Why Grand Theft Auto is One of a Kind! | Objectively Bad Podcast #84

Welcome to the 84th Episode of the Objectively Bad Podcast! 

In todays episode we are finally taking a break from criticising and complaining about GTA. We are only here to talk about the positives, everything the series does right and why it's as successful as it is!

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Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello there everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Objectively Bad Podcast. Today is episode 84. I never see the episode title in the intro. I'm just guessing. I think it is right. Yes? Maybe. That sounds right. It's 84, 85. It's 84.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Yeah, it's 84. We're right. We know what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

It's technically 85 because we have an episode zero, but we don't count that. So it's like the ugly darkling of the episodes, even though it has like the thirdmost views or something ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Even though it's one of our better episodes for well, most viewed. I don't know about better, but yeah.

Streaming

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Uh welcome back to boys, Dan and Chad here again. Or Don and Showed, whatever you want to call us. And today, uh we're gonna be talking about some stuff. Uh, you see the title, you clicked on it, knowing what we're getting into. Uh, but we're not gonna talk about that right now because we have other things to talk about. We'll get there soon. Don't worry about it. Hold your horses. Uh, Chad, uh, I mentioned something to you briefly before the start of this podcast. Correct. You you want to fill the viewers in on our our thoughts, our discussions, our monologues, our dialogues. What are other synonyms for that? I don't know. Our logs in general. Yeah, logs. Our vlogs are blogs. Is this technically a vlog? I mean, we there are cameras. It's a video log, right? That's what a vlog stands for.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Video log. In a way. I don't that's so unimportant. We don't need to go down this randomly.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

No, I need to get to the specific language we're using to define what we're doing right now. It's extremely important.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I mean I was gonna say podcast, but technically it's a video. But is it a vlog? It's a vlog. I'm not thinking about it's a vodka. A vodka, yeah, I guess. Whatever. Um, yeah, so so we got a comment recently that that kinda got our butters churning, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, it got us thinking. Uh, someone mentioned, and I want to say it's Lego Yummy, and if I'm wrong, I'm sorry. Um, what if we streamed this podcast? And we sat there and went, hey, that's not a bad idea. Because if you watched the last podcast, Dan has been streaming a lot more and been enjoying it, has been having a good time. Yeah. And we were like, maybe we'll do it. So uh if if you would like to see that, if you have any recommendations, any suggestions, anything you want us to talk about, let us know in the comments. We're we're kind of poking around at it and getting a little interested in the idea of it. So if you want to see us stream a live podcast, let us know. If you don't, also let us know.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Yeah, I mean, if you don't want to see any more of us, just let us know. We'll close the channel right now. It's it's fine. We'll close the channel.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

One comment, and we're that's it, we're done.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah, we have we we have other stuff to do. Chat chat is a job. I have well, I guess it's a job, technically. You have a job. I do. It doesn't feel real though.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

It pays you, it does, which is nice.

Dan was on a GTA Roundtable

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah. Uh the plan in general for if we were to do this live would be, I mean, depending on how it goes, it could be a bunch of different ways. But in general, I think how we'd do it is I would stream uh basically our Discord call of Chad and I to the Objectively Bad YouTube channel as well as to my Twitch channel, so we get sort of a mix of viewers on both platforms. Obviously, it's gonna get way less views than a regular stream of mine because it's not GTA. Although we could play GTA on a stream, like we could as well, theoretically, if we wanted to. So, yeah, if you want to see that, uh let us know. Yeah, like Chad said, what you want us to talk about. I'm sure we could do like a little QA section. Uh, we would definitely be interacting with chat as much as possible because that would be sort of the main point for doing it live. Otherwise, we'd just not do it live. And I guess let us know what times you people would uh be most available to tune in because we'd obviously want the more loyal viewers of the Objectively Bad podcast to be able to get their say in and call us ugly on live. So yeah, put down below, I guess, your time zone and like what time works best for people, just so we can get a general idea. And then uh yeah, we'll consider doing it. We could either do it so it's an episode we record live, or we could release an episode and then do an extra live thing, you know, once every month or something, just for funsies, you know? We'll see how it goes. Um, yeah, so we've just been talking about that. So that might be in your near future. We will see. Uh, moving on to the next topic. This is a thing I did very recently, another live stream, technically. I was on another GTA YouTuber's channel, his name is Sav Sav for a GTA roundtable, which basically just a discussion between uh six creators, me and five others, about general topics about the game, GTA 6, and other related stuff. Now, very funny timing because this roundtable has been planned for ages. Well, it got rescheduled like 10 times because trying to get people from America, the UK, and Australia all in the same time zone is kind of impossible. It's it's bad, bad, real tough. Um, especially when these guys also a lot of them still have like full-time jobs or kids, it's it's a nightmare. So, but we we finally got it to uh working and we did a live streamed round table, I think three days ago as of recording this, like a week ago, as of the podcast goes out. And it was really funny because it happened basically the day after, or like technically the same day as the Rockstar hacks. So if you're unaware of the situation, Rockstar got hacked once again by a different hacking group called Shiny Hunters, which Shad, you'll be familiar with Pokemon, Pokemon reference.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

I'm very I I I I perked up when you said that.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yeah, I know. Um, now they were originally holding Rockstar to a ransom fee. I don't know how much they were asking for, but it was some amount of money, I think like a few hundred million or some bullshit. Um, and Rockstar basically responded saying, we ain't giving you shit. And it seems like Rockstar uh knew what they were talking about because from what I can tell, now I'm not the best source to know about this. So if you want to get more information, go search it up on YouTube. But it seems like the information that this uh shiny hunter group managed to actually get a hold of was basically just financial information of like what how much GTA Online's made recently. So, like apparently they got information that they made like 500 million a year from GTA Online, 7.3 million a week in shot card sales, and 2.3 million uh per month or per year in GTA plus subs weekly, I think. So, like, yes, technically sensitive information to a degree, but it's not GTA 6 leaks, it's not what we thought it was gonna be actually Chad was like contracts uh from GTA 6 leak voice actors. So we thought we may have been like spoilt on like maybe characters coming back. Because if we got like a uh if we saw a contract for like, say, Franklin's voice actor, we'd know he might be appearing in the new game. So that was the biggest worry on my end, and we discussed this in the round table, but it seems like it was pretty minimal. Uh they leaked the data, it wasn't anything crazy. Rockstar don't care. Seems to be all good. Now, the only, I guess, downside is that it seems like Rockstar's security is still a little bit fragile. So maybe more hacks happen again in the future, but you know, hopefully not. Maybe this like perks up Rockstar to be a bit more secure again. I don't know. Um I would bet it would. You would you would think so. This close to the game releasing, you really wouldn't want to see another big leak like the ones we saw back in 22 or 23. You might do you remember the really big gameplay leaks where there was like uh like beta footage and the guy got sent to prison. Apparently the guy who did it is in like a mental asylum or like in the UK or something. Huh. Not asylum, but like a mental facility in the UK for being like mentally unwell. Um, so that's interesting. Yeah, so that that happened. We talked about that on the round table because it happened literally like six hours before something crazy. So that was good fun. Uh, and then in general, we like this guy Sav, really great YouTuber. Like, he makes he's done a few of these roundtables. This was the this was the fifth episode. Uh, we talked about general topics. He sent me like a big Google Doc sheet or a big like message with all the different topics he had planned out to talk about. We discussed things like what we'd like to see in GTS 6 in in regards to like vehicle customization, in regards to like uh there's this term UGC, which I actually don't know what it stands for, but I think it basically just means uh like fan-created content in the game. So, for example, one of the people on this round table is a guy called uh Vinewood Public Access. Um one of the things he does on his channel is he makes a basically like an in-game in-universe GTA radio station that he like voice acts and gets people on. Uh, and it's really it's really cool. He makes like properly like in-universe stuff because the GTA radio stations haven't been updated since day one, basically. I think they added new music, but the actual like voice lines haven't been updated, so he's been doing that. So the UGC, I think, is basically like just a concept or like a thing that allows people to possibly make in-game content, like maybe even in-game movies with like GTA video editors, stuff like that. So we talked about stuff like that. Talked about driving mechanics, which we're gonna talk about later in today's episode as well, because we have strong opinions on them.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yes, we do.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Uh, overall, it's just a really, really cool experience. Good to meet some cool new creators. Uh, so that was really fun. So if you want to go check that out, it's on Sav's channel as a live stream at the moment. It's about three hours long with a lot of talking, but I also believe he's going to be uploading it as a video whenever he gets to cutting it down. So if you're subscribed to my main channel, you'll see it come out as a collaborative video. So if you're ever intrigued in me talking more shit about GTA more than today, uh, that's a good place to go see it. Uh that's kind of what I've been up to, apart from streaming, which has been good. I think by the time this podcast comes out, the GTA event that I was invited to would have been over. So I'll be back to being lazy again, which is nice.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Nice. Dan will eventually make a video. Potentially.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Well, I mean, I have a I have a contractual obligation to make a video this month due to a sponsorship, so it will happen.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

