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No. 177449
>>177437
>>177440
SA's story was very much a critical misstep. After VC, I was actually excited to play a young black man, kind of like 50 Cent or Dr. Dre on their way to the top. It was a legitimately good, interesting idea, that coupled with the expanded physics box and other bells and whistles, and I was kind of looking forward to playing something like that. But the problem was that the story lacked personal empowerment for CJ. He was always at the behest of some other force, never truly seeming to lash out on his own, and it made the random violence of the game seem hollow, somehow.
The presentation of the characters in each game has always had to be uniquely amoral, almost psychopathic, to explain away the discrepancies between what the game says the characters do and what the player does in a sandbox that is essentially bad driving and poor shooting.
Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto Have both pursued very unique ideas however. Rockstar has taken the tact of trying to explore the idea of the sandbox, trying to make games that can generate procedural content that comes to have meaning to the player, and was explored heavily in Red Dead Redemption, which has one of the more organic sandboxes in any game, even if it is plagued by issues. Violition has gone the opposite route, choosing to literally expand the "sandbox" of player action within the game, offering a very high amount of player customization and even control of the environment, as well as other aspects. This makes for better gameplay and a more interesting sandbox, but it hasn't quite achieved the Mafioso levels of narrative that GTA regularly deals with.
To that end I think GTAV will be amazing. Rockstar has a unique ability to tell stories that are more serious and deal with the issues of illegality and the history of America. Names and faces have obviously been changed, but it's interesting to play LA Noire and think about the representation of the reality of being a P.O. in LA in the 1940s. Did they really solve serial murders like that? Did they really intercept drug shipments like that? GTA's unique trait has been to be able to talk about the criminal element in a way that few other mediums can, by experiencing it. It is bits and pieces but the pieces hold little bit of flavor and truth that construct a much wider image of society in general.
Perhaps CJ was portrayed as he was because there was some truth to the depiction of trying to come up in the world. It was a misstep in that the game failed to make him truly complex and provide him with his own agency. Which is a mirror of the record business, and part of what CJ got into eventually. But the story itself lacked the player agency that informs strong protagonists in games. Which was a freaking shame, because if CJ had been like "The Rise of a Rapper", juxtaposed against life on the streets and life in a gang, it could've been amazing.
Here's hoping Franklin is given more agency.
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