Why do games like GTA4/RDR get a pass?

[Kent-45]

So I've been playing Red Dead Redemption on my Xbox for about 6 hours straight now...and I've come to a sort of odd realization.

This game, and just like Grand Theft Auto 4, consist primary of what I like to call "pop-up shooting" ... In that almost all the gun combat in this game consists of:

1. Taking cover
2. Waiting for an enemy to pop his head out
3. Kill aforementioned enemy
4. Win.

Now my realization occurred around 3:30 AM just now... and it's quite simple: Kane & Lynch 2 got heavily panned for what critics called "repeptitive" pop-up shooting. In Kane & Lynch 2 you follow the same formula... find cover, wait for enemies to pop up, and then like whack-a-mole you kill them one by one.

The gun battles in Red Dead Redemption and Kane & Lynch 2 are fundamentally the same.... and yet 99% of critics can't say enough good things about Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption.

If only Kane & Lynch 2 had released an Undead Nightmare DLC, it might not have died so fast. If only...

[gnrGrievous]

Similar case happened with Dead Men...
Criticized for its broken cover system, but then Killzone 2 which really had a ****ty cover system gets a pass...

...

Alright, bad example, because it's a subjective point of view...
Whatever...

If Rockstar gets a pass it's because these were mainly Sandbox games, which means that the 'shooting' bit is combined with the driving bits, cutscenes, odd-jobs, basically the reviewers will tend to look at it as an overall experience, so even if the "pop-up shooting" didn't revolutionise the genre it just didn't mattered, so it gets a pass...
Dog Days however was a straight up linear shooter, so the reviewers will hammer down on the "pop-up shooting" to prove their point that the game isn't all that special... meanwhile Vanquish apparently altered a bit of the usual pop-up shooting, so critics praised it...

It's only fair, actually...

BUT the issue of the pop-up shooting formula persists, and here comes the important question:
how do we change it?

[JackGordon]

Similar case happened with Dead Men...
Criticized for its broken cover system, but then Killzone 2 which really had a ****ty cover system gets a pass...Killzone 2? I'd have picked Mass Effect; it also works with an automatic cover mechanic.

[gnrGrievous]

Sssshhhhheeeeeeeeeeaaat what was i thinking ? dissing on Killzone 2 while UNCHARTED is out there ! ...
In that franchise you always managed to get shot at even when hiding behind inch thick rocks ...
Then there are times where you're only given wooden/breakable cover , but while it makes sense that you can get hurt when hiding behind it , this is still a ****ty game design to begin with ! ...

**** game is **** , i know it when i play it ...

[Brackstone17]

I'd also argue that they get a pass since cover isn't entirely necessary in those games. Most of the time in GTA4 and Red Dead I just used cover the old fashioned way, walking around a corner and back again. Even then, I usually just ran around like a maniac. The only time it was somewhat necessary was when you needed low cover, which wasn't overly common.

[gnrGrievous]

Absolutely, even without the use of Dead Eye, run and gun was more effective to me than using covers in Redemption...
IV is a bit of an odd case... while i always take cover i've noticed that during the few sparse moment when i treat the game as a run and gun shooter i actually... 'survive' the encounters more often than when taking precautions...
Then again i don't use the auto-aim, stopped using it after my third playthrough because auto-aim headshots rendered the shootouts unengaging, and didn't even tried it for the Episodes...

...
What if this is exactly the remedy to the whack-a-mole scheme ?...
What if ... by simply removing the cover based style ...

No, but then again yes, Max Payne didn't used cover based mechanic, ah but it had slow motions ...
Jedi Knight series ? ah but people would argue it works best as a first person shooter ...

Christ i don't know, if the enemy don't take cover we call them stupid, if they do we complain about the repetitiveness of pop-up-shoot...

[UhUh]

What about a game that doesn't consists of shooting people all the time?

[Kent-45]

What is this concept of which you speak?

[gnrGrievous]

Ah but that's not a problem (well, until we are reminded that the industry won't allow developers to have enough time and resources to make a game, that while includes shooting, isn't just about it... ... so far the exceptions are rare, such as LA Noire) ...

The problem here is to make the shooting sections 'more' than just what we've been putting up with for the past five years ...
This eventually tackles the health system, because regeneration breaks the pace, health packs can give unintentional difficulty spikes, and just plain invincibility can be a bit dull ...

