Also? Spoilers abounds!

The GTA3 series was about gangsters. The first one had “thugs” and “mafioso.” Vice City was more the latter, with San Andreas more the former. But GTA4 was more daunting. It wasn’t about style, it was about SOMETHING. It was about the pursuit of the American dream, freedom, and Niko’s quest for freedom from his past. But it failed for me. The culprit was the mis-marriage of narrative elements and gameplay. I think Rockstar bungled it by trying to make the narrative highpoint something it shouldn’t have been. To me, it was pretty evident where the emotional highpoint was in terms of gameplay. And that’s what they should’ve went with for the narrative as well.

First, the “point” of GTA4. In one of the earlier missions in the game you’re given the freedom to kill, or to not kill, someone you’ve chased down. The freedom of choice is a recurring theme in GTA4. Niko talks about choosing a new life, after he cleans up a few loose ends. His cousin Roman constantly chooses to get in over his head in attempt to get ahead. In the game you’re given choices in multiple missions. In at least three distinct places during the main narrative you’re given a choice between killing one of two strong supporting characters. (Francis McReary/Derrik McReary, Dwayne Forge/Playboy X, and Pegorino/Dimitri.) And then there’s what is, to me, the biggest choice in the game, foreshadowed from the very beginning of the game.

Note: The player CHOOSES to shoot Darko Brevic here. You don’t have to. Purely optional. But for me, this is undeniably the highpoint of the game emotionally and for gameplay, given that it’s a choice the player makes. That was the moment that you, the player, decides who Niko is going to be from that moment forward. You decide what kind of man he will be. (Sure it’s odd thinking “I let the man who killed my friends live and I’m mowing down dozens of passersby while driving down the street.” but that’s acceptable in GTA, and not indicative of the narrative. Those people are pellets in Pac-Man. This man, is just that. A man.) What I have a problem with is that this is not the end of the game.

The narrative continues, picking back up a completely unconnected plot that was interspersed in a lopsided fashion throughout the game. And then Niko is offered another choice, his final. You have to take a side in a mob dispute.

Wait, what? A mob dispute? I go through some deep emotional issues, dredge up the deaths of my entire fucking village back in Eastern Europe, and my childhood friends who died in a war? And deal with the fact that it was made possible by the only other surviving friend from that time, who is completely unrecognizable to me? And then… A mob dispute? What the fuck? It’s like your mother dies in a car wreck and your boss says “So, uh, the funeral’s Thursday? You’re uh, going to be able to come in this Saturday to fill in for Bob, right?”

After this monumental moment for Niko, which has no bearing on the rest of the game, you choose between helping Pegorino or Dimitri. Depending on which you kill, either your cousin or your girlfriend is killed, and you are forced to kill the remaining mobster. Forced to kill. Even after you just (potentially) let the man who got your entire army squad killed for a thousand dollars, live. The killing of your goddamned annoying cousin, or the girlfriend who was as interesting as a (blank brown) cardboard box, is the straw that broke the camel’s back? And for that you end on the down note of your decision to not have really mattered after all.

Allow me to offer a different suggestion. Something that should have happened before Darko Brevic was delivered. FIRST you do your requisite mafioso bit. Go ahead, make me choose. Kill one of the people I somewhat remotely feel something that could almost be considered an obligation to. Piss me off. Get me angry. This fucker, this Godfather-wannabe thinks he can kill the woman-I-(am-forced-to)-love/my-cousin-(that-annoys-me-but-fuck-it-he’s-family-you-know-what-I-mean-you-have-a-cousin-like-that-too)?! Fuck that noise, let’s jack a car and go kill some goddamn virtual bad guys!

Bam. Cut to the end. Done. I’ll miss my cousin/girl. They meant a lot to me. Well, to Niko/me. THEN… *ring* “What, what’s that? My phone? Hello? What? You found Darko Brevic? Where is he?”

Because goddamn it, that’s an ending. If you’re going to bother giving me a choice? Let it mean something.

Having written a somewhat lengthy comment on his blog, I figured “Hey, why not put it here, too, as to simply get something on the blog?”

The crux of his argument, I feel, can be summed up in his included quote. What follows is my reply.

I remain convinced that in principle, video games cannot be art. Perhaps it is foolish of me to say “never,” because never, as Rick Wakeman informs us, is a long, long time. Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.

While I sadly agree that games generally aren’t art, I find it not a fault of the medium, but the fault of the people involved.

It’s particularly in your accusation of “lack of authorial control” that I find myself annoyed. Yes, to give choice is to not dictate what the player does, but the authorial direction lies in how the system (the game) responds to the player’s input. It’s a conversation between the player and author that, in the end, the author has all control over. I’d like to cite an unusual example: “Sim City.”

You’ve likely heard of “The Sims,” the virtual doll house created by Will Wright. Long before that, he made his name on Sim City, a game in which players are tasked with building a city for virtual denizens by issuing zoning permits (Residential, Industrial, Commercial,) building roads, libraries, public transit, and the likes. How is this example valid? Because if you build a city with no public transit, people will eventually rage. If you build a city with no roads, people are only discontent. Ideally, public transit permeates your city, and roads simply “exist,” inverse to how many major cities are today. Choices like this and the judgment of if the placement of zoning is “correct” or not is not one made arbitrarily, it’s one of artistic intent, and to ignore than is to ignore how games function.

These things aren’t the result of some study of urbania meant to make a realistic simulation, this is purely the definitive example of a perfect city as described by the creator, Will Wright. This is his artistic vision put forth, largely (and obviously, given the game’s visuals,) influenced by his Californian upbringing. It’s by the player choosing different avenues of development, and seeing them marked as “incorrect,” that Wright makes his case to the player.

It’s with this view on games that you should consider a “win state” of a game as merely “an end” that agrees with what the creator puts forth as “correct.” Films end, novels end, poems end, and games end. Games just have multiple endings due to their interactive nature, but this doesn’t preclude them from all narratively driving to a singular thesis (not that such a thing should be required to meet any definition of “art,” but it does make the understand simpler in modern games. An alternate ending can simply be another viewing of the same point the game strains to make.)

Now, my definition of art (“a product of human creativity”) is likely vastly different from yours, but I would certainly love to hear a better justification for not considering games art than “lack of authorial control,” which games absolutely have. The issue of why you don’t see this more often is a much better question, and has partially to do with the old Hollywood studio system that permeates the Game Industry today, chopping potential artists off at the knees. More than that, it’s the fault of fans.

I agree that the vast majority of games are worth nothing artistically speaking, and I say this not with derision, but sadness. I see such potential and I see it wasted on Michael Bay levels of emotional exploration solely because it’s easier for developers to make with interactive explosions than it is with interactive emotion. This is the fault of gamers for preferring cheap and instant gratification to emotional and heartfelt. These are the same people who make death threats at you for having a different opinion and sharing it. But I certainly do believe games can drag themselves out of the era of cave paintings, but it will be dragging the majority of its fanbase behind it, kicking and screaming.

I think it certain that games will reach levels of artistry as complex as any other medium. I just really hope that I’m alive to see it. Though, like you said, I expect I won’t be, simple due to the complete lack of regard for subtext in interactivity.

Gaming is an artistic medium, despite the people involved.

Anyway, keep up the good review work, sir.