I’m writing in response to The Chicago Tribune’s article titled “Is ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ the greatest writing of the century?”. They basically lay out the argument that because of the immersive atmosphere of the game, the game is the best story telling piece of literature of the 21st Century.

Part of the greatest story ever told?

Now, I’m not just trying to be contrary or anything, but I have to disagree. Actually I am trying to be contrary, but I still think that the folks over there at the Chicago Tribune are loony tunes. Maybe the atmosphere they create is immersive. There are lots of radio stations in this game, lots of TV stations and lots of internet sites. But all these things are NOT the game. I don’t know why I would want to waste my time listening to the radio stations. I want to be blowing up gas stations.

I want to be doing more of this

In fear of sounding like a broken record, I’m not going to rattle off the reasons I did not like Grand Theft Auto 4, which I did here. However I do want to counter the Tribune one last time. They write, “Borrowing from the 12 labors of Hercules, “Grand Theft Auto IV” has gamers complete dozens of missions—from driving a family friend across town to hunting down shady characters—that each unveil a little more of the plot.”. I can’t argue with that. But what I can argue is that I didn’t want to do any of those stupid missions. I just didn’t care what happens to Nico or his cousin or that strange homosexual man who likes cars. I could have done the missions but I had so much more fun running over roadblocks and then seeing how long I could survive with six stars. That seems a lot more fun then following some enemies’ car only to be pinned between two cars in traffic and subsequently fail the mission. I threw the controller.

Not this.

If the writing truly is good, then it should compel me to play the game. Valve has this down in Half Life 2. I’m just playing it now, and even four years later, I’m still blown away by some of the things they do. I mean, you’re thrown in a car by a giant robot. The last thing I remember that cool was “‘What if you miss?’ ‘I wont’”. As long as people decide to praise GTA 4 for being a small piece of heaven, I will continue to point out that it wasn’t that good and that it was extremely boring.