The Besties - The Besties 72 - GTYay

Episode Date: September 20, 2013

This week, Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto 5 and the rest of the games industry politely gave it and its hype plenty of space to do their thing. Justin, Frushtick and I (sadly Griffin is busy covering Tokyo Game Show in Japan) talk about the things we love, like, don't understand and find painfully dull in Grand Theft Auto 5. It's a long conversation, and while we tried to talk about specifics, the conversation moves quickly from one topic to the next. That explains why there's no beat sheet below the audio file today. How are you enjoying GTA 5? Or, did you pass? And if so, why? Let's talk in the comments! Theme song by Ian Dorsch Get the show: Download MP3" Subscribe to the podcast (RSS) Subscribe on iTunes Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

I thought he had a new show, Chuck Lorre, this year. Didn't Mom? I know. Is Mom the Alice and Janney show? Is that a Chuck Lorre joint? That's a Chuck Lorre joint. You're right. And I like Alice and Janney a lot.

Me too. But everything Chuck Lorre touches, he is the King Midas of shit. my name is justin mcroy and i know the best thing of the week my name is christopher plant and i know the best thing of the week my name is russ farstick and I know the best thing of the week. My name is Russ Farshtick, and I know the best game of the week. Here we are once again at the round table. It's more of a triangle this week with Griffin in Tokyo. Even when he's here, it's more of a square, to be honest. But Griffin has missed the video game event of the century with the release of Grand Theft Auto V, which is what we're talking about today. Going to do our best to avoid spoilers, but I'm editing this week's program, so I can't guarantee that I won't let all of them slip through the cracks.

Are you going to edit in different spoilers that we don't even talk about? Yeah, for different games. Cool. different spoilers that we don't even talk about different games uh so i plant you uh you wrote the review for the website that we work for polygon.com uh so if anybody wants your uh thoughts i'm sure that they are they are laid bare everywhere across the internet right yeah i don't even need i don't think plant even needs to talk during this show i I'm just going to listen, you know, and kind of moderate. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you so much. I've played about maybe 20 hours.

Yeah, I'm about there as well. 20 hours. I've played about 20 hours. And I mean, obviously, I've put 20 hours into it over the span of three days. So I am very much enjoying it. We were talking about this right before before and i don't want to start off with a bummer but i feel like hey you've you've heard so many good things i i want to talk about my my my weird hang up uh right now i love a gripe i have a gripe i love how expansive

the world is uh i love a lot of stuff about it i'm finding it weirdly a flat experience um like not geographically Not geographically. Not geographically. There's all kinds of variation there. But I feel like there's not a lot of peaks and valleys in terms of the old fun-o-meter. A lot of times I'm doing assignments, many assignments in a row,

and not getting a reward for them, be it monetary or real estate or vehicles or whatever um and i don't know it's when you're in one of the big main missions one of the highest missions that chris talked about or there's even a a couple of the story missions that are that are sort of like that that are actually like genuinely kind of wild um but a lot of it seems very sort of methodical and plotting and um i don't know like a lot of it just i'm not getting peaks yeah valleys it's weird because a lot of the missions even the story missions are like weird logistical setup missions to what will set will eventually be probably maybe more interesting heist missions so like there's a mission where you like are a dock worker and you follow the job as a dock worker

like to the t and that's literally the entire mission like you don't do anything illegal for that entire mission yeah it's like a fully a shinmu moment where you're like yeah manipulating giant crates with a big fork it's like i don't know if you're trying to appeal to toddlers here like the ones that watch that big those big machinery videos or whatever but like this is dull yeah i mean i've also even done things where you like assume like oh i gotta get money for this i'm like doing um what are they uh uh i'm driving the tow truck around and picking up cars for this lady that i have a history with. And I don't even get money for those. She's just like, thanks a lot for helping out. And it seems weird because we're so trained when playing Grand Theft Auto

or even, not even Grand Theft Auto, but any open world game that every little thing you do ends up giving you money. And that's an adjustment I can make. Like, that doesn't bother me. I think what I'm more put off by is, like, so far, yeah, I'm about 20 hours in. And, like, I'm not in the way that, I guess, a game like Saints Row, and obviously they are different games tonally. But Saints Row unlocks constantly so much new stuff every time you finish a mission. Like, oh, you finished this mission. Here's access to this crazy a mission like oh you finish this mission here's

