I think the major conundrum when describing GTAIV is the conflict between the intrinsic and extrinsic narratives in the game. For the purpose of this note, the extrinsic narrative is the one that the player has no control over: backmatter, non-interactive cut-scenes, the story that is imposed by the authors from on high. The intrinsic narrative (also usually called the emergent) is the one that the player imposes on the system, the text he creates through his own interaction with this virtual playground.
First, I should note that theoretically, a player can create any narrative if sufficiently determined — the various *hack games have a variety of conditions for intrinsic narratives that players have created over the years, such as atheist (no prayers), vegan (no meat), &c. That said, any game, in particular the narrative games we’re dealing with here, introduces guideposts for intrinsic narratives. From a roleplaying example, consider how Call of Cthulhu is stacked so that the players lead short, unhappy lives that invariably end in madness, self-destruction, horror, slavery and death. And those are the good sessions!
Anyway, GTAIV’s extrinsic narrative is about the gradual erosion of the remaining fragments of Niko Bellic’s soul as he progressively makes tradeoffs to survive in a hostile and insane environment. Niko already recognizes that he is a Bad Man, and the horrors of his life and the lives of his fellow central europeans are tied together into a story about the Mafiya and clawing to get some kind of a stable existence in Liberty City. In this context, the mad satirical US of the GTA series plays as a cartoonish background contrasting Niko and his believably ugly counterparts. At least up to the point I have played, Niko’s story continues with the certain pace of a tragedy — I know bad things involving Mikhail and Dmitri are coming, and the cutscenes are making me uneasy.
However, GTA’s intrinsic narrative is about the gloriously retarded things you can do within its effectively unfettered framework. My Niko, outside of the cutscenes, drives sportscars at 135 MPH off of ramps to catch air 600 feet above the ground until he’s flung like a rag doll into a Pißwasser billboard. My Niko steals garbage trucks and drives his dates out to go bowling in them, to end the date, he ceremoniously shoots the garbage truck until it catches on fire. My Niko ran over four police cruisers in a flaming ice-cream truck and then escaped by hijacking a sailboat. Outside of the cutscenes, my Niko Bellic is a very bad man, also a very stupid one.
The system developed in GTAIV does make a moral judgment – which is that you can do anything you want as long as you keep your wanted stars down. The conflict between these extrinsic and intrinsic narratives comes, I think, at the expense of the extrinsic narrative — in a more aggressively stupid GTA (like Vice City), it’s not as much of a problem. For this one, I think it is.
Two points:
1 – Seems to me you’ve got intrinsic and extrinsic backwards here. Intrinsic means it’s fundamentally a part of a thing. An object can not be separated from that which is intrinsic to it. Thus, I would argue the intrinsic narrative is the one that I, as a player, can not change. Extrinsic is that which is laid over a thing from the outside. THAT’S the emergent game-play in which the player is essentially given carte-blanche to impose any story.
2 – I’ve only played Vice City and San Andreas, but in my mind, Vice City was subjectively the far superior offering for exactly the reasons you give at the end of the article. I found the Miami Vice theme just detached enough that I could connect with it, but didn’t take it at all seriously. Although San Andreas had it’s over-the-top moments, the seriousness of gang culture wasn’t something I could dismiss casually in the same way.
Ultimately, I would suggest that what’s happening is that most gamers don’t have a problem with the fact that the GTA games comprise two separate (but interleaving) forms of entertainment. The story, which is essentially a movie that you get to watch successive clips from every time you punch-the-monkey (metaphorically speaking), and then the game itself: various missions plus the open-world aspect.
The Japanese RPG has refined this to an art-form, and so it’s no wonder that most gamers don’t have any sense of dissonance. But when you try to see the game as a cohesive whole, it just doesn’t compute.
See, I don’t know if it’s the new more realistic setting or what, but I actually haven’t been doing the usual craziness that I did in previous GTA games. I’m mostly sticking to the missions and side quests and just general exploring, not murdering people who feel more real now. I certainly feel a little more guilty about wanton carnage of pedestrians and non-combatants. For me, I don’t feel like there’s too much dissonance because I’m not playing the same way that you are.
The only exception I have is the people who hit me with their cars when I’m trying to walk across the street. They get capped in the head for being bad drivers. Especially those who were talking on their cellphones as they ran me over.
*nod* *nod* I do that to the cellphone drivers, too.
Just like in real life.
Prevost,
I didn’t know they let your web-surf from prison!