Grand Theft Auto IV, developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games

In Round 2 of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo (also featured on Totilo's blog Multiplayer), he continued to insist that the soul of the Grand Theft Auto series is its sprawling possibility space, and that Grand Theft Auto IV's insistence on a richer main character and more consistent themes was taking the franchise too far from its roots. We countered by accusing Totilo of overlooking Rockstar North's "fitful achievement" of blending emotion and gameplay. In today's Final Round, both sides bring their loyal readers--those who previously posted comments on Level Up and Multiplayer--into the Vs. Mode dojo to spar with the experts. And once you've finished reading it, we encourage you to share your reactions and observations in the comments section. After all, our new and improved Final Round is nothing without your participation, Dear Reader. Enjoy.

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Stephen Totilo: After our preview entry, readers started mostly bagging on the sandbox in GTA IV (clearly these were not the same people who were calling me mean names when I wrote about my experience with GTA IV the weekend before it was officially released.) Many of the commenters complained that the sandbox was just not developed enough in GTA IV, and even the defenders of the game suggested that more sandbox elements would surely be restored in the eventual GTA V.

Of all the things people said they wanted added in, one stood out. Reader Jack Lothian described one added option for GTA IV--one small wrinkle--that he believes would have had a profound impact on the game:

I'd love GTA games to genuinely introduce moral quandaries, just as I'd love to them to actively pursue a more open approach where mass slaughter isn't the usual answer to any problem. GTA IV isn't that game though--"Kill Mr A or Kill Mr B" ends up being more of a game choice than a moral one (which death will benefit my playing experience). A third option (kill neither, face the personal consequences) would have at least given some deeper scope.

Stephen's take: Jack just blew my mind. I've long complained of the binary choices games that are designed with morality systems provide players. That's why I'm happy that Spore will give players at least three ways to cultivate their in-game species, instead of just "good" or "bad," "Light Side" or "Dark Side," "kill the Little Sister" or "don't kill the Little Sister." What would I have done if I could have chosen to ignore Playboy X and Dwayne and killed neither? Some would say that offering three choices rather than two is no real improvement. But recalling that specific scenario, I'd have found it even more extraordinary and morally complex if I could have chosen that third path Jack described. Agree?

N'Gai's take: I don't think that the "do nothing" option is particularly compelling, because Rockstar North has set up a pretty stark situation in which two erstwhile best friends now want each other dead. If you opt out, the most likely consequence is that one or both will turn on you. This doesn't sound any more extraordinary or morally complex than what Rockstar actually did, which was try to put some moral complexity into Playboy X's response if you chose to follow through on his orders and kill Dwayne.

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N'Gai Croal: While discussing how the concept of the "war economy" is addressed in my Newsweek essay on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, I said that "MGS 4's gameplay vocabulary and rhetoric reinforce each other to achieve what games do best: radically simplify complex systems--in this case, post-9/11 hot zones--in order to entertain and possibly inform." GTA IV's missions, like many other systems in the game, have radically simplified solutions. So the question that I'd ask you and Jack in turn is, how mechanically complex a game do you want Grand Theft Auto to be? Rockstar North could borrow the intimidate-or-negotiate mechanic from Electronic Arts' The Godfather: The Game; the stun-or-tranquilize options from Metal Gear Solid; or the converse-rather-than-fight feature from any number of role-playing games. But these solutions are themselves imperfect. Intimidation/negotiation is yet another binary solution. Stunning or tranquilizing Playboy X or Dwayne doesn't do you much good unless you can subsequently kidnap your target and keep them prisoner. And introducing RPG mechanics could quickly transform GTA from an action-adventure game with light RPG elements into a full-blown RPG.

A better solution was hinted at by leifeng, one of my commenters at Level Up, who wrote:

Like several other commenters here, I too was startled by the things I couldn't do in GTA IV, but it wasn't jet packs or rainbow afros I was looking for. Once I got a hold of some guns I constantly found myself looking for non-violent ways to pass missions and came up short every time. "You mean I can't just shoot him in the leg? You mean I can't just scare him, let him go, and say I killed him, as I did with that Vlad mission? I have to beat this guy up for information? Can I just take him out drinking?"