access to this crazy car oh you finish this mission here's this new superpower whatever and i'm obviously not looking for anything that outlandish but more of a feeling like i'm unlocking stuff and like unlocking interesting like ways to play the game to illustrate this point i actually um the best way i've found of making money since i'm not making money from doing missions the best way i've found of making money is to uh game the stock market occasionally you'll do a mission where it so there's a full stock market uh constantly fluctuating you can invest your money via your cell phone uh you'll do missions occasionally that will impact

and you'll get like a hint that you know if you buy deep into this certain stock um then yeah you'll you know it'll be like you're gonna assassinate the ceo of a company so you want to buy heavy and they rival company right exactly and i just spent the last like 15 minutes watching a stock price. Like, and it was the most boring thing. But I mean, I'm literally talking about doubling the money that I have available. And also each of your characters have separate investment portfolios. So if you know one of these things is about to go down, you invest all your money from all your characters switching from character to character investing and then you watch the stock market change over time it's like i i don't know man i i'm not making

money otherwise so i kind of need to get it where i can get it and it's like i can't believe it's making me do this the thing is it's not making you do it at all. Because you always have way more money than you actually need to do anything in the game that actually serves the story. The one thing you can't do is buy up property. You will always have way, way, way, way, way, way, way more money than you need for absolutely everything else. But I like buying property but that's the thing is it's what i liked about this and what i think is funny is that it played on the ideas of crime video games and crime movies and this is by no means is it of this caliber but a lot of what breaking bad about it breaking bad is about is you can get the money but there's all this baggage that comes with it. And just getting the money and owning it and keeping it is the difficult part.

And what I think a lot of this game is about is you don't just get money when you commit crimes. You have to launder it. There are going to be people that you have to pay off. You'll always be in debt because there are always bigger fish who are going to blackmail you and use what they know about you against you you're constantly being punished in this game and it becomes a story of tying up loose ends to get any money and i and it still gives you money to actually have fun in the

game uh if you are that person who needs to like have more money than is absolutely necessary uh there is a stock market which is also funny because it basically says if you really want to get rich in this game the legal means like the shady but legal way of doing it is way more uh profitable than crime yeah well it's insider trading so it's still not really legal sure but it's and i'm fine with all that i just like my problem is it's it's a question of the reward cycle being broken like if you don't want to give me money for this like that's fine but don't ask me to do like the most boring thing like several most boring things ever in a row like for example for example, I drove this,

at one point you steal a vehicle. It is a watercraft. And you have to, and it is so slow. This is actually a repeated problem. And it is so slow. And after you steal it, you get the thrilling thrill of slowly, slowly driving it back to the coast. At which point you load it onto a truck and then slowly drive a slow, slow truck.

To make you feel better, because you're still talking about the port mission, it is the most sim-like and slowest point in the game. Like, after that, it is crazy town. Maybe I'm not. I don't know. Are you talking about, like, the... Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah, so, I don't know.

No, you probably don't, because the rest of the game you haven't played, but... No, I'm, like, a little bit past that, and I'm still... I don't know. I guess part of it might be because I'm focusing more on the Freaks missions, they're called sure the question mark uh missions which like generally like have you doing very odd things but not getting anything out of it

like helping out a paparazzi guy to like shoot sex photos yeah and then he's like thanks for the photos peace and it's weird because like like i have like what drives me through these like why i keep playing is because the missions are generally pretty fun and like funny and interesting um but some of them aren't as justin said and i just, from a character standpoint, like why would Franklin be helping this guy if he's not getting anything out of it? It's sort of weird. Yeah.

In the first, in the first paparazzi mission at the end of the mission, he's like, give me some money. It's like, well, I thought the bike would cover your half. Cause so he gives you a bike that he stole.

And it's like, man, I can steal. I can, I can get any car. Watch me. I'm going to shoot this old lady and take her car so you can see. I'm just going to pile up five cars here.

