Why I probably won't be buying GTA 6
Now I know what I'm saying is pretty crazy and outlandish given the cultural impact of every single one of these games, and I get it. I'm not aiming to take away from any of the praise and love many rockstar games deservedly receive. I want to explain why I don’t enjoy their game design and see if anyone else shares my sentiments.
Firstly, it’s essential to outline the types of games I enjoy and what I generally look for in a game when making purchasing decisions. I'm really open to any kind of game. I enjoy fighting, racing (only Mario Kart, but that's really the only one that matters), real-time and turn-based strategy, Souls-like games, puzzles, etc.
The only type of games I tend not to enjoy are ones where you have to wait real-world time for anything *cough * cough Animal Crossing, MOBAs like Dota or League of Legends, and finally, Rockstar games. One of the fundamental things I look for in a game, first thing, is whether it feels good to move around in this world. A good example is any 3D Mario game or a third-person action game like Bloodborne, where moving your character feels snappy, responsive, and fun. Immediately, with all of Rockstar Games, both GTA and Red Dead, for that matter, I hate the movement. The characters all move as though they're walking through molasses, and it baffles me that in a modern gaming world, I have to tap a button continuously to sprint with my character or have a degree in mechanical engineering when I want to reverse my horse in Red Dead. I know its a bit of a meme at this point but why in gods name is the way to reverse your primary form of transportation in the video game require me to look for an obscure thread on reddit taking me twenty minutes to find out how to make my dumb fucking horse carriage move two steps backwards.
Beyond that, there’s the shooting, which you could say is the main kinda combat you have, but there isn’t really any variation to how you can approach combat encounters. This isn’t like Phantom Pain, where the game rewards you for your creativity. Instead, this is a shitty third-person shooter where I could clear all these encounters just by running headfirst and gunning into everything. The shooting itself feels like I'm a World War 2 veteran fighting psoriasis and the Axis forces at the same time. It's sluggish, and the guns are all fairly basic, with no real standouts that come to mind.
Next, I wanna dive into Rockstar’s approach regarding their open worlds and how, for me, it honestly doesn’t excite me all that much. I remember growing up and the ways your friends would hype GTA 5 would be how you could do all these things like skydiving, driving boats, whatever random bullshit around the map. Which at a surface level I can agree can be pretty cool but when every little tiny thing on the map you can do has the game mechanic depth of a kiddie pool and the map is just filled with this bullshit I never find myself spending more then ten minutes on any of it. It usually ends up with me thinking it's kind of cool for five minutes, and then I get bored and move on to the next thing, only to find it just as shallow.
None of my complaints with Rockstar Games have anything to do with their stories, because if there is one thing they do actually nail perfectly, it's the presentation of their games. Arthur Morgan is one of the most compelling video game characters ever written, and it would be foolish not to acknowledge how good of a job their writing team does. To clarify, I do appreciate the world-building and story elements of their games. It's everything to do with the actual “game” part of their product that I find to be pretty shitty.
That is why, for now at least, I have no plans of purchasing GTA 6, and I'm looking forward to nearly anything else coming out soon.
I am well aware that this is a non-popular take, and a lot of people love Rockstar games, and that's understandable if you like their games more power to you, it's just I wanna be as transparent with you guys as much as possible and wanted to see if anyone else shared similar emotions regarding Rockstar.
That's it for this article. If you agree or disagree with me, let me know in the comments!
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