Richard's Online Journal

[02/05/08] Grand Tutorial Auto

(Update: May in fact be the last one, period. I keep getting a Disc Unreadable error when Roman texts to say he’s got someone he wants me to meet, bringing the crime spree to a halt rather faster than the LCPD. Cleaned the disc, jiggled the drive… everything else is fine, but as soon as I play for more than a few seconds, it just dies… Bah.)

Okay, I lied. Last one! Promise! I just have to say this quickly: Christ almighty, make the tutorials stop! Please! Hurry! Before I do a tedious fetch-quest again!

“Is nothing personal. Is just tutorial objective.”

I’m not that far into the game, partly because I’ve spent more time footling round the city and enjoying the ambience than feeling compelled to do idiots’ dirty work for them for no discernable reason, but whoever designed the tutorial missions should be shot. Or at least made to mow Jack Thompson’s lawn. I can’t believe how badly done they are, not simply because most of them are as boring as Driving Miss Daisy, but because what they seem focused on is actively not making use of the environment...

Hell’s bells. Take an early mission where you’ve got to shakedown a laundrette owner. You go in the front door, he runs out the back, and you end up chasing his van round most of the city. Okay, fine. But this is a living city, right? Let’s see what other options are available. You can go round the back first, and there’s his van.

Obvious first thing to try: shoot out the wheels. Hah. Forget it. You get a little message that says ‘The shopkeeper was spooked and ran away’, and the mission’s over. Forget giving chase. Forget the fact that if you can catch him in a van, you can do it on foot, especially with two cars there for the taking. You’re not supposed to do that!

Attempt 2. Okay, so shooting out the wheels won’t work. How about pre-damaging the van a bit so that the next bit is easier? Nope. Same instafail message. Attempt 3. Okay, if we’re not going to damage the van, let’s make the getaway a bit harder. Jump into the nearby cars and box him in. Even if he ploughs through, it’ll soak up some time. Nope! As soon as you get back round, those cars have politely re-parked themselves in their designated slots, and the mission proceeds as intended. Yaaargh!

If only it was just one mission. I’ve had one mission where a guy was invulnerable until the point I’m ‘meant’ to shoot him, and another couple where I’ve caught up with a car I’m chasing, but bounced off like it had a force-field because it wasn’t time to beat him.

The problem with all this stuff isn’t simply that it’s transplanting some of the most boring GTA missions ever created into the most wonderful living city I’ve ever seen (seriously, Liberty City is a piece of art - the atmosphere, the layout, the astounding attention to detail). It’s that rather than teaching you the gameplay mechanics, as they seem to think they’re doing, they’re really teaching players not to bother playing with the simulation.

Talk about dogshit in the sandbox…

The later missions may open this up. I don’t know. I’ve avoided the walkthroughs, and if I can get past a nasty disc read error that seems to have cropped up out of nowhere, I’ll be playing for a while yet, just for the chance to see the rest of the wonderful location. It’s just incredible that while the technology and detail have all come on leaps and bounds, the missions thus far seem to be actively regressing. There’d better be one hell of a payoff coming a bit further down the line, and I don’t just mean multiplayer.

Although I do plan to give that a spin over the weekend. Prepare my helicopter.

(Coming up in our next instalment of ‘Shut Up About GTA Already, Richard’, we try to work out what the blazes the drugged up rasta guy means by his “Badman bra”. Sandpaper in the cups, or something more sinister? Stay tuned for updates...)