Topic: Game Themes, Settings, and Backdrops - the When’s, the Where’s, and the Who’s

@Yousef- @colonelkilgore @Th3solution

Oooh, allow me to bulldoze in with the real solution to this discussion.

Americans generally don't understand parody and satire, and can find it hard to mock themselves and their "culture", thus Americans find it hard to like GTA beyond "guns'rrr fuuuuun" which may influence Sol's prejudice 😁

There is a large group of people that like GTA just because it is shooting stuff, and being a criminal with no consequences, that can't be denied, wherever they may be from. But it doesn't mean that people with brains cannot see that it is overall one of the best crafted series of games ever made either, and the Hausers in top form are undeniably unstoppable. The love the dev teams show for their cinematic inspirations over the years is almost second to none, and Kilgore and Yusef have covered most of this already.

GTA on the whole is a love letter to crime drama cinema and tv, a whole heap of satire, parody and poking fun at all walks of life, but mostly the American Dream side of things due to the setting and premise of most of the games, and then it's own unique tale and set of characters. It is also a destruction sandbox for low level brain activity gaming sessions too, which is why it appeals so broadly, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have strong merits at its core.

I would say that GTA4, for me, is the pinnacle, and GTAV lost me alomg the way with the long dragged out and poorly executed heist set ups that killed all gaming momentum. It nearly gave people what they craved, the bank heist mission from GTA4, but bigger, better and more often, but it didn't really nail it in execution, for me. It still had some really memorable missions though, and the way they interchange and weave the stories between characters is where it is at its strongest. I find it a hard game to replay because of the dragged out sections though, whereas I probably replayed GTA4 about 10 times, and I've been tempted lately to get it in Xbox as its been so long since I last played it 😅😅

I'd really recommend to anyone wanting to try out the series to start with 4 as it is the least like anyone's prejudgements of the series. It's a proper crime drama, and maybe an eastern bloc protagonist will help Sol settle in, as you get to see America through the eyes of an outsider, and that is peak Dan Hauser, right there.

RDR, RDR2, LA Noire and GTA4 could be bundled together as the 'American Crime Collection' and maybe that would tempt you in without the "GTA" label holding it down? 😉

The "GTA 4" expansions (both of them) were brilliant as well.

Have very little to add here. GTA IV is not only the best game of all time in my eyes, but it’s also the greatest entry into R* and Dan n Sam’s portfolio. It does everything, every minute thing to absolute perfection. Gunplay, realistic heavy driving physics, euphoria engine making fgc tiniest of movements believable, phenomenal creating writing, extremely replayable campaign, possibly the best DLC (although deaf rising case zero comes extremely close), great side activity where you can attend comedy shows of real life stand up comedians like Kat Williams and Ricky Gervais, phenomenal soundtrack and radio, phenomenal memes (let’s go bowling), a lot of “thought food” thought proving narrative, hang out with your friends and learn more about them and about niko himself, it’s impossible to list every good thing on the fly. Also helped me discover so many of my favorite music artists, but that comes with the territory for quite literally every gta I’ve played. Even the PSP ones (you cannot have an arabic song in a gta and not immediately get my approval, look up GTA:LCS radio). It’s possibly the best aging R* game by far too, and would easily be the most accessible entry for If not for R* being total arseholes (and other British swears I wanna drop here but can’t because I never knew they were considered slang for something else, definitely a non native speaker moment on my end). And best executed “fish out of water” story in gaming, really, Dan just knocked it out of the park like you mentioned. I’ve very little to add in general so this is just unprompted gushing. I still replay gta iv at least bi annually. It shocks me how perfect it is every single time, almost like a pallet cleanser… even if I wasn’t playing a bad game before it??? How does that work??? It’s almost black magic how good it is.