There you go. So you will make a video. I will, yes. So that's good.

unknown 10:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

No, it sounds cool. It's also from what it sounds like, you are actually the most like subbed YouTuber. I don't want that to be like a metric of like who's better because that's not how it works. It's it's just popularity, but it's it's cool that like I think like you were saying, like, some of these people don't have a whole lot of subs at all, and it's it's it seems like it was a really good. I mean, I've always said that like collaboration, especially in some you know, content creation or or in kind of more of the arts field, is always a good thing. Because at the very least, it's just exp like expressing exposure between one person's fans and another person's fans.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah, so I was yeah, for this round table, I was the most subbed uh by like I think it sounds like egotistical saying this, but just statistically, I have more subs than all of them combined times like three or something, um, which obviously means nothing towards the quality of my content. I think the Vinewood public access guy, he's at least subs, and I think he's one of the most creative and like impressive individuals I I've seen in the GTA space in a long time. Um, but I think it's like coming from somewhere, like obviously every YouTuber starts from zero at some point, and I spent from late 2011 to early 2022 having channels never pass 200 subscribers. Like, I I've been there in the trenches, I've uploaded hundreds and hundreds of videos that have never crossed a thousand views. So I know what it feels like to be like a small, small creator. Um, so now that I'm in the position where I can sort of almost like be someone to help the smaller people, give advice, help it, help give exposure, is like really quite cool. Uh it's like it's a quite a nice full circle moment. And the thing you're saying about collaboration, like I I've discussed this before, but apart from like the basics of making good content, being consistent with making stuff, I also do agree the number one thing in my mind to having like a long-lasting career in the arts, honestly, even just in business in the world in general, is having good connections. Like, I think connections give you more than anything. Like, you look in the business world, like, who's gonna get a promotion? The guy who does the best work, or the guy who does good work, but is super good friends with the bosses and the shareholders and all that, it's gonna be that guy. And the number one thing that I look towards from like growing up is the UK YouTube scenes, like the cyben and all the people surrounding the sidemen, basically. The reason why everyone there is so successful and so long-lasting is because everyone's sort of friends with each other. Like you have the sidemen and KSI sort of as like the core top group, but then they're friends with like Chris MD and all the footballing guys, and then they're friends with like a bunch of like TikTok, like funny creators who are now like YouTube as like Arthur and all these other people, like the whole UK YouTube scene are so interconnected, and you have like the Cybeman charity match that's happening like next week that gets a bunch of different creators in. The reason why they're all still going is because they're all so close with each other, they're all on each other's channels, they're all constantly making content. When you're in a group like that where you're all doing stuff, it's it's really difficult to like fall out of the pack and stop making content because you feel the pressure, and it's not even pressure, it's like it's it's positive pressure.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

I can't think of the term, but like it's motivation from something like a social pressure of like, oh my buddy's doing this. Oh man, I got like it's not even in like a oh I have to, but like you want to. I mean, Dan posts a video. Man, I want to put a video out.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Exactly. It's like it's like seeing a bit of social start to work out. Like if you go to the gym with a friend, it's a lot easier to keep going. If you see a friend's making videos, it's easier to keep going. So one thing I've wanted to do for the longest time uh is really get more in tune, in touch with like the GTA community. And this year it's really started up. Like I did that Jeopardy video with TGG and a bunch of other creators at the start of the year. Uh, I've done this round table now. I'm in a server with a bunch of the people, so it's really nice picking up that pace and uh especially meeting with like a lot smaller creators as well, because like it's the perfect time to really get into the GTA space six months leading to the new game. If you build up enough of a following or like a you get on a roll of uploading good videos and content, like things are gonna go super well for all these people once the game releases. So it's been it's been really nice and motivating to do all that, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah. No, it seems really good. Yeah, chip check out the video. I've watched some, I've like started watching it, it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

It's a good time.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

That's what I've been up to. Chad, um, how's life? Life's good.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

I have no I've got nothing for you, Dan.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Well, which new Pokemon game you've been beaten recently?

SPEAKER_01 15:01

I've been playing Fire Red, but weirdly not on the Switch. I just have a copy on the Game Boy, and I've been playing it obsessively, and I love it. Honestly, fair. Yeah. And I will bore the viewers with my Pokemon uh thoughts and ramblings another day when I make us do an entire Pokemon related.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah, Chad's been working on a Pokemon like thing for like three weeks, two weeks or something. I don't think it's not been that long. I'm pretty sure it's even two. I think it's been close to three now.

Why is GTA so good?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

By the time this is out, I think it is. By the time this is out, it'll probably be closer to three weeks. I'm putting more effort into it than I need to, but I'm enjoying it, so it's fine. It'll come out at some point. Um, but yeah, I guess I kind of have a main topic for us today. Um I obviously we talk about GTA a lot. We talked about GTA prior to this. It's what you do for work, it makes sense. We play it quite a bit. Um we played it yesterday, we played it yesterday. Um, we didn't even record, we just played. Uh or actually you recorded.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

I did I did technically record, and I also forgot to stop the recording after we finished. So I have like an eight-hour recording footage of just my PC sitting there doing nothing.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

That's so funny. Um, but yeah, we we GTA comes up relatively often, and I feel like a lot of times we kind of bring up the things that piss us off. Naturally in life, it's easy to just complain about something. But what I thought would be kind of an interesting topic for today is actually bring up the stuff that we like about GTA. Because clearly we like it at least to a degree, because you made a career out of it and we still play it, and they still make, and we've seen this from the leaks, billions of dollars. Yep. So they did something right. So today we're gonna we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna kind of talk about all the positives, all the pros of GTA 5.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, I mean, we can start off by saying it's garbage joking. I'll stop, I'll stop. It's it's all you said it's naturally easier to complain about things. I'm also just naturally a complainer.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Uh, I've had many It's a good combination.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

I've had many people tell me I I'm too negative. I mean, like, I probably am, but uh, it's all in jest usually. A lot of it's sarcasm and people don't read it well. Um, some sarcastic guy. Yeah. Um, but positives, yes. Uh we do have like a rough layout of things we want to go through.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

