Thread:Lucky107/@comment-4059927-20171227100613/@comment-4059927-20180102051219

Honestly I would recommend the GTA series. The parodies might seem childish but many of the stories surrounding the characters are really good. If you want really tight, emotional storytelling with mature themes then GTA 4 is definitely the one you'll want. GTA 5 adopts the same mature content, but it features some of the more childish features that were offered in previous games in the series.

I also see the stereotypes in Bully as something that is quite annoying. At least how they're developed for that matter. I felt Jimmy was extremely well written, Gary was a poor antagonist however and whenever I beat the game I honestly say that much of Gary's little plot to take over the school was faced with so many stupid little issues that I can't see how everything ended up so well for him up until the end of the game. Gary basically admitted his entire plot to the school and yet nobody moved forward to stop him. Did they think just because he was a sociopath that he can be jotted down to being crazy? Obviously Gary is smart, and he even manipulated guys like Edgar to do his bidding. Most of Edgar's gang is full of just crazy nutjobs. Like Clint, guy isn't too bright, but he's obviously insane. So Edgar knows to watch out for crazies when he runs a gang full of them convinces me that you think he would've been a little suspicious of Gary at first, but the fact that Gary even convinced him to go along with his plot proves to me that Gary is smart, and everyone else in the game is either stupid, or incredibly short sighted. I think Jimmy was incredibly short sighted and just let everything go to his head, honestly. The only one who was predicting Gary's every move was Pete and everyone just laughed it off.

I've always been critical of protagonists I just absolutely didn't like. Luis Lopez from GTA 4 is a big one for me because he felt like a copy-and-paste tough guy who didn't have much of his own ideas and just went with the notion of driving somewhere and shooting someone in the head as being a good idea for a paycheck. He wasn't a recovering drug addict with a lot of people's expecations on his shoulders like Johnny, nor was he a veteran of war who fought on the wrong side of it and realizes that the warcrimes he committed will always be a part of him like Niko. He was the weak link. I feel Jimmy Hopkins is someone with his own issues, but that's what really sells it for me. A kid with a broken home he's obviously seen more than someone his age should see. He's cynical, a bit hypocritical, and I even find that him compensating for fighting all the time is concealing an inner depression. He's both imperfect but really grounded. Despite his cynicism he still tries to find the good in people. If he didn't find some shred in decency in people would he do all these crazy things for them? Like breaking into the Tenements for Lola, or helping the Nerds despite the fact that they view him as nothing more than an easy scapegoat. He knows that he'll never be paid his dues, but he still likes to think that somewhere down the line someone will be able to stand by his side.

Since I brought up RDR I think I'd like to go into John Marston as well. He's what really started this resurgence in well written characters who are translated over to video games. Even the developers of The Last of Us cite RDR as a real tipping point for storylines. From the beginning I always thought his gang was just a group of vigilantes but upon playing the game I realize that they were horrible people, who were so naive and fed up with Government corruption that they believed the damage they were doing was working towards a more conceivable end. Dutch was a ruthless maniac that taught John when he was young his version of right and wrong. In that bank cutscene where Dutch shoots a girl down in cold blood I thought that would change John's stance on his former mentor. I was a little disappointed that it never did, but he had guys like John so wrapped around his in twisted views that it probably didn't click with John. Even when he put Dutch down he still saw him as that fatherly figure, even in his dying words. Dutch may have been right about how the Government operates, but he wanted to forcibly plunge the world into his image. He saw no way to make the world better, but if the world was to be left in the same horrible condition he at least wanted leverage over it.