“These controls are awful!” he says. “How am I supposed to get immersed in this massive world if everything is a press and hold and another button press and you need to grip the controller in a Vulcan death grip to even get your gun out?”
“I think it’s meant to be slow and deliberate, to make you feel like you’re struggling through an oppressive environment,” I say.
“Well it’s ruining it for me. I’m turning it off.”
Alex, in certain situations, has less patience than I do.
But the more of the game I play, the less certain I am in Rockstar’s design prowess. While the world they have created is astounding, I’m not so sure these controls aren’t just the work of a studio that has always had a problem with inelegance in their game design. I like that you have to hold buttons down and it’s slower and more measured. But all the fiddling with button combinations, the lack of clarity in the interface, just makes me confused, and makes my character get up and down from his horse, open and close his satchel, accidentally shoot store owners instead of trade with them. That’s not immersive, it’s the opposite.
- - -
The next day, while I’m at work, Alex messages to ask how you get a big moustache. I’ve told him my cowboy has a big moustache.
I go and hide in the cellar and sit on a barrel and write a reply.
“Mate it’s easy. You just go to your camp and select your tent with the right stick clicked down. You hold in the left trigger, bring up your context-sensitive radial dial, push left to highlight trimmers, hold X and press and hold Square while releasing the trigger. You’ve now got your trimmers selected. Go to your mirror and focus on it with R2 - make sure you don’t have your gun drawn though or you’ll shoot the mirror. Now hold Triangle to enter the interact menu, scroll across…”
Alex puts three laughing emojis in reply, and I feel like I’ve really achieved something with my life.
The next day, while I’m at work, Alex messages to ask how you get a big moustache. I’ve told him my cowboy has a big moustache.
I go and hide in the cellar and sit on a barrel and write a reply.
“Mate it’s easy. You just go to your camp and select your tent with the right stick clicked down. You hold in the left trigger, bring up your context-sensitive radial dial, push left to highlight trimmers, hold X and press and hold Square while releasing the trigger. You’ve now got your trimmers selected. Go to your mirror and focus on it with R2 - make sure you don’t have your gun drawn though or you’ll shoot the mirror. Now hold Triangle to enter the interact menu, scroll across…”
Alex puts three laughing emojis in reply, and I feel like I’ve really achieved something with my life.
- - -
That evening I message Alex asking if he’s done many missions.
“Nah not really. I keep getting distracted. Have you robbed the doctors’ in Valentine?”
“No. Have you had a fist fight in the mud?”
“With the fat fella? Yeah. Have you killed any famous gunslingers?”
“Not yet.”
“I killed one and stole his boss gun.”
“Well I want to do that! Have you done the mission where you get the enormous rippling veiny black horse and then you have to sell it to learn how to buy new horses? And the only one you can afford is a mangy Skegness pony that makes your feet drag along the ground while you’re riding it?”
“Yeah haha.”
“It’s very disempowering.”
“How do you get clean?” Alex asks. “I’m dead dirty.”
“Press and hold triangle near a body of water. Push gently on the stick towards the water while clicking L3”
“Haha. No. Is that really how?”
“Yeah but you need to be lightly tapping X and toggling your second inventory dial and highlighting your stamina core with R1 as well.”
“Get to fuck.”
- - -
Already I can see how our playtimes are going to differ. Alex is shooting up bad bastards and blowing safes and becoming the fastest gun in the West, while I’m collecting bagfuls of flowers and brushing my horse a lot and standing on hills watching the night sky and taking all the baths.
But each to their own. I do think the interaction with the world is clumsy, wooly; that the systems are a hodgepodge jostling one another, lacking the synergy and grace of those in, for example, Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But the sheer width of the world, the amount of things to do, the different experiences for which the simulation allows, makes up for any mechanistic clunkiness. Enough width, it turns out, is in itself a kind of depth.
Seriously, though - look at this horse. I could fit it in my pocket it’s that small!
That evening I message Alex asking if he’s done many missions.
“Nah not really. I keep getting distracted. Have you robbed the doctors’ in Valentine?”
“No. Have you had a fist fight in the mud?”
“With the fat fella? Yeah. Have you killed any famous gunslingers?”
“Not yet.”
“I killed one and stole his boss gun.”
“Well I want to do that! Have you done the mission where you get the enormous rippling veiny black horse and then you have to sell it to learn how to buy new horses? And the only one you can afford is a mangy Skegness pony that makes your feet drag along the ground while you’re riding it?”
“Yeah haha.”
“It’s very disempowering.”
“How do you get clean?” Alex asks. “I’m dead dirty.”
“Press and hold triangle near a body of water. Push gently on the stick towards the water while clicking L3”
“Haha. No. Is that really how?”
“Yeah but you need to be lightly tapping X and toggling your second inventory dial and highlighting your stamina core with R1 as well.”
“Get to fuck.”
- - -
Already I can see how our playtimes are going to differ. Alex is shooting up bad bastards and blowing safes and becoming the fastest gun in the West, while I’m collecting bagfuls of flowers and brushing my horse a lot and standing on hills watching the night sky and taking all the baths.
But each to their own. I do think the interaction with the world is clumsy, wooly; that the systems are a hodgepodge jostling one another, lacking the synergy and grace of those in, for example, Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But the sheer width of the world, the amount of things to do, the different experiences for which the simulation allows, makes up for any mechanistic clunkiness. Enough width, it turns out, is in itself a kind of depth.
Seriously, though - look at this horse. I could fit it in my pocket it’s that small!
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