I don't need cars. I have cars. I think that is the question, though. Do you want a game that is going to withhold from you and also make it really obvious as your character is growing abilities or something that basically makes everything available up front and the you know your your character growing stronger is all but you know not there i mean it i guess i don't know what it doesn't make it clear

to you i don't know what growing stronger is is almost imperceptible like if i'm getting better at this stuff i do not i i do not detect it yeah like trevor's driving is terrible driving i noticed a lot i can't i like trevor's driving is super low and uh franklin's driving is like maxed and unless i'm using franklin's like super slow down driving ability i can't tell the difference interesting um maybe i'm just not but i mean this is all i i i think it's worth saying that even though i would agree with justin that like i don't apart from like doing the missions i don't know what's propelling me through the game um i i do genuinely enjoy doing most of the missions like they're usually pretty interesting and fun especially the like big set piece story missions uh heist missions etc are like really fun probably

the best gta missions i've ever had in a gta game oh no doubt like some of the story based missions are fantastic i just wonder if they could maybe have have cut back on the quantity of some of this stuff in order to create some more like real set pieces like that yeah i don't like maybe even something as simple as like feel like your upgrade in previous gta games you could like upgrade your uh house so that you would like if you found a bunch of hidden packages or whatever, there'd, like, always be a minigun there or always be a piece of body armor there. And even something like that would make me feel like, okay, I'm, like, getting something out of doing these missions. Which may or may not be realistic, but it would give me a sense of accomplishment and sort of make the game not easier, but, like, work for me a little more. But, yeah, I don't know.

It's weird because I am still having a lot of fun with it. I guess it feels like nitpicky, but it also... Yeah, I'm curious how you'll think of it at the end of the game. It's something I'd like to talk about more once you've actually finished it. I think that that actually ties... My complaint actually ties into my best, uh,

which is the best, uh, 20 minutes I wasted this week. Um, and maybe waste is too strong of a word, but you know, you gotta keep it punchy, uh, to keep the listener interest. Um, the being in this world is really amazing, especially at the beginning when I was just like driving and sort of getting my bearings it feels so i this past summer i uh i did max fun con and then e3 back to back and i flew out to los angeles twice and i in at for max fun kind of drive up the coast and up a mountain and for e3 you know 10 right you drove up the 10 took the 10 out to the 405 no yeah uh and then literally three of course for downtown most of the time driving around it feels uncannily

like that like yeah even though the locations aren't exactly like these spots like you don't it's not like recognizable geography per se there are things that feel so much like uh los angeles in the surrounding area without actually being um without actually being the specific objects rockstar is like there's no doubt that they crush everyone else on this like in terms of like believable relatable environments that also like have weirdly eerily similar uh connections to their real life counterparts like even for gta4 um like there's just like like there's this barbecue place that most people like probably people only in new york know about um up in harlem and it's like in the game and uh gta5 has that same stuff where it's like, oh, there's that hotel I stayed at.

And it's like block for block exactly like the hotel. It's weird. Especially the beach areas feel very much like. But anyway, the reason I mention all this is this verisimilitude within the world. There are movie theaters that you could go and watch a a movie uh if you like if you want to spend your time that way i sat and watched a 20 minute long black and white french impressionist film uh i think it's can't uh i i i don't it's a one word name starts with a c it's actually the only movie playing it's a one word name, Starts with a C.

It's actually the only movie playing right now. I'm hoping that there's some variety there. But I watched the entire thing and it's so bizarre to not be, it almost feels like you're, I don't know, it almost feels like antagonistic to the game in a way. Like, hey, you got a lot going on. I'm going to go sit in a movie theater and watch this movie you made uh and you have the option of doing that it's it's really interesting that you i find it so satisfying for some reason to sort of get out of the flow of the game and and do stuff like that i i i find it really really compelling and i was surprised at how how the fact that i sat and watched the entire thing

um have you played golf yet yeah i play i yeah i did that that is one of the things i didn't talk about in the review but that in the tennis blew me away uh in terms of like with golf you you walk you can walk from hole to hole yeah or get in cart and the per you know whoever's playing with you will get in the cart and join you but then the golf course is in the center of downtown la and traffic and you know passers-by are going on right outside the the gate uh or the fence you can see the world existing which was surreal because you know i've played plenty of golf games like tiger woods but it does feel like it exists in this kind of like hollow world where it's like oh well you know it uh it exists on planet golf yeah yeah yeah the course the course ends on on

this two-dimensional like you're under the dome yeah exactly but here it i mean you can do this you could just you know run away like you can be like i'm done with the game i'm running away i'm losing screw you guys and then just sprint and yeah that there's something about that that is just really neat um yeah is it the ability to have is it the fact that you can stop is that is that what makes it work like the fact that you're there of your own volition like i'm watching a movie but i couldn't stop watching the movie if i wanted to yeah i i think i mean that that explains like the cut scene thing right like a cut scene's more enjoyable when you choose to watch it instead of like being told no one likes

to be told what to do yeah it also feels like you're sort of privy to something that most people probably wouldn't spend the time to do which goes to my other thought whenever i'm doing all this side stuff like the golf or the tennis or movies and stuff like that like the amount of time and resources spent on stupid things that most people i'm not saying they're bad but they're like so ancillary to what's going on with the rest of the game and chances are like who's gonna sit and watch that movie 10 of the people that play it if that so much content was made for this game that most people will never never see and it's sort of i mean's, you know, you don't get that with most games. Like, there's, you know, a guy with a clipboard checking down, like, budgets for each section of the game.

