap you without a second thought when your luck eventually and inevitably runs dry?), and the biggest, meatiest part the story (for me) really is not just Trevor and Michael, considered separately, but rather, the evolution of their relationship, and how Trevor essentially helps Michael overcome his flaws that are causing his family issues and his extreme ennui verging on depression, by teaching him how to be honest, to lash out, express himself, and articulate his feelings. And it is perhaps because _I_ am still haunted by these same flaws following some very dark times of my own, that I see quite a bit of myself in Michael, and so in Trevor I see the kind of friend that I myself could not find in my time of need.
Goddamn masterpiece of a comment
One of the best example of the correct way is Yakuza series. In that series, the protagonist is not allowed to do anything that the character won't do, and every activity you did is canon, which means its something that the character will do. And you know what, it works! You never feel lose or breaking character in Yakuza.
I've always found it mind boggling that people love the character of Trevor. To me, the most interesting character in the game is Michael, and I wish they'd have fleshed him out more. Trevor was just anarchy for the sake of it, and while I know a lot of people had been crying out for more of that in GTA, it just didn't make for a fully realised 3D character, and he came across so one note and archetypal.
I agree. I often find myself playing Michael more than the other two. I think if there was one protagonist for V either Frank or Mike could hold the story themselves from their point of view. As much as I like Trevor and enjoy playing him I don't think the game could be played with him as the sole character. You need the structure that Michaels character brings to the story to make it work.
@MrILIKEBACON Oh yeah, I know that, I just didn't find that all too compelling and ultimately it kind of removed me from a lot of investment in the game. I didn't the character, I just can't understand people heralding him as the greatest character in all of gaming.
Michael is just a typical rich a-hole. Trevor is more down to earth kind of guy (even if a bit violent) and Franklin is just... generic.
@@UltimatePerfection Michael wasn't really a typical rich asshole. If he was, he would've never developed a connection with Frank and wouldn't have done many things like tearing down that villa, or crashing into the car dealership.
He lived a life of crime thinking having a rich life was his goal, yet had no idea that he lived that life because he is that person, which he realises now that he's living the rich life to which he's unadjusted.
He's a dog who caught a car and found a pup chasing cars.
@MrILIKEBACON to be honest, i don't think that trevor supposedly representing the average player was ever rockstar's intention. they just threw whatever ideas they had into trevor to make him crazy (cannibalism, rape, enjoying torture, naked hangovers) and then people just assumed he was crazy because they too act crazy when they play GTA.
when people play GTA, they spread chaos in free roam, sure. but the problem is that they don't eat, torture or rape any people, nor do they have any interest in doing so (i hope so anyway....). they would find doing these things in free roam gross. so this idea that trevor represents the average player is a complete myth.
Weirdly, this got me thinking about Breath of the Wild. Nintendo's solution to having a character in an open world game where you can do anything is, basically, don't have a character. Who is Link? Depends on how you play him and what you do. The only defining character trait that I can think of that is true of link no matter how you play the game is "ambiguous". It's not that he doesn't react or emote in the cut scenes, but rather that his reactions and emotions can read so many different ways. You can roleplay him pretty much however you want. The only thing he cannot be is sadistic and evil, and that's only because Nintendo doesn't want the player killing NPCs. You can project almost anything onto the character of link, and nothing in the story will necessarily break the story that you are telling yourself (unless you want him to be a serial killer or a cannibal). Link doesn't even have to be a "he". Link is intentionally designed this time around to be androgynous. You could imagine Link as a woman, or non-binary, and everything still makes sense. Even getting kicked out of Gerudo town could be interpreted as Link not being female presenting enough, and the people there misgendering Link because of their cultural differences. Even the order in which you do things informs how you might interpret the motivations of characteristic of Link as a protagonist.
Just a very interesting contrast to Trevor. They ultimately seek to fill the same general role, a character that embodies the players agency. Two totally opposite approaches.
Christian Killgore I like the way it makes all your mistakes when playing him seem canonical. Every time Link gets yeeted off a cliff by a moblin, it makes sense to me, as in my head he’s a clumsy kid whose greatest strength is his perseverence.
@@thomascrawley5972 my Link, like myself, is hyper obsessed with collecting everything he can pick up no matter how small. He is very into fashion, and dies all his clothes, and he will avoid a fight whenever possible.
I just find it interesting how thematically both these characters occupy the same philosophical space, but are executed totally differently. They both are commentaries on the behaviors of the player. They both set out to make any potential choices you make line up with the narrative regardless of what those choice might be.
The most interesting thing to me though is that Trevor is the developers projecting their idea of the player onto the player character. Link on the other hand is the developers facilitating the player projecting themselves onto the player character. Trevor is Rockstar's commentary on how certain people choose to play their games. Link is Nintendo's commentary on the idea that the player might do anything, and leaving the player to fill in the blanks.
The weirdest part of this, and I know this is a nitpick, but Breath of the Wild is the one Zelda game where you have the most choice, but you are stuck with the name Link. So many other Zelda game, no matter how linear, let you choose your own name for the protagonist. But they wanted voice acting in this one, and they needed Zelda to say the name Link in the opening cutscene, so Link it is. I'm sure they could have written around this for the dialogue, but I suppose it was just easier.
This is also why Gordon Freeman was a great protagonist in Half-Life, especially the first one where you can mercilessly kill any NPC you come across. He is an extension of the player and the game accounts for pretty much all actions they can take.
I'm going to be honest, just reading your comment made me want to be your friend hahah. Lovely analysis and very well-put.
I wouldn't call it a "solution." Link is a terrible sucking black hole that actively makes the story worse by his lack of character.
Hol on. Let's get one thing straight. Bioshock didn't promote Objectivism, it was a scathing critique of it, that's why you were helping Atlas topple Ryan. I thought the dissonance had more to do with harvesting/saving little sisters. Or something like that.
The problem was how only one of the two (three-ish) endings fit the story and how the choice felt shoehorned in
@Jordan Ghill It openly mocked it?
I saw it in the same way that wolfenstein mocked Nazi's though going for a bit of a different tone however even if still mocking or scathing.
@Jordan Ghill so Wolfenstein brings attention to nazis therefore promoting it?
@Jordan Ghill Maybe. But it wasn't ludonarratively dissonant from that perspective. The mechanics were not in conflict with the general damning of Objectivism, which was consistent throughout the whole first game.
He's saying the critique was in the story, while the GAMEPLAY was sort of Objectivist, that's why he showed gameplay where you were hacking and stealing and killing to empower yourself. All of them help you succeed!
