Greetings from Liberty City!
The City is Beautiful. Glad You’re Not Here.
Where’ve I been? Where do you think? Liberty City. Ah… Liberty City. It’s sort of an “adult” vacation spot. Not a place to bring the kids. In fact, this sprawling metropolis is bereft of children or teenagers. That’s a good thing. Because there are a thousand stories in the naked city and all of them are M-Mature. It’s time to come home and I hate to admit it. . . I’ll miss these mean streets. I’ll miss my terrifying breakneck speeding through the Booth tunnel. Buzzing the top of the Statue of Happiness with a stolen heli-tour copter. Cranking up Vladivostock radio, digging some Reggae, or tuning in to the incomparable Lazlo to help drown out the gunfire, screams, and constantly whining police sirens.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW
Liberty City – a believable place. That’s not a common thing to say about a video game world but the people at Rockstar have loaded both barrels here. One barrel contains all the violence and depravity, offensiveness and envelope pushing Rockstar is justifyably known for. The other barrel contains unexpected twists and turns, betrayal, and a few genuine surprises. Rockstar knows parody – why else would the two main “squeezes” – the two ladies you are forced to date (there are also personal ads and whores, but those aren’t part of the main plot) aren’t what you’d expect. Both are 3-dimensional, both are realistic where most game developers would have gone for “Va-va-voom.” Michelle is a bit plain, has boring taste in activities, and is way too interested in your character’s personal business. And Kate is a bona-fide “good girl” from an Irish family. The most realistic mob-innocent since Adrian from Rocky played Sonny Corleone’s sister. She doesn’t “put out” but Rockstar makes her the principle love interest.
Bravo on that Rockstar! I’m sure your opponents were expecting a Carmen Electra type instead.
Then they offer what looks like a truly offensive limp-wristed queen plotline. It’s hilarious in the most un-PC way possible to watch Bernie (his name when straight was “Florian”) mince/jog his way through Middle Park. I didn’t like Niko when he teased and mocked his now out and proud friend but Rockstar doesn’t leave it at that. No. They have Bernie run through a tunnel and get smacked in the stomach with a pipe by a gay basher. Then Rockstar hands you the reigns and says “Go kill that homophobe!” From then on Niko treats his friend with more respect. A lot more.
Because of the story I was disapproving but mostly onboard with most of Niko’s loathsome actions. He kills a lot of people (yes, but they were all bad) and does a lot of bad things. Then the kidnapping mission came up. I have to admit that Rockstar is endlessly inventive and that having a mission where you must kidnap a mob bosses spoiled daughter is clever. I admit that having her scream in anger the whole time was a good choice and that having her attack you while you drive – making the car lurch around the road – was a stroke of genius but I did not like it when Niko hit her to shut her up.
Does that seem odd to the non-gamers? I can pull a virtual trigger but I cringe at an non-interactive cutscene showing a man hit a truly awful woman? Maybe not. While in real life I’m sure I’d find the killing more shocking, even in the movies I find domestic violence more disturbing than killing. Why is that? Believability? Justification?
A game is making me think.
A lot.
Thanks Rockstar. Grand Theft Auto IV holds a special place in my heart. A guilty pleasure alongside Pulp Fiction, Sin City, Scarface, both Godfathers and the Sopranos. I’m proud to finally induct a video game into that august company. And like those other powerful and amoral stories . . .
I look forward to sharing it with my kids. Once they’re old enough.
Liberty City, a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I completely disagree about Bernie. He is a completely one dimensional character. All he is is an unbelievable and inaccurate stereotype that has already been repeated numerous times and was never funny in the first place. Sure, Brucie and Little Jacob were no less stereotypical but they’re still likeable characters. Brucie is generally funny and little jacob doesn’t annoy me too much (he’s also very helpful when he likes you a lot). Bernie also ruined what should have been a major plot point.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I never said Bernie was 3-dimensional. I said Michelle and Kate are – so is Packie, Dwayne, Ray and most of the mobsters. Rockstar travels in cliches you can find in most movies and yeah, the Bernie one is 1-dimensional and offensive. What I liked is Niko’s shift. I’m not sure how you handled Darko but the way I did it got me a sympathetic phone call from Bernie. Niko responds to his friend’s concern in a way I found touching.
