Let's talk about the story in the Rockstar games

[Reasonable]

Reasonable said:

I've always found their stories a bit of a mixed bag for the following reasons:

1 - their narratives - and in fact most set pieces - are clearly drawn almost directly from films/books.  As such I often find them overly familiar - for example in GTA IV realizing I'm in the Rockstar version of the huge shootout in Heat.  Or the narrative in RDR which draws on a lot of Western influences.  In short, I feel they are often too close to their sources and not original enough.

2 - their dialogue though I think is often good with a nice ear for how people speak.  I thought the languague in RDR was very good, for example.  And GTA IV was pretty good too if more obviously stylized for parody

3 - their basic flow of narrative can be good but their mixing of missions in the open world can be self defeating.  This is more a function of having narrative within an open world but still, it is a problem.  Even when they control what missions you have access to when it's very easy to break immersion.  I doubt many criminals in real life, for example, break off from a heated turf war to complete a few simple errands.  Or someone trying to accomplish a mission to see their wife and child returned would take time out to gather flowers.  In short, the gameplay devices in the open world interfere negatively with the overall narrative

 

So, for me they're good and bad.  They do have good plots a lot of the time - even if only because they've borrowed them wholesale from successful films/books - and they can deliver good dialogue/voice acting, but the way the execute in the open world undermines things and I'd like to see more originality rather than obvious outright copying.

They are better than most developers though - and at least I can often tell they've watched the same film as me or read the same books.

Too many to mention.   But clearly Scarface, Heat, Goodfellas, The Godfather and many other films dealing with organized crime have been watched by the guys.  Ditto Once Upon A Time In The West, every Clint Eastwood western plus Unforgiven, The Wild Bunch and others more recently focusing on the closing days of the classic western.

Bully seemed more inspired by IF and a whole slew of more British boarding school/school days films.

In short - a lot.  And that's just the films.

Not that I'm overly knocking it overall.  I'd rather play RDR with a nice openning and step out onto what feels like the train station from Once Upon A Time In The West vs most games stories.  I'm just noting that, so far, it seems they rely a great deal on other mediums for basic themes/content and supply their twist.  For example the whole notion in RDR of the changing times in the USA is a huge focus for a lot of films/literature.

Anyone who watches a lot and reads a lot in certain genres (like me) will see a huge amount of referencing in their stories.