I got a layout for us. Um, we're just gonna start with just kind of we'll we'll make this quick, we'll make it like five-ish when it's just GTA as a whole, kind of like the big bullet points of like what do we enjoy, and then we'll kind of break it down from there.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah, well, we did a podcast episode, I want to say just over a month ago, maybe two months ago now. Uh, yeah, it's called Why Hasn't There Been Another Grand Theft Auto? And we sort of went through other games that are similar to GTA, but but like we still don't have a get another triple A game that's on the same level. Like, even with Skyrim, which we both like, you could make arguments that like the Witcher is in like a sort of adjacent field and is just as good. Yeah, Elden Ring, yeah, sort of adjacent field, just as good. It's like fantasy, first person or andor third person open world game. Yes, the like Skyrim is still quite unique, and which is quite but like they're similar enough. We don't really have another modern day crime heisting game that is anywhere near the same level as GTA. The only things that come close were like Saints Row, which for a while was sort of there, but with the reboot, it completely fell off. And even Saints Row 4 is like it leaned into having them having superpowers and stuff, so it was quite different. And then we had like Watch Dogs, which was still a little bit more futuristic, but I'd say it's in the same ballpark as GTA, like hacking, heisting stuff. And I played a little bit of Watch Dogs, it's good, but it's again not anywhere close to the same level. Uh doesn't have the same notoriety. We're not getting a Watch Dogs 3, it's gonna be the biggest game of all time. Talk, you know. Yeah, I don't even know if there's gonna be another one. So in general, GTA is sort of the only one in its field that's really doing this well. We had Mind's Eye, which was that really, really bad game that came from it was one of the Rock Sud devs that came out and tried to make it, and it was just it was just awful. Yeah, so in general, why rock why GTA is so good is it's sort of one of a kind, really. Like, there's nothing else competing with it. It's sort of like a Minecraft situation where like it's just so big and so good, there's no comparison, right? So, in general, you it there's already massive props to Rockstar for creating a series that has this much longevity from GTA 1 all the way up to now six coming out, uh, and just like this much popularity, like it's very easily accessible. A lot of people like it. There's so much to do in the game that like there's still just something for everyone, and we can get into that, but like for people who just want to drive, like I know for the longest time all you did in the game was get around and drive. And every time we get onto the game, even if I want to start a heist, you'll just be up the fucking highway on the side of the map because all you want to do is drive.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, I I I do just love like just mindlessly driving around because and uh we'll touch on it more um kind of focused, but like the driving is very good. I think as kind of like uh as a whole, like you kind of said this, and I think this will keep coming back up. There is just so much to do in GTA, yeah, that like within GTA, there's arguably multiple games. Yeah, there's the heisting, there's the driving, there's the shooting, there's also so much of it. And we've complained about like in online the ability to make money tends to end up being you just do a couple of things. If you take if you're just playing for enjoyment and you take the grinding aspect out of it, there is an infinite amount of things to do. I bet there are missions you have not done yet. There are definitely missions I have not done yet. Like, there is truly so much you can do, which is I mean, it's the reason why people keep playing. If there wasn't anything else to do, then why would you do it? You know, like there's replayability, but like there's so much to do. You can just mess around, you can do heists, you can do you know, races, like there there is just so much to do, and it's all pretty good. Like, there's flaws, we we've talked about how the combat's a little wonky, but I think it's still entertaining. Um there's a lot to do. Yeah, like which is what's gonna be. Which is really great, and I think that's kind of that's that's really where GTA thrives.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, like when it comes to me criticizing the game, I'll complain on. I'll complain on the podcast. If I hated it that much, I wouldn't be playing it. I'm cl complaining because I think it is a good game, but obviously there's always things you can do better. That's why I when I say uh the shooting sucks. Like I was doing I was doing some playlists with my viewers on stream yesterday, and the racing's really fun, but then there were a few team deathmatches we were playing, and there's this really annoying mechanic that I'm coming from a Call of Duty player, I found really irritating. Apparently, in TDMs or like just deathmatches in GTA, if you go on a kill streak, eventually you'll get like double damage or quad damage, like as a shooter. So like there are multiple times where I had full health and full body armor, and someone one-shot me with a pistol when I had to shoot them 20 times to skill them. Dang. So like there's a few mechanics in like that I don't really like. But again, it's not that it's inherently bad, it's just that I think there are things that could be improved to enjoy either my experience or a general experience. And uh to me to me, like things that are so bad that don't even really get criticism, people just say this is terrible and don't give any feedback. Yeah, you're you give criticism to something where you see positives, but you think there can be improvements, and that's where where I see GTA landing, really. Yeah, um, but in general, like most things in GTA, like there's nothing in the game I think is inherently terrible. Like, even the worst business, I usually say the bail office is one of the worst businesses, it still has you know a good amount of unique missions, it still can make you okay money if you focus on it. Like it's still like it's something they added to the game after it being 10 years old. You can't criticize a company for doing that. Like Rockstar could have easily not updated the game in five years, like they could have easily done that if they wanted to, but they've kept doing it, which is a really big positive. I think that's another thing about GTA that's really great. Obviously, this is quite normal now with games like Fortnite and Roblox and Minecraft, but in general, games after a few years back in the day just stopped getting updates after a DLC or two, nothing. GTA Online has gotten consistent updates at least twice a year, oftentimes way more, for 13 years.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

That's that's really good.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

It's really impressive.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

I mean, there is some like MMOs that do that. Um but again, it's like the big ones. Well, and even then, I don't know how much they're updating.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Uh usually that much or more, but I will say this is a different discussion topic. But I GT GT is kind of an MMO. Like it sure.

Gameplay

SPEAKER_01 24:24

That's a different topic, but yeah, it kinda yeah, in a way. Um, but yeah, that's that's kind of our synopsis of like kind of the general gist. I'm gonna I'm gonna move us on to gameplay. Um just general gameplay. Where I'm gonna I'm gonna separate driving because I actually think we're just gonna talk about that as like a whole other thing. But I think what is nice about the gameplay, and again, taking driving out, so it's mostly like doing heists, doing missions, doing um free roam activities aspects, pvp, free roam activities. There's a lot to do, which is very fun. Like, we did a mission just as practice the other day, where you go into this bunker and you're walking through, and it almost had like a bit of a horror aspect because it's the one where it has what like robot juggernauts, yeah, and they're turned off at the beginning, and then you go through, you you turn on, like you hit a bunch of fuses, you turn on all of these uh all the robots turn on, you have to do a bunch of things, and then they start to come alive, but the entire like they come alive after a while, but the entire time we're watching them, we're like, I don't like that when I click aim, my gun auto aims at them because the gun is going, yeah, that's an enemy. Um, but like that was fun. I had never done that before. Um there's a lot of interesting missions where you do a lot of things. Again, the physics are we, like the movement is really weird, but like the shooting can actually be pretty fun. And I guess my second point to why it's so fun is there's so many different guns, which can be really entertaining. Like you can pull out a pistol, you could pull out a sniper, you could pull out an AR, and they're fine. Or you could pull out a laser Gatling gun. Yep. Which that's pretty fucking sweet.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Some people don't enjoy the futuristic stuff, but uh I will say, so the mission we were playing before, just for you more nerdy people, was the finale of the agent ULP missions, which got added like two, three years ago. Uh now, we only played the finale, but there's like five missions to that set, and it's a whole entire storyline. You play through like sequentially through the missions for Agent ULP, who's the guy we saved in the Doomsday Heist in one of the missions, sort of a FIB or CIA agent, can't remember which one. And it's basically helping uh you know what? I can't actually remember what the storyline of it is, but you end up killing some juggernauts, you do so you steal some data or some shit, don't remember. But like that was added just as like a fun little mission thing as a part of a DLC or even like in between DLCs. So like that, that there's a bunch of different mission sets that have their own individual storylines that sort of add to the main GTA online story as well. So like you can play those individually. One thing we don't even really talk about when it comes to GTA online gameplay is that there is a story. I have complaints about the way you can interact with the story since you can do things out of order, out of order, and it makes it a bit odd. But in general, Rockstar do put a good amount of work into making like an interesting world of like what's happening around you. Um, so yeah, the agent ULP missions are probably my favorite contact mission set of like missions in the game, from what I remember. I really enjoyed them when they came out and they were really fun. Um, and the thing we did after that is we played a survival, which is like a round-based survival, 10 rounds, kill enemies. And while these like other game modes don't get much use anymore because they don't make a huge amount of money, and like we talked about before, when you're grinding cash, it kind of comes down to doing the same three or four things. But if you do take that out of it, there's a lot of really fun things to do, like the survival missions we did. And Chab was talking about weapons. Uh, I was there with uh Alan and Rahil, who is the fourth idiot in the criminal mastermind challenge we're doing, and you know, we were we were killing enemies with our MGs, with our shotguns. I walk around the corner, see Chad with a fucking firework launcher trying to trying to shoot at them, which does like fuck all, but he's having a good time, man.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