Honestly I would argue it wasn't Trevor's existence and who he was that was the problem. The story itself is just sloppy. They could have had Trevor with his exact same personality type and style and written a good story around him and the other characters. They just didn't.
The concept of “ludonarrarive dissonance” is rather absurd. I could see what it’s creator was trying to say but video games in their very nature are meant to break it. For example, a game can design a character’s story and motivation to perfectly match the gameplay yet the player can control them to walk in a small circle for 3 hours. I highly doubt any game would reasonably justify the player walking in a circle for 3 hours.
Niko Belic is perfectly written character, and for that matter I think John Marston is as well. They are people who have done bad things and are trying to now do good, but it would make sense that their past ways get the best of them from time to time. Plus critiquing GTA IV for allowing a well meaning immigrant to use a rocket launcher on the police also doesn’t make sense. As realistic as the game worlds of GTA may appear, I believe they’re almost as fantastical as a world like Skyrim’s or The Witcher. The world of GTA is not the same as earth, hence why New York is called Liberty City and California is called San Andreas. These world are extreme, hypersexualized, zany parodies of our reality. Mass murder sprees are the norm, the police give up on world class crime after five minutes, and all the npcs have no personality. Within the ridiculous context of the game world, criticizing niko for going on a rocket launcher spree is rather daft
Smug Anime Girl yes! I couldn’t have said it more perfectly myself. Unfortunately I feel like we live in a day and age where people are obsessed with Latinate words. It’s problem that extends far beyond gaming imo.
Well said man 👍
Npcs do have personality!...in gta san andreas
@@babyyeed5674 O, Mighty seeker of offense where none is to be found, where shall ye travel next? I wish to know thy itinerary, to bask in thy larking about.
Walking in a circle for three hours isn't as jarring as shooting people 30 people with a rocket launcher, as soon as you start to play the game the way the devs set up for you, the theoretical game you talk about should go back to being a completely believable experience. Just because you CAN break a rule in a game doesn't mean the creators of the game aren't trying to get you to experience something a certain way.
It's pretty clear Rockstar was trying to create something that was more realistic with GTA 4, and I don't think GTA 4 is as zany as you make it out to be. I could spend an hour or two just "walking" and i would only see npcs talking, cars honking, trains running on schedule, and some interactions like people getting arrested. Not 1 npc shooting others with a rocket launcher. Yes there will be some ridiculous stuff, like the humorous signs, and some unbelievable bits like people running on subway lines, but that's just a currently unavoidable side effect when making any open world with a lot going on. The intent for a more realistic experience over 3, VC and SA was still pretty apparent. So the more violent parts really did clash when they happened. I don't mind the violence you can cause voluntarily in free roam, it IS a gta game after all, but the story parts did not mesh with what Niko was doing or what he said he wanted, and so many forced shootouts just became less believable as time went on. This probably effected me more than others since I find corridor shootouts really boring and tiresome. I think LND is more subjective in this way, it can be ignored when you're invested in a game, and compounded when you're not
You can call ludonarrative dissonance anything, like "gameplay-story contradiction", "why are being forced to do x when the character says he doesn't want to do x" or "why are we doing x when the character is a y, in real life a y like this would never do x, i dont like this y anymore'.
Either way it gets in the way of my enjoyment of a lot of games ( tomb raider, and ESPECIALLY uncharted), mostly games that have developed characters to be believable and likable yet have them killing tons of people. I thought it was a common phenomenon, especially in current games where graphics are amazingly real and characters are more developed than ever. You can rationalize it, excuse it or ignore it, and call it whatever you want, but I've seen plenty of people complain about it besides me, even when they're not explicitly using the words ludonarrative dissonance.
Ludonarrative dissonance is such a silly problem for open-world games when you put it all together:
"We want to write a good story with interesting characters, but we also have to leave open the ability for our main character to become a serial killer."
You can always have a blank slate protagonist of course it doesn't solve all problems no one solution but i say it works out for the most part.
I was particularly interested in Franklin, they could have done much more with him and his relationships, but he became reduced to mere bust boy. Trevor started off really good, the problem lies with the overall story and his characterization. They could have explained why he is the way he is, and really open him up as a person. Michael turned out to be the best character of the three imo. They could have tied his movie stuff to the main story a little bit more, but whatever lol
You haven't paid attention, haven't you? His dad wasn't really there for him (as seen in the mission where Trevor meets Floyd's girl, Debra I think) and his own mother is a drug addicted b*tch (I'm only censoring this word because I don't want YT removing the comment over it, not because I have any problem saying it or putting it in writting), as seen in one Steanger and Freaks visit when she visits Trevor and when he tries to give her affection she kicks him like a dog. Then literally LOCK HIM OUT OF HIS OWN HOUSE until he goes and finds her a fix.
This is why Trevor is the way it is. Psychopaths aren't born. They are MADE.
They hinted very nicely at his psychopathy being a result of a missing father figure and a, both physically and emotionally, abusive, drug-addicted prostitute mother, and a system that failed to take people like him into account. He is depicted as a character who was alone against the world from the get go and thus feels no need to care about the world. Even when he did care for someone, they died, betrayed him or had to exit his life in a different way.
I felt like Franklin was supposed to have been developed more since single player dlc was supposed to come but since rockstar ditched it Franklin just fells really incomplete(combined with the fact that Lamar was supposed to replace Franklin but didn’t due to his voice actor being busy)
I agree Franklin had so much potential, he seems usually shy, raised by women thus having the cleanest house , kinda interesting for a gta character
@@mrvespuccia.k.ameganite1747 I think he's perfectly finished if you pick the ending in which you become Michael and Franklin applies his final lesson from Michael and turns into him.
The secret to a good GTA playable character is the resenting rage of a straight man. They need to be calm on the surface but severely pissed off underneath. Tommy Vercetti, Carl Johnson and Jimmy Hopkins all fit this description. This is because GTA is meant to be cathartic, supposedly you are just a normal person playing this game to let a bit of steam off.
I think there's one consistency with trevor, that explains why he blows up just at certain moments, and that makes for a really good contrast with Michael: He's loyal. He never betrays you, he never leaves anyone behind, he does his best to be as much of a team player as possible. The only thing he wants is for his friends to be loyal to him as well. That's why he absolutely despises Michael, why he gets mad when Franklin laughs at them. He lacks morality, he will murder anyone he doesn't respect, like any random civs or Floyd and Debra. He's a psycho, but if you earn his respect, you will be safe. That's why he's still hesitant to kill Michael, even if part of him really wants to. That's why he won't murder the mexican guy, Devin and the FIB fuck, because he knows his team still needs them.