N'Gai's take: GTA IV is chock full of mechanics and systems that could be employed for, um, conflict resolution, if only Rockstar would support them. Perhaps Niko could set up a three-way call with Playboy X and Dwayne to let them air their differences, using the keypad to select Niko's dialogue options. Or talk them back from the precipice over email, using the Happy Face and Sad Face emoticons to choose the tenor of his replies? Or take both men to the Champagne Room at the Triangle Club, bringing in various dancers get their minds right? Or, as leifeng suggests, engineer a lost weekend of boozing to get them to squash the beef. Aren't these better, more active, more GTA solutions than what you and Jack are suggesting?

Stephen's take: They're certainly better options than shooting Playboy X with a tranquilizer. Why'd you even mention that? I like your suggestions. They are, mechanically, more "GTA"-ish than choosing to "ignore" Playboy and Dwayne, as Jack had suggested. But they're not to far off in spirit from his idea because they too involve ignoring edicts to kill and finding an alternate path. The challenge with his or your recommendations is that fun usually has to win out in game design, and having a shootout with Dwayne or Playboy X is likely to prove more fun than driving them to the strip club and watching some avatars dance until the two men speak some pre-recorded dialogue and patch things up. So the challenge falls both to Rockstar and to us second-guessers to identify a third choice for the Playboy/Dwayne conundrum that would be equally fun to play through. It shouldn't be too hard for Rockstar, right? The very essence of "GTA" is in making players enjoy the rush of rebellion. So giving the player a way to turn down Playboy and Dwayne's requests (or maybe accepting them both) should be right up the "GTA" designer's alley. Any time we "GTA" players can give a middle finger to what the authorities in a game are telling us to do, we're going to do it--I hope.

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Stephen Totilo: Following our first real round of exchange, Multiplayer reader Eric Tharnish wrote an interesting comparison between GTA IV and Street Fighter III, feeling like Rockstar, like Capcom before them, had moved too far from a style of gameplay that worked and has, given the direction of Street Fighter IV, proven to be what the franchise's most ardent fans want.

But who left a more profound comment after Round One than reader rohit, who:

dear sir,
i want to download the sanandreas mode pack.

Stephen's take: So do I, Rohit. So do I. N'Gai?

N'Gai's take: If Criterion Games creative director Alex Ward were here, he'd probably say, "Rockstar already made Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. If you want to play it again, take it down from your gaming shelf and pop it into your PS3." That's what I'd say to you and Rohit, because you're both dreaming kind of small. Instead of the sanandreas mode pack, why not the manhunt mode pack (Niko does "Taxi Driver"!), the bully mode pack (Niko does "Good Will Hunting"!), the warriors mode pack (Niko does "Fight Club"!) or the midnightclub pack (Niko does "The Fast and the Furious"!)? There are a million stories in the naked city, and a million possibilities in the open world. Stop focusing on San Andreas.

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N'Gai Croal: As for Level Up's commentariat, Round 1 resulted in both brickbats--"Delving into Niko's (and other other character's psyche) is crazy--he's a video game character not a human being....Has anyone ever told you guys that you think too much?" said tripl_b--and hosannas--"[W]ould you tell Einstein or Walt Disney that they thought too much?" replied PhilVillareal. (He didn't specify which of us is Einstein and which of us is Walt Disney, though. Readers?) Etchasketchist gently rebuked me for failing to include standup comedians on my list of content that Rockstar North could update via downloadable content. But Level Up reader hage spoke for many when he wrote:

I also found the story to be a fraudulent bill of goods, between the laughable artifice in some of the NPCs (Michelle after 10 seconds in the car: "I'd really like to get to know you better, Niko...") and every time the writers build up a little good will in terms of your emotional investment in Niko they squander it on something completely out of character in the name of a violent filler mission.

Commenter HeyMarkD said the same thing even more eloquently, writing "My Niko would never perform some of the required kills in some of the missions. It's a mix up and it's sort of an "Uncanny Valley" in terms of gameplay." I'd never thought of applying the concept of the "uncanny valley" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley] to characterization, but it's a brilliant way to repurpose this terminology.

