While perusing the series of tubes known as the internet, I stumbled across an article that would seem to sympathize with our plight. Peter Travers of
The Rolling Stone wrote an article about Grand Theft Auto IV, claiming that it is better than almost anything he's seen in the multiplex this summer. He goes against the grain, saying:
It's a rare video game that enters territory marked by Scorsese and Tarantino. But writers Dan Houser and Rupert Humphries have created the vid version of film noir with dialogue that crackles even in the film's darkest shadows.
The overall review is positive, ending with Travers excited to imagine what a movie based on Grand Theft Auto IV will be like. In his conclusion he states,
"GTA IV deserves major props for extending the potential of storytelling. But who's the ballsy visionary — yes to James (Titanic) Cameron, no-no-no to Michael (Transformers) Bay — capable of raising interactive video to the level of cinematic art? GTA IV qualifies as a wow of a start..." This raises a whole new concern. Throughout the entire review, Travers says that he is reviewing Grand Theft Auto IV as if it were a movie. Why is it that, even when staring a masterpiece in the face, no one can accept a game for what it really is- a game? Do movies have to be the superior art form, so much so that a video game has to be reviewed as if it were one? Doing something like this leaves out the most important aspect of video games in terms of storytelling- the fact that the player can tell his own story. In GTA IV, not only does the story progress in a mostly non-linear fashion, but it allows players to do whatever they want between missions, giving them at least one 'wow' moment to tell their friends about. I think I sum up my feelings toward this issue best in my comment under his column:
Love the review Peter, but I'm going to have to respectfully say you've got it all wrong. I don't think that video games need to be judged as if they could be movies. I think they are two separate entities. We always see video-game based movies and movie-based video games, and everyone wonders why they turn out badly. They are two art forms that don't cross each other well. The reason why Grand Theft Auto IV is so good is because it has all the time in the world to tell its story. If you try to compress that down into two hours, I don't care who's at the helm, it's not going to be as compelling. Think of a TV show. You care about the characters in Band of Brothers more than the ones in Saving Private Ryan, just because you've been with them for so long. That is one of the strengths of video games as well. If you've gone through Niko's struggles for 30 hours, you're going to care what happens more than if you've been watching him for a mere 1 and a half.
Grand Theft Auto also lets you create your own story, which makes it more successful than most games with a linear progression. Only part of the fun is watching the characters do things in the cutscenes, but then you get to pick the controller back up and play through all of Niko's mishaps. You decide how to go about it, and you can even mess around and do something nobody has done before in the living, breathing City of Liberty. Games with a completely linear plot progression I think are less successful because they don't give the player any breathing room. They're trying to be movies and I think that's the wrong way to go about it. They don't take advantage of the medium's strengths, they are just trying to be "cinematic."
I honestly think that the word "cinematic" is the biggest problem the gaming world has today. Don't get me wrong, I love movies, but the sooner gaming as an art form sheds its ties with Hollywood and the movie industry the better. Movies are great at what they do, but games are all about interactivity. When you take the interactivity away all you have left is a hollow experience that always feels like it should have faded to black and allowed you to take the reins.
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