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Still, these old games are, well, old. There are plenty of people still out there in the wilds who have never played these or any of the other N64 classics. Most of my nephews and nieces weren't even born until long after the N64 was dead. This could be a great way of introducing brilliant games to an audience who missed out the first, second, and third time, especially considering many of them have no idea how to or interest in trying to jump into the Wii Shopping Channel. To many consumers and the vast majority of my family, games still only come on physical media."
I want to apologize for taking a bit of time to reply, as I am currently without internet access save for the times my girlfriend drags me kicking and screaming to her parents' house.
To Senor McGrath and Mr. Flores: Totally, man. Totally.
To Mr. Velfield: I'm sorry to hear you don't like the article, but I'm glad you took the time not only to read it but to reply and the very least I can do is reply back. I do think you may have misinterpreted just a few minor points here and there and I would like to see if I can explain myself a little better. To be honest, I'm a little worried that I may come off disrespectful, so if I sound that way please note that I really do appreciate your feedback and you have my utmost respect. I never served in the military, but I did work with the military for nearly a year as a doughy nerd on training software. All the soldiers I worked with were incredibly friendly and easy to talk to, but oddly enough, the vast majority of the civilians who worked there were douchenozzles.
"Looking at GTA IV as a "real life crime" simulator is flawed beyond words, so I'm not going to bother to say much about it, other than that to further try to extrapolate serious conclusions about the nature of the criminal element is seriously misguided. I know a lot of criminals, very hardcore, the type that go around every night stealing anything they can get their hands on, stick up kids, car thieves. I know several gang members (although to be fair, who doesn't these days). None of them are experiencing any of the transformations you talk about here, and certainly not because they "suddenly start growing a concience"."
I don't believe I ever stated that the GTA series is intended as a "real life crime" simulator. That wouldn't be fun, or at the very least it would be a completely different game. And I definitely never state that real criminals who steal and murder have consciences. If they did, they probably wouldn't be criminals.
"I think the reason you identify with Nico is that he's basically you: he doesn't want to commit crimes, he doesn't know much about commiting crimes, it just looks easy and the cars are flashy. As you play the game you see the holes in that line of thinking, and you, not Nico, develop according to Rockstars (rather flimsy in my opinion) slowly emerging moral compass, as written in by people who obviously know gaming better than the streets. The reality is you do some dirt the first time, taste easy money, and it all becomes easier. That's why you don't see any large banks standing up and returning the money they pocketed during the housing bubble: crime does pay and successful criminals have no reason to develop any form of empathy. In fact they tend to lose whatever empathy they have. I realize that prison, middle and old age, etc, reform some people, but these factors are not at play in GTA IV's sandbox."
I agree with the vast majority of that.
"I'm psychotic so I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but that last line made me think this entire article was a troll. I'm still not convinced it isn't."
It wasn't a troll, although I don't really like that bit about the scientists not getting laid. It's a horribly lame joke that I wish I was intelligent enough to replace with something funnier, or with a picture of puppies. I want people to laugh with me at the absurd things I said, and the original sentence was actually a bit more absurd before the editors got their grubby, power-hungry hands on it.*
"Ok so you are being sarcastic. Great. Pretty much cancels out everything that follows, doesn't it?"
You know, I actually worried about that. I wasn't sure it was a good idea to start with a rush of ridiculousness before attempting to transition into making an actual point, but I wasn't hating what I was writing for once so I just went with it. I don't feel it negates the rest of the article and I really hope it's not difficult to tell when I'm being serious and when I'm not. I have that problem in meat space, too.
"So driving Roman around, being a "psychopath" that cares about what his friends think, how about a dude who thinks him plus a few friends can take over New York without a small army of hoods to back him up... none of that was, as you so eloquently put it, "janky"?"
It's totally janky, but I was just taking a moment to speak about technical jankiness. You know, controls, mechanics, physics.
"I realize nothing I say here is going to convince you or any of the other GTA IV fans out there, so I won't type much further, I just want to say that I, in the strongest sense, disagree completely with what you've written here."
Right on, sir.
"You start out like it's 4chan and end up like it's slashdot, but I'm sitting here reading it like it's failblog, with my hand over half my face to protect it from the schizophrenic pacing of your article."
The pacing is rather schizophrenic, isn't it? Makes me wonder how this managed to get to the front page. The editors really shit the bed on this one.**
*Thank you for the perfect edits, O Wise Editing Warrior Gods who are perfect in every way and all have chiseled physiques made of pure some abstract concept that is wonderful, comically sound and not at all cliche.
**The only beds you shit are the beds of your enemies, and you do it with such thunderous force as to vaporize all who oppose you. Then you sing songs so beautiful that for mere mortals to hear them would literally explode the skin off of their entire bodies."
I also loved the Cave Johnson segment. Was a nice change of pace, and that whole section was just so rich with Aperture history. It was hilarious and fascinating."