But yes, it’s best I move on to where our opinions contrast. I really respect your thoughts on V but I will voice my experiences and some minor disagreements. Frankly, I’ve never interpreted “heists” that way. Assuming we’re both thinking of single player heists. I just saw it as R* pushing the envelope like they always do, so I’m actually intrigued by your perspective here. Personally, I find V’s length to be a big point of appeal and can replay the game on command (even 100%ed it, I’ve done in-game 100% for most GTAs). But I actually understand how it intimidates people and it personally on two minds. So I really fully get behind people who can’t get behind the length, despite being behind it myself. In fact, it is full of brilliance in my opinion and am really thankful to R* for pushing themselves to the limit (no pun intended. Wasn’t thinking of the Scarface song when writIng this which random fact; the entire Scarface soundtrack is on GTA 3’s radio. I felt that was worth mentioning)

Definitely agree here. I should’ve added this as well.

@Yousef- yeah, I think in 5, for me, steal a bin lorry for the heist, that type of stuff, just got grating. Steal a submarine, ooh. But then it led to pretty boring missions anyway. A lot of the missions were really grand in scope, especially ones where you escape a region, they were great set pieces. But some seemed a bit more like busy work with no real pay off in the middle. And that, on top of the story literally being "no real payoff" it just grated on me in the middle sections a little bit. That's all, really.

I was slightly tempted the other day to start over, or pick up an old save just to relive some of the bigger scenarios. And like I said, the character interactions and that interwoven tale is some really top notch stuff.

@Yousef- As much as I do enjoy the discourse about discourse, you’re right to suggest moving on. I mean, although everything here on forums is fair game (we have threads on food, music, books, F1 racing, and mental health) so I don’t think the discussion is unwarranted, but I think we can conclude we see eye-to-eye on the subject, just from different perspectives. I admire your passion and adherence to fairness and objectivity.

And I appreciate @colonelkilgore ‘s observations because indeed, I value open-mindedness quite a lot and consider myself above average as far as well-roundedness (there’s a made up word for you). Not only in video games and entertainment, but throughout the swath of life’s experiences. I try to be quick to defer to someone who knows better than I or has first-hand experience. I find that the world is too full of people with strong opinions about things of which they actually have no knowledge or experience. I’d consider it a related form of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and so I usually advocate a person experience something before judging it. (Like Musous for example, which I really wanted to learn and experience before passing judgment)

————

And so… as far as GTA goes, crime drama would fall into the lower quartile of my usual thematic interests. I know I’m about to open myself up to ridicule and disdain, but hey, I’ve come this far so what have I got to lose — I’ve never watched Goodfellas, Scarface, The French Connection, the Godfather series, or the Sopranos. I think maybe I saw part of one of the Godfathers, I’m not sure. Was there a decapitated horse in someone’s bed… Or was that one of my personal nightmares?

As @Ravix states, maybe there’s kind of subconscious aversion to looking in the proverbial mirror with GTA although I doubt it. I don’t mind poking fun at the American Dream and American culture (goes back to the discussion of being a big target, so like I say, it all comes with the territory). But like I mentioned, I’m not particularly interested in urban crime as a backdrop. But I am interested in the subject of redemption, morally grey thought-provoking narrative, class conflict’s effect on individuals, and the general exploration of the human condition. It sounds like GTA gets into these types of topics, which unfortunately has not been clear to me before. Some of the wrong perception is unfair, but in my defense some of it I would suggest is brought on by marketing also.

I do appreciate all the feedback about the series though. Besides GTA, what are the other good urban crime drama games? The Mafia trilogy, Saints Row, Sleeping Dogs, …. maybe Watch Dogs…? Yakuza? CyberPunk could be considered close? There’s not really very many.

@Th3solution that's the problem. There's barely any, as we discussed last week. There is a severe disconnect between the popularity of the genre, and games recreating it. I really enjoyed Mafia 3, as it really went the route of: the 60's were total sh** politically and more importantly with the racial divide, with its story (oh how times have changed... ... ... ... dot, dot, dot...