It was terrible. I was having a good time. I I I meant to pull out an RPG, but I needed to pull it quickly, and it was just on fireworks. So I was like, because a car was coming at me and I was low health, and I was like, well, let's see what this does. The answer was nothing. Yep, but what I will say, I had an incredibly fun time shooting a cop car in like I think I even had like uh red, white, and blue explosion.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Yeah, it's based on the American. I think it came comes like the 4th of July update, so it's like the American stuff.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

So I had like the star spangled explosion on a cop car, which was really funny.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

You enjoyed that. Yeah, so a lot of like I think I genuinely think a lot of criticism from about GTL Online usually comes from players like me who have played it for so long, we've done everything, we can see all the flaws in it. People like you, Chad, who like have played it but not to the same degree as me, find a lot more fun in just the open world, fun, simple things about the game. Like, I don't get as much enjoyment anymore about running my friend over with a car. But every single time we make a three idiots or four idiots video, I see you laughing your ass off because you run into a lawn after a mission.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Uh I dude, I I racked myself one up one time because I just like launched a random NPC on a motorcycle who like I think I was goat moving quickly, and the motorcycle cut in front of me, and I like I wasn't even trying to hit him. He just cut in front of me, and then I'm using the vigilante with the with like the the booster, yeah. So I'm zooming and I'm like law. I launched him. I was dying laughing. I was like mildly sad I hadn't had that recorded on my end. All that was recorded was just me laughing my ass off. But yeah, there's a lot of like unintentional but kind of intentional, like entertaining moments of like the ragdoll physics can be annoying, but god, they can be so funny. And I feel like in combat that can be fun too, because you throw like an explosion and then you just see a guy like do weird flips, and it I don't know, it it it makes me want to pull out like a rocket launcher, or it makes me want to like use the weird guns or like throw tear gas. Like, there's so there's so many options that like I barely even touch. Like, I appreciate they give you melee weapons in the game. There's a lot, yeah. There's no good reason to use them, but every once in a while, just like walking up to your friend looking normal, and then just like like I think uh I don't know, me and Raho we're getting into like a fist fight for like fun. Um, I think he dies, he comes back to kill me. I change out so that I have knuckle dusters on, so he punches me, I take a little bit of damage, I hit him, he's down. And like it's there's a lot of little things in this game that just they add a little bit of joy into our lives. Yeah, and I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

It there's a lot of props to Rockstar for being able to make a game when even when you're doing nothing, like in terms of missions or money, you can still have a lot of fun with it. Like it's it's not easy to do that. A lot of games rely on like you working towards a goal, whereas GTA you can have a lot of fun just by doing literally nothing, like nothing efficient or nothing progressing towards something. You fuck around like because that's what GTA Online kind of was back when it first got released. There was there was missions, there was like the survivals we talked about, but like the majority of what people did was just fuck around with their friends in online or fuck around with strangers in online. And I think when GTA 6 comes out, that's gonna be one of the biggest things that I'm looking forward to, and a lot of people are is just interacting with people again and the community. Yeah, because obviously where GTA has gone to now, it started as like sort of this big open world sandbox where you do what you want, and over the years it's slowly evolved into like a grindy MMO RPG type game where you're trying to get your businesses set up, you're trying to do heists, you're being efficient. But when GTA 6 comes out, I'm sure they'll have businesses and heists very close to day one. But I think at the very start, people are just going to be interested in exploring the world, seeing what funny stuff there is, you know, killing people in fun ways, uh interacting with the physics and the driving. And that's like such a fun experience that the efficient grinding players have sort of forgotten to enjoy. Yeah, and is one of the biggest selling parts of GTA, I think.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

It is such a good, just like fuck around game, and that's why it's like when we talk about like, oh, what is this game? Like on paper, it's an MMO, but a lot of times it feels more like a sandbox. Not that you can create stuff, but you can get so many things, and you can truly just like go anywhere and do whatever, and it can be entertaining, yeah. And that's where kind of sandbox aspect comes in.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Um my only critique on that is that it it's it's a very difficult two genres to mix because obviously you you say you say you can do anything you want, but like your favorite vehicle at the moment is the vigilante. That costs like four and a half million to a new player. You ain't getting that anytime soon. That is true. There are limitations to like getting to the part where you can join the sandbox if you care about like the vehicles and weapons, but you can't also just log on steel vehicles and and fuck around. There's less you can do. It's like a limited sandbox in that sense, but that you can still do it. Like you can you can technically join a kayakruka heist as soon as you log in. You go to your phone, go to quick join, join a kaybruker heist. Most likely the host is gonna kick you, but you can technically do it. So you can do it, you know. There are the options there. I do think there are improvements you can make to the system to make that aspect of it more easily accessible. But then obviously, Rockstar want to sell shower cards and all that stuff, and that's a whole nother conversation. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah, but Dan, we're we're talking about the good stuff today.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

We are, we we leave that to the side. But yeah, in general, we leave it to the side. We leave that for all of our other videos about GTA. Exactly. Yeah, the bait the basic experience of what GTA online and GTA in general is at its core, is just like a really fun to fuck around game where you can sort of do a lot of fun stuff, a lot of crime, which the boomers will say, Hey, why would you want to kill people in a game? Do you want to kill people in real life? The answer, grandma, is depends who. No, um, no. Hey, depends who. No, uh it's good.

Driving

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Yeah, no, it's good. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of move us into driving because I think it, you know, it's gameplay related, but it's also like almost so much of its own thing. Because I think GTA is not a racing game, but it has some of the most fun driving in it. Now, if we want to make the comparison of like like my my roommate in college, uh he he's super into like F1 and all this stuff. So for him, I he was more into the realistic part of driving, so he played more like Sam Racing, which is fair, whole different beast. Um, if you take that out of uh out of the comparison, because I I don't think they're necessarily the same. GTA driving is so much fun. Um, there's all there's so much you can do with it, like there's so many different cars, and the physics I think just works really well. Um, but it's also very like anyone can pick up a controller and figure out how to drive. It's gas, brake, and steer. Yeah, yeah, so it's not too complicated. It's so fun.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

On the round table I did, one of the questions that Sav asked me was in GTA 6, would I like to see the customizations of cars be more intense with like being able to fine-tune your engine and like wheels and stuff to be able to it kind of like you have in like Forza Horizon and like I think maybe your anterisma as well, where you can like really tune your car to be exactly how you want it, like a real life car. And a sort of a separate question he sent to me but didn't didn't explicitly ask was like, would I want the driving physics to be changed or more realistic in five? And I sort of answered both questions at once because I it's a topic I really care about. I said if they straight up copy-pasted the exact driving physics from five to six, I would be happy. Honestly, I think I think I'd be disappointed if they changed it because I genuinely think GTA 5 has the most fun driving in gaming, and I love Forza Horizon, it's a it's a beautiful game, it's really fun to play, but there's just enough friction that the driving is like a bit more difficult, you need to be a bit more locked in to do it, and there's also less you can do in terms of the arcadiness of it. Like for the longest time in GTA, I love doing stunting. I still love stunting, like watching stunting creators like hazardous back in the day was my thing. And like gliding on motorcycles, being able to go to the top of Mount Chile out with a BMX biking and like fly around the map, that shit is stupid, it's not realistic, but it's insanely fun.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