And they cut where they think they'll, you know, it won't be noticed. But when it's a GTA game, everything that they could possibly do is thrown in there. And just, like, just imagine, there was probably a significant number of people just dedicated to making that golf sim it's crazy yeah i i guess that's why i was a little surprised when you said you you felt like it didn't have the hills and the valleys and i think this is just a difference between you know how certain people play games uh but i mean i've talked about it a billion times. Just Cause 2 is to me like a perfect game. And I play it so often because it's a vacation for me. Like I go in there and sometimes I just fly and sometimes I will just go parachuting and I use it for different things.

And even though I had to play this game in a very condensed amount of time i just went at it under the idea that if i don't know how long it's going to take me to finish it and i enjoyed so much just driving and finding weird weird things and and i'm still seeing them in other people's videos that was i thought i had seen everything and i every video review I watch, I see something that I didn't see in the game. I do think that this is where we have a significant difference of, and I don't even think it's opinion. I think it's just taste. I think a lot of this for me is created by the fact that I don't like driving. I don't like.

Oh, really? I don't like to have to drive from A to B. That's not fun for me. Saints Row, and I don't want to keep talking about Saints Row, but this is why this one, Saints Row, or a game like Prototype or whatever appeals to me more, is that it's fun to get around the world. In GTA, I don't think it's fun to like drive around and maybe run into somebody and then have to run from the cops.

And although I do think it's a lot more fun in GTA 5 because you're in a much more open environment than Liberty City. So it's not quite the sort of rat and amaze feeling that you had when you were being chased by the cops in that game but um i just i don't think it's very i don't like driving i don't particularly enjoy it i just yeah that's i would agree uh that i uh am on the opposite side of that uh the changes that they made it's not only the map but also the way the cars feel like i get a lot of enjoyment out of traveling to the point where i mean you have the taxi option if there's like a really long trip you can call a cab and like fast travel there exactly as annoying as it is trying to get a cab in la it is it is exactly as frustrating wait Wait three minutes. You're not sure if they're actually going to show up.

Yeah, it's a little hit or miss. But I find that I rarely, rarely use it because I do, even when I'm not playing as like the guys that are specializing in driving, Michael or Trevor, I still get a lot of enjoyment out of just the driving engine and like weaving through cars. And it's just fun for me um but i could see how if you don't get a lot of enjoyment out of that you wouldn't enjoy it i'd also say to justin's point um and i guess this is contrary to what plant was saying i agree with

plant when he was saying that uh the uh just cause feels like a vacation because everything you're doing is like fun and silly and you're just messing around i don't get as much of a feeling like that with gta because most of the side activities that i've found at least so far i don't find super fun like i don't find the golf game that much fun or even tennis um like i did the triathlon and that was just like a misery of slamming the a button a bunch there's like a lot of a lot of activities to do but they don't really grab me anywhere near as much as story missions which have you done the racing either jet ski or the no i haven't done those racings yet i did one race but as i say i really dug those the car race i did one street race that i really liked yeah but as i say i really dug those the car really like the street

race i did one street race that i really liked yeah but yeah i feel i feel the same way kind of like i i there are so many things and so many of them for me are just they they are competent like it's more like i'm more impressed that they did it yeah then i like enjoy or seek it out like a great example i think for me is the is the firing range right so you have these skills and one of the fastest ways to increase some of these skills is to uh there's a driving range there's a a shooting range and there's a flight school so you can increase those skills that way and the the shooting range is like very gamified very much like you're trying to do this specific thing if you fail it it's a quick retry to try it again and i actually spent an hour doing that of my own even after my shooting skill was

maxed because it was it was well composed it had a a good cycle of like challenge versus reward. And even though, you know, I was just getting medals and I don't know what those are good for, I found myself doing that of my own volition. And there just aren't enough things like that that like I want to keep doing just because I'm enjoying it. Yeah, I feel the same way. I also think, can I talk about one other thing

