Rock Star Games are the Quentin Tarantino of the game development world. Their skill and past successes are rarely in question by anyone worth their salt, but they have a habit recently of producing critically acclaimed shite. I wasn't a fan of Tarantino's latest film "Inglourious Basterds." Much like his portion of 2007's Grindhouse double feature, "Death Proof", Basterds was 3/4 pointless exposition and masturbatory dialog, culminating in maybe half an hour or so of actual film. His direction and shooting style are without out question brilliant, but the man is badly in need of an editor for his scripts. Still, Basterds was a huge success for Tanrantino due mostly to the fact that he's become a brand now. He can sell tickets based on his name alone and the less people understand or the more they are bored by his films, the more they assume they must be watching something powerful and artistic.
Grand Theft Auto IV was the Inglourious Basterds of the video game world. Rock Star took their tried and true formula (perfected in GTA: Vice City and San Andreas in my opinion) and screwed with it in ways that didn't boost the core gameplay in the least. The game is full of pointless, annoying mini games that take focus away from not only the main plot, but for the most part exist entirely isolated from any other content in the game. The camera controls on foot are in a word: awful. This is nothing new, but you'd think they'd take the time to fix this between games or give those of us who loathe camera snap back an option to play without it. And finally they even messed with the driving physics in what one can only assume is an attempt at realism. Now when you're racing whatever clunker you've just stolen down the streets of Liberty City at 80+ mph you can expect the cars to handle just about as well as they would in the real world: horribly. I simply couldn't finish the game. Every time I tried to play it would do something to turn me away and I finally just gave up. And yet it was one of the most successful games in history, because Rock Star is a brand if people can't pplay the game well then that must be their fault because Rock Star is good at this kind of thing and we should just shut up.
Now Rock Star has a new game coming out this spring. Red Dead Redemption, the sequel to 2004's Red Dead Revolver, a game that received luke-warm reviews and was not much more than Grand Theft Auto ... on a horse. Don't get me wrong, the GTA format can work in different settings, but you can't just drop it in and hope it works. Red Dead Redemption may remedy this, but with Rock Star's track record I'm not expecting much. I can already see the side missions where I'm forced to take my cousin to the saloon, or where I have to romance a whore. I shudder at the thought of a horse shoeing mini game.
The problem is that I want a GTA style western game and I want it to be good. The western is a genre that is under used in video games, but that I think has a lot of potential. It's no mystery that Rock Star can make a good trailer, but can they still deliver a good game? If Red Dead Redemption focuses on game play instead of gimmicks, then maybe Rock Star can find a way to redeem themselves in my eyes. As it stands right now though they fall into the same category as Quentin Tarantino for me. They aren't making grand gestures and advancing their art, they're just wasting time because they can. Pointless mini games and needless dialog are two sides of the same worthless coin.
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