Oh, I ran out of dots) 🙄

((sigh))

But like @yousef- mentioned, the game was pretty much broken for a long time, and the game design itself was kind of bad too. I actually played only a couple of years ago, and it was fine bug wise for me, or at least I don't remember major issues, but the design was still a bit like the story was written and the devs didn't know how to just let people enjoy that, so had to section it off with bad gameplay based around controlling regions and really, really long fetch quests. It's a game that sticks with you regardless though, because of the stuff they did right, and I think maybe the best soundtrack in gaming, the one that has stuck with me most, anyway. As the 60's were so sh**, the music was insanely diverse and emotional, and just plain good, as people had something to say and did so. (I mean, I won't even mention how people seem to think that only since about 2015 have people decided to put their political and philosophical beliefs into media and art hahahahaha people are so f***ing dumb I could cry, but then a really intelligent catchphrase-repeater would appear and declare me a woke snowflake whilst raging about how sensitive they are to everyone elses personal thoughts! Oh, how did we let it get this way 🙃)

By now you've probably guessed I've veered off on one 😁

And you know I'm only teasing about the American stuff, I just like to get a jab in here and there for no real reason haha. Although, overall I'd say there is some correlation. I imagine the ratio of Americans that like GTA just because it's "fun with guns" is way more than Europeans that appreciate the other elements. But again, overall there's more people that are just playing it for the dumb fun than anything else wherever they are, and we appreciators are really the outsiders of the GTA player base. But because of that, we are the ones to be trusted on its merits as art 😁

Oh, back to the other crime drama games. They all fundamentally have something wrong with them. Saints Row (the first ones) are kind of good, but also bad. And then they got worse. But kind of enjoyable as their own thing, and had some really memorable moments, mostly sing-alongs. They were goofy, but they were supposed to be, so it kind of worked. Totally bats*** crazy, but unapologetically so. Until the latest one, that wasn't necessarily bad because of its characters or the new direction, it was just bad because it was a God awful game, made terribly by devs that must have just been hamstrung by the publisher, or just incapable, which I don't want to say. There is no explanation for how bad it was as a game. You could load in and within a minute there'd be a car crash where cars and trucks would just flip into the air and get stuck there, with no involvement from the player. It was just badly coded. They didn't even bother to get the sound levels for anything to work properly, which is what annoyed me the most, as it actually passed QC or testing of some description. It was like some kids had a go at game development in detention it was that badly made.

What I might do is turn this into what my hopes for GTA 6 are, and my expectations which fall short of those hopes 😪 but not right now. Mostly it will iist be listing a bunch of films they should have used for inspiration, and whether I trust that the new batch of writers will understand what is fundamentally good about past GTA's, rather than just what they think people might like because they don't really get what makes the series tick underneath all the mindless violence and silly sh** that 90% of the people think they like, but will not enjoy as much if they don't get the other stuff right too. I.e make a soulless GTA copy now Dan Hauser has had enough of Take 2

@Ravix Oh, that’s right — you did want more quality urban crime dramas, like Training Day. At the time, I didn’t know GTA for this classification. 😅

Of the genre, I’ve played the opening hours of Cyberpunk, Saints Row 4, Saints Row reboot, GTA 3, and Yakuza 0. I finished none of them. I made it furthest into Y0 and really was enjoying it, but the minigames and side activities were so overwhelming and I got into the real estate mini game and then sort of lost interest. It’s too bad because I was liking the story. It has Saints Row levels of silliness, although felt a little less egregious, at least there wasn’t sex toy themed weapons but I do remember a side quest about some school girl’s underwear.

If I tried Mafia, then I would plan to start with the first game, which I hear is the strongest.

😔 there are… no words…

@colonelkilgore That's pretty much the opposite of me - I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the portrayal of crime in American cinema!

@Th3solution @Ravix alright, buckle up lads, time for a bit of a longie (I love making up words).

Firstly, I thank @Ravix for saving me the pain of having to talk about mafia or SR again, now I can maintain a more concise course but purely fixating on GTA-alone.

