Tony:
“Regarding your attempt to play through without killing cops/innocents, you did make the choice to follow the story of the game.”

That’s technically accurate, but I would argue that that’s hardly any kind of “choice” at all, if you’re actually determined to play the game like a story. Games with stories are designed with a hint of direction built into them, some sort of narrative arc with a climax and resolution. To drive around Broker in a cab all day represents an active refusal to engage with the story designed for the game, not really much of an alternative story. I’d be more willing to agree if there was any option for a classic narrative arc for those who go with this choice—like, after a few dozen hours of this drudgery, you really could pay off those gambling debts, meet a nice woman, maybe go undercover for the LCPD or something. But in the case of what the game actually offers, I’d argue that driving around the city in a cab isn’t following another kind of narrative, but making up one of your own, which has nothing to do with the game’s narrative. (Not that this isn’t a valid way to play a game—in fact, that’s exactly the type of play that Will Wright wants to foster—but it’s still a pretty different activity.)

I agree, too, that it struck me as very odd that the gambling debt thing kind of feels glossed over. I felt like there were a number of opportunities for different kinds of interaction with characters, but everything pretty much came down to chasing, killing, or occasionally opting not to kill. Clearly it’s a formula that works for their audience, for the most part, but I wonder if that’s because it works so well as a toy that audiences are willing to forgive it for its failings as a narrative.

I do feel like Niko segues from wanting to just get by in life to murdering people for money too quickly, this was probably a cop out in terms of not wanting to make people play for 10 hours before they get in gun fights. I think they could have done a lot more with playing up why you need money (they touch on Roman having all these gambling debts but your money never goes to that.) In GTA Vice City for example you botch a major drug deal and a scrambling to pay back your boss back so you don’t get whacked (and you receive frequent phone calls that remind you of that.)

I’d like to tackle one specific point of the gameplay of modern adventure-style games that seems to universally undercut many stories.

The modern videogame seems to be much more forgiving about mistakes that a player makes in a story. Across the board, deaths no longer mean you return to world 1-1 of the game (possibly ruining hours of work), but instead, you just respawn at the last checkpoint/closest hospital/nearest graveyard. Sure, you might lose some money/guns/etc., but no real modern games (as far as I know) punish you gravely for bad decisions that you have made.

I would argue that the narrative of stories like GTA4 is polluted by the fact that gameplay functions this way. It certainly wouldn’t be fun to watch Niko recuperate in a hospital for weeks after a deadly shootout, but by encouraging the instant-respawn with no consequences mentality, decision-making in the story degenerates. I don’t have to make the decision of “should I spare this person’s life? If I get caught, I’ll have to spend years in prison, but I’ll get paid dollars”, as the real decision is “should I spare this person’s life? If I screw up, I’ll have to reload from the last save point, oh no!”.

I think that as long as you have games where there are no real consequences for actions taken, you really can’t put a weighty story on top of it and eliminate the paradox between story and gameplay. I guess the fact that there are no real consequences makes the game unrealistic to the point where I can’t take the story seriously.