Saturday Soapbox: Bowling for Liberty

By Dan Whitehead Published 5 November, 2011

Why GTA4's Roman Bellic is one of the greatest video game characters of all time.

WARNING: This article spoils the endings for both GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption.

If you pay attention to the internet, you'd be forgiven for thinking that GTA4, Rockstar's rich and deep urban elegy, was nothing but a virtual cellphone simulator with a bowling minigame attached. No sooner had the teaser trailer for GTA5 dropped online than comment threads filled up with hilariously facetious questions asking if the new game would revolve around being pestered to take your cousin to the ten pin alley.

The cousin, of course, is Roman Bellic, the distorted sad sack reflection of GTA4 protagonist Niko. Thanks to the game's cellphone, not only could you call characters up to arrange weapon drops or vehicle deliveries, they could also call you up and ask to hang out. Getting drunk, watching a virtual Ricky Gervais performance, grabbing a meal, hitting a strip club or - yes - going bowling were all valid entertainment options within Liberty City's squalid boundaries.

No character abused that feature more than Roman. He'd call up at the most inconvenient times, with inane requests. "Hey cousin, it's me" he'd bleat. "Want to go bowling?" And we'd grit our teeth and get back to finding the perfect stunt spot, evading the cops or whatever wacky scrape we'd managed to get Niko embroiled in. It soon became a meme: GTA4 was the game where your idiot cousin wouldn't shut up about going bowling.

But in the inevitable online rush to be the first with a snarky comment or too-cool-to-care putdown, everyone was missing the point. Roman is supposed to be annoying.

1

Will GTA5's story offer similarly thoughtful characters.

It's notable that few people complained about any of the other friends that Niko could hang with. Brucie was funny and over the top, and he'd take you for helicopter rides or racing sports cars. Brucie was kind of a dick, but he was also cool to be around. Packie was lairy and fun, the ideal drinking partner with an attractive sister. Little Jacob was all weed and guns.

Roman? He was the opposite; a schlubby awkward loser, unable to hide his desperate need to hang with the popular people. And it's precisely because of his off-putting neediness, his pitiful hopelessness, that out of all the outlandish characters in GTA4 he's by far the best.

Last year, Games Radar named him one of the worst gaming sidekicks of all time. "Without Roman's constant pestering to embarrass yourself at pool and talk about women you're not having sex with, Grand Theft Auto 4 would degenerate into a hyper-violent, amoral fantasy" they said. For me, that's exactly what makes him so vital.

As gamers we're conditioned to have a very mechanistic view of plot and character. "What do I get out of this?" is the unspoken question whenever we engage an NPC in conversation. We expect some tangible gameplay benefit from the time spent. A discount on in-game items. A new side quest. A cool weapon or access to a new map area. They cease to be characters and become little more than help dispensers, ticking checklists off in our mind.

Roman offers none of these things. He never gives but always takes, demanding time and attention when you want to be getting on with the shooting. To get a little analytical about it, he makes requests of the nurturing emotional side of our brain right when our instincts are telling us that we should be beating our chests and feeling testosterone course through our veins. In doing so, he confuses, distracts and annoys. The common consensus is that his inclusion was a terrible mistake. I think that Rockstar knew exactly what it was doing.

2

Roman Bellic: part nuisance, part enabler and GTA4's best character.

Roman's character is a brilliant reversal of player need, and that's why so many people had such an immediate and vitriolic reaction to his whiny interruptions. What Rockstar so cleverly did was insert genuine role-playing into the GTA framework. Your reaction to Roman becomes Niko's reaction, and that reaction plays such an integral part of the story's tragic conclusion (whichever ending you got) that it seems weird that people are still hung up on the phone calls and the bowling.

Let's not forget, it's Roman who lures Niko over to the US. They share a tragic history, forged in the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. Roman is the one who made it to the west, the one who believed in the American dream, the one who ends up in debt to gangsters and runs a crappy taxi firm, even as he's telling his family that he's a big success. He's a complex character: idealistic but deceitful, loyal but selfish. Niko's relationship with him is equally nuanced: resentful but protective, weary yet affectionate. Every great crime saga has a Roman, the hopeless friend or relation who makes every wrong decision, attracts trouble like a magnet and drags the hero into ever darker situations. He's DeNiro in Mean Streets, Ed Norton in Rounders. It never ends well.