First of all, GTA V has a bit of unique barrier of entry that’s not often highlighted in gaming due to the people feeling blocked by such barrier lacking the means or awareness of it. Hell, I played GTA V on release and it took me me 9 years-ish to not only become slowly aware of it, but be finally able to put it to rest and thus “complete my love”. It’s honestly a really heartwarming journey of growth for me so I’m really honored to be able to share it here.

First off (I’m running out of variations for this paragraph starter), I could confidently claim that around 2013, I could already speak perfect conversational English and communicate with strangers without a sweat despite how young I was and how limited my learning means were (my school wasn’t the greatest at teaching it either), but you might already be aware of the gigantic gap between conversational and native-level fluency. The latter requires some cultural understanding and respectable knowledge of slang as well as… technical terms? You know, like knowing how to describe objects or locations in a more professional/objective or academic sense. For example, instead of saying “He lives in Queens”, you’d instead say “He lives in the downtown area of Queens”.

Now…. Take a deep breath, take a small back seat. Because neither of you, or anyone reading this for that is about to realize just how much of a nightmare learning how to read and describe things in the second example was for me.

As an example, if I use words like “west coast”, you might think “area at the west of a large country”

My younger self from five years ago, begs to differ and would give this answer:

To put it eloquently.

To make things simple, analytical English is my jam. Technical English? Genuine nightmare.

Ask me why a game is good and I will explain in excruciating and meticulous detail, in your own language, why it’s a perfect flawless game like Dead Rising.

Ask me something dumb like what medicine I took for a cold and I would freeze in my place. (No pun intended).

And this has been an ongoing issue for the past 13 years, mind you. Never mind the fact I dodged so many bullets over the years, like when a former mutual mine of was accused of saying things he probably shouldn’t be saying to a female mutual, and I was this close to standing up for him but I kept my mouth shut by complete coincidence and good god it’s a miracle I did, had I actually, I would’ve embarrassed for not knowing what “pop your cherry” meant.

But never mind the things I didn’t say, because even the bullets I didn’t dodge were quite embarrassing. One time I was telling my friends that my younger brother was enrolling into a nearby university.

Except I didn’t say “enroll”, I persistently said “roll”, that he was “rolling into a new university”. Much to the confusion of my good pal back then whom I thankfully still talk to, unlike the tw@ t I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Alright, where does tie back into GTA V specifically? Well, I think V may have overdid it a smuuuuudge bit with its overdependance that.

As an example, let’s sample one subtle diss from gta iv.

“The fish market smells fishy?”

This an alternate dialogue, something Niko says to mock his Patrick (not to be confused with Patrick Star)’s use of words.

Now, let’s hover over GTA V, and see what that game considers an “insult”.

“You keep acting like an East coast arsehole!”

Now, I’m wiser now. I know what East Coast is, I’m more knowledgeable, I’m wiser, I’m smarter!
I still don’t know what it means.
What are East coast people like?
Why are they arseholes?
Are they really a bunch of twts?
If so, cool, how the hell am I supposed to know?

Now it sounds like I’m ranting, but it will soon become very evident as you’ll soon see that I’m not quite bothered by this as you’ll soon find out.

Because while my inability to understand things like “gangbanging” being a word used to reference gang activities like shootouts and whatnot, my lack of knowledge has evidently harmed my understanding of the story.

In fact, you will soon find out I have very little negative to say about GTA V as a whole. I consider it one of the most important games of my life. But that’s a topic for a different time so let’s just keep it at that.

So yes. You can start to see how events in my life shaped my experience with the game. At first, I thought I was alone here.

However, I was really vindicated to uncover that someone, who did not have the same language-culture barrier. Although, he was held back by an utterly different barrier, a Smokey, greeny barrier, wink wink.