It's so fun, like it's so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Whenever people ask me in chat what's my favorite update in GTA Online, you'd expect me to say like Kaiprika or the Heist. No, the best update in GTA Online history is cunning stunts, which is the update that added all those like fun like map creation tools for like the big stunt races, like the big the boosters, the giant the pipes and everything that came out like 2015, added all of that. I think that's the best update of all time because I love racing. And you had some like tools for racing before that, but they were definitely nowhere near as crazy. You didn't have like like when we played races yesterday, Chad. We had those like races where you transformed into random cars at random points throughout the race. So like at one point you might be in head with a supercar, then you get hit with a shitty truck, and I get the fucking vigilante and I zoom ahead of you. Yeah, that stuff is so so fun, and you don't get that that experience in any other game at all.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

I yeah, the the race creation is so much fun. And honestly, I remember when we played this game in high school, yeah, and it's it's like kind of all we did because people a were incredibly creative and made very like fun tracks, but like yesterday we played a series, some of them were more serious tracks where it's like you're going up in the air, but like it's it's mostly about good driving. Um, and then some of them were like parkour, almost like parkour or like obstacle course, both equally fun in their own way, and like I love when you have the ability to add as like a community to the game, like Skyrim. I think one of the best things Skyrim had was the fact that the modding community was so incredibly large and extensive and like active. And I feel like you kind of get that in GTA a bit with the race creation because racing is already fun, it's very arcadey, but like in the best way, and then you add all of like these ways to you know, you're not just racing around streets, you're you're doing jumps and you're doing loop-de-loops and you're going in tubes and you're like shooting up in the air and you're getting booster pad, like you're changing vehicles. It's it's so much fun. And I I agree, I think if they change if they changed a ton of stuff in GTA 6, but they didn't touch driving, I think they'd be well off. I think the ability to add something like an automatic or add manual almost like optional, or yeah, sorry, manual, uh, or to add like the ability to to fine-tune your car if you want can be cool, but I think a lot of people play because they're like, I can just get in a car and be a pretty good driver, no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

Yeah, the reason why I wouldn't like the fine-tuning stuff as much is it's similar to how Call of Duty has sort of gone now, where back in the day you could start a brand new level one cotta character and just log on with a default class and sort of compete. Nowadays, if your weapon isn't maxed out and you don't have all the best attachments, you just die quicker and you just can't compete at all. I think what I mentioned as well is that I think like because GTA is gonna have an RP, like RP is really big in GTA 5, there's gonna be RP in GTA 6. I think having like designated RP servers where you can tune cars could be cool, but in like the base online, I'd like to keep it relatively simple. Like if they have like right now, the customizations for cars is like you have engine level one, two, three, four, you have HSW for some vehicles that can go up, you have like transmission, you have braking. Um, and then on some cars, I think a lot of cars now. A recent update, you can put on drift tires on vehicles so your car becomes like really drifty, and you can do that now, which is a cool change. So I think like I wouldn't mind if they had some more engine levels, like maybe go up to like six or seven. Um having drift wheels available on any car, you know. I I wouldn't mind manual being a thing, but I wouldn't want it to get to the point where you have to drive manual to be able to win races because it gives you so much of an advantage. Like, whenever I do races with viewers, when you when you begin a race, you have the options to turn on custom vehicles or not. I always turn off custom vehicles because I don't like people having an unfair advantage just because they made more money in in the game. I want people to be on the same playing field and let their driving speak for itself. I think that's a more fun way to play the game. So if you have to use manual to get an advantage, I think that's a bit boring. Like in GTA Online, there are drag races that got introduced a while back, and you use manual shifting to play drag races, and like I find that really fun, but I think it should be limited to those modes specifically, you know. Or if like if I agree, I guess if manual is an option, I think in the in a race it should be only manual or only automatic, it shouldn't be mixed.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Yeah, because that's what you get to pick, because yeah, I agree. I I it's it's kind of the same where like in a weird comparison. I remember when Fortnite first came out and we were playing it, and one of the biggest things that like Fortnite has done that's really affected gaming today is uh cross-platform, yep. And they're like, you can be on anything. I was playing on PS4, and I found very quickly if you were playing on a console and you're playing against people on a PC, you were probably losing. Because there was that thing where it's like, okay, well, if I can do manual and I can, you know, push better just automatically. Like, like obviously there's skill involved, but even if you take out skill, it's like I can just be better than you because I've spent more time, because I've I I put more money into it.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Yeah, got a better car and shoot it specifically in a way.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

I got a better car. I've always liked the races where it's like everyone gets the same car, because then it's not okay, well, who who's played the game most and who's spent all the money on the really nice car and fine-tuned it versus like me where I'm given a bunch of car selections and I go, I don't know what's fastest. It's really nice when um that's been given to you. But yeah, no, driving in this game, uh literally they don't have to change a thing, and I would be so happy about that.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Yeah, because GTA 4 driving is a lot more, I guess, realistic, it's a lot heavier. Uh, it's definitely not as like because GTA 5's driving is very like fluid, like everything feels very like smooth. I kind of like the best relation I can give is GTA 5's driving is sort of like Modern Warfare 2's, the original ones. Gun play. Modern Warfare 2, the original one, is like very smooth gunplay. When you switch weapons, everything's very smooth. That's why trick shotting was so big in that game. And now a lot of the modern cods feel a lot more like stiff and realistic. And that style can work for some games, but I personally think I prefer the smoothness, arcadey feel. I always think G I always think arcadey games are more fun for like general play, free-play, replayability. Really tactical over-the-top games can be fun, but I feel like they're better for like one-off story experiences where you're like really locked into that style of play. For something like GTA, I want it to I want to keep it silly. I want to keep it uh fun, a little bit unrealistic. Like again, no one's no one's gliding across the map in real life. That's not a thing. Yeah. But I want it to be in GTA because it's enjoyable.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

I think the casualness of it really brings us back to the game, and it makes it so that like in college, there'd be days where I'm like, I'm gonna put headphones on and I'm just gonna drive around for like an hour. And it was entertaining. You know, every once in a while you'd like you're like, I'm just gonna go off this path, or you know, oh, let's see if I could drive up this mountain.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Yeah. I I guess the best way to describe it is it's satisfying. It's like swinging in Spider-Man, it's just like very satisfying. You don't have to think about it, it's not difficult apart from the enemy and or apart from the NPC swerve into your path because they're coded to piss you off. That happens a lot. It's just it's just a really good system, and I'm sure it will be changed to some degree. Like it'd be weird if it wouldn't, I guess, but I hope they keep a lot of the core features of this game in the next one as well.

