The answer: all of them in Grand Theft Auto V.
Ok, not all of them. Not because any I've played so far are particularly good, but because this series can wildly dip below even the Mariana Trench of bad mission design, it can basically be to video games to what Aljosa is to human beings, and no I'm not beyond throwing Aljosa under the bus for no reason because the metaphor fits.
Let's get a few things clear before this OP starts: I basically never state my opinions here on vidja games anymore as thread openers, I let you guys do the bitchwork there because I'm way too lazy, and I don't care to discuss dissenting opinions in a fashion I deem fit. So consider this me actually being aggravated. Second, I have plenty of issues with this game, but I'll try to avoid them as it's late here; anything that I can't weave into the game's mission design basically being the OKC Thunder's championship chances post-Murica Day will be left out, probably. Third, I'm only partially done with the game, having cleared the third heist and basically wondering if there is a God, and if there is why he is so cruel he made the Housers mainstream.
Most importantly, this game is huge, and accommodates multiple playstyles. Mine is of aiming to clear the story missions, with Strangers and Freaks, and a few side missions here and there when I'm in the mood. While you definitely can make an argument that these games truly shine in their sandbox nature outside of rigid plot points, I'd say it's fair game to say many people played the game like I did, and that how I played it was no means an outlier or unorthodox enough that it shouldn't be paid attention to.
That being said, let's dive in. Or let's not, because that's one of the few missions I found the most aggravating. The open ocean in this game was a cool idea on paper; it literally adds another layer for the player to roam about, making potential getaways a more immersive, aqueous experience. At worst, I'd hope the reduced speed of movement and general lack of things to do could be avoidable, but this game will simply not let it be so.
No, to set up for a heist, I had to sneak onto a ship and go onto Satan in vehicle form, this little bastard right here:
Anyone who isn't a stranger to this game, no doubt you can remember the molasses this sub wades through just to move a fucking inch forward. Anyone who is a stranger, consider yourself dodging a bullet by not picking up this game; this submarine is the test of patience. Remember how we all HATE cinematic walking when the action in a game starts picking up? How about something even slower, that you're forced to move with clunky controls, underwater where visibility sucks, all with the camera stuck up the sub's ass half the time?
So cool, you're in a submarine, right? What other game lets you go wild in a recreation of Los Angeles with a submarine as a vehicle? Well, you tell me, because it's certainly not GTA V. Nope. For this one, you follow a line that looks like this:
Start at X
_____________________________________________________________________________X
||
||
||
||
_____________________________________________________________________________ O
End at O
That's it.
The saying goes, "variety is the spice of life." This mission needs some spice so badly, because it practically sabotages the game's pacing when you're stuck inside a submarine moving at lackluster speed, and you have to do this twice.
Now you may be saying, "ah, but Blab, that's one mission." First off, it's two, you asshole, secondly, let's rewind a bit earlier in the game.
Did anyone like this?
Or this?
When I said this game needs variety badly, THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT. This mission is the definition of monotonous, already replacing Nyquil in pharmacies across the globe. By moving the crates around, you aren't world building. You aren't making an unfun act fun in an interactive medium. You aren't contributing anything solid to the game except for setting up a story arc, but making sure to add filler to the arc in the form of these junk objectives. Again, the controls suck. The way you're all but forced to take parts in these tasks completely betrays the open nature of the game otherwise, and it's tedium that I've seen no player justify yet.
Aight, aight, but these are all there for a reason, right? They're setup for the real meat and potaters of the game, the heists. Sometimes, it's the destination more than the journey, and the payoff in these games is supposed to emulate all those gangster flicks we all grew up with.
Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
This heist is the Merryweather Heist. By all accounts that my brain has had with vidja games, it's one of the most by the number missions I've ever player, consisting of:
1) Driving to a said location
2) Sniping a few guys while you're locked in a spot
3) Planting sticky bombs on a ship, with not much mechanical input other than moving and placing the sticky bombs using basic TPS controls
4) Swimming underwater
5) Using the fucking submarine
6) Sniping more people
THAT'S IT. THAT'S FUCKING IT. There's NOTHING exciting about this mission you've been doing all this bitchwork for. The bitchwork was boring, whatever, but this mission is just zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Where's the payoff? Where's the sense of accomplishment when your plan goes to perfection? It's not there because none of the things you do in this mission are particularly outstanding; they just involve doing things you've done in other games, but better, or requiring the bare minimum of player interactivity to push along a very scripted narrative. The Merryweather Heist is bad, and if you defend it u r b@d.