That cultural baggage hangs over Roman in the game. We recognise the archetype, but by making us engage with him outside of the scripted story missions, our treatment of him becomes part of the unique narrative playing out in our imagination. Maybe your Niko did his best to put up with Roman's insipid calls. Maybe you blanked him every time, stood him up, or let the phone ring until he gave up. Maybe you felt a small twinge of guilt as you did.

Whatever your reaction, it wasn't a waste of time. It was actual, honest character work - the sort of interactive drama that games are always looking for in their Quixtoic quest to be more like movies. You just had to wait until the end for that relationship to deliver a payoff based around emotion rather than shooting. Patience, emotion - a gamer craves not these things. No wonder Roman became an internet punching bag.

Eurogamer talks Grand Theft Auto 5.

It's perhaps useful to compare Roman's phone calls to the role-playing from GTA San Andreas, which was both more practically tied to the gameplay yet much more superfluous. Being able to fatten CJ up in burger bars, or bulk him up in the gym, were both features that had an actual impact on the game by changing your ability to run, jump and otherwise evade capture. Yet who cares or remembers that? It was a gameplay feature, but one with no deeper meaning. You stopped being CJ and became a godlike player, mucking around with his metabolism for a laugh.

More interesting, and more successful, was what Rockstar did with Red Dead Redemption. I've never met anybody who enjoyed playing as John Marston's son following his martyr's death, even though Jack was - in gameplay terms - exactly the same. He shot people with the same efficiency, he inherited his father's arsenal, but he wasn't the same character. He was a shrill-voiced whelp, and not the grizzled yet honourable badass we'd spent hours with. We missed John. We wanted to continue roaming the desert with him, not his brattish offspring. If it was all about mechanics, we wouldn't have noticed. Our dislike was purely character-driven, and that's precisely what Roman was designed to do: provoke an instinctive emotional response rather than a logical one based on gameplay benefits.

More on Grand Theft Auto IV

In the grand scheme of things, Roman's pestering was hardly a great inconvenience. You didn't actually have to take him bowling. You didn't have to answer the phone at all. But however you dealt with him, you were more engaged with GTA's world then than any time spent shooting from behind cover or screeching down the street in a stolen car.

My clearest memory of playing GTA4 has nothing to do with action. It's from the time when, after repeated nagging, I finally relented and went to a bar with Roman. We got gloriously drunk, and swayed and staggered into the night. I collapsed into the gutter, and a taxi narrowly avoided running me over. We laughed and I remember feeling guilty that I hadn't done this earlier and probably wouldn't do it again, at least not until I'd finished the business with Dmitri.

Then, on his wedding day, Roman was gunned down and I never got the chance to keep the secret promise I'd made to a fictional character. I felt genuinely sad. I'd treated him badly. I'd let him down. It was a weird, melancholy moment, and I realised that every time I'd rolled my eyes at the sound of the ringtone, player and character had become one.

It's a masterful use of storytelling in a game and that's why I hope that the volume of criticism over Roman's obsessive need to go bowling hasn't dissuaded Rockstar from delving deeper into the potential of interactive fiction for GTA5. Gaming needs characters who exist to do more than just deliver power-ups and signposts. We need characters who are there for no loftier reason than to provide depth and shade to a medium that is too often fixated on relentless practical progression towards victory. In short, gaming needs more characters like Roman Bellic.

Picture of Dan.

About Dan Whitehead

Dan has been writing for Eurogamer since 2006 and specialises in RPGs, shooters and games for children. His bestest game ever is Julian Gollop's Chaos.

Read more articles from Dan by visiting the Dan Whitehead archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (76) Latest comment 7 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Anjaneya #1 7 months ago

    Wonderful article Dan, thank you. I found Roman incredibly irritating, but went drinking with him intermittently. In the end (and due to spoilers) I chose to let Katie die instead of him... still not sure why!

  • octo #2 7 months ago

    Thoughtful and well put. People should be careful what they wish for.

  • Ironlungs76 #3 7 months ago

    He was a fun character to be sure.

    Titties!!!

  • ulix #4 7 months ago

    Spoiler Tag for RDR and GTA IV would be nice.

  • Kano-11 #5 7 months ago

    Teeties!!

  • Siberian_Khatru #6 7 months ago

    Nah.