that's kind of a weird bummer to me? The missions, again, not getting any spoilers, but missions, after you complete any mission, there's this set of goals. You already know what I'm talking about. It's not as bad as the Assassin's Creed one, though. At least it's not. Okay, but it's along the same lines

where I'll complete a mission, and then it'll pop up these secondary goals that you aren't privy to before you do the mission. So all it does is make you feel bad because a lot of these missions are so dull that there's no way I'd do it again. Like, no way on earth but if i had known about them it might have actually made it more enjoyable for me like to to to add that extra layer of challenge onto it um because like you you don't find them out about until afterwards and you feel bad because you didn't do these things that you didn't know you're supposed to do in the first place um and that's a it's a really weird choice i and i don't even know what those medals are for like i don't even know what they signify um and i thought that was kind of bizarre yeah i feel the same way

they're also like weirdly like difficult to discern because it'll be like hang them high and you failed that for some reason whatever you don't know what that even means um it's strange i think it goes to like it's more designed for like the replay nature of it and maybe that's something they should have just buried in the menus and that you could go after you finish the main story you could like go back and perfect each of these missions but the fact that it like slams it in your face that like great job. 63% is just kind of depressing. And that's so strange to me. You made a game that supposedly I think by a pretty – it would take a lot of justification to get to this point.

But supposedly there's 100 hours of stuff to do. You made a game with 100 hours of stuff to do. Why are you not – why are you programming for the person that is going to want to go into hour 101 like would you not want my first playthrough with this stuff to be the most the best it could be rather than i mean with a game this large it's not like you need replay value so like why impede the first playthrough right in service of an imaginary person who, like... I don't think imaginary, but I'm saying a minority of people. When you see the completion rates of games like Skyrim and GTA 4,

I don't know. There are a lot of people who, they buy one game a year, and they go overkill. By the way, I finished both GTA 4 and Skyrim. I think those people exist. Clearly, they're on this podcast. I'm just saying it's weird to cater to them. It's not as bad as the... You don't get as much

negative reinforcement as Assassin's Creed. You're right, but it's not far off. I thought it was kind of weird. Just a weird menu choice. Like, hide that stuff. Don't make me feel bummered out. Yeah. I guess I could talk about my thing tell me what's your best my best thing is the best example of racial profiling brought to you by gta 5 and the

example you're going to give isn't even the best example in the game i'm sure not but uh i got a kick out of it i thought it was pretty funny i don't actually know so i want i'm gonna after after i talk about it i want the listeners to do some research because uh i uh i'm curious about it but so um when i very first i first got the game um i was recording my episode of today i played which is currently live on polygon.com you can go watch it and uh my favorite scene happened about 15 minutes into me playing for the very first time. And I was playing as Franklin. He's the African-American gentleman who drives cars. And

I thought, like, hey, I'll go up to the country and see the sights and sort of fill out the map, because the map is actually hidden by default. There's like a fog of war until you go to places you don't get the full map. So I wanted to just do a loop and get an overall sense of how big it was so i find myself i find myself up north and i see a cable car which actually you can take to the top of the tallest mountain which is mount chiliad or

something to that effect and you can take a cable car up it and uh see the sights and i thought that would be fun so i walk over as franklin uh and i'm waiting at the cable car you literally have to wait for the cable car to show up uh which takes about three minutes uh to do a loop and there's a couple npcs just standing around they're not like story based they're just like random npcs and they're one of them's drinking coffee and i like walk over there and and i'm goofing around i'm like hey let me can i get some coffee and i'm like three feet away from the guy and he drops his coffee yells at me and then calls the cops uh and the cops show up i've got one star i'm still sort of hoping that like i'll just be able to take the cable car and like walk away but because i have a wanted rating i can't take the cable car and the second the cops

show up i'm like expecting okay they'll show up they'll arrest me whatever they show up i have one star and they start shooting at me like with like they want to they want me dead i haven't pulled a gun i haven't hit anyone i was just standing there and they're blowing they're firing everything they've got at me so i run away i get in my car and i'm like speeding away to try to survive and i accidentally turn into the military base and get blown up by a tank but it was sort of amazing and it made me think is it possible that the npcs react to the different the three different playable characters differently depending on where you are on the map so for