I want to contrast this with a game which also suffers from mission design issues, but is in the vein of GTA and has one mission in particular that is EXCELLENT (my caps lock key is begging for mercy). That game is Sleeping Dogs.
That game has you go around with this chick, Peggy Li.
By all accounts, the mission where you hang out with her stinks. She tells you about her big day, she's getting married to your boss, Winston, so you drive her around to pick up wedding shit. It's pretty monotonous, but it provides flavor text at least. Nothing special. This is the bitchwork in the game. However, it sets up one of the most memorable missions I've ever played in a vidja game, ever.
(huge Sleeping Dog spoilers, please avoid if you haven't played the part with her)
The next mission is The Marriage, what I went into thinking would be a ceremonious, dull mission going off the laurels of the past mission. NOPE. You're called into action to defend the wedding from a bunch of thugs only to find this chick and her husband slaughtered, her husband mourning her dead body before he succumbs to his injuries.
This mission is emotionally powerful as a payoff because of the bitchwork you did right before it. It effectively makes you ponder the game's morality, the way the world works because of how your actions before led to the resonating feeling you get after it's done.
So yeah, GTA V sucks at payoff with its missions because it doesn't make them any more exciting than the bitchwork, nor does it use their qualities, whatever they may be, to its advantage in the payoff missions.
What about the missions not directly related to heists? These usually involve some combination of:
1) On foot chases
2) TPS shooting
3) Driving to a point of interest, and then driving afterward
4) Controlling an aerial or water-bound vehicle
and a few other things. At first, these can be exciting, as they are done in the sprawling urban and rural area of Los Santos. This playground effectively increases level design scope to a degree that is unheard of by most games. But what good is a playground with a mean lunch mom?
Rockstar loves to artificially add bounds to the mission. I was taking down jurors for an important case as Franklin, only for one to have "escaped" on a main road while I was on chase with him, failing my mission. GTA V has combat scenarios that, while relatively safe compared to many TPS games, are artificially elongated by the inclusion of three protagonists, giving each a similar objective of "shoot thing in face" just at a different angle. Sure, it's fun to take out a bunch of thugs as Franklin, but do I really have to have a second wave spawn just because you wanted me to control Trevor and take them down?
Beyond the submarine complaints earlier, a lot of the aerial missions are let down by the awful controls of helicopters and airplanes here. Go on reddit and you can find many cool stunts, sure, but there's no arguing that a semblance to the past games in a few regards could go a long way for some vehicles here. Staying in one spot as a helicopter in the air in GTA 4 was beneficial at points, yet it is suddenly difficult to do in GTA V. The missions with airplanes can also show Rockstar's chronic vulnerability to terrible checkpoints. Landing this:
is not an easy task at first. There is a high likelihood that as you get to grips with the controls to land this cleanly you will fail the first few times, whether due to a random tree or a bad mixture of angles and speed on the runway. Yet Rockstar thinks that the last boring ten minutes of flying I took to get to the landing strip was the part of the mission worth repeating for me for mastery's sake, or at least didn't care to check over this checkpoint. Let's be clear, GTA V takes a lot of steps in the right direction to make the checkpoints less aggravating, but I'd still have liked minutes of my life back spent flying again for a mistake I made trying to land early on.
I don't want to harp on much longer, but a few of the following tasks were awful as well:
Yoga
Generic sniper mission number 8347039482938501
Driving to a location, watching a cutscene, driving away
I'm rubbing my strained eyes at this point, so I'm tired and gonna stop here. I reaaalllllyyyy want to write about the fucking shitty torture mission, and how this game big time pussies out of making a statement on something. How the game tries to have its cake and eat it too, how the game's all around shitty MAD Magazine-esque satire really blows hard in this mission. Remember I said I would leave ancillary things out the thread devoted to mission design? This game's satire sucks, it fucking undermines the world created because there's no grip of subtlety at all, everything is Flanderized before you can sneeze, and because there's basically no straight man in this a la Jason Blouth a la Lazlo in the old games a la everyone in The Office who's not Michael, Kevin, Dwight, Andy, or Creed, this game's humor oftentime falls flat. There, I'm done.
TL;DR the game... no screw you. You played a 30+ hour game, you can spend a few minutes here. Either shit post about how wrong I am but at least agree yoga fucking sucks, or look at the pretty pictures. Surely you opened this thread for some reason.
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