Multiplayer

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Yeah, yeah, I'd agree. I I would love to see that. Um, I guess our next topic is going to be the the the multiplayer aspect. Um, obviously we've touched on it a bit, but I kind of want to look at like what do we see the pros of within multiplayer slash online. I in some ways there's they're the same, but like more on specifically the ability to play with multiple people, not just like stuff online necessarily gives us.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Yeah, yeah. Uh I think I I think my positives about the multiplayer aspect are gonna be positives on potential rather than positives of execution. Because in general, I think GTA like we had GTA 4 online, but it was very limited. It was basically just you played on the map with other people. There was like a like a couple of races you could do, but there was it was very bare bones. So the fact that Roxa decided to expand on that and gave us this full online online world with a bunch of missions, activities, you know, eventually expanded on that with heists and all this stuff you can do, like apartments you could buy cars, in like really, really, really well done to them because they could have easily just chucked the Los Santos map online and let people just fuck around together and gave us nothing. That's kind of what GTA 4 was. So the fact they thought ahead to like let us buy houses, let us customize cars and save them, all of that is like brilliant. I think they did a great job with that. But I think where the ideas were good, but the execution could have been a bit better is like well, I guess in the early days it wasn't too bad. Back in the day, you'd you'd try to play a heist and you could get people to play with you because they were new and fresh and they were a good moneymaker. Yeah. Nowadays, trying to get random people to play with you is kind of uh uh difficult and near impossible. That also could just be because it's been so long that people aren't playing the game as much anymore.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

I also live in Australia, play on PS5. There's a limited player base due to it not being cross-console that you can realistically play with, and the servers are sometimes a little bit fucky. But I still appreciate the fact I can play with players. Some of my favorite memories ever in GTA Online is playing with random players in heists. Even though they're infuriating, they can be really funny. It's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

It's so funny what people will do.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Yep, like like getting like playing the game for 13 years and being like competent at it and then seeing someone get on for the first time and not know how to shoot a gun, Alan, is objectively very hilarious. It's really good, and you don't get those experiences if you don't have an open online world where you can meet and interact with people naturally. Um, it's also a game that's easy to pick up and play. Like, I don't think I could convince Alan to make a video with me if I was playing RuneScape, because like he'd need to put tens, if not hundreds, of hours into it before he could even really do anything with me. GTA, yeah, you can be someone with a hundred with 10,000 hours, and you can play with someone who's just started the game and be like on a level-ish playing field enough to the point where you can have fun. That's yeah really good. Like, you can start the game and instantly you like you could start up a new account and play Kayaparika with me. And yeah, it would probably go fucking terrible, but you could do it, and it's possible. Yeah. Right from the get-go, there's no there's no bars entry to play with other people, really, for the most part, which is like a really good system because it even though it can be infuriating and it can be difficult to find people that are good, you can still find people. Whereas there is a lot of games where you get to the end game and you're kind of alone, like RuneScape, like most MMOs, to be honest, you get to the end game and you can only play with other endgame players. GTA, you can play with literally everyone, and you get a wide range of experiences and specimens to interact with, which is just good. Like, I think it's it's it's well designed in that aspect.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Yeah, I also think to kind of tag on to something that you said uh kind of earlier was like we you know, we have a lot of complaints of like, oh man, you can't find anyone, or oh man, the people doing heist suck. This is 13 years into online being a real thing. When it the first couple years it was coming out, you everyone was doing the heist, and everyone was like into it. And it's not to say people aren't now because, like you said, you can still find these people, but like the fact that 13 years later it's tougher, but you could still do it is really cool. If you tried to get onto, I'm trying to think of what Call of Duty came out around the same year, you'd know better than I would.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

Hot ghosts, black ops two, black ops.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

I don't know how active, if at all, those servers are. Hell, I don't even know if they're like up.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Some are, but yeah, it's it's a lot more difficult. There's not as many people playing.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

It's a yeah, where it's like a lot of complaints we have where we're like, man, you know, the community can be a little dead, like no one wants to do heist, but it's like that's because to some degree everyone's done the heist, and that shows that at a point in time everybody was doing heist, and like you could get some randoms together and beat a heist, it's a lot harder now, but that's just out of lawless people are doing it. Um, but there was a point in time where the online was very active, where there was a lot less I like like ultra killers, like um like the bike, I can't remember what it's called. Oppressor mark II, the oppressor mark two, where you just like it's it's a you you just fly around and kill everyone. Like when the game first came out, interacting with people was great because it's like, okay, maybe the difference is I have a pistol, you have a sniper. Yep. If you play it right, you can win that battle. You you know, you duck and you cover and you you get out of the way, you get closer, and then you take some some pistol shots and you're good. Like, sniping isn't really that easy in that game, it's not very not terribly fluid. I'm not against it, it's just like it is different. It's not like a COD sniper where you get people who are just like quickscoping and like getting insane kills. You don't really get that. I did actually hit sort of a quad feed.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

I did actually low key hit a quad feed on GTA when I was playing with viewers a couple weeks ago. I was pretty proud of myself. I that was good, it was good. You know, they're not they're not that fluid. Like one of my uh what like when we used to play in high school, we had a we had a friend called Carl, and Carl was a bit of a little bitch. He got a he got a person to mod his account and give him like 900 billion dollars or something. Oh yeah. So he always had the best vehicles and the best guns and everything, but I was better than him. He was good, but I was better than him. So even when he had the best stuff, I could still kill him a good amount. And and like the back and forth of fighting like that, again, even when someone has a much better stuff than you, it's a bit more difficult now with the oppressor, but this was before those days, before the dark times. It was really like it was really chill. Like back in the early days, the best thing you would have against like is like a buzzard or a tank, and like most people didn't have a tank because it costs a lot of money. In general, the fighting was like you said, guns or melee weapons and stuff and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

Yeah, and even those two things, there's a homing launcher that you can use to kill a buzzard, and a tank is pretty hard to kill, it's also not that mobile, so you can easily get around it and avoid it. And like, there were things you could do. The oppressor mark II is hard because it's OP, but that's also what happens when you're in the late stages of you know, a decade of a game being online, and they keep, you know, they keep upping the ante, but like for a long time the online community was pretty active and pretty like and pretty equal to a degree. It's changed, but again, it's at the late stages. But like the online for a while, I do think was a bit more MMO-y, which is which is really fun. Like, it's it's evolved from something that didn't start as an MMO whatsoever. It was a story game, and I think it's done a really good job. I mean, again, going back to the leagues, they're making a shitload of money. That's not necessarily saying that they're the best out there artistically, but like they're doing some ranks, people are still playing, and I think it's it's just fun. I think really the big thing that ties a lot of this together is like there's just so many mechanics that are just arcadey and fun and casual, and it keeps people coming, it keeps us coming, and that's just kind of a fun thing to to have. A lot of people, a lot of people like a grindy game, like an Elden Ring. Um but a lot of people just kind of want to kick back, play video games with friends for a couple hours, and then you know, head to bed.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Yeah, just to reach it does that well. Just to reiterate what you said, it does keep us coming. That is what it does.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

I had a goddamn feeling you were gonna pick up on. I said it in my brain, because we're we're tainted people. I went, hey, nice. To a thing I said that I didn't even mean.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Yep. Good job. Son of a bitch. Good job. Yeah, yeah, no, like pretty much what you said is what I what I agree with. Like, there are obviously some barriers of entry to fun, with like if you are trying to do stuff solo, you need to buy businesses to play some of the missions and heists, and if you want some of the better, better vehicles, you need to grind money. It's real, like realistically, it's not too bad if you put what work into it. Like, if you I when people always say, like, hey, I'm new to the game, what should I buy first? My number one piece of advice to those people is if you're new to the game, just have fun playing stuff that looks interesting to you. You'll get money eventually.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

Yeah, and if you're struggling, watch a guide, you know. Yeah, Rockstar constantly giving out money in the game. Like, when you I think when you buy the game now, if you bought it, you've never played GT, you bought it right here, right now. I think they give you like four mil.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