example if i took michael into like like low-income ghetto area of los santos uh would they say different things than they would or react differently than they would to franklin um i don't actually know i haven't done enough research uh and messed around with it but i'm curious did you guys see anything akin to that with the npcs sometimes people get weird about personal space yeah i've noticed that if you get too close to people even if you're not like actively threatening them they will sometimes turn on you yeah so it might just be like me uh putting like a storyline together in my head that's not actually there i think you could argue there's some racial profiling with the fact that uh the only person that can buy the

marijuana dispensary is franklin yeah the african-american character that's a little unfortunate yeah i Plant mentioned this. Plant, you said that he can't play tennis as well, right? That's not an option? Yeah. Not that I can get him to. Sure. So, like, a part of this I sort of understand where it's like, okay, you don't want characters taking part in activities that they wouldn't rationally take part in as their character.

But it doesn't really follow through the rest of the game because like why is trevor playing tennis like if they were more consistent about it would make sense but yeah i don't know why certain properties that like like michael or trevor seems reasonable like trevor deals drugs of course he'd want to buy the marijuana dispensary but yeah it's a little weird that they lock things out it makes me wonder if they only wanted to record certain vo for certain characters for those because they have missions associated with them and that was just their way of locking it out but yeah like i mean on the bright side um franklin's a pretty good swimmer, so at least it's not all stereotypes. Wow. Huh.

Wow. Sheesh. I'm just saying that's a stereotype. No, I know what you're saying. I don't believe it's an accurate stereotype. Yeah, absolutely. Shut up. So, halftime.

I have nothing to talk about. I've only played Grand Theft Auto. I could talk about being an uncle. Oh my gosh. Get it. You have family. I'm so bored. Okay, whatever.

Don't worry about it. Fuck you guys. No, no, tell me more. I want to hear. No, I have nothing to say. Forget it. I care about your life. You don't?

Yeah, we definitely care. You had no involvement in the creation of a human being. But, no, you're special, too. Hey, did you guys play Infinity Blade? Did you get the new Infinity Blade? No, I haven't played it yet. You guys didn't do Infinity Blade? I liked the first two.

By the end of the second one, I was a little bit like, okay, I've slashed my way through. Slashed and parried. Yeah, I felt. You just slashed all over again.ashed and parried yeah I felt slashed all over again well let me ask you something the magic is back they spend so much time in Infinity Blade with the story and like the back

they have like novels but it makes no sense I have no idea what's going on in that storyline like there's a weird sci-fi cloning element to it it always felt like a badass assassin's creed like it it does feel like assassin's creed but like you don't have any idea what's going on oh yeah that's definitely the case okay there are some things going on with cloning that i have no

i have no insight into whatsoever i do not know what's happening there it's weird they've changed the structure somewhat so there are actual like the original game and i don't remember if two was the same way but the original game was very much about you you are a line of heroes yeah um so like you know you good as far as you can you, and then your son takes over for you. There are specific levels in this game. Like, there are definitely, like, you know, you finish an area, and then you move on to the next area. But if you die, you keep all your stuff,

and you sort of snap out of what appears to be some sort of simulation or something. I don't know. Are they regenerating you with a clone, I think? Is it still sort of like out of what appears to be some sort of simulation or something i don't know are they regenerating you with a clone i think is it still um sort of like shadow gate where you're like do i go left do i go right is it like that uh yeah there's some of that yeah okay but but it's more gamey like more level based yeah more level based okay more uh there are there uh one nice thing is that there's um uh sort of sub goals uh dodge x amount of times uh block x amount of times that kind of thing that you've had in the past i don't think i don't think it was in the second one although

yeah you're wrong okay it was in the second one first time for everything i guess second time actually second time just this episode i guess um but i don't know it's good i like infinity blade is like does it as apart from that level thing does any of it feel different uh yeah there's like you make potions. There's different characters. So there's like a woman knight. Yeah. Lady knight. She takes on some of the levels. She's a thief.

So she uses a bow and arrow and stuff and uses different weapon sets. Yeah. So that's kind of cool. All I can think every time a new Infinity Blade comes out is why do I not get a Shadow Complex 2 out of them? Yeah, right? Please, guys I not get a Shadow Complex 2 out of them? Yeah, right? Please, guys, just make a Shadow Complex 2. There's also purchasable currency. I don't know if that was a thing.

Yeah, that was in 2 as well. 2. But yeah, it's, you know, it's Infinity Blade. If you like Infinity Blade, you're going to like this because it is Infinity Blade as hell. Wow. Fans of the genre. Chris, what's your best thing? My best thing is the ability to switch between the characters in the game.

