# A Review of Grand Theft Auto XXIIV

Retro games guide you through nonlinear narratives via carefully-crafted
constraints. To play Death Stranding 8 is to live in a Kojima-directed auteur
film for 120+ hours.

Classic games may evoke that warm fuzzy nostalgia, but they _constantly_ break
immersion. Before narrative engines, game developers forcibly corralled players
back onto a pre-determined _main_ main quest. Seriously, try playing any
silver-era Nintendo game without narrative mods -- it's exhausting.

Rockstar Games introduced a new narrative engine in GTA23. It does all the
basics: synthesizing lore, creating stakes, balancing tension, doling out
justice, playing cinematic cut scenes after climactic moments, etc.

Bear with me, but my big gripe with GTA23 is that its new narrative engine is
_too good_.

In a game with helicopters and prostitutes, you can spend five actual months
fishing for carp and grilling them on a shopping cart. The game will reward you
with varying sizes of small carp and convince you that a legendary megacarp
lurks in those waters, waiting for your hook. It will force you upstream when
industrial runoff kills all the wildlife in your usual spot. The game will dole
out friendship and rivalry and loss and victory in perfect proportions. You will
eventually hunt down a shopping cart thief and make him beg for mercy. The call
of that river will remain with you for the rest of your life.

Other reviewers became drug kingpins and oil moguls. My playthroughs led me to
become a carp fisherman, Wendy's franchisee, youth pastor, and chemistry
teacher.

I understand that this is a skill issue. The game does exactly what I want, but
apparently I want trite bullshit. Any game that exposes my unfulfillable
potential is too damn realistic.

Maybe other people have wilder imaginations, or desire cooler outcomes, or are
disciplined enough to invest incremental time/effort toward long-term goals.

GTA23 is fun, but it hurts to see others having more fun than me.

**6/10**