  • Futaba #7 7 months ago

    I also have an amusing memory of going drinking with Roman in that game. Trying to drunk drive him back home was difficult, but it became even worse when a police car spotted my inebriated driving. This caused a 10 minute attempted escape from the police with Roman still with me panicking. Made me laugh as much as any other funny moments during my playthrough.

  • DanWhitehead #8 7 months ago

    @ulix There is one, at the top of the article.

  • svginc #9 7 months ago

    I never got Roman. But then again. I never got GTA4. The whole premise was wrong. The idea of making the game "grown up", simply fell to the floor the first time you killed 20 + people in the game. It just did not make sense. And for me that was the problem with the whole game. It was either taken it self too serious or seriously messed up. Why would he grieve and feel remorse about stuff that happened in his homecountry but not feel anything about killing left and right now?

    So I never finished the game. Quit after 5-6 hours. It started to bore me. And I seriously question the journalists who reviewed the game. I can not fathom that none of them had the same feeling :-)

  • Cobalt_Jackal #10 7 months ago

    I found Roman to be very funny. Some of the things he'd say were hilarious. XD

  • DavidBoring #11 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:51:37 12-12-2011

  • DarthKebab #12 7 months ago

    There would have been genuine tears had anything happened to Brucie.

    I remember driving to a mission and he called me to go on a helicopter ride, I was pretty much at my mission after driving for a while and had to say no, felt gutted though hearing the dissapointment in his voice, haha. :(

  • TheNonk #13 7 months ago

    GTA4 left me very cold.

    The plot was hap-hazzard, the city under-used (compared to GTA3) and I didn't care about any of the line-up of stereotypical gangster archetypes.

    GTA5 looks like more of the same. A brave new setting or era may have helped. Maybe a futuristic blade-runner style or even 1970s London as a corrupt cop with real moral decisions to make as opposed to even more mindless violence.

    Going back to modern LA as yet another thug feels like they're playing safe and have completely run out of ideas.
    Edited by TheNonk at 05/11/11 @ 10:35

  • danjfor #14 7 months ago

    Nice article. Spoilers for Gears of War 3: You know when Dom dies, and is relaced by Jace for player two? Me and a mate were playing, and were outraged. Who's this arsehole? This is bullshit! He doesn't even make good jokes! Get Carmine in here, etc! We lamented Epic's terrible story decision, until we realised the effect it was actually having; same as for Marcus, having to deal with the awkward newcomer just highlighted the absence of our old mate Dom.

    This article's got it right; if games were to do proper storytelling with their actual mechanics, we'd immediately hurl them away for daring not to entertain us 100% of the time.

  • AllenSpawn #15 7 months ago

    A very good article and read indeed.
    It's got me a little excited over number 5. Gotta admit I was a little underwhelmed by the trailer and it's setting...but I'm starting to realise that (to use a Batman analogy)gta:San Andreas is the Adam west version of Los Angeles, and GTA5 can be the Chris Nolan version. Looking forward to what characters the new one will throw up!

  • sirtacos #16 7 months ago

    Roman was my favourite character - sure, he was annoying, but aside from being the catalyst for most of the plot, he was entertaining and funny. I ended up feeling genuine attachment for him, which is a rare thing outside of (some) role-playing games (like Planescape Torment. Actually, Roman does remind me a bit of Morte, the talking skull).

    Great article!
    Edited by sirtacos at 05/11/11 @ 11:07

  • jefranklin18 #17 7 months ago

    Nice article. I did find Roman annoying although I did choose to let him live in the end (the chances of Katie getting her kit off seemed slim ;)).

    Still not a fan of the game though and don't think I have the urge to follow the alternative story arc.

  • RedPanda #18 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • AHiFi #19 7 months ago

    Danjfor - Please put some space between your spoiler warning and the text!!! There's no point putting it there when the line connected to warning me about the spoiler is the line with the spoiler on it!! This is the second game I've had ruined for me in the past day on eurogamer that I'm planning to play in the next month!

  • marmaduke #20 7 months ago

    Top article. I actually got the other ending, where Mallory get's murdered, and somehow it's even worse. I thought the story in GTA 4 was far too long and bloated, with some pretty dull missions, but were it not for the downtime in between going drinking and playing darts with Roman and Little Jacob I might have given up.

    Roman was at least less of a caricature than many of the other people you got to hang around with.