So by the time developers flush out a new way of playing a game , they wouldn't have any resources to make it into a game that doesn't end in four hours , because no one is willing to fund for a impeccable forty seven hour campaign with a ten year development cycle ...
They just chop it into ten four hour games , and people buy it ...

[UhUh]

Ok, in the middle of the firefight, when into cover you can choose to switch into banter mode, now the character is in autofire mode; meanwhile, you use a dialog menù to talk, you can talk to your ally(if any) or directly to your enemy. When you succesfully enrage your enemy the character autoshoot and kills him, or when talking to your ally he can do all sorts of cool stuff, like throwing exploding canisters or tell you about that time in Venezuela where he should've taken that elicopter instead.

[Kent-45]

So after about 3 days I beat Red Dead Redemption (the story at least) and I'm surprised because this is one of the first Rockstar games that I've actually completed from start to finish. I have, to this date, never beaten a Grand Theft Auto game. No matter how hard I try, I end up losing interest about 75% into it and move onto something else.

Was not the case with RDR though. The game felt pretty easy though... I seemed to really breeze through it. Didn't like the ending at all... but hey... Rockstar has to be edgy right? Why do audience's love endings like this? Just like Collateral & Heat...

I'm playing Undead Nightmare right now and it's hard to stay interested. I guess I'm kinda burned out on RDR. Feels a lot like Grand Theft Auto & World of Warcraft had a lovebaby in the backseat of an Elder Scrolls van. You ride and ride and ride... then ride some more... to your mission checkpoint... kill some mobs, loot the bodies, then go back home to collect your reward. Rinse and repeat.

Rockstar definitely has their formula down, but I don't think they can really sustain interest in their games with this. The "omg" effect of having poker minigames and being able to tame horses is kinda wearing off.

[IMPYEMU]

I don't think the main reason critics disliked Kane & Lynch was because of the Cover-Based Shooting...

But to anwser the question, it's all the other stuff included in the games that the critics like, I suppose...

Just trying to think like a critic here.

[Icedog]

1. Taking cover
2. Waiting for an enemy to pop his head out
3. Kill aforementioned enemy
4. Win.
Now my realization occurred around 3:30 AM just now... and it's quite simple: Kane & Lynch 2 got heavily panned for what critics called "repeptitive" pop-up shooting. In Kane & Lynch 2 you follow the same formula... find cover, wait for enemies to pop up, and then like whack-a-mole you kill them one by one.
The gun battles in Red Dead Redemption and Kane & Lynch 2 are fundamentally the same.... and yet 99% of critics can't say enough good things about Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption.
Agree that GTA4 is repetitive and Red Dead Redemption is but the story is what keeps it going. As for GTA4 it absolutely shouldn't have goten a pass because their idea of a story mission was a cut scene and 20 NPC's in a parking lot and basically all the mission were the same. So basically there Bull****in you GTA4 the best GTA

Similar case happened with Dead Men...
Criticized for its broken cover system, but then Killzone 2 which really had a ****ty cover system gets a pass...
Dead Men sucked for a different reason entirely, because Dead Men actually wasn't repetitive at all. They actually did a good job of mixing up the action in Dead Men but it gets over looked because of its bad cover and AI. If cars that you needed for cover didn't blowup and and if the cover system didn't suck than it would have done way beter.


What if this is exactly the remedy to the whack-a-mole scheme ?...
What if ... by simply removing the cover based style ...
NO the cover system is not the problem they just for some reason forgoten how to mix up the action. They just copy and paste and think that that will make their game all good.
Gears of War: is your perfect example of how these games ought to be with tons of action scenes.
Dog DaysThere was only three action set peaces in dog day and thats the first two levels and the and the helicopter scene and the rest is just going down a narrow path shooting people.
So after about 3 days I beat Red Dead Redemption (the story at least) and I'm surprised because this is one of the first Rockstar games that I've actually completed from start to finish. I have, to this date, never beaten a Grand Theft Auto game. No matter how hard I try, I end up losing interest about 75% into it and move onto something else.

Was not the case with RDR though. The game felt pretty easy though... I seemed to really breeze through it. Didn't like the ending at all... but hey... Rockstar has to be edgy right? Why do audience's love endings like this? Just like Collateral & Heat...
Rinse and repeat.
You never completed a GTA game before. All I can say is GTA san andreas was the ultimate game and it wasn't repetitive either.
first off Heat is a completely different ending than Collateral, Collateral was that happy ending that people like to see were the guy wins at the end. And as for that hitman He was a cool assassin but he was the 'vilain' of the story.