He's loyal, he's still a team player. He lacks morality, but you can trust him as long as he trusts you. Michael, even if closer to the "sane" side, is not someone you can trust, is willing to throw others under the bus, and that's shown from the start of the game.
The only trouble with that it he thinks everything in the world is also his property, which means the only rational way to act toward him is to kill him.
he doesn't murder floyd, you should listen to the news report on the radio, floyd was shot by debra, trevor took floyd's knife and stabbed debra to death....
@@-Tony-Gunk- That's so much better. He squats on a civilians apartment, causes a situation in whch the owner wants her boyfriend out for allowing a psychopath into her place and when she shoots him ehen he doesn't leave he murders her. The man is a saint.
@@fighterck6241 never said he was a saint, i was just correcting
GTA V isn’t a crime movie, it’s reality TV (hence all the cutscenes being shot on a handheld camera). Instead of being a satire about America, it’s more like a caricature. They made a horrible city devoid of culture, and they made these three murderers the only relatable people because they’re the only ones to see the city for what it is. It’s not about the narrative, it’s about following them on their journey to achieve their awful “American Dream”
The way I look at it: ludonarrative dissonance is a design tool. You can choose to have it in your game or not. If you choose to have it, or not have it, deliberately, then it can help serve your story. If you don’t consider it, and so your game has it or lacks it accidentally, that’s when it’s a mistake.
Personally, I kinda hate Trevor as a concept due to a very specific scene: in GTA its all about fun, mindless *cartoon* violence. I play it to turn off my brain and just enjoy some mayhem. The torture scene in GTA 5 was *not* GTA and the only reason it exists in the way it does is cuz Trevor exists. I despise being required to *graphically* torture someone in a game about mindless mayhem. I DONT wanna examine the violence that I do to characters in that game cuz its just... not what im there for. Ill play something like Spec Ops for that
@Christian Tompkins the difference is that on one hand we have fictional videogame cartoon violence where im walking down the streets of los santos with an RPG making people pinwheel across the streets because, hey, why not.
On the other hand is pulling a dude who repeatedly tells you he doesnt know anything about what youre asking him about into a dark basement, violating his human rights (that you are required to provide inputs for while it is lovingly rendered in front of you) and then play it off as a joke. If you cant catch the tone difference there, then we cant have a conversation
@@Eagledude131 You really didn't get the point. It reminds me of far cry 3 and that torture scene where you're forced to torture your little brother to advance into story . Gtav's torture scene is like that . It's a satire , it tests the players' limits , throwing disgustingly violent scene , asking " why do you keep playing , don't you have enough of that violence "
@@Eagledude131 People like you have enough of this and are repulsed by it ( rational thoughts ) . Other people love this stuff and the game gives them more . Also you play as villains the whole time , you're not supposed to like those characters . It reinforces why you keep playing the game and what games in general make you go through ( unecessarilly so ) to progress into the story . There was no reason to torture that guy but you did it anyways , how do you feel ?
@@dylana.9057 if it was thematic or important to the story in any way, it wouldve been talked about *at all* after it was over. No one talks about it. Ever.
It was an entirely superfluous addition to a game that revels in violence and thought that intimate sadism and fucking up an innocent person for life are things most people would find "in character" for the series and "engaging."
Like any GTA fan, I devoured press about GTA V before it was released... and I'm not sure where, but I'm certain that I remember somewhere saying that Trevor was intended to represent the "average GTA player". I just don't remember where it was written, nor whether it was someone from Rockstar explicitly saying that or an interpretation by the press member.
I was practically raised on GTA games, and it's hard for me to tell whether I hold the narratives of San Andreas and IV in relatively high regard more because of nostalgia or more because of their legitimate qualities. Either way, I replayed both IV and V recently, and my opinion on both hasn't really changed. The only standard by which the campaign of V matches SA and IV is how good the writing *technically* is, in the sense that it feels very natural when the actors perform those scenes. And that's really an accomplishment on the actors' part as much as it is on the writers' part. There's no way of quantifying where the script ends and where the actors' personal spin on the lines begins, after all.
Otherwise, the narrative in V indeed devolves into a mess when the paths of Michael and Trevor collide as the video points out, and the way Michael's story gets going in the first place is not terribly convincing either. And as good as the actors are, all of the important characters are either various shades of sociopath or victims of said sociopathy, with practically no other traits beyond that. That's probably my biggest issue with V - I find there's no one in it to like. Sure, Niko and CJ are sociopaths too. But they were also motivated by their need to find resolution and their loyalty to family both literal and figurative, respectively. Conversely, I'd argue that there's no aspect of the motivations of the three MCs in GTA V that isn't ultimately rooted in their sociopathy. Trevor is merely the one MC with whom this is blatantly obvious.
Also, the "scathing satire" in GTA V is akin to South Park if its writers were lobotomized. The satirical parts of GTA V are so lacking in subtlety that it feels like an insult to the player's intelligence.
No one at Rockstar claimed that "Trevor represents the average GTA player", that was the games press, specifically Cracked in one of their videos on GTA 5. They were really supposed to be the freudian trio, Id (Trevor), Ego (Franklin), and Superego (Micheal). They kind of went overboard on Trevor being the unrepressed Id. In contrast, I can't help but feel that much of Franklin's story got left behind on the editing floor.
GTA4 had a good story, but the whole "maintaining relationships" mechanic was so annoying it brought the whole game down for me. Being in the middle of a mission and having someone call you up and ask if you can hang out together, only to refuse because you're in the middle of "work" is annoying, and then having it negatively affect the relationship is unfairly punitive. I get that ignoring your friends is a bad thing, but when it happens because you kept getting shot on a mission and spent a week in the hospital recovering from bullet wounds, only to have a GF break up with you for that, that was game-breaking for me.
My favorite was Vice City, which was a great game except for the problem of protagonist
Tommy Vercetti being so aqua-phobic that he can drown in waist deep water. I'd love to see a remake of that game, with a swimming mechanic added.
@@joshuarichardson6529 in GTA IV you'd never get a call in the middle of a mission that wasn't scripted where Niko would deny the offer with a humorous play on words, which wouldn't cause your relationship status to decrease.
It's not at all true that the characters lack personality besides sociopathy and it's victims.