N'Gai's take: At the same time, I'm wondering whether the fault lies not with inconsistencies in the work of Rockstar's writing team, but with the credulity of all of us. Liberty City is filled with self-deluded characters like Playboy X, Manny and Brucie, who present themselves one way only to be exposed by their behavior. Why do we take Niko at face value? Is it just because he's our avatar? Remember, we never hear Niko's inner thoughts, we just listen to his dialogue and see his actions as we carry them out. (According to my list of The Five Player Roles, we don't inhabit the role of Niko, but rather serve as his guardian angel.) Maybe the gentleman doth protest too much. Maybe Niko is deceiving himself as much as do the rest of the lowlifes he runs with. Maybe as much as he believes he's fatigued with death and killing, he's actually drawn to it? Maybe we have all misunderstood Niko Bellic. What do you think, Stephen?

Stephen's take: I think Niko's a sociopath and that the only reason Michelle fell for him in 10 seconds is because she was paid to. You already know that I don't think the storytelling in the cut-scenes matches with the storytelling (game-telling, N'Gai?) in the missions. Yeah, maybe that was all the point. Maybe we've been shown that Niko is no more repentant than Tony Soprano in the moments when the gangster isn't sniffling in his therapist's chair. The game left me no choice but to think of Niko as scum. I think the game designers wanted me to feel some sympathy for him. No way. That's why I took such pleasure near the end of the game when I was given the choice to either kill my long-time nemesis or go to work with him. Gleefully--and over the protests of my in-game girlfriend--I chose to go to work with him. I sold out whatever values Niko claimed he was supporting early in the game. I rejected what I felt was pressure from the game designers to grant Niko emotional closure. I let him run roughshod, spitting on all who had cared for him. Because that was the only way I could make sense of everything the game had shown me, through cutscenes and gameplay, about Niko Bellic.

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Stephen Totilo: After Round Two, a debate broke out between two Multiplayer readers. Reader Eric Tharnish was back to rightly praise me for besting you in that round (again!). He objected to what he saw as your call for a more "controlled world" and "controlled scenarios." To your defense rode Chico Lou, who said that Eric and you were actually in agreement and that you were calling for greater flexibility in the series--via the implementation of more branching paths and optional cut-scenes that would accommodate the way a player might be making their GTA protagonist behave.

Into this exchange leapt Dsankey:

One solution to this sandbox vs. story tension is to have an honest-to-goodness nonlinear narrative. It strikes me that Bethesda have forged ahead with this, at least in the console world. In GTA IV, there could have been different missions unlocked depending on who you chose to date, making your date into a major character (and changing the ending). Siding with one crime faction or another would be another way to unlock different missions/stories depending on how the player chose to play. Or specializing in race missions, doing the police computer missions etc.

Stephen's take: I like Dsankey's comment for two reasons. One, it gives me the opportunity to make my joke that I thought only Resident Evil 5 had "race missions." Two, DSankey is thinking what I was thinking. I don't think you've played through GTA IV, and you know that I have. I quite liked the moments you described in your last letter, but I think you would have wound up singing my tune if you'd reached the end. And we both would have been advocating the DSankey approach. Shouldn't Rockstar develop a shorter but more branch-able central narrative? Instead of requiring players to engage in more than 60 missions to reach one of two story endings, why not require them to play just 40, with at least 20 alternate missions programmed in case players veered into alternate paths? That way I could get more of the freedom I've been bellowing about while you could still get the more structured, well-crafted missions you've been enjoying?

N'Gai's take: That's a compelling idea. It's also one that Rockstar North is unlikely to pursue anytime soon, for a couple of reasons. First, as I pointed out above, the genre they believe GTA occupies is the action-adventure game, not the (Western) role-playing game. So I'm not sure they believe that they need as much nonlinearity as DSankey suggests. Second, many developers are wedded to the idea that players should experience the majority of the content their games have to offer on the first playthrough, to say nothing of the increased concern that reviewers and gamers will attack their games for being too short. I think that your idea is a sound one. And if Rockstar North were to abandon creating a single, unified narrative (yes it has some detours, side streets and a sandbox, but they ultimately follow a similar path to one of two conclusions) in favor of some truly meaningful narrative branches that led to meaningfully different experiences and endings, I think the GTA franchise world, uh, level up.

