On Grand Theft Auto V and Likeable Characters
This originally started out as a digression on my review of “Powers: Bureau” before I realized that it was morphing into its own thing. As you can probably guess from the title, I’ve finally gotten around to playing the biggest game of 2013 and it’s an incredible technical achievement on many levels. I’ll be going back to it to mess with the stock market to try and turn my millions of heist dollars into billions and continue my quest to shoot out every tire on the highway. Throughout the game though, there were a couple things that really interfered with my enjoyment of its story missions. I generally liked, or at least understood, the main characters just fine, but having to deal with Michael’s family and Trevor’s friend Lamar sucked a lot of the fun out of things. You can have characters bicker and get angry at each other and still convey that they have affection for each other deep down, but this game gets it wrong where “Powers” got it right.
If you haven’t played the game, “GTAV” has three different protagonists: former bank robber turned angry and restless Vinewood resident Michael Desanta, up and coming thug Franklin Clinton, and all-around psycho/socio/a few more of these-o-path Trevor Phillips. With Michael we’re meant to see a middle-aged man in full-blown midlife crisis. His wife hates him. His kids hate him. He’s only good at killing people and destroying things and tries to get through life by escaping through hookers, drink and movies. Franklin, on the other hand, is stuck sharing a home in the bad end of town with his aunt while he tries to find a way to raise his stock in life as his buddy Lamar winds up bringing him down every single time.
That the game ends with Michael reconciling with his family and Franklin and Lamar becoming best buds again shouldn’t be too surprising. For all of the freedom the “GTA” games offer you in murdering random citizens, blowing up cars, and picking fights with police and the military they’ve always adhered to a conventional kind of morality in with regards to these kinds of relationships. Always stand by your family and the friends who stand by you: That’s a message you can take away from any of these games. It also rings utterly false in this one.
Where “GTAV” goes wrong is in painting these characters as shrill, unlikeable stereotypes. Michael’s son Josh is a layabout, bong-hitting, unemployed young man who spends his days trolling people in online games and the internet. Tracey, his daughter, is a fame-obsessed dingbat who hangs out on yachts used for porno shoots and dreams of getting on the game’s “American Idol”-esque talent show “Fame or Shame.” As for Abigail she enjoys plenty of yoga and tennis lessons, even more time with her instructors with these pursuits, and spending her husband’s money as she pleases. Yeah, Michael’s not that great of a guy to begin with and while his family constantly calls him out over his behavior, it’s an endless circle of the pots calling the kettle black.
On the other hand, Franklin and Lamar spend almost the entire game trash talking each other. There’s hardly a kind word exchanged between them as it’s a nonstop torrent of insults traded between the two, with most of Lamar’s being directed at Franklin’s success in the game. If bettering yourself means moving into a different social strata and leaving dumb thugs like Lamar behind — seriously, this guy only gets you in trouble — then I’m all for it.
You don’t need likeable characters to have an interesting story. Spider Jerusalem, one of the most memorable bastards in comics isn’t the kind of person you’d want to have over for dinner, but his exploits in “Transmetropolitan” make for thrilling reading. Same with the nameless title character in Matz and Jacamon’s “The Killer.” The problems in “GTAV’s” story start when the developers expect you to start caring about these characters. Michael’s family leaves him at one point in the game, fed up with his behavior and running off to indulge their own with his money. I would’ve said good riddance, changed the locks and had a house party with all of the hookers I could round up in the game. Except that wasn’t an option. Instead, I had to suffer through more of Michael’s personal crisis and angst about this before the mission opened up where the family was reunited. Yeah. Great.
As for Lamar, he winds up out in a sawmill set up by weed dealers who want him dead while Franklin is urged on to rescue him by his ex-girlfriend who also tells the man that she’s getting married to the man she left him for. Now that’s motivation!
The game gives us nothing — NOTHING — in terms of reasons to care about these characters and then expects us to feel good when we save and/or reconcile with them. It’s as if the developers simply assumed that gamers would recognize Michael’s family and Lamar as FAMILY and FRIEND and assume the necessary emotional connection between them. That’s not how it works. There actually needs to be some substance behind any convincing relationship.
This is where “Powers” and the relationship between Walker and Pilgrim shows you how this kind of thing is supposed to be done. In the latest volume alone, Deena Pilgrim calls her partner a dick, likens him to powers sperm, and effectively volunteers him for a highly dangerous undercover operation. Yet she’s no less likeable for it because these interactions represent a small part of the banter between the two which relates the genuine respect the two share. More important is the fact that anyone who has been reading “Powers” since the beginning has seen their relationship develop from the first time they ever met. After the things these two characters have been through over the years, their bickering feels a lot more like the kind you share with your friends than any kind of antagonism.
If the developers behind “GTAV” had any idea what they were doing when they created Michael’s family and Lamar, they would’ve given us some scenes actually showing these characters enjoying the company of their respective partners. Maybe a scene with Josh, Tracey and Abigail before Michael moved them all to Los Santos as he explains how their life is going to change for the better from now on and that they’re all happy for what he has done. Or have a mission where Franklin and Lamar go out to party, drink and get high and remember why they’ve been friends all these years. The world of any “GTA” game is drenched in cynicism and irony, most of it generally amusing, and while the virtues I’m talking about might seem at odds with such a mindset I think it could be made to work. Imagine a mission where Franklin and Lamar get really high and then build a giant “y” next to the Vinewood sign. Or have Michael get his son a job producing porn movies. Surely these things can be achieved within the game’s worldview?
At least Trevor is either mostly free of the issues that plague Michael and Franklin. Of course, that’s usually because we (almost) never see his family and he completely dominates his friends. He’s also the most proactive character in the game and a real live-wire presence, which is why I liked playing as him the most. I realize that says I’m a terrible person, given the endless acts of general violence and misanthropy the character perpetrates throughout the game’s cutscenes, but there was also the bonus of being away (most of the time) from the Desanta family and Lamar.
I finished the main story last night after choosing the “deathwish” option if you were curious. Now the game really is my playground and I don’t have to spend any more time with the characters in question. Yet after all the effort that went into making Los Santos and its surroundings one of the most vividly realized environments in gaming, it’s deeply regrettable that the “GTAV” team missed the mark in creating these key supporting roles. As there’s likely going to be another five years between now and the next game, one can only hope that Rockstar actually gives just as much thought to its characters as its game world.
(While I’m at it, I hope they give us a decent rock/metal station next time. A “rock” station with Kenny Loggins as its DJ? It only makes me miss the “San Andreas” soundtrack more.)