GTA is Boring

Before I start to explain the method behind the madness of that title, I would like to first make a different point. It’s always nice when the media continually shove a story in your face isn’t it? And when better to do that on the anniversary of the event.

I am indeed referring to that little girl that went missing a year ago today. However she will not be come the main subject of this post for one very good reason. I have lost all interest, and did about 10 months ago when we were still all being told any little thing that was happening. I no longer really care about this story. I know she’s missing and I will continue to assume that is the case until I am told otherwise. So it would be really nice if anything regarding this girl was kept out of the newspapers, off the news and not mentioned until something major happens, like she is found, dead or alive, or they find out the parents who did it.

And with that out of the way, onto something that was said to me yesterday that got me thinking. I was told that GTA was a boring game. Now, as far as I’m concerned it isn’t, that seems quite obvious. A game in which you can pretty much go anywhere, do anything, and then maybe do a few story line missions. But then when the story arc is complete the game doesn’t just ends with a list of endless names scrolling across the screen. You can go and get some property, you can run some taxi missions, or ambulance missions, there’s firefighting to be done, or maybe even become a vigilante. Anyone for a quick jaunt from one side of the City/State? In what other game can you actually have a road trip across a state the size of San Andreas? Are there any games that have given you so much choice in a city the size of Liberty or Vice?

And I thought long and hard about this, and then it clicked. The Grand Theft Auto games are so big, that with so much to do, you sometimes miss bits out. Sure you can go back and do it all, and you will, but what about the actual story line. The reasoning I was given for GTA being ‘boring’ was that the person in question wants to just be told what to do, do it, and move on to the next mission. That clearly shows that GTA is not a game for him.

If you just want to load a game, get a mission select screen then GTA will surely disappoint, but it shouldn’t. OK so you can’t just randomly pick a mission you’ve done before and play it, but the missions are there, and if that’s all you want to do then you can. You have got the game, you’ve completed the story arc, but then you have missed the point of GTA. The game isn’t there to just have the story played, it is there for you to look around and see what makes a city tick.

There are so many GTA clones that the free-roaming game has its own genre now, but despite the openness that some gamers don’t like, I doubt ‘boring’ is the word they would use. Let’s think about this. ‘Boring’ occurs when you have nothing to do, and you do have something to do, all the time, even when you are getting to your next mission. So maybe you want to just play the next mission, in this game you have to get there. The game makes you travel to the person who will give you the mission. I would have to say that a closed-end game would be more boring that GTA simply on the basis that there isn’t any game-time between missions, and no game-time when you’ve finished the game, until of course you go back on a higher skill level, or to get a better rating.

I am rarely ‘bored’ by a game. There have been a few games that I haven’t liked, I once owned Largo Winch on the PS2, but boredom and gaming… it’s something I do to not be bored and with a game as full as GTA, I don’t think boredom will ever ensue. But hey, every gamer is different, maybe I should accept that someone could find Grand Theft Auto boring…

Oh, and congratulations Boris Johnson, nice to have someone who isn’t Ken Livingstone in charge of London, now where are these Routemasters.

MTFBWY