Gaming

That's not game design. It's the feel of a single mechanic. And honestly, there are so many open world games to play that have driving that feels good.

I mean, the guy had a few decent points. I definitely agree with you as well—my constant replaying of gta V and rdr2 go to show that I love rockstar games. And I’m a different gamer than this guy. I have the same approach to movies, too. I work in film and all my friends are super film snobs and I’m like, “oh shit, I really liked it.” Because the story is my bread and butter. Rdr2 was an incredible story. I’ve replayed the entire campaign three times and each time I still felt the story, felt the characters…it worked for me. However, what this guy said is also true. For “strategy” gamers, yeah, their system is super limited. I mean, for a replay their style is super limited. You have “choices” technically—you can be good or bad, say yes or no to helping people, you can find interesting items off them when you decide to be bad and kill them, or sometimes they’ll reward you with cool items if you decide to help. The open world has some secrets to uncover but…ultimately, there is one track for the story (even if you can be white hat or black hat), and the open world experience, you can only discover what’s set out for you. You can’t “create” an experience that isn’t placed for you to find or that you decide to do differently than their predetermined triggers and paths. Basically what I’m saying is your “choices” in the game only serve to limit your path if you make the decision to, say, not help Mary—that storyline is just gone. You get a few new pieces of dialogue. That’s it. It’s all funneling you to their predetermined path. And that can get boring for some people.

All this said, I fuckin love rdr2. I love just fucking around in the open world when I don’t feel like playing missions, I like trying to survive a Saint Denis shootout by holding up somewhere or refusing to run. Shit, I’m STILL playing rdr2. That doesn’t happen when the game is bad. But I also agree with what he’s saying. Being able to actually alter the game, with your creative input having a consistent logic you can manipulate, would turn this game from an 8.75 to a 10. As it stands, the only time your in-game decisions truly make a difference is when they wipe out a side story line opportunity—or if they happen to be the final decision or two in their predetermined story.

I opened the video thinking, “pfft. Fuck this dude, these are some of my favorite (and in my opinion the best) games of all time.” But after actually watching some of it, he had good points.

Ha. For me, one of my biggest gripes with GTA is how cars don't behave like any semblance of a car that I know.