Wait, you can switch in GTA? Yeah, so it turns out if you press down on the D-pad. Are you with me so far? I've only been playing 20 hours as Franklin. You can switch and play different people? Yeah, so you press down on the D-pad. Oh, are you with me so far? I've only been playing, you can play as, like, I've been playing 20 hours as Franklin. You can switch and play different people. Yeah, so you press down on the D-pad. Oh my god. And then you select other people.

What? I know. Yeah, try that. The future. Yeah, I think I was skeptical of it when I first heard about it and thought it wouldn't work. first uh heard about it um and thought it wouldn't work um and there are still some goofy uh issues with it uh later in the game there's like one or two missions i asked for it didn't seem like they were happening in the right order um and what does that mean like people that i was working with in one mission i don't feel like i should have been working with anymore um and and i i think there are different versions of even cut scenes you can receive because the cut scene was kind of like uh hey um you know maybe you should just do one more thing

for us it's like um no i i don't think I would in this one moment. That was like the one time where I really noticed kind of an inaccuracy. But, yeah, I think it's great. I loved that each character could kind of own a certain style of mission. Sorry, I'm going to sneeze. No, I'm not. I can't. I said I was going to, and now said it look at the light look at the light uh um but yeah i i i like that there was a character that did the crazy stuff like trevor i like that there was a character who does

uh some of the more businessy things um like michael i think franklin's pretty underdeveloped compared to the two as a a character, I completely agree. Yeah. There's a great moment at the end of the game, and this is no spoiler whatsoever, but some people look back on what has happened, and people are like, oh, you know, Michael had this, and Trevor had that, and Franklin, you had that one guy, right? Like Stretch?

Yeah, sure. Stretch. That guy existed. Like that was certainly a part of the game at one point. had that and uh and franklin uh you had that one guy right like stretch yeah sure stretch that guy existed like that was certainly a part of the game at one point um but i i think it is something that will be ripped off like crazy and i and i hope it is um because i just think it makes the game so much more exciting i think especially in the missions that you guys are about to get to it makes heist way more compelling it allows the action to be focused so that you're always doing the cool thing and not the kind of dull thing yeah not like like the common thing that i keep thinking of whenever i'm doing a cool mission is like ordinarily in a gta game it'll be like okay I have this really cool shootout and then it's like okay run to the top of this building and grab this

sniper rifle yeah and that no longer happens because you just switch the person that's already on top it's also silly because it's like how am I flying a helicopter and then landing it and then running to get a sniper rifle and then running from there it's like how why why would one person ever do this much can we not not hire someone? Yeah, please. Anybody else. Anyone. I also loved using it to get around the map. Like, if I was just tired of being in the city,

I liked being able to switch to Trevor and kind of have a different, a change of pace in terms of just the missions that I was doing. I felt like the side missions for all three of them were fairly different. And that was that was a lot of fun kind of learning more about these characters through the people they interact with. And that was most of all what I liked was that since they're all carrying the weight of the story, they all had these kind of side stories that were happening around them that

the other characters weren't aware of and how all of that impacted uh the main story as the game progressed i thought was really really great um because that that continues to be my problem with large games is that usually the two or three characters uh at the center with their single conflict aren't enough to warrant so many hours of play. While there's just so many characters in this game that become increasingly important. Or even like if you look at a game like Skyrim where the eventual goal is just be this all-powerful being. Or even like Fallout, like those open world RPGs. I guess they're all Bethesda games but you know what i mean like i have no real connection to these characters because they're just like like buckets full with skills yeah in my brain i'm thinking well wouldn't it

be interesting if like okay i've got this warrior guy that lives here and he goes on missions and then i've got the thief and he goes on like thiefy missions that would be a lot more interesting and like so yeah i wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing this a lot more in these sorts of open world games where previously it was just like one character and that was it and the other thing that it does okay it does better than most games and there's plenty of room for improvement is i did like seeing the disparity uh in wealth and just culture and class between michael and trevor and franklin uh and and they they hint at it they like you can tell they want to say more uh in terms of you know

michael being this wealthy man who nothing is good enough for him. He's seeking danger while Franklin has nothing and is just looking for a foot up. And I think having characters that have these contrasting viewpoints and ambitions is really, really fascinating. And part of why I think it's so funny that you don't find that much success uh especially early on in the game that it kind of is always one step past you or that there's always there's always somebody doing even better than you in the world uh yeah i really dig that but yeah yeah that's that's that's it there's a lot i really like about this game i It really, I mean, just feels like a game