  • skuzzbag #21 7 months ago

    I felt bad letting the ex-con down until he just wouldn't even talk to me. I spent an evening trying to get back into his good books as I thought he was someone I wanted to help. As his messages got more and more let-down sounding I was reminded of the way I treated a friend from way back :(

  • lcmnick #22 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 12:48:44 14-04-2012

  • MinerWilly #23 7 months ago

    Christ i wish id never read this article ! Ive barely played RdR or GTAIV (about 20% in on each one) thanks for 2 huge spoilers in each game ! I never saw the little warning at top ....

  • ManWithNoTan #24 7 months ago

    Every family needs a Fredo.

    Ps Great article BTW
    Edited by ManWithNoTan at 05/11/11 @ 13:42

  • Spidey987 #25 7 months ago

    Dwayne was a million times more annoying. And it didn't help that when you did become friends with him, you'd already moved on to the next island, so even if you did want to hang out, it would be a big inconvenience just to get to him.

  • a.j2020 #26 7 months ago

    Wonderful Article, probably one of the best I've read in Eurogamer for years! Totally agree with it as well.. Roman's Death was truly shocking to me and it just made me replay the game and spend a lot more time with him. And I've always maintained that a game should only get a 10 if it does something that's truly unique/creatively amazing or new and I think GTA IV had elements of that in more places than one. And that's why I must say I'll be getting GTA V on day 1.

  • thefilthandthefury #27 7 months ago

    I loved Roman... I didn't even realise anybody could dislike the guy - he was hilarious!

  • Averice #28 7 months ago

    GTA 4 was promising at the start, then just got worse and worse. GTA5 needs to be GTA3, and less of everything that was in-between.

    Biggest annoyances of GTA4:
    - Conversation dropping because either you die or someone hits you or something else happens to you; I would constantly miss out on the conclusion to a story part because of this and depending on the last save (cause thanks a lot auto save) there'd be a lot to replay through just to hear 2 sentences.
    - How static each piece of the game was. You couldn't follow this story, or go chase after that story, no, completely linear despite the teasing of different stories.
    - Nothing to do on the side. Where's the collection quests? Where's the bonuses for vigilante missions, taxi driving missions, car boosting? Oh, right, you want me to go bowling... those mini arcade games weren't fun the first time and continued to suck each time you had to play one. GTA4 wasn't a sandbox game, it was a linear game set in a city.
    - Too difficult to get weapons once you've lost them. Some of the missions, if you lost your pistol and had to retry the mission it was impossible, not enough funds for new guns, no way to make enough money to buy new guns. I tried to help Jacob out and oh, right, guys with uzi's start killing me.
    - Buggy as quests too, but that's to be expected.

    GTA 4 sucked.

  • Lukus #29 7 months ago

    I enjoyed reading that and I concur. Roman is a good character precisely because of the reasons given. I felt genuinely bad when he was killed, I'd much rather it was my rubbishy in-game girlfriend who really made me work hard for a small amount of bedroom action.

  • danjfor #30 7 months ago

    @AHiFi Crap, apologies man. Lesson learned.

  • gjgjg #31 7 months ago

    Good points, thanks for the perspective - still hope they drop the whole mechanic for V: I have enough annoying friends in the real world:p

  • AHiFi #32 7 months ago

    @danjfor It's okay mate, I've actually realised you have put in spoiler tags which appear on the desktop, yet they don't appear in the mobile version. So apologies for the over-reaction. If I had read it on the desktop first, it wouldn't have happened. It's not your fault, but the website's fault.

    Get the website sorted EG!!

  • curtlikesmeat #33 7 months ago

    Great article, thanks.

  • stegabba #34 7 months ago

    i just download san andreas on xbox and although graphically outdated its 10x more fun that gta 4
    Edited by stegabba at 05/11/11 @ 12:37

  • danjfor #35 7 months ago

    @AHiFi Yeah, assumed it was a mobile site thing. FFS EG, sort that nonsense out.

  • Scimarad #36 7 months ago

    This is all very well but when you get right down to it we generally play games to have fun. I honestly wouldn't single Roman out as an annoyance because I thought he was decent character but if I had a chance to have Niko throw his mobile out of the window I would certainly have taken it. The whole mechanic of people constantly bothering you on your phone was deeply irritating and keeping everyone happy was an utter chore whatever the gameplay ramifications.

    Then again, I'm an unsociable git in real life too!

