DRINKING TO EXCESS

An excellent year-end list from designer Steve Gaynor which focuses (with minor spoilers intact — unfocus your eyes to get past the bits you might not want to see) on the top ‘moments’ rather than games perfectly pointed out one of Grand Theft Auto IV‘s greatest charms:

In both scope and fidelity, it’s safe to call GTA4 an epic production. And really there was no better investment made than their decision to embrace Euphoria character physics…

Nowhere is this better showcased than in the game’s implementation of a drunken state: Nico and his drinking buddies stumble, lean, wobble, catch themselves, trip and fall with amazing dynamism, fully expressing a feeling of being out of control of one’s own body, and providing enormous comic relief as well.

For as much as it was a technical achievement, it was an acting one as well: Niko’s drunken dialogue diversion back into old-country pidgin English made him so much more complete and sympathetic a character, particularly his cab-hailing “yellow carrrr!”

Read the rest of Gaynor’s list for more excellent momentous choices from Yakuza 2, Rock Band 2, and No More Heroes.

MOTY 08 [Fullbright]