My points above are admittedly all over the place. I took my time in Liberty City. But the main thing that kept surprising me was how many times Rockstar took a higher road than I expected. They also managed to invest me in the story in unexpected ways. I had no qualms or doubts, for example, about how to handle the cop vs. the junkie scenario. Or the one about working with or against Dmitri. I didn’t decide what to do there, I knew what I wanted Niko to do and games – up until now – really seem to only approach that kind of depth and power.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Oh, one more thing, and I might be giving Rockstar too much credit but the reason I cited Kate’s character and chastity (realistic rather than “princessy”) and Bernie is because it felt like Rockstar was using satire to mock their opponents. When Niko beds Michelle he initially asks her if he can come up for some “Hot Coffee.” Brucie and Manny are very wicked satire of cool street poseur life – what’d you think when the real drug dealer, the real badass Elizabeth capped Manny and his camera man? Bernie is wildly offensive but any cringing or (ugh) laughing you might be doing is subverted when he gets bashed. Suddenly any snickering anti-gay frat boy playing the game is now tasked with protecting a mincing queen and attacking an intolerant ass. If they don’t help the outrageously gay character, they can’t play the game. I like that almost as much as a don’t like the characterization.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:47 am
This game is obviously sexually driven, but despite that fact, are you required to play out “Undress to kill” for Dewayne in order to move on in the game?
June 5th, 2008 at 3:57 am
Thoughtful stuff, GamerDad. Good work.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:07 am
I think it is wonderful when we can discuss characters and their motivations in this way. There are entirely too few instances of games that do this.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Heather, I finished the game and I remember a mission called “undressed to kill” – I can’t remember anything about it though. It’s during the time you’re helping Dwayne on behalf of Playboy X right? If so, yeah, I think that one is mandatory. Actually, to complete the game all the MISSIONS are mandatory. Stealing cars for Brucie, the payphone assassin guy, dating, finding glowing pigeons, driving for Roman, etc., all that stuff is extra and busywork. But the missions are mandatory. Whats bad about Undressed to Kill btw. I can’t remember it….
On the gay front, Gamerdad also forgot to mention the earlier mission where Nico pretends to be gay to lure an informant out of hiding. As I remember, Nico was homophobic there too but I agree that after the first Bernie mission he becomes blase about it.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:23 am
If I remember right, Undressed to Kill is the one that has you going to the Strip Club to kill the managers. Other than that you have to go to the Strip Club, there’s nothing different about it.
I’ll add that I feel that being worried about seeing badly 3D-modeled chicks in bikinis and not being worried about the graphic language, violence, and misogyny throughout the game is kinda weird.
June 9th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
This, like all GTA games, would seem a game to avoid. Well here’s hoping that Rockstar eventually makes an equally artistic game for “less mature” audiences.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Can’t argue with that sentiment.
June 19th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Finally I’m finding some people, some parents, which doesn’t got theyr eyes covered with leather patches like horses, but that are informed and open minded.
First of all I want to give my thanks to “GamerDad”, since I’ll be a father hopefully in the next years, your site proves to be great to open the eyes of many people on the videogaming reality.
Since I’m a gamer from the old Atari times, and grew up with both my parents that weren’t informed almost at all on this matter, I guess I did my job growing up to let them understand how to deal with sons and games, and thanks to you too this won’t be a problem not even for me in the future years 🙂
Last thing to add, great review on GTA, since this, that you caught, is the real essence that, in my opinion, they wanted to put in the game… a game that suffered a heavy criticism even here in italy from all TV News for unknown and non existent “features” of the game like “aiming to become a mafia boss” or being subject to “raping”, this was the result of misinformation and demonization of the medias, and, since I’ve pointed out to some medias your site, your efforts to let the parents open theyr eyes on the game community, I hope they’ll interview you someday 😉
Keep up the good job 🙂