But we both arrived at the same conclusion. Now obviously I was underage when V came out so I couldn’t quite share the same stoney starting point (not to mention it’s illegal in Kuwait anyways but even if it was and even if I was 60 I still wouldn’t drink, smoke cigs or any substance (I wanna say the British equivalent of “away for a smoke” but you can watch the Limmy show for that, great comedian btw but enough gushing about British comedians that can wait for another time), straight edge for life baby…! Man wouldn’t it be ironic if I’m now using a term neither of you understand right after making a giant post about not understanding terms? That would be funny although straight edge feels commonly known)

Sorry about opening a sidebar within a sidebar by the by. I tend to do that.

But yes, so, I’m not sure how to end this, I hope it was a delightful story for you. As a final note for you, Ravis, if some twt starts calling you a snowflake while hypocritically being an sensitive complainer while complaining about sensitive complainers, I will head to their house and beat them up personally.

@colonelkilgore there are indeed no words. Also Donnie Brasco is another excellent film. Gives extremely strong similar vibes to gta 4.

@Yousef- Your story did make me grin because I can totally understand why English, and specifically urban American English, would be really hard to follow for an outsider. I’m really impressed with those who pick up English as a second language because, well - first, it’s a weird language with a lot of rules, exceptions to those rules, and general lack of simplicity compared to other languages (in my experience). But second, the nature of its widespread use has propagated so many regional nuances and colloquialisms that I don’t know how people are supposed to learn them. Heck, the slang is changing all the time and I can barely keep up!

Even us native speakers get ourselves into trouble sometimes with phrases and jargon that we don’t always understand.

————

Nevertheless, some of your referenced terms and idioms are commonplace in the U.S. so that virtually everyone who lives here should know —

When something “smells fishy” that almost universally means it “seems suspicious.” Although in certain contexts it could be said literally if there was fish around. But I’m assuming that was a funny play-on-words about some clandestine crime going down at the fish market.

Being a “straight edge” does make some sense, but I would usually say a “straight arrow”, or “someone who follows the rules exactly and doesn’t stray from them, straight as an arrow.” But honestly “straight edge” would imply the same thing and no one would feel confused to hear that.

The Coasts of America is a much more complicated reference. At face value it refers to the two geographical sides of the nation and the States and cities that reside therein, but the terms carry some unspoken implications about people and things in that area of the country.

Usually when we say “East Coast” we refer to Northeast, also known as the New England area. The Southeast (Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas) are kind of their own thing, which further confuses things. So typically speaking “East Coast” people and places (New York City, Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia, etc) tend to be stereotyped as two types of people: 1) traditional, industrial, working class, and uncouth, but also another group 2) is snobbish (in the case of the Ivy League educated and business executives), rude, and live a very fast-paced, energetic, and frenetic, Wallstreet corporate lifestyle. That area of the country is stereotyped to be crime-ridden and where a lot of the roots of organized crime existed. So sometimes the “East Coast” moniker will imply that inner city street-smart urban vibe. People still can think of the East Coast this way but actually nowadays it’s overall safer and has less crime than many other parts of the country but the label has stuck because of the history and the media products (like the GTA’s) which propagate the stereotype. Also, the East Coast is traditionally where European immigrants have entered the country, so there’s a lot of European influence there. (Again, in modern times that’s less and less true with the ease of travel). The East Coast also has a really high ‘cost of living’, rent and utilities are really expensive for even small living quarters.

“West Coast” refers to a more laid back, sunny and Hollywood type of lifestyle. California is the biggest influence (it takes up most of the geographical West Coast). Being “West Coast” would tend to refer to someone as maybe a little more outdoorsy, surfing and beach combing, a little flashy and concerned about beauty and appearance, and sometimes implied being wealthy and conceited. It’s also quite expensive to live there, but homes are stereo-typed to be large and expensive, rather than cramped and small apartments. The West Coast is where typically the Asian immigrants settled in years past, so there’s a little more Asian influence, but also that’s changing as I mentioned.