  • Widge #37 7 months ago

    I find quality storytelling and anything that moves away from generic gaming standards to be fun.

    This is why I prefered GTA over something like Saints Row as its outlandish gameyness and straight to video scripting ruined the fun of immersing yourself in the world.

    I do get that people want to be dumped into a game with a bunch of toys, and thats fun, but do remember those of us who find alternative motivations fun too. Be it the story heavy focus of something like Heavy Rain, or the constant punishment and reward of Dark Souls.

  • bionic #38 7 months ago

    I found the game tedious. Very tedious.

    Sure the day to night effect was good.
    A visited to the pole dance club was fun.
    Killing people in the street for no other reason than to kill'em (and drag people from cars etc) was fun.
    The size of the city was impressive, and detailed for the type of game it was.

    After a while, Bowling was avoiding, driving was replaced with quick taxi rides, buying cloths was put on hold, using the mobile phone was a bind, and the game aborted, sold on.

  • mpiwo #39 7 months ago

    Splendid job, this article!

    Cousin Roman is my wife's favourite character in GTA 4. She doesn't play games but when she first heard the phrase "Nico, my cousin" and the bowling pleading that comes after it, she genuinely took some interest in the game and its characters and world. She liked the idea with Roman's lies about the life in the States, for example.

    And Roman was useful after all, he'd send a taxi whenever one wished for one.

    I think that we often forget what a good work the Rockstar people do when it comes to character and world creation, especially with characters such as Roman.

  • norsende #40 7 months ago

    What a great article, let's just hope Rockstar doesn't listen to all the whiners and can still feel confident doing absolutely what THEY themselves want and know that works, just like Roman Bellic did.

  • Lunastra78 #41 7 months ago

    Roman was OK and quite a believable character, but I tend to prefer the extreme caricatures like Brucie or the Truth. :)

  • Demiath #42 7 months ago

    For me the problem with Roman is the same as with so many other intentionally extreme and morally questionable Rockstar characters; he never changes. No matter what you tell him, no matter what you go through together with him, he's still the same self-obsessed narrow-minded politically incorrect asshole as he was when Niko first stepped off the boat at the very beginning of the game. It's absolutely impossible to care or genuinely interact with a person which seems so completely oblivious of other people's perspectives, goals and/or needs - or even to the basic machinations of the plot itself. Interacting with characters in a Rockstar game - especially the clearly defined, dialogue-heavy ones like Roman - is like hitting your head against the wall over and over again...
    Edited by Demiath at 05/11/11 @ 14:19

  • Siythe #43 7 months ago

    Great article Dan. You just made me rethink my whole attitude to the character. Trouble is it changes nothing about how I feel about the game. Roman was hardly the only problem with GTA4. As has been mentioned the way the gameplay doesnt match the story, the way R* tried to railroad you through an open world game, the lack of interesting sidequests, and I'll add my own pet hate of toll booths, all these things grated on me as I tried to play through it. And then on top of all that this fat idiot kept calling me demanding I go bowling. Of course I hated him, he was an Avatar for the joyless grey/brown 'realistic' disappointment GTA had become.

    In a better game there would have been room to appreciate Roman and think about how well done this porttrait of an annoying loser was. GTA4 wasnt that game.

  • Dop #44 7 months ago

    Roman was amusing, Little Jacob was a good source of cheap weapons so worth staying on the good side of. There was someone you could date who'd knock off up to two stars of wanted rating.
    Apart from that a lot of the character interaction was just a bit crap.

    Brucie however was a character desperately in need of a bullet to the head.

  • gnrlstuart #45 7 months ago

    spot on there. I think that all too often when we meet a charachter in a game, the first thing we ask ourselves is 'how are they useful to me?'. it's sad how
    pragmatic gamers can be in this day and age.

    if we want more drama and plot depth in our games, then it's characters like niko who will make it happen.

  • O11Y #46 7 months ago

    Great article, agree 100%

  • Xardan #47 7 months ago

    Yeah, such characters make any game world all that more believable.

  • daver #48 7 months ago

    Good on ya Dan, great article. On reflection I think the game is probably my favourite of this gen, closely followed by RDR, precisely because of the characterisations. Rockstar are leagues ahead of any other developer in this regard.

  • soviet_ #49 7 months ago

    Brilliant read. I just don't get the hate of GTA IV, maybe I am at the perfect age to grow up with the GTA series

  • Skyclad #50 7 months ago

    Umm, sorry but I have to disagree.

