I'm not even that fond of Rockstar personally. Their worlds always felt dull and uninteresting once you got past the initial jokes.
Feel the same. Don't understand the hype behind any Rockstar game's story and aesthetics. It always feels like they're trying to be Tarantino but then, they also want to be taken seriously like some top HBO drama.
Always comes off as inauthentic and shallow.
For example, in Red Dead 2, I remember the mission where you help the Native Americans fight off US soldiers and it's like....this is no different than some goober saying they would've stood up to Hitler in Nazi Germany. It's moral wish fulfillment and retrospective snobbery. In reality, if they wanted to make it more meaningful, they should have it as a 'you can't win' type scenario where you try to help Natives set up their society but either you help them and die in battle OR you sell them out so that your gang can survive. Then, maybe you can make it even somewhat morally complex here with, say, a former Confederate soldier type character who hates the Union to this day and though he may be racist or whatever, owes his life to Confederate aligned Natives who saved him during the war and therefore, empathizes with and respects Natives. That would add weight to the situation, at hand.
But games by Rockstar (and much of modern writing) feature none of this type of writing and nuance.
That's why I think Cyberpunk and CDPR is superior here. As Pondsmith says, the goal of Cyberpunk isn't about saving the world, it's about saving your soul. It reflects a more 'realistic' outlook as you deal with entities beyond your control that work against your sense of agency. That doesn't mean you don't fight for what you believe in within the Cyberpunk/CDPR universe but rather, for a 'serious' oriented story about the human condition, there isn't a wish fulfillment power fantasy thing dictating the events in your story. Sure, in game, Geralt or V can fight off 30 people at once but it's not central to the narrative that Geralt or V fights off an entire army and changes the world.
Now, I'm not saying power fantasy games or stories shouldn't exist. No, they can be equally as good but just don't pretend they're something they're not.
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Feel the same. Don't understand the hype behind any Rockstar game's story and aesthetics. It always feels like they're trying to be Tarantino but then, they also want to be taken seriously like some top HBO drama.
Always comes off as inauthentic and shallow.
For example, in Red Dead 2, I remember the mission where you help the Native Americans fight off US soldiers and it's like....this is no different than some goober saying they would've stood up to Hitler in Nazi Germany. It's moral wish fulfillment and retrospective snobbery. In reality, if they wanted to make it more meaningful, they should have it as a 'you can't win' type scenario where you try to help Natives set up their society but either you help them and die in battle OR you sell them out so that your gang can survive. Then, maybe you can make it even somewhat morally complex here with, say, a former Confederate soldier type character who hates the Union to this day and though he may be racist or whatever, owes his life to Confederate aligned Natives who saved him during the war and therefore, empathizes with and respects Natives. That would add weight to the situation, at hand.
But games by Rockstar (and much of modern writing) feature none of this type of writing and nuance.
That's why I think Cyberpunk and CDPR is superior here. As Pondsmith says, the goal of Cyberpunk isn't about saving the world, it's about saving your soul. It reflects a more 'realistic' outlook as you deal with entities beyond your control that work against your sense of agency. That doesn't mean you don't fight for what you believe in within the Cyberpunk/CDPR universe but rather, for a 'serious' oriented story about the human condition, there isn't a wish fulfillment power fantasy thing dictating the events in your story. Sure, in game, Geralt or V can fight off 30 people at once but it's not central to the narrative that Geralt or V fights off an entire army and changes the world.
Now, I'm not saying power fantasy games or stories shouldn't exist. No, they can be equally as good but just don't pretend they're something they're not.
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