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N'Gai Croal: Speaking of Level Up, Round 2's comments section was deeply influenced by leadoff poster InfinityDevil's exploration of the possibility that a gamer is just as capable of evolution as is a game franchise, writing:

I'm not the same person I was when San Andreas came out, which is why the emotional punch of GTA4 really helps me recommend it to every Rated-M-aged gamer out there. One of my favorite moments included how when getting missions from a bedridden, hospitalized mob boss later in the game the camera stays on the boss while he coughs and struggles to breathe. We are uncomfortable with that mortality, so is Niko, and the virtual camera staying on that old man when I'm looking at it and asking, silently, to please let me look away makes us think what Niko thinks--is this where I want to end up, on my deathbed and still fighting crime family wars?

Marijn agreed, saying, "

[T]his might be the biggest indicator of Rockstar's accomplishments in emotional immersion: that with both who-lives-and-who-dies choices I was subtly nudged toward one of the two choices by the way Niko reacted to the characters. I knew who Niko liked more, and what's more, I agreed with him. It takes some great storytelling to make you want to roleplay the main character perfectly, and whatever the faults of the narrative and characterization, this is one area in which Houser and Benzies acquitted themselves magnificently.

But InfinityDevil's words had the most impact of all on your commenter--or is it mine?--Chico Lou, who urged us all to reread InfinityDevil's post, then wrote:

[W]hat InfinityDevil is describing is not role-playing--it's the opposite. He didn't imagine what Niko would think, and then react how Niko might--no, InfinityDevil reacted to a situation as himself, then transferred those thoughts and emotions to Niko. InfinityDevil reverse role-played.

N'Gai's take: Are we playing Grand Theft Auto IV, or is Grand Theft Auto IV playing us? At the 2008 Game Developers Conference, Playsign game designer Pekko Koskinen asked "Can we think of game design as the art of making fictional behavior?" and "Can we design a player, in the same way we design a game?" Does Rockstar North's halting success in creating a believable Niko Bellic--or unimpeachable triumph, if you subscribe to my Niko-is-equally-self-deluded theory above--suggest that continued improvements in the writing is what the developers need to guide us to better inhabit this role so that we play Niko as he is meant to be played? Or does Rockstar need to further sandbox-ify its narrative so that a million Nikos can flourish without ever feeling as though the character is in conflict with their choices?

Stephen's take: Can I take a third option again? Cycle your way up the page here and note how your reader HeyMarkD repurposed the "uncanny valley" phrase in the context of gameplay and characterization. The options you're considering, N'Gai, are both attempts to bridge HeyMarkD's uncanny valley. Both approaches would make the game feel more real, it's characters more consistent. They conform to our instincts to want to play in a world we can believe in. They conform to the decision I described about that led me to choose one moral path at the end of the game because it was the only way I could reconcile aspects of the game's storytelling that would have otherwise seemed inconsistent. But, essentially, the two modes you're suggesting are two forms of normal-mapping, two forms of motion-capture, two forms of making the game seem more real.

Consider, if you will, turning back from HeyMarkD's uncanny valley. Consider, to extend the metaphor, going a toon-shaded route or a pixelated one. Consider turning back from the uncanny valley that separates nonsensical gameplay and believable scenarios and embracing a game world that doesn't have to all be consistent, that--you guessed it--is unafraid to let its characters where rainbow 'fros, hit people with purple sextoys and send a down-on-his-luck L.A. hood on a sky-diving mission to blow up Hoover Dam. In trying to create a more believable world populated with more realistic characters, Rockstar's game designers face the same challenge video game graphics artists have faced since they tried to convince us that a few pointy polygons were a Lara Croft breast and, later, that the glazed eyes of a virtual Keanu Reeves were as lively as the real things. Realism's hard. It can be worthwhile to pursue. It can be ruinous. It can help some games, but it's not going to serve every game. Here's to watching Rockstar sort this one out over the next decade.

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That's it for this installment of Vs. Mode, but we look forward to reading--and responding to--more of your thought-provoking opinions in the comments below. Oh, and if you're wondering which game will next be subjected to our withering gaze, let's just say that it involves senior citizens, war zones and time paradoxes. Ta.

To read the preview for this installment of Vs. Mode, click here. For Round 1, click here. And for Round 2, click here.