that was made for all the things that I like in games. Just because it just, I don't know. There's a lot in there. I'm curious to see people write about over the next few weeks because I think a lot of people have some of the similar opinions as Justin and you. And I think there will be a lot of good conversation, which is refreshing because I don't feel like we often have kind of conversation

where both sides have a lot to say. I think usually it can be kind of cut and dry with a lot of games. Yeah, and I think a lot of people remember GTA 4 and how there was that blowback on it a few months later where where people didn't weren't nearly as odd as they were when they first started playing and i think a lot of that has to do with the fact that like people were really wowed by that world that the city that they made but structurally the game was like not quite there and most of the missions were kind of like dry and dull whereas here obviously the world is very awe-inspiring but also i'm engaged by the missions also the story like the characters

are interesting like i want to know more about them um trevor keeps hinting the fact that he's canadian and like kind of has a chip on his shoulder about it but like a lot of that stuff is subtext that they don't come out and say blatantly um and it's yeah I don't know I I would be shocked if that same level of uh blowback fell on GTA 5 because I really do think just about everything in this game they did uh very smartly and and did it the right way yeah and you know what I think they did very smartly and did it the right way. Yeah, and do you know what? I think they did with the missions, and whether or not they're always exciting is debatable.

But in GTA 4, I felt like a lot of the missions were, here's an interesting story concept that relates to New York or this certain type of group of people in New York, and you would hear it, you would see it in some cutscene, and then you would just go back onto the street and go shoot someone, or you would just drive from a place to another place, and then you would get another cutscene that was like, yeah, that box that you picked up, that was something really interesting and related to the story.

But the reality is the mission always kind of looked the same. Yeah. Well, here, I feel like a lot of the missions you you actually see what you're doing like even the paparazzi mission i feel like in gta4 that would have been like well get on a bike and just you know follow this person for as long as you can and then at the end there will be a cut scene where you take a picture of them well here i think they visualize it much much better in terms of you you actually have the person on the back and you're taking the pictures you can use franklin's slow down thing to get them um yeah i just feel like it's it's a nice step beyond uh the kind of easy stuff in gta4 yeah it's interesting how they've i really feel like even more so than with gta4 with gta5 they've really allowed like it feels less coherent but in a way that's like

weirdly progressive like it doesn't feel like a game that you're playing like they have gotten i think closer than anybody has before in creating a simulated world and allowing sort of the, you know, allowing for some of the boredom that I think the real world has in service of that verisimilitude. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. Oh, actually, before we end it, that is something I would like to talk about. I mean, if you've ever seen photos of Rockstar, you see the people who work there. It has this very kind of punk rockish, 1980s attitude. I mean, they've spoken about comparing themselves to a record label mentality. And obviously, the music in the the game they clearly have good taste but what i'm constantly amazed by is how good they are at recreating hideous corporate architecture like

the really boring buildings of a city are so perfect in these games and i i think there's something about causing mayhem in those areas that is so i don't know stress relieving uh i i just love being near like you know that hideous downtown los angeles bank and office complex and seeing like 500 cars explode in the middle they're also really good at interiors surprisingly like i didn't i never thought of gta games as like doing interiors that well but like there's a scene where you go into like a dot com like facebook-esque office and i like legitimately felt like i was walking into work at vox media it was pretty kind of crazy one of the things that i i i had like a whole like two or three graphs about in the very early version of the review was you go to, you wind up in this young woman's apartment with Trevor, who is the last person who should be there. And it is so, so perfect. down like dolphin artwork that that those awful uh decals of like you know quotable quotables

on the wall and it it's it just nails it um and that to me is so much more difficult than a lot of it's like easy cynical you know bs about hollywood and la and all that stuff like nailing just the kind of like oddity of a young 21 year old woman's like apartment is just so that to me is tough and kind of hysterical. Well, I can hear the police bearing down on us now. That's my apartment. It's okay.

I think it lends a really nice, an authentic air to our program. We hope that you're enjoying Grand Theft Auto 5 and hope you're having fun when you're supposed to be. And if you're supposed to be just sort of nodding thoughtfully, I hope you're doing that as well. If you want to read more about the game, we've got oodles of coverage on Polygon.com. So head over there and check it out. And be sure to join us again next Friday for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best things? 🎵