For completeness — The “South” or sometimes called “Gulf Coast” (for the Gulf of Mexico) is stereotyped to be very traditional, slow, maybe even simple and dull, like backwards and uneducated. The North, often called the “Midwest” which is confusing because on the map the region is smack in the middle and even on the Eastern side of the country but is called Midwest because its west of the where the nation began back in its original days… the Midwest is where you have your Ohio, Michigan, etc. and so cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee. The stereotype there is mainly industrial, farming and agriculture, blue-collar.

What are East coast people like?
Why are they arseholes?
Are they really a bunch of twts?
If so, cool, how the hell am I supposed to know?

So to get back to your original questions — East Coast people are felt to be kind of rude and demeaning. I’m not sure why this is, but it’s probably because the cities there are cramped and hectic and people there seem stressed out. As far as how you’re supposed to know… all I can do is shrug.

I will also say that there’s some rivalry between the different regions of the U.S., especially East Coast vs West Coast. Probably Easterners don’t think of themselves as rude or condescending, and probably Westerners don’t think of themselves as artificial, shallow, or flaky. But each side likes to profile the other side and cast them in an unfavorable light.

Hopefully this helps you interpret US regional references.

@colonelkilgore Just when you thought your opinion of me couldn’t sink any further… 😅

I tried to watch The Irishman not too long ago. I’m ashamed to report I fell asleep somewhere around the one hour mark and never bothered to go back to it.

Occasionally there are times that I feel ‘in the mood’ for some mafia gangster entertainment, but it’s not my default.

@LN78 Honestly, that dissertation sounds like it would be interesting. In contrast to the gaming space, there are many, many well-regarded movies about the subject.

@Th3solution I fell asleep in The Irishman too in all honesty bud 😅

@colonelkilgore 🤣 Whew! I feel vindicated!

@Th3solution I appreciate your expansion. Unfortunately, I am going to somewhat disappoint you by saying I got very little to add and as such this will be a much lighter reply.

While I lack regional understanding of a country as big as the states, I do feel obligated that I know what “west coast rapper” means at least, if only for the association of Los Angelos and subsequently, GTA San Andreas. I was getting really into rap, especially Ice Cube and I was able to find out they’re “west coast” and that was interesting to know. That there’s also Weet Coast vs East Coast rap war going. And I do mean war, as in Drive-bys (hopefully you know that word) kept happening and it’s how Notorious B.I.G lost his life at age 24. Based on his work, he was a real hero to me and a role model. This is really tragic and nothing can be said about it that wasn’t already said.

I think you may have gotten confused a bit with my fish example, as I already pointed out the joke that you did. Re-read that paragraph, I was praising Niko’s clever mockery of his friend. So your interpretations, while interesting, contradicts the clear and concise explanation I’ve laid out in that one short paragraph.

Shrug indeed. It’s interesting how R*, which is already a British dev, went quite hard on this. I suppose they only wanted you to have the basic understanding of these references because in a paragraph I was going to write but failed to remember to, GTA V turned out to be nowhere near as reliant on those slang to enjoy the story as I initially presumed, they did distract me. This I cannot deny. When someone distracts me with a word I don’t get, I’m less likely to understand what they’re getting across. It’s like if a politician tried promoting pepsiman as part of his campaign. I would not be against it, but I would fixate more on that than anything else he said.

As a final note, it’s actually possibly healthy to point out that my specific examples were a personal subjective dissection, and not meant to be taken as an objective dissection of the use of lingo and slang. Because I ultimately think that that’s a good thing, which is partially what I alluded to when I was saying this isn’t a rant, despite being framed at one. It’s quite interesting how I could come off more negative than I want. Comes with the territory of choosing to be analytical, rather than casual. You cannot avoid sounding cold and robotic. But at least I won’t look weird when I complete my plan of world domination.

Edit: hmmm, I guess this is my version of a “light reply”.

@Yousef- Oh, you didn’t come across negative. No worries.