Michael is a man who lived a life of crime, thinking it was a means to a life of riches, and is having a crisis realising that he was doing crime for the sake of doing crime, as the aspects inherent to such a life were the only thing that fulfilled him. He's a dog that caught a car pretending that the car was the goal, and denying that the chase is what fulfilled him, which is eating him up from the inside.
Until he finds a pup who would like to catch a car of his own and finds new meaning in life. I'd further the allegory with the movie industry being a bone, and another dog who gave him that bone threatening to take away all of his bones including that one, but it was 5:06 am by the time of writing this and my creativity is at its limit.
Trevor is a mentally deranged person who got to where he is because he never had a father figure and had an emotionally and physically abusive, drug-addicted prostitute as a mother. He didn't recieve proper care and the world instead rejected him. He only saw the world against him and thus provided no courtesy nor mercy towards it. Naturally he very easily feel into the world of crime and drugs, where he, broken in the way he was, flourished. The few people he loved and actually allowed in his walled off heart either died, betrayed him, or had to leave his life in a different way.
Franklin was more of a grounded straight man in the story, cynical of his life and the life of those around him and the pup from the previous allegory. Over the game he takes the same path Michael takes, culminating in him becoming Michael completely if you choose ending A. His straight man personality contrasts well with the other two's personalities.
@@joshuarichardson6529 apparently you can avoid the negative effects of not hanging out by saying "yes" and then cancelling plans
@@MyAccount217 Yeah it was a thing you could do but was more of an oversight. The ones where they called you while doing certain missions was pretty funny. If they would of had the hangouts calls come in like 3x less often it would of been better. Than you have gta online where if you dont own many of the properties and stuff, you get spammed with calls, texts, emails, and in game popups about said properties and stuff, like 3x as often as they appeared in gta iv. :D
The issue is the very idea of ludonarrative dissonance. In most games the most exciting story will be your story, the emergent narrative that comes from mechanics - how you killed a boss with a lucky critical hit at 1 hp, or how you got thay longest killstreak the other day... The idea that "story" and "gameplay" are separate at all IS the problem, this naive approach that thinks that "story" is something told in cutscenes and dialog, rather than organically created by totality of the game experience.
That's rather the point, isn't it? Ludonarrative dissonance is when the players actions and the game's explanation of what the player "was supposed to be" doing are at odds. Those two things are innately linked. Gameplay design ideally should account for the narrative in a fundamental way, and the narrative should account for the gameplay. That's a lot more forgivable when the player is intentionally doing so, of course - it's great when the narrative notices and accounts for it, but it can't always account for you running around naked to abuse i-frames.
The problem is when the game's mechanics enforce a certain playstyle. Like throwing a hundred guys at the player, and all your attacks are really violent, but the characters "didn't kill anyone", or they have mercy for the boss but not the hundred faceless dudes you just murdered.
Cognitive dissonance is when you hold two contradicting ideas.
Ludonarrative dissonance is a real thing. The player can do one thing, while the story does the opposite. However I don't think it should be used as a critic. Instead an inherent aspect story based interactive entertainment. People who like to think themselves smart love to write about it. But really we as humans don't mind. When you play Uncharted, you don't care that Nathan has killed more people than the villain. You understand that this, at the end of the day is a video made for entertainment and that there will ways be a divide between gameplay and story. Doesn't make the story any less great
@@EggEnjoyer "you don't care that Nathan has killed more people than the villain. You understand that this, at the end of the day is a video made for entertainment and that there will ways be a divide between gameplay and story. Doesn't make the story any less great"
Yeah, no. As a human being I inherently avoid injuring any "innocent" bystanders in all my games. I very much fucking mind when a tells me my player avatar, which I invested time and effort into, and maybe even a good bit of emotion if it's a very character with some depths, either in its in-game interactions with the game-world, or animations, dialogues, etc..
Ludonarrative dissonance is an inherent impedement for my enjoyment of a game when it feels like I'm fighting a futile battle against the overall narrative to be the character I want it to be.
Ya. GTA 5's story doesn't have structure and it's a mess tbh.
To me, Franklin felt like Niko except with no reason to be Niko .
Niko is in America for a reason, everything he does is somehow related to that goal (even if the relation is just that he got roped into it along the way), and he can't reach his goal through legal means.
Franklin, on the other hand, starts the game with a steady and (semi) legal job, when he loses that job he still has an opportunity to look for another legal job, but instead he goes to Michael and digs himself into a position where he has no choice but to commit heists and get into shootouts.
I thought the main thing with Franklin was that he had no other options. In his words “It’s either this or selling dime bags in the hood” at least with these shoot outs, he gets to live in a mansion.
I thought the ending of GTAV was really cool in that you're playing throughout the game as these 3 characters separately, but with intertwined stories, which by the end of the game having you take control of all three at the same time to push DW's car into the water was a pretty good payoff for me.
Yeah I also enjoyed my time with GTA V but by the time it ended it left me unsatisfied when it comes to its story.
I think there's a connection between dissonance, suspension of disbelief, and plot holes. Most fantasy is filled with plot holes, yet it doesn't stop us from enjoying the fantasy if the narrative grabs us. People seem able to forgive inconsistency, strangeness, even contradictory events so long as the narrative works. Talking about plot holes and dissonance is fun, and may even add to the narrative instead of detracting from it.
Honestly I think the introduction of Trevor is when the last shred of interest I might have had in the GTA series died. I can revel in the chaos of a Just Cause game, become deeply invested in the drama of a Yakuza game, and even go wild in a Saints Row game. When I look at GTA, though, it just seems so empty. Maybe it is just me.
@Jordan Ghill
Nah. Just Cause is a lot of fun. It's not deep at all and it's incredibly repetitive, but it's fun.
I don’t think it matters that GTAV’s story is a mess. The story in a game like that is more of a framing defice for crazy stuff. I doubt anyone was looking for War and Peace. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try making a story in a game like this, but having a story should be a praise rather than a standard.
I've never cared for gta 5, always thought it was lesser compared to the previous installments
I thought the same thing till a few days ago. I played it on 360 back in 2013 when it came out and though it was pretty meh. Replayed it on pc recently and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. And I also played GTA 4 a month ago and it was just so bad... the pc port was terrible and like all Rockstar games it was to long and drown out for it's own good but 5 was just better.
It's quite a fun satire as are basically all rockstar games. I loved it a bit more once I realised the parallels between Michael and John Marston
Would you elaborate why?
