Plus the union busting controversies and the fact that V is overrated and has imo a quality of writing deterioration from IV approaching the level of a Bethesda game.
In other news, I finally got 100 % in the good version of San Andreas. (pictured, the tutorial screen I got after I wanted to go on a rampage with the free tank to celebrate)
Absolute banger of a game, a definite masterpiece. Even as updates have taken away songs from the radio, or the ability to mod the game (which I was never able to get back without having the game become too unstable). Annoyingly, there was a bug that caused it to freeze for good whenever some menus loaded in, requring a restart. Especially in clothes’ stores and, most annoyingly, the racing minigames. Those were a pain, also especially with how AI traffic likes to change lanes with no warning and make you crash.
The early game and the Las Venturas part are by far the best. San Fierro’s story is kinda weak compared to the rest of the game, and the return to Los Santos is kinda monotonous in forcing you to take over a set amount of gang territories before you are allowed to get to the final mission, especially after that excellent Casino Robbery arc in LV and other iconic missions, such as the one where you get the jetpack. But basically my only bone to pick with the story is how Ryder’s betrayal and character arc were handled. That is alleged to be due to a dispute between Rockstar and the VA.
100%-ing the game for the first time took me 37 hours. In a more modern game, probably double that. The 2000s were truly the peak of gaming, and I am saying this because of my own age’s bias. Hardware that was suddenly technically advanced enough to allow experimentation and ambitious projects, but not enough to allow the current amounts of bloat or free money features.
if they gave us IV again with a few quality of life updates and no story missions, just rambling around with a custom character doing rando shit, i would pay some bucks for it.
i do not hate the lore or the guardrail missions that tell the story, but the long term appeal for me is having a little world to just run around and get into shit with. collecting/customizing cars, wearing clothes, blowing shit up, jumping out of planes to try and land on buildings, riding bikes by people and punching them in the back of the head.
like if i could just walk into a store and immediately be able to mix-match all npc clothes, heads, bodies, that would be perfect. i could absolutely dick around with that for years.
i do appreciate the details added in V, like how when you do wack shit people nearby pull out cellphones to record you. people carry drinks and drop them. the massive amount of stored things NPCs say, many of them off the wall bananas. i walked by a guy on his phone once who shouted into his phone that he had to take a big shit before hanging up. that’s beautiful. i’m sure 6 will have a lot of convo snippets.
i’ve been playing no man’s sky this last year and it’s unreal how much stuff there is to get into that appeals to me. that is a unique game for sure. it’s made me realize that, for games, i can make my own entertainment if given a place to play. stories and missions should be just enough to show me the ropes and give a glimpse of the potential. terraria is that way too. like there’s a whole big series of bosses and events and it was very cool to get through, but i can also just start a world and fuck around, getting lost in my own evolving set of goals. that’s why i still fire that shit up sometimes.