Yeah, and with that four mil, you can buy like a business, a car, some weapons just to start off with. Then obviously, with the the Twitch drops event I was just part of, free one million dollars to the to the people who tuned in, free out of it. Rockstar regularly give out, like you sometimes just log in and see rocks are rewarded you with uh 500k or something here and there. Uh and there are always like when I got on, I got a million dollars. Yeah, and there are also like oftentimes weekly updates that have challenges, like uh complete three of these missions and get a bonus one mil. So, like, yeah, you still have to do the work for it, but there's bonus stuff there. If you do play GTA in a smart way, and you like if you care about making money, it's pretty easy to make. Like, people always wonder, like, how do you get to 50 million? First of all, I do it for a job, like I get paid to make money in games. So that's one thing. But also, like, there are weekly time trials. If you do them every single week, that's like 400k a week, give or take. That's like it's not it, it's not a lot, but it's not insignificant, it builds up over time. If you spin the wheel spin daily, like you can get up to 50k a day if you're lucky. There's the other time trials that can give you an extra 100k a day. There's the wildlife photography, it gives you 100k a day. Like, there's a bunch of stuff that if you do consistently, you can build up money pretty quickly. And then, of course, if you're doing the heists, if you're at that level, uh, if you're doing the passive money makers, like the nightclub and acid lab, you can get there. So I do complain about like I wish there was a bit more ease in getting into like some of the sandboxy elements. Like they sort of lean, they try and like walk the line between sandbox and mmRPG, and I feel like sometimes they go too far in one direction or the other. But in general, it is a very difficult thing to balance on a deal on the set, especially when they're trying to make money with like shark cards and stuff. But I do think overall, I mean, like they're not doing a bad job, people still playing the game, evidently. Yeah, so it is good. I just criticize because I think some things could be better. It's also to my personal taste as well. I like MMOs, I like the really grindy games. I wish there was almost more barriers in place rather than less. I wish it leaned more towards the MMO rather than sandbox, but then I understand that would probably alienate a lot of the player base. So yeah, I I understand why it's not like that. And I think they've done like a relatively good job of uh of keeping the balance in place as best as they can, really.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

Yeah. No, I I completely agree. I've it's yeah, they they do a good job of like keeping people coming. And like, yeah, the the occasional just like here's a little melee. I mean like, when I occasionally even for less committed people, like like I don't play that often. It's only ever with you. They throw me an extra million, and I'm like, I could do some of that. I think I'm sitting on like five million right now.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

Yeah, and you barely play and just casually. Yeah. So if you don't care, like if you're the type of person that you get on and you really want to play with all the vehicles, it gets a little more difficult, but you can always go into a race and play with them. Like, that's a thing you can do. Uh, you can steal off the street or have a rich friend lend you his car for a bit. There's ways to get around it. Um, yeah, yeah, I think uh that's kind of it we have to say for the multiplayer aspect. I mean, like there are there are things that uh I think they will definitely improve on for GT6. I think matchmaking needs to be improved because sometimes trying to find people to play with, especially now, can be difficult. Or find players of like a similar skill level can sometimes be a little bit difficult. One thing I was talking about with TGG, another big uh streamer when we were streaming together, was that in heists, typically like in heist movies, and also in technically the game, they have like roles, right? You have like someone who's the driver, someone who's the hacker, the gunman, and it seemed like Rockstar was sort of trying to have that sort of system at the beginning. Because in the four original heists that we're going through now, you can see in the finale, like in the prison break heist, you have the the demolitionist who flies the chopper and has rockets, you have the pilot, and then you have us two, the prison guard and the prisoner in the heist. So clearly, there are four different roles there, but realistically, there's nothing about the players or the character that like determine which role you want. It's kind of just like, yeah, you do that, man. Like you do that. So there are some aspects where, like, I think the stat page, maybe in GTA 6, they'll be able to make it more specific to what role you want to fulfill. Like, maybe if you want to be a driver, when you start your character, you pick a boon that makes your driving slightly better than others, or you make your hacking slightly easier than others. They could do stuff like that to lean more to the RPG side, which could make multiplayer even more fun. Because, like, if we play together in GTS 6, I could always be the driver, you could always be the gunman, Alan could always be the pilot, because we love forcing that on him for some reason. And I think that could improve multiplayer relations a little bit, like it could be like roleplay a little bit more, um, which could be fun, and that element is sort of there. So that's I think it's a positive that it's in their thoughts, whether they expand or not or not, I'm not really sure. But yeah, there's there's a lot of positives. I mean, there's a lot of positives that are in the game. There's a lot of positives that are sort of there's foundation laid, but they haven't really expanded on it too much, but I'm sure they will. Uh overall, there's there's there's good stuff to talk about. I'm trying to hold myself back from from criticizing as much as I can.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

You're doing a you're doing a good job. It comes too natural to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

I can't help it.

Story

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

I know. It really does. Yeah, yeah. Um we can touch on the story if you want. I'm gonna be real, I haven't played the story in so long. I remember it being fun. I don't know if I could give you specifics.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

If you want, I mean we'll just a little note GTA 5 like single player story. Um, yeah, I haven't I don't think I've finished it since 2014. I've played through some of the early missions here and there, but I haven't finished it in a long time. But overall, like it's a good story. I really enjoy the three character like rotating cast that you get to switch between. I think that's really unique. I think I like this is such a specific thing, but I really love in the story that when you start the map is like all grayed out, and as you explore the map, it opens up to you. I really like that. I kind of wish I kind of wish they kept that for online as well. Because I think I just think it's kind of fun. Because there's a lot of people that play online that have never touched a story. Letting them explore the map like that could have been interesting. Um, but yeah, I think the three main characters, Michael, Trevor Franklin, are all really like good written, compelling characters. They all fulfill a good role. Again, like we said, driver, gunman, kind of two gunmans, I guess, but Michael's sort of the brains more, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

So that's really cool. And I guess I can talk more about the GT Online story since that's sort of been playing more. So I do really like how the single player story and things that happened do carry over, and then Rock Surf continued with that same universe in the online as well. So I didn't realize this until TGG pointed it out to me. But I think it's I'm gonna get it wrong, but the GTA online story actually starts like a few months or a year before the GTA online the story, like five story mode starts. Yeah. So when your character, your online character, lands in Los Santos, it's like before Michael and Franklin have met, etc. Yeah, and then by I don't know which mission it is, I want to say like Doomsday Heist or something, or the bunker update. There's some updates where they overlap. And then from that point onwards, online is after the main story. Because obviously, we get the contract where Franklin has already like got his mansion, he's finished with the story stuff. He's now head of this agency. But like you get to see Lester come over, not that we like him, but you get to see him come over, you get to see the story continued. I think a lot of the storylines in online are quite compelling and really cool. Uh, as much as some of the characters can be annoying, the whole like freak shop thing with Dax is quite fun. The agent ULP missions, like we played the finale together. That storyline, I've like I said, is really fun. I think Doomsday is cool, like basically saving the world from AI overlord trying to overthrow shit. Fun little side plot. There's not really a massive through line of the story in online, it's kind of like a lot of little stories interjected here and there, which is why you can sort of get away with playing them out of order, but even though things don't line up perfectly. Uh, I would like to see more of a through line in online, through line and online in GTS X. But I mean, the fact that they continued storytelling in online is pretty good because like when it first came out, it was just a bunch of random contact missions and a and a map. Yeah. So the fact they did continue telling some sort of story here and there is quite good. Like, I think it's a definitely a positive thing that rocks are happy to tell stories. And I'm sure their writing's only really gonna get better, like with GTSX. I'm sure they're spending a lot of time on it. Like even from the trailer, like we've seen both trailers, the story looks really cool so far. The sort of like Bonnie and Clyde love story between Jason and Lucia doing heists and stuff together in Miami, it looks really interesting. And I don't think Rockstar's ever really missed with a plot. I'm sure some people don't like the details of some parts of the story, but the overall plot of five, the bit of four I've played, what we what looks like it's gonna happen in six, it's all very interesting. I don't think there's any real overarching negatives of the story in general.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:46