Lol k
Enjoy your outdated gameplay filled with bullshit and no quality of life.
I enjoyed GTA V's story (so much so that I've played through its roughly 30-hour campaign twice), it's dumb fun. But, let me be honest for a second: it has not aged gracefully. When you look past its ambitions, it doesn't hold up all that well. There are a lot of inconsistencies -- like the ones you pointed out in this video -- and I only ever found myself engaged with its plot because the loop of finishing missions so I could get to the next one appeals to me for some odd reason. Add onto that that its satire hasn't aged so well, either, and it's mehhhh
Never forget the sheer stupidity of the Paleto Score and invading the IAA research facility. We need to rob the military (killing several soldiers in the process) in order to rob a bank in order to buy a military helicopter. And this all happens when Michael is too afraid to go into Los Santos because of Martin Madrazo. Gameplay wise, the Paleto Score is one of my favorites, but the story is just so dumb.
Even at the time I was heavily unimpressed with GTA V. Not graphically or mechanically, of course; it’s a masterpiece. But the story was bland. Imo, the zany parts were heavily overdone and felt a lot less organic than they were in GTA SA (still the gold standard for me). TBOGT, the second DLC for GTA IV, had gotten a lot right with regards to wacky gameplay and cool characters - I really had high hopes for V, especially with the heist mechanic. But it ended up so drab that I never find myself thinking about GTA V anymore.
I've played every GTA since 3. GTA San Andreas was the only GTA I lived in. Memorized streets, routes from city to city.
Also because you totally had to to get around, there was no GPS in SA so you HAD to memorize all the routes. In the newer ones you can just set the GPS and just follow the line, or get in a taxi and just have them drive you to where you're going. Older GTA games YOU had to get to where you were going and know how to do it.
@@happyveliz That is the exact reason I turn GPS off when I play 5 now and only take taxis very occasionally. When I go back to 3 and SA now I still know my way around and have been trying to get the same effect with 4 and 5.
A. Micheal seems to be the only character in GTA V that goes through legitimate change in the story (Like his family life is better and ties up the loss end with Trevor by the end of the story)
B. GTA IV is better then GTA V in my opinion
Music teaches us how dissonance can be one of the richest forms of meaning in art!
An Add9 suspension can turn your boring power chords into "holy crap I'm on a desert island maaaaan" in message in a bottle, but throw in a maj/min7 and now it's spooky cowboy campfire time, gost riders be riding that storm, you know?
Kinda reminds me of The Boss from the Saints Row series
In Saints Row 2, Boss is portrayed as this criminal supervillain and a terrifying sociopath in the story. Sure they do joke around a bit, but they are mostly a very angry, revenge-driven person, sometimes portrayed in a manner that makes them genuinely scary. This is a person who has no problem making an enemy gang leader unknowingly crush his own girlfriend to death with a monster truck then crippling his best friend just to hurt him. All of this because the Brotherhood offered you a 20/80 split on the weapons shipment and later killed ONE of your friends. A complete sociopath who still deeply cares for their gang and values their friends, willing to go to horrifying extremes to punish those who would harm them. However, in the open world, Boss is much more easygoing and humorous.
They tried to solve this “problem” in Saints Row 3 and 4 by making Boss act more lighthearted and goofy in the story too. But it drained a lot of the intimidation factor that Boss used to have. Not only that, but Boss feels out of character. When Johnny Gat is “killed”, they have an almost non-reaction and don’t seem to care much about getting revenge. And when a character who WORKED FOR THE GANG THAT “KILLED” HIM basically tells Boss that they’re responsible for three of their friends dying, Boss doesn’t get angry at all, doesn’t lash out, and doesn’t even point out the hypocrisy of the person indirectly responsible for their friends death saying that said death is their fault. Boss just says “okay, fair point.” None of the major villains in Saints Row The Third are intentionally killed by Boss either. Matt Miller is spared due to being useful (fair enough, even though the Saints already have 2 skilled hackers), Philippe is killed by complete accident, and Killbane canonically gets away and escapes Steelport. In fact, the ending option where Boss kills Killbane is also an ending where Shaundi will die, as if to suddenly tell us “bro, revenge BAD.” There’s also the fact that Boss just suddenly decided to stop trying to go after Dex, even though Dex is one of the biggest traitors to the Saints and part of the reason Boss got blown the fuck up and put into a coma at the end of the first game.
Made even worse in Saints Row IV, where the game tries to portray the Saints as “heroes” which completely defeats the appeal of playing as a gang leader.
I’ve seen some defend some of this by saying “bro Killbane and Dex die when Zinyak blows up the earth in IV”
But how the hell is that satisfying at all? It’s literally the least satisfying way for an antagonist to die EVER: they die because the antagonist of the new game blew up the entire fucking planet that these people just so happened to live on, with no intent to kill them specifically, while also killing a few of your friends who were also on the planet. Not gratifying at all.
SR3 and 4 are still really fun games, but I’m really hoping the upcoming new game takes a direction closer to SR2 and strays away from dick jokes and pop culture references every two seconds.
I fucking HATED SR3 and 4 bro it's so gimmicky
Pretty good and I agree, ludonarative dissonance is a real thing but often 1) Is used wrong (calling something dissonant while it isn't) 2) Isn't nearly as bad a dealbraker as some critics make it out to be. That isn't even taking into consideration that such dissonance can be used intentionally and though I can't think of such a game from the top of my head right now, I think this possibility is quite interesting,
I think comparing GTA with something like Uncharted is a bit... Untrue to form. Those GTA wild acts of rampage are totally player choice and take part 'outside' of the story. Whereas in something like the Uncharted, it's hard to deny that it's hard to connect with Nathan after he gunned down the entire population of a small Latino village for a bit of l00t as part of the actual story.
I never once worried about my character behaving differently in cutscenes compared to when I controlled them.
I never felt like Trevor was more like my play style. I never switched to Trevor to go on a murder rampage or anything.
So imo it really doesn't matter.
I felt Trevor was conflicted when it came to Michael. They were super close as seen at the beginning where he didn’t wanna leave him behind. After grieving, he finds out Michael faked his death. Trevor was super angry but also happy that his best friend was brought back to life basically. He struggled with hating Michael for lying to him but couldn’t bring himself to kill him because of their past.
It’s like an toxic relationship. You hate the person for what they did but can’t fully walk away because of the history and “good times” you had. Some people just can’t pick one side or the other, it’s normal. Thinking Trevor is inconsistent because he can’t bring himself to kill his best friend is missing the point.
