I finished Max Payne 3’s story mode earlier this week and while I was at it, scribbled down a review for End-Gamers. You can read it here if you like. I think you’ll find that I was pretty enamoured with it. I still am in fact and currently getting my arsed handed to me in the excellent multiplayer modes. But despite forking out 40 quid ($60’ish) every year on Xbox Live, I don’t usually get much enjoyment from my games’ multiplayer modes as (get your violin ready) I don’t have many friends on Xbox live; most of my friends own PlayStation 3s, plus I happen to suck big time too.
Multi-playing around in Max Payne 3 the other day and getting a feel for how a pincushion must feel, I came to a sudden realisation. I’ve played the majority of Rockstar Games’ games and fell in love with them all. So, as my avatar was ripped into a hundred slow motion shreds and the teenager responsible for doing so lorded it over me in flurry of insults, I wondered just what is it that makes Rockstar’s games so bloody good?
Well, after some 15 years of ground breaking research arsing around with the likes of Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire, Bully, The Warriors, and such, I believe I’ve manged to identify the possible factors that lead to the greatness of these games.
You can start chiselling my name onto that Noble Peace prize now, if you like.
Innovative Gameplay
First and foremost, Rockstar’s games are intensely fun to play. For the most part they involve running, driving or riding about in big open-world environments, carrying out missions which progress an overarching storyline. As with video games, this often involves shooting the poo out of the fools that get in your way or, as is the case with GTA, innocent bystanders.
You can progress with the story and side missions or screw it all and just cause mayhem. One of the best ways to play these games is with friends, taking turns to create the most destruction.
Some of Rockstar’s other games such as The Warriors, Max Payne, Manhunt and Red Dead Revolver, on the other hand, progress in more traditional linier levels and are much more focused on a particular style of gameplay.
While other studios blatantly imitate, Rockstar innovates. It was GTA 3 that more-or-less invented the whole open-world/crime genre after all. The games that do borrow from others tend to reinvent or redefine the genre; take The Warriors or L.A Noire for example. Released in 2005 and 2011 respectively, these two games borrowed from old school Beat’em-ups and Adventure-Games, two genres that never made it out of the nineties but Rockstar managed to completely reinvent.
The missions / levels in their games rarely ever feel old or clichéd. All missions in open world games generally follow the pattern of ‘obtain mission, follow map to destination and proceed to kill.’ Rockstar has managed to keep this basic formula fresh by mixing in interesting characters, plots, setting, scripted/non-scripted events and mixing up gameplay.
Storytelling
The stories in Rockstar games are famously controversial, and tend to go places other games haven’t. Plenty of games out there try to take on controversial issues or portray anti-heroes, but none have done it quite as well as Rockstar Games. Take L.A. Noire for example. The game handled the sexism and institutional racism of 1940’s America in a believable and pretty much non-offensive way. Most games would shy away all together or inadvertently go the other way and be exploitative. Another mature and contentious angle explored in L.A. Noire, is the scorn Cole Phelps receives when he is exposed for having an affair with a German lady.
The main characters in their games have been some of the most memorable in all modern gaming. Never the cut and paste heroes found in other titles – their protagonists have well fleshed out backstories, believable motivations and well crafted story arcs. The player is able to understand why their character is acting in a certain way, and why they have whacked so many people.
Due to the writing, animations and dialogue, the player feels a strong connection with the main characters in all of their games. I feel as though I know Max Payne, Niko Bellic, John Marston and Cole Phelps personally, and can understand their tragic motivations and often-psychotic reactions. Having embodied one of these character for such a long time, their untimely demise actually moved me to real life man-tears, an emotion rarely felt when playing videogames.
That being said, these characters are complicated guys, usually on the wrong side of the law. Nowhere is this more evident than in the GTA series. It’s great fun to play as the anti-hero!
The Settings
The places that Rockstar decides to locate their games have set them apart from most others out there. The environments feel lived in, look the part and have obviously been well researched. Walking around Liberty City in GTA 4, I honestly felt like I was in New York City. Having been to the city once, little touches like the steam coming out of the city’s manholes, the rubbish that skitters across the floor and the dilapidation of the buildings in Liberty City, helped to fully immerse myself into the game.
In Red Dead Redemption, not only was the setting awesome, but also the time period they decided to set it in was a stroke of genius. There’d been plenty of (crap!) Western Games out there, but none had ever been such fun to play nor as engrossing. Just as the Old West was becoming tame and civilised, so was the lead character, John Marston, before he was dragged back into his old life.
It’s not just the images on the screen that aid the setting, it’s also the music and little gameplay tweaks that immerse the player in their world. The drumming music of the Brazilian Favelas and the enemies, who spat out god-only-knows-what in Portuguese towards Max, helped to fully immerse the player in the setting and Max’s story.
And so…
There you have it. The gameplay, storytelling and setting are the three main reasons why I believe Rockstar Games’ games rule. There is plenty more I could go on about, but seeing as I have already babbled on for about a 1000 words, I should probably wrap this up. Obviously Rockstar’s games are not perfect and each game has something a little annoying or a mission or two that could have been better. But for the most part, Rockstar Games’ games are exactly the kind of experiences I want when I fire up my console.
Now you’ve read all of that, I’d be very interested in seeing what you think. What did I miss out? Do you think Rockstar Games are awful? What’s your favourite/worst Rockstar Game? What do you think on the characters, setting and storytelling?