And I’m sorry I misread your comment, which was more of a recognition of the “smelling fishy” figure of speech and a clever use of it in the game’s dialogue, rather than a reference to it being confusing to you. My bad.

I’ll also apologize for being pedantic in general. I think you and others outside of the States already have an understanding of most of what I wrote about, including the regional prejudices that exist here which are oft referenced in media and entertainment.

It does sound like Rockstar has done a really good job with re-creating the US settings and backdrop. Honestly in my travels I’ve found that most of us are more similar than we are different, even when we have a different flag waving above our heads.
… I’ll never understand beetroot, however. And don’t even get me started with marmite. I think even our British friends are torn about that one.
To plagiarize a famous comedian, “They could discover that marmite cured cancer and I’d say, ‘Give me the chemo!’” 😄

@Th3solution beetroot isn’t this gigantic enigma you’re thinking. It’s just likely prepared badly in countries that don’t eat it as part of the culture. Here we have it with a lot things. Juices, hummus, even burgers and it’s quite tasty. If anything, I’m the one confused by someone finding it gross. Must’ve led a really sheltered life. Well, no time like the present.

No need to be quite apologetic, I never had the impression you were being pedantic. And no need to apologize for the other thing either, matter of fact I’m grateful you fixated on that. As I always fully expect when people read my large posts that one or two things get lost in translation, and feel really happy when asked to elaborate as it’s another opportunity to better convey myself and learn how my words sounded from when external point of view.

I’m quite glad I don’t come off as harsh as I fear. Sometimes it’s a pill you have to swallow if you’re trying to dissect ideas, not people. But I’m glad we see eye to eye.

@Yousef- I read your reply, but I'm not really in a very typey mood, so I don't think I'll try saying much else 🙃 it was an interesting read, though.

I believe the discussion has turned to beetroot now anyway, of which I will say, I agree. A boiled or basically cooked beetroot is foul, but pickled, roasted or made in to other things it is a very good ingredient 😁

I also love Houmous, despite not knowing why it's spelled about 14 different ways in the UK 😅

As this is the game settings etc thread I'll pose a question, to you and the other GTA appreciators: what are your hopes and expectations for GTA 6 overall? I will talk about mine at some point here abouts soon enough, I imagine.

I'll even leave a teaser image that basically sums up my answer for my GTA 6 hopes, although there's a bunch of different inspirations I have in mind, and, in isolation, this is maybe an awkward still image to have used haha

10 forum points if people know the film though

@Ravix I’ll detail my thoughts on gta 6 since I’ve actually been waiting my chance to say my piece but as a super quick heads up I wanna address the hummus thing, there’s two explanations. A linguistic one, which I can happily provide, and a cultural one, which I cannot provide because I don’t know British culture (but I proudly own the Wallace and Gromit telltale game on steam so I’m a reliable source wink wink)

Arabic does not have a vowel system that functions similarly to Latin based languages or virtually all European languages you can think of.

As an example, if the English language wanted to imitate Arabic, hummus would be written with three letters, HMS حمص. Sounds complicated? Well, there’s usually markers in Arabic to indicate how a word is read, like this: حُمُصْ. But they’re not needed if you’re a native, they’re for outsiders or to learn new words.

English, and even Germanic/Romance languages, has nothing that imitates this. As a result, something will be bound to get lost in translation. To add further complication, the A-O-U-E-I five root vowel system does not exist either, instead it’s a three root vowel system, which, as you can imagine, leads to 5,000,000 million disagreements on how Evan the simplest Arabic words are meant to be spelled in English. Including names. Ever met a bloke named Ahmed? You should meet his friend, Ahmad. Or maybe you’d like to meet his other friend, Ahmid, or his cousin Ahmud.

Oh, sorry, they’re all the same jolly bloke. If you’re free, do drop to my cousins, Yousef, Yousif, Youssef, Youssif, Yousuf, Yoosuf and Yusef. All jolly fellas.