I think Micah Bell is a much better narrative representation of the same sort of character. Especially when RDR wants you to take its world with more seriousness and grace compared to GTA, Micah is the perfect example for why the runnin', gunnin', chaotic insane criminal is the WRONG way to play the game.
I think we're well past the point of using "Ludonarrative dissonance" as a criticism term, and now in the phase of life where everyone's too afraid to bring up "Ludonarrative dissonance" even when it's entirely appropriate to do so.
The real problem in GTA games is actually lack of tone. Emergent narrative is made to be goofy cathartic mass murder fun where you can't even die because you respawn at the hospital, while the predesigned narrative pretends it's a realistic gritty crime story with dire consequences. Games like Far Cry, Saints Row and Just Cause realize that, and put you in shoes of hinged characters living in an unhinged, over the top world. GTA5 tries the opposite, resulting in tone changing from moment to moment - and that part isn't fixed by having unhinged protagonist in a realistic story world.
After watching this, I think I know what Rockstar may have tried to do:
Have you play as Trevor, with the invincibility, when you wanted to wreak havoc and kill everyone, as Franklin with car slow motion, when you wanted to drive really fast, but then I'm not sure about Michael (Bullet Time) if that were the case.
Maybe that's not the case at all or Rockstar is too segmented and story, gameplay, and mechanics aren't designed together whatsoever
i don't think they put any thought into the special abilities, because trevor's ability is overpowered while michael's ability is useless.
@@hey01e5 Michael's ability wasn't useless it's basically deadeye but you have more control over it.
To me it depends on the game and it's intent to judge if there is a dissonance or not. In games like Uncharted, I see the gameplay as just means to gap the fun Indiana Jones style story, the story itself doesn't make comments on the gameplay or player actions (except for a throw away line in U2 at the final boss "How many people have you killed just today?") so I can easily separate both. Same goes for a overwolrd in old JRPGs where you could travel the planet in minutes but the game never mentioned it and it was a secret agreement between player and designer that you actually covered miles of distance on said world in three minutes. At the same time games like Spec Ops: The Line has a narrative that uses the gameplay to explain itself and therefore I can't separete my actions from what I see. Prey is another game that I think does the mix nicely, everything there, from your powers to the station design and all it's crew is present and makes sense story wise so for everything I see or do in that game I always expected that there would be a reason for it.
That is where The Last of Us Part 2 failed me. It wanted to be a commentary on the violence but not acknoledging the gameplay that makes sure to be violent and real. If you gonna make a character feel bad for killing someone don't do this after 10 hours of slaughtering people with no remorse. I've never felt the agreement that my actions in game where different of what the characters had done since the game makes sure to make it feel like every action you did was part of the journey, from taking the gun out of your backpack in the middle of a fight, long and detailed animations for gun crafting to keep it real just to find out that all this realism actually was not happening and so my "suspension of disbelief" for that case was broken.
Great video as usual and I just wanted to throw my two cents at the discussion and just seeing Yakuza being mentioned anywhere warms my heart haha
The Lat of Us 2 is the Gold Standard of terrible ludonarrative dissonance. You can tell that Ellie's kill-count factors into the overall story because of how hard Naughty Dog forced you to feel about every kill. From realistic death animations, the name callouts, and the dogs these were all factors that only highlighted the contradictory nature of the story and the "cycle of violence". It only makes the game's cutscenes and ending all the more jarring. But what do I know clearly I'm a bigot.
I think that GTAV spent so much time making sarcastic jokes about "American Lifestyle" that forgot to actually make a story that works.
In the opening mission when Trevor said. "ABAHBAHBAH", it really resonated with me.
great video. and to your comparison to Niko Bellic's story, I've always loved GTA IV even while the larger public perception of it has soured a bit over the years
Why has nobody talked about how amazing Trevor's introduction is? You hear all this buzz and whispers about Trevor from Michael and Lenny, calling him psychotic and insane, the softest of all of them being called a "sick puppy". Then Michael and the FIB agent panic and freaked out when Michael ends up on the news about the possibility of Trevor coming back.
Then we get introduced to Trevor at this point, who is wanting this on the news while fucking a girl over his kitchen counter. And what she perceived to have a bipolar conversation with Johnny from GTA IV which results in his brutal murder by Trevor's own hands. Then he proceeded to taunt, chase down, and kill the entirety of the MC.
The intro we get to Trevor in the game was my version of the current last of us drama. He kills johnny from the old gta 4 dlc in the grossest most insulting way possible, 18 year old me was offended as hell haha. That’s johnny kibbutz, 180lbs of jewish biker wtf! Turned me against trevor forever immediately I never want to play as him, always chose the ending where he burns alive lmao
Hey, at least you had a choice at the end
I think that was the worst part of GTAV. Not the sole fact that Johnny died, but that it goes against everything that has been established in Lost and Damned for his character. In the end of that DLC he broke up with Ashley and decided to remove himself from the gang. Reasons why he was still in the gang were never explained.
Ivan Rzhanoy exactly
I like seeing Trevor burn alive, it should be a gif
Nice vid. I enjoy when you go off the beaten path of talking about direct writing or storytelling in games mechanics and explore critical thinking trends.
I also agree: Dissonance in video games is...commonplace? Like I'm not saying we need it or don't, but just that if we're still talking about it today, we clearly haven't evolved our critical thinking about video games too far, just like video games at times haven't.
The ludonarrative dissonance was actually in evidence in GTA in San Andreas. CJ is a sympathetic character who expressed more of a moral grounding than Tommy from Vice City. And so it clashed there too, before Niko's turn. I remember thinking it at the time that the cracks in the storytelling are showing because they tried to make CJ "nicer" and more of a good guy than Tommy.
I never felt in line with the backlash to "ludonarrative dissonance". It's a legit phenomena in gaming. And because games are interactive and so very often violence-based in how that interaction happens, we're always going to be faced with how that clashes with basic a morality of "not killing hundreds of people".
Most of the time this dissonance is just going to clash to varying degrees. Except in the times where they can work it directly into the theme as in Spec Ops The Line. But that's not always possible so yeah, it's always going to feel weird when "good guys" kill dozens or hundreds of enemies. It's ignorable if you want to ignore it, but that doesn't make it go away as a potential weakness of gaming as storytelling medium. If the story is a big joke anyway (Saints Row) or absurdist (Yakuza) then it can clash far less, obviously. But when a game is presenting a serious, grounded front it's always going to be a potential issue that is potentially immersion-breaking. And undermine in-game concerns of characters about doing right/wrong.