    For me, Roman was as annoying as Brucie and the other friends. They were all the same. You needed their special ability, and from then on, you never talked to them again. Why? They didn't give you new information (or anything new or interesting); after a while, you've seen all the dialogues and you've done all activities.

    As for Roman being the best character in GTA IV - well, maybe, I don't know. I've already forgotten most of them.
    However, I still remember great characters like Lance Vance, Ken Rosenberg, Catalina, Sweet, Cesar, The Truth or Tenpenny. Yes, they lacked in characterisation, but they excelled in personality.

  • intpleeus #51 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:51:37 12-12-2011

  • Franky_Durango #52 7 months ago

    Great article. Bravo!!

  • kimchibaka #53 7 months ago

    A very interesting article, I completely agree with Siythe though.

  • captain_Carl #54 7 months ago

    Going by the fact i can't remember anything about him (or the game in genera) i'm going to disagree

  • bengaming #55 7 months ago

    Rockstar is just like future society in Idiocracy where they have lost the ability to have subtle or funny satire so everyone just drinks Jizz Cola and eats at Buttfuckers.

  • RevanNL #56 7 months ago

    GTAIV has some great characters, such as Luis Lopez, Brucie, Johnny Klebitz, Tony Prince, that Rasta dude etc. The Bellic brothers on the other hand were dull, didn't think they were as engaging as any of the other characters in GTAIV

  • Hieronymus #57 7 months ago

    I agree 110% with the author, Roman was a big part of my GTA 4 experience, and oh boy! I can't remember getting so furious from a game when I made the choice that got Roman killed, I instantly stopped playing the main storyline

    Love his cameo's in The Ballad of Gay Tony aswell

  • Smoped #58 7 months ago

    "It's notable that few people complained about any of the other friends that Niko could hang with."

    I wasn't keeping score at the time, but I was annoyed by the whole mechanism of these characters pleading for you to take part in these dull (after the novelty wore off, which was somewhere in the middle of the first time I went bowling) minigames . I'd say that even if people were complaining about Roman, it was the game design they were annoyed by, even if they didn't realize it.
    Edited by Smoped at 05/11/11 @ 18:04

  • electrolite #59 7 months ago

    Really good article. I don't understand the hate for Roman, or indeed GTA 4 itself, expressed by many on the internet. Not being an FPS fan, one of the few games I've bothered to complete this gen.

  • metalangel #60 7 months ago

    I accidentally found out that Roman could die, so took the option to let Kate get killed instead just so he'd survive and be able to enjoy the happy life he'd dreamed of and had finally achieved. We'd been through a lot, after all.

    Kate, by contrast, hadn't really done much, and I didn't feel much attachment to her (red hair aside), not least of all because she wouldn't put out :p

  • repeater #61 7 months ago

    I have nothing much to add to the comments above, except I really enjoyed this article and that I agree wholeheartedly with the point of view expressed therein.

  • Bilstar #62 7 months ago

    Bloody brilliant stuff. Properly good article. And I think you're right about what Roman does to the game. He did give it a certain texture that, right now, I think is unique to that game.

    He was pretty annoying tho!

  • deez #63 7 months ago

    I really liked this game, better than rdr and la noire imo.

  • OllyJ #64 7 months ago

    When roman got kidnapped I fucking loved going to rescue him. Killer.

  • filipo #65 7 months ago

    What a brilliant, well thought-out article. Major kudos, sir.

  • PBC13 #66 7 months ago

    I've registered on here with the sole intention of saying how much I love this article. It's pretty much everything I have always tried to put into words about this aspect of the game summed up in one eloquent article.

    Thank you!

    I would also add that the relationship with Michelle is excellent for a similar reason. People moaned about the dates, but if you actually engage with the game and take advantage of it then the pay off in their relationship has so much extra impact. Because the betrayal feels more personal due to you actually having to opt to take part in it - it is(or rather can be) more than just a simple twist in the tale. I admire that kind of innovation in storytelling, as it can pretty much only be achieved in this medium.

  • Morte-360 #67 7 months ago

    The characters ringing to go bowling etc never bothered me, Its optional (Didnt like any of the mini games themselves though), Roman could be pretty funny at times. I had to put up with Aerie and Anomen years back in BG2 I'm sure any character seems great compared to them memories. GTA V looks good but I'll wait until I see gameplay before I judge it.
    Edited by Morte-360 at 05/11/11 @ 22:53

  • gelf #68 7 months ago

    Personally I hated anyone in the game ringing me not just Roman. As a character I liked him but the whole badgering by every character of Niko to have a social life was annoying.