Yeah, I feel like heists are almost so easy to be fun. Like there's so many heist movies where they don't have to be serious, like the way you do the heist does not have to be like, oh my god, would this actually work? Probably not, but it's really it's there's just there's some whimsy about like the kind of Robin Hood, like you know, steal from the rich, give to the poor, like vibe. That's just it's just a good time, and I do feel like GTA really hits that of like they're not the big bad, they're like we're just guys who are trying to make a buck, and I mean they're committing crimes, but like it's a good time. Uh, I did remember my one comment on the story mode is Franklin's driving, his little ability to like slow down, so fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:35

Yeah, the the abilities are really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:38

Yeah. But I would be curious to see if we see it in another game or not.

unknown 1:05:44

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:44

I've seen it online, but like story mode could be very fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

I think I think we saw a little teaser that Jason and or Lucia might have like the witcher sense ability where they can like or like or like in The Last of Us where Joel can like hear stuff and see through walls a bit. I think We might have that sort of ability. I don't know if the driving will come back. I really hope it does because it is it is so fun. Um, yeah, uh last thing I wanted to touch on, which is sort of story adjacent. And sorry we can't go into too depth on the story. I'm gonna play GT5 again before six comes out, so I can give more thoughts when I do that. Uh, but story adjacent, one I think the maybe the main thing that a lot of people love about GTA is like the parody aspect of it. It's a parody of America, and it's it's really fun. Like you get to see so many things that are very like you in the story and in a line, you have Laszlo, who's like an America got talent host type radio style type guy, and you have missions where you have like you go into like America's got talent parody and fucking kidnap Laszlo and then make him strip down and take a photo of him for ransom. That's funny. Um, you obviously got the very like basic parody stuff, like instead of Coke and Sprite, you have Sprunk and the other one that I can't remember. Uh, you got all the different cars that are like sort of like funny sexual names, like instead of a Porsche, it's a Fister. That's good. You got all like the little sexual names, everything, even just like the little billboards around Los Santos that have like funny ads for shit. Like, all that is like so GTA and it's so good. And one of the things we were talking about on the round table is how like that's one of our favorite aspects about the game, and I wouldn't want to see it change. Someone brought up a point that like they'd like some of the community would like to see like a real car brand names and real brands get in put into the game, like they'd like to see like Nike or like Supreme or Lamborghini in the game. I'm like, no, absolutely fucking not. Keep keep the fun parody stuff. I don't because I feel like once you start mixing real world brands and recognition in the game, you start to get to the point where we're like, okay, when is when is Trump just in the game? When is like all these real things? Yeah, like you don't you you want to have enough distance from reality where you can poke fun at stuff without it being the real thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:00

It's also I think if you have a fake Nike or a fake Coke, it's funny because you go, huh, that's kind of a funny name. Oh, I see what you're trying to do here. It's a nice little detail that you see. The instant you start putting actual Nike or actual Coke, it's just an ad.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:17

Exactly. It's an ad, and also you can't do anything bad. You can't say anything bad about it because then the company will get mad. Yeah. So it just gets annoying.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:26

It doesn't work, it just doesn't work for what it is. And like again, GTA does so well on the little details of things.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:33

Yeah, like the app for like the sort of Facebook Twitter adjacent app is called Life Invader, literally invading your life, like it's just great little puns like that. Uh, I'm looking through Reddit for some of the other like fun like GTA parody names. Um or even just like the fact that you're playing in Los Angeles, like the city in a lot of areas is one-to-one to real life LA, but you just it's just called like Los Santos, it's called Vice City. Uh fun, like things like that that keeps it different from reality. I think it's sort of the similar thing where like Marvel has the real life places and then DC has like Arkham and has yeah, Superman City, what the fuck the fuck's it called? Metropolis. Exactly. Like I I like that. I I I typically prefer when things are not based on reality because like escapism is such a fun activity to partake in. So the fact you are in Los Santos and everything's heightened, you know, like even just the NPCs walking down the street saying weird fucking shit. Uh like the amount of dumb Florida man stuff we're gonna get in six is gonna be incredible, I'm sure. We've already seen the trailers, like people getting like eaten by alligators, and like uh it's it's it's great, and like it's something that GTA does really, really well. I know a lot of people are really have been worried about like GTA 6 is gonna be woke. I I don't think that's gonna be the case, and even if it is, like they'll make fun of the wokeness as well. Like they'll like they'll make fun of everything, like they don't care, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:03

Also, have you played GTA 5? It tends to poke fun at a lot of things, exactly, and I'm sure GT6 will do the exact same. I'm sure someone will will have a comment, but also people comment because they know that they get responses. Yeah, you know, maybe there was a period of time, there's a or a moment in time where we posted a video and and claimed that Dan was quitting YouTube. Possibly, Dan wasn't quitting YouTube, I just knew it with gain attraction, so I was like, let's do this, and it's kind of funny, so yeah. I I I think they'll keep it up. I think there will definitely be someone who's like, oh my god, it's woke nonsense. Uh whatever. Shut up.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:49

Yeah, so yeah, I think we we didn't touch on the humor much, but like GJ humor, I think, is really good. They do a really good job of making all the little things like really funny because it's like just enough of an elevation of what what reality is, like it's very close to being realistic, but it's like just a little bit more like SNL-y, I guess. I don't know what the good term it is. It's just a little bit heightened, a little bit more funny, unrealistic. Um, just enough to be a good time. Because I think if they kept it too real, it'd be depressing.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:21

True. You you gotta detach from reality, and I think the game does a good job.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:26

I saw I saw a TikTok like like a week ago of uh someone modded their game to be like your perspective was the eyes of an NPC, and it's the most depressing video ever, because you just like see NPCs going about their daily lives and getting brutally murdered by people constantly, and I'm like, oh, this this is this is sad. They put like sad music over and stuff. I'm like, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's funny, brutal. It would be a tough world to live in. Um I've heard people say, like, I've asked the question to chat, like, what video game world would you like to live in? I always say like Skyrim, I think because I've played it so much, I think I could survive. I'd go to the Bards College and just be a bard. I know how to play music well enough, I'd be fine, hopefully. And then I'd slowly learn magic over time, hopefully, with the money I make from being from being a bard, you know. Uh, Los Santos would suck. You'd like you'd die so fast.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:15

It's also it's like if I went, Hey, what video game world would you want to live in? And you have all these options of these fantastical mythical worlds, and then you're like, What if I went to a worse version of our current world?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:27

A worse version of LA, and LA is already shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

Like, imagine that, God. Yeah, yeah, it would be brutal.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:36

It wouldn't be fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:37

But it's fun to play, it is fun to play.

Outro

SPEAKER_01 1:12:39

Yeah, that's true. Um, well, Dan, I think I think we've about covered everything. I'm sure we missed something. I'm sure someone will in the comments will let us know. And if there's something you enjoy about the game that we didn't mention, bring it up.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:53

Yeah, if you'll still give our opinion on it. At this point, leave a comment. What is your favorite thing about GTA? Five online or the series in general. I'm sure that there's a lot we haven't touched on because I mean I haven't really played much of the other games. I've played a f like I played a lot of four online with friends and like maybe half the story or something. I played GTA San Andreas for like a couple of hours when I was a kid, and then not much else. So I don't have much to say about those games. Although I know they are iconic. Another thing we haven't mentioned, there's so many memes from GTA that were really good as well. Uh, very big in the in the cultural zeitgeist, you could say. But yeah, tell us what your favorite things are. Uh, let us know if we're wrong about anything, which we usually are. We usually are. And we will see you next week.