Games haven't really developed as extensive mechanics for engaging core gameplay loops that create tension and stakes for the player while not having it be violence-based. Shooting/stabbing/beating other people is simply one of the easiest ways to create fun, consistently-engaging gameplay.
Farming, building and exploration games do to varying degrees. Delivery/driving games are actually among the most fertile ground to not have this dissonance while still requiring the moment-to-moment engagement similar to that of a fighting game or shooter. And I'd put Death Stranding into that (even though it has combat) as one of the most unique and compelling attempts by taking the idea of traversing an environment as a moment to moment gameplay loop out of vehicles and placing it directly into the human form.
This basically covered why I enjoyed GTA V more than GTA IV, but stopped playing it more quickly. Playing as Niko Bellick wasn't particularly fun, but he never actually made me angry as a character. I don't expect a lot of roleplaying from a GTA game, but I do need to be able to empathise a little. A game doesn't have to give you a morally wonderful character, but it DOES have to give you a character that you don't mind playing. Whenever I had to play as Trevor, all I could think was "Man, virtually everything in this game would be easier if my character was dead."
I think you're right about critics getting a bit too goggle-eyed and obsessed with ludonarrative dissonance, and I think the best illustration of that comes from a game like Saints Row 2. That game understands that if the player chooses to play the game stark-naked except for a tiger-print top hat, they know that they made that choice. So when it takes a dark or tragic turn, it doesn't treat the fact that you've chosen to undermine it completely as a flaw - it's a feature.
The series went off the rails almost immediately after that, mainly by writing the wackiness into the game rather than letting the player choose to do it. But still, there was clearly an understanding that a mature audience can not only handle but ENJOY ludonarrative dissonance, not in spite of but precisely *because* it messes up the tone of the game. Allowing us to turn a solid piece of melodrama into an ironic farce isn't a problem.
I dunno, as you say, writing Trevor into GTA V seems like a childish response to the idea of ludonarrative dissonance. The mature response is to understand that you can never really control how a player plays your game. Making you play as a psychopath isn't really the.
I think you're not meant to take GTAV seriously at all. It's very very good at being dumb fun. The character of Trevor is just one form that can take. He isn't a commentary on the nature of ludo-narrative dissonance; he's just a vessel to poke fun at it. The story is mostly a series of dumb-fun events with genuinely funny writing.
Trevor might just be a descendant of Donald Love, who was also a cannibal, in GTA 3.
Bioshock was a prolonged skewering of Randian objectivism, not a promotion of it. There's a reason rapture is a hellhole when you show up- bioshock does not think this is a good philosophy to run a civilization by. The fact that altrusitic co-operation is an mechanically better option than being a self interested murderer is not ludonarrative dissonance, because that's the point of the game.
Trevor is not just a "crazy-dont-give-a-fuck-person": he's got serious mental illnesses.
The game never makes that explicit, but it's obviously implicit in many cutscenes, especially in a mission later in the game when he finally meets his long gone mother (did she abandon him, right? Dont remember clearly). And of course she's only a vision, an illusion caused by the brain of a man without medicines - and I think it's the first time we're told Trevor takes medicines.
So, we have this man, with terrible psychological disorders, never loved by anyone. Of course he'd be strongly attached to a friend who gave him particles of love and understanding, and a purpose to Trevor's life (just compare his will to live before and after knowing Michael is alive).
To me, it's a clear explanation regarding Trevor's actions. I think GTA is way misunderstood by its players, because most of its themes is being discussed in the subtext, in the details behind all the "on our faces" satire.
Even the ending works in this fashion. The "Death Wish" option appears to be kind of a "superheroic" and lazy way to tie the various elements of the story. However, there's much niihilism over there: the act of the three characters finally facing their nemeses, knowing it's only a short-term win, reflects how they dont care about a possible future (because they're criminals and actually there'd never be a future for them). Standing their ground against those who moves the engines of this corrupt society is a way of saying "I cant stand living like this no more". So powerful.
tbh, it was also just badly written. Saints Row takes the dissonance and makes an anarchic playful universe around it, rather the totally un-shocking edginess of Trevor.
I am very weird. I have done GTA4 "kill only who I have to runs." And roll play play Nico's life. I actually prefer Nico's story, but really love Trevor. He is a very loyal, clever and broken character.
Honestly I feel like gta4s clunky gameplay is so at odds with its actually pretty good story that it becomes difficult for me to see either in isolation
I've never had a problem with narrative dissonance and have always seen it as a small issue even when I first heard of it. While I do believe it is a real issue for developers to tackle I've never thought it that important since I prioritize gameplay anyways. I've also always treated the story and gameplay of video games as separate where games like Bioshock get huge props from me for interweaving the two but ultimately a game can (imo) separately have great gameplay and great story like metal gear solid or the GTA games
I think the most important thing that the creator of the term ludonarrative dissonance ignored is that it only becomes a problem when the dissonance between the gameplay and story creates a dissonance between the PLAYER and the story.
Framing much of the drama of the early part of GTASA around corrupt cops framing CJ for the murder of a police officer becomes a funny thing to remember as you realize Officer Tenpenny could just get CJ for any of the dozens of cops he's ACTUALLY killed. And that's not just something you CAN do it in the game, it's something you HAVE to do to progress in the game. When you have to kill an honest cop set to testify against the corrupt cops, CJ goes along with it without any problem (because he's a snitch), and kills that cop when he could just as easily kill the two cops forcing him to do their dirty work for them.
Even within the context of some mission storylines, CJ is forced to do horrible things (like murdering guards to steal a rhyme book for his wanna-be friend) that seems totally out of line with the character presented in cutscenes. And yet, despite having a protagonist arguably less narratively likely to go on these rampages than GTA4, GTASA gets a pass.
Niko... doesn't really get that. Niko's reluctance to do bad things because he wants to be a better person, but he has done bad things before, so it's nothing new to him. His whole story is about how he's really bad at not doing bad things. Even the things he needs to do in missions seems like something the character would do. The methods the player uses to accomplish those goals might not, but THAT gameplay dissonance is easily ignored by the player. It's not, like... say... the new Tomb Raider series, where the cutscenes constantly frame Lara as struggling against massive odds and constantly being injured and all the other stuff those games were criticized for... while having a gameplay where she's an unstoppable combat god. THAT is ACTUAL ludonarrative dissonance. The gameplay serves as a near antithesis to the themes of the story.