    GTA4 was ok but just didnt feel as fun as the old games. Though TBOGT did bring some of the fun back.

  • LBoom #69 7 months ago

    Really nice piece, Mr. Whitehead, but I'm afraid I totally disagree. You seem to think that engaging with Roman offered no mechanical incentive, but Rockstar actually went so far as to give you literal "friendship points" for going out with him, and docking you for not doing so. This is what bothered me about Roman specifically and GTA4 generally - nakedly mechanistic behaviours around every corner and behind every (indestructible) tree. Whether the aggressive/scared/oblivious triumvarate of NPC states, or the superficially, perhaps arbitrarily assigned emotional outcomes to binary "moral" choices, Liberty City and its inhabitants can so often exhibit a great disregard for realism (or even for a compelling facsimile of reality).

    Rockstar's open-world games are stuck at the bottom of about 500 different uncanny valleys right now, of visual, environmental, physical, emotional, and other varieties. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but they just don't seem to even be interested in trying to figure it out, or in recognising a problem, and I find that frustrating. They've cleary got the talent (and money) to be pushing boundaries rather than just building on them. So, fingers crossed, in GTA5, friendships won't be minigame vehicles with on-call car service prizes - they'll be what you, Mr. Whitehead, already see in Roman: reflections on ourselves, and how we choose to spend our time.

  • freethinker101 #70 7 months ago

    For me RDR biggest failure was a lack of characters like Roman. I loved him, in a brotherly way.

  • BeachGaara #71 7 months ago

    He's a terrible and inconsistent hypocrite, almost as bad as CJ from San Andreas.

  • coomber #72 7 months ago

    I'd never really thought about this aspect of the game in this way, but looking back it is a brilliant 'stealth' RPG mechanic. While I always ignored Roman and the Rasta, I was always happy to meet up with Packie, Brucie or the missus.

    I didn't let that influence my final decision though, which made the fact that she ended up getting killed that more powerful.

  • Code_R #73 7 months ago

    I think a "a hyper-violent, amoral fantasy" is exactly what people were expecting, and things like this are why so many were left dissapointed.

  • nosebleeds #74 7 months ago

    Fantastic article.

  • photoboy #75 7 months ago

    Mr Whitehead makes a very compelling argument, and I do remember now that despite being pissed off with Roman, I still couldn't bring myself to ignore his calls or neglect him.

    That said, my favourite phone contact was Dwayne Forge. He phoned me while I was driving around town and said he'd been in the shower and thought he'd heard his phone ring and wondered if it was Niko calling. I actually found this truly heartbreaking because it was clear the guy was just out of prison had no friends at all except for Niko. He was so lonely that he was basically sat by his phone waiting for me/Niko to call. I immediately felt guilty for not calling him and from then on I made a concerted effort to hang around with him whenever I had free time. Definitely a videogame "magical moment" for me.

    All that said, I would still prefer for GTAV to not include this feature or to tone it down, so that I don't feel like I have to fill every second of GTA's condensed days chasing round my "friends" making sure they're all still happy.

    One of the great things about the old GTAs was the way you could just go off exploring, knowing that when you were finished the main game would still be there waiting for you to continue at your own pace. The virtual friends of GTAIV definitely took some of that liberty away.

  • watu #76 7 months ago

    It still comes down to how annoying he was to the individual.....his annoying way didn't do the things this article said it did, it just plain annoyed me.

    I have no doubt that Niko would be very tolerant of him because they are cousins who have gone through stuff and Roman is helping Niko out, but most story tellers -whether it be books or movies or games- makes choices with each piece of work. If they choose to have a character that has downright annoying behavioral traits (Jar Jar Binks, the twins from Tranformers 2 etc) then they will JUST BE ANNOYING to some people....

    To me it all comes down to what I considered the main flaw in the GTA4 story. We were supposed to "be" Niko, but his "history" was kept from us and fed cryptically to us throughout...as if we were playign a character suffering form amnesia.......perhaps I would care more for Roman if I knew either what they had meant to each other before or what Niko had been through to be so grateful for Roman's help.....