For me, just driving around in a Need for Speed game like NFS: Heat, where you're just trying to get your player from your apartment to the shops to buy something... but still speeding around at 200mph like some insane lunatic in an illegal midnight street race... is far more dissonant than anything Niko ever does. Yeah, you typically have the same lack of regard for traffic laws in NFS: Heat as you do in GTA, but a disregard for traffic laws isn't the crux of the story line in Heat. Street racing has gotten so bad in this city that they have dedicated Street Race Police. You'd think the street racers would be a bit lower key during the day when they're not street racing.
If people complains about characters not matching up with the gameplay they either deserve trevor or don't deserve their freedom at all. That's How Game dev sees it as a solution.
I recently replayed the campaign. I had forgotten how annoying Trevor really is. Many times I did not know if I was supposed to be laughing or horrified about many of the things he does. I think Rockstar tried too hard to shock us, while at the same time trying to make Trevor likeable. I think Trevor could have been just as funny and likeable but more tolerable if Rockstar would have toned down his over the tope violence a bit. For example, the part where he crushes the head of a previous GTA character was totally unnecessary and made no sense to the overall story.
Trevor was probably waiting to takeover and that was his excuse
I always felt bad for Trevor, the only reason he is so crazy is because he is manipulated into that state by everyone around him.
Even if 4's story works better I prefer the chaos of 5.
hell yeah
I think Franklin was grossly underutilized and would've worked much better as the central protagonist of V. He would've been a great straight man to all the other nonsense going on.
Root for? All of the characters are cold blooded killers who off 100's of people at a clip.
I honestly think if the game was only focused on Michael and Franklin it would be better because then you get Franklin, a character who is getting further involved in this world of crime and who is ruining his life in the process unknowingly . Then Michael a man who sees where Franklin is going and wants to help because he’s been there and knows how it actually does ruin your life. Then Trevor, now not a player character but now the villain and man from Michael’s past who represents what will happen if Franklin if he doesn’t stop. In this hypothetical game I would give Trevor the job of being the person who gives Franklin the final decision, except now the decision is just Michael or death wish, also if there was a morality system for Franklin like Arthur in rdr2 where how you act directly impacts how your character acts around others and how they act around you to represent how far gone you are in this world of crime. This is basically fanfic for a 8 year old game but I liked the idea.
when GTA V first came out Trevor was hands down my favorite character, but as got older I found a new appreciation for Michael
There are many things you can criticize about GTAV, but imo, Trevor is not one of them. He, for me, actually makes the most sense. He is a highly intelligent person who had a fucked up childhood and for his whole life, looked for something like stability, the normal life. But everything went wrong for him. He got declined for the Air Force because of his childhood traumata, met Michael and with him, had stability. They would rob banks together, and Trevor considered Michael his one true friend, as hinted at numerous times throughout the story. He even declines to help Franklin kill Michael, because he still only wants to be best friends with him again. On the other hand, Michael backstabbed and wronged him at first possibility and planned for him to die. Further evidence of Trevor's life fucking with him at every possible instance.
Trevor's motivations also stay the same over the story progress. He wants to become friends with Michael again and find out what happened to their gang. IN THAT ORDER. That's why he's so shocked when he finds out that M is actually behind everything, the one person he considered a friend and that gave him stability.
I never cared about the gameplay being at odds with the story in Rockstar games. It’s part of the fun. I can engage with this serious story when I want to and also goof off in the open world when I want to. I’ve always seen it as a pretty essential part of the charm to an open world game
I did not like Trevor, but had no reason to kill him by the end.
Ironically Trevor causes more dissonance for me than most other GTA characters because I generally play most games as relatively neutral. I never spend much time harming civilians and try to keep most chaos to a minimum. I prefer to do whatever I set out to do with minimum fuss and casualties. So Niko makes way more sense to me, although Tommy from Vice City was always my fave and felt most relatable to how I play.
Saying that I do somewhat roleplay as whatever character I have, so I'll feel a whole lot less guilty running over masses of civis while as Trevor, for instance, because I know he wouldn't care. :P
I think another big problem with Trevor is that if his intention is to capture the average "rampage" crime sandbox game player, he doesn't quite fit the bill.
Trevor is more sadistic than capricious. He humiliates and kills victims in brutal ways. I felt genuinely bad for a lot of the victims at his mercy.
The average mayhem crime sandbox player, however, is more capricious than sadistic. They might randomly pick fights or beat up pedestrians, sure, but they usually get the most joy out of watching cop cars explode or driving a dump truck through a park. And while Trevor seems mostly driven by hair-trigger rage and repressed tragedy, your average GTA player does what they do because it's fun, or it's funny, or they're driven by a curiosity to see just "what would happen if I did THIS? CAN I do this?" So there's STILL that PC-player dissonance even if you're causing mayhem as Trevor.
The Boss in the Saint's Row games does a fairly decent job of avoiding PC-player dissonance in a crime game. But yeah, I think you might be correct that Niko actually works quite fine in a game like GTA, whereas Trevor causes both story problems without fixing "dissonance" problems.
The thing about Trevor was not his character, it was just the story. If the story was better, his character would have reflected that.
Having your main character to be a "random funny evil guy" isn't good writting, he was the most annoying character I have ever seen, he was just made to make kids relate more to the game "haha he's crazy like I am crazy when I kill in the game!"
Maybe as a villain he could have been decent but his character is just shit.
As a villian he wouldnt have been intriguing. 2 many lol im just crazy villians especially jn 2013
Fantastic video! For me I feel like Trevor deeply wants meaningful human connections but his abusive abrasive anti social personality keeps getting in the way of that for him. He considers Michael and Franklin not just as friends but as the people he wants to be able to rely on and feel consistent comfortable and safe with. (as safe as you can be in the world of gta😅) they are like family to him and you can see just how much it destroys him when he finds out about the grave. The jobs they do are less about the money for him and more an excuse to be with his friends. It's really sad
My issue with GTA IV in terms of its ludonarrative is that it screwed with the mission design in service for the more serious story. Going back to it the missions were mostly dull shootouts or follow the marker with very little variety unlike the previous games and V. This is in service of a story that doesnt gell well with the gameplay anyway. This becomes VERY apparent playing ballad of gay tony where because the tone lightened up the mission variety was MUCH better.
We will go on a journey.
*A JOURNEY OF SCOOTERS!*
A GTA 5 criticism video that doesn't talk about shark cards for 26354 endless minutes? Talk about a rare sight.