RDR dev wants "emotional response"

By Tom Bramwell Published 24 May, 2010

Says it's easier to do grown-up games now.

Infamous Grand Theft Auto radio DJ and regular Rockstar contributor Lazlow Jones has said he hopes the "really gritty western" atmosphere of Red Dead Redemption "evokes an emotional response" from players distinct from GTA's satire.

"I hope that for the people that do pick it up that it evokes an emotional response," he told Radio 1 Newsbeat.

"That people will feel they're part of our world and that they'll become immersed in the time period. We did so much research into everything. What the guns of the time looked like, what the clothes looked like, what the interiors in the game are like. Those interiors were all specifically researched by our people in great detail, so I hope they'll love it and that it'll put a smile on their face."

Asked how it felt to complete a five-year project like Redemption, he said: "It's an amazing high. You're also very sensitive to any criticism about it because you've worked so hard on it."

The producer - who claimed to get involved with Rockstar after he met one of the founders while out surfing - also said that he thinks the success of the last Grand Theft Auto game has made it a lot easier to create adult game content without being ripped apart by the censors.

"I think that Rockstar has pushed a lot of boundaries to be able to make the art that that we believe we should be able to make," he said.

"If you tell a gritty crime drama with violence and profanity and call it The Sopranos you're handed a load of awards to put up on the shelf. You do the same and call it a video game and you'll have certain organisations up in arms.

"I think ever since GTA IV came out and there were such rave reviews by major publications saying that this is actually art the restrictions about being politically correct have largely fallen away."

Red Dead Redemption is out now for PS3 and Xbox 360 and you can read our review elsewhere or check out the first 15 minutes of the game on video below.

The first 15 minutes of Red Dead Redemption.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (40) Latest comment 2 years ago

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

  • PlugMonkey #1 2 years ago

    Very authentic interiors. Completely disinteresting characters.

    Which do you think is the main factor in illiciting an "emotional response" Mr Jones?

  • Rirekon #2 2 years ago

    Actually RDR is pretty good for making you feel about the characters in my opinion
    When Bonnie get's kidnapped and you have to save her from hanging I felt a genuine sense of urgency which had nothing to do with not wanting to fail a mission. I cared.

  • hiddenranbir #3 2 years ago

    I love how Marston is so polite. And how he sucks at speaking Spanish.

    Great game, better than GTA4 by miles. If they make a GTA5 it has a lot of catching up to do.

  • Paperghost #4 2 years ago

    "When Bonnie get's kidnapped and you have to save her from hanging I felt a genuine sense of urgency which had nothing to do with not wanting to fail a mission. I cared."

    This, x 1000. Even better, the game managed to drench that entire section in what remains the most savage ingame thunderstorm I've seen. to me the characters are a hell of a lot more interesting than the GTA crew - in particular, they absolutely nailed the lead character in relation to him being a generally decent bloke. I had fears going into it that they'd make the lead a cliched "bad guy cowboy asshat", which thankfully hasn't come to pass. As a result of this, I tend to avoid doing bad things ingame for the sake of it, as it seems somehow disrespectful to Marston. When a game makes you feel like that, it's pretty damn impressive.

    Also: I'm incredibly pleased the "up in arms" brigade don't seem to have latched onto this game and started hammering it. Hopefully they were distracted by an abundance of cowboys and a lack of the word Auto in the title.
    Edited by Paperghost at 24/05/10 @ 09:29

  • JDFreeman #5 2 years ago

    Dunno what game the first few comment makers were playing, but I totally agree with this article. The main character is interesting and I want to find out about his past. I've found the dialogue to be witty, interesting and at times thought provoking. The scenery and artwork has made my jaw drop at times. The sound effects and music are perfect. All in all the game is definitely leaning towards art.
    Also im not Rockstar defense force, I hated GTA 3, loved Vice City, Havn't played San Andreas and Hated GTA 4.
    Edited by JDFreeman at 24/05/10 @ 09:42

  • andywilkie35 #6 2 years ago

    What a game!

  • TheJuriel #7 2 years ago

    Emotional response? From these one-dimensional characters and cutscenes whose whole purpose is to set up 'go here and shoot up these people' quests? Please.

    If you could make any choices, and the choices affected how people treat you, who lives and who dies, and how the plot progresses, then I might get attached to some NPCs and try to do something for them. As it is, they're just quest dispensing automata.

    Marston himself is pretty likeable, I'll grant.
    Edited by TheJuriel at 24/05/10 @ 09:59

  • CaptainQuint #8 2 years ago

    GTA's writing shouldn't really be mentioned is the same breath as the masterful scripting seen in The Sopranos, but I appreciate what this guy is saying.

    Whilst I like Marston; I find him inconsistent - it's hard to play the convincing hard arse bad guy role, when in the cutscenes he's the complete gentleman. Only seconds before, one could've brutally murdered an innocent bystander - witnessed by the locals, before doing a runner into the next cutscene, to hear John say "Mornin' Mam".

    Is that bad writing or bad design?

  • spiritsnake #9 2 years ago

    i cant wait till saturday to pick this up. i assume guys will be far far ahead in the multiplayer leveling.

  • hiddenranbir #10 2 years ago

    Is that bad writing or bad design?

    It is a narrative that conflicts with the sandbox-free choice game-play. Space Rangers 2 doesn't suffer from this.

  • Spency #11 2 years ago

    I can honestly say I've never played a game that I've gotten so engrossed in (maybe fallout 3 came close). It can be a little bit buggy but that's my only complaint really. When I was playing last night I was just taking a ride near MacFarlanes ranch and there was a guy kneeling on the ground cradling a dead woman (I don't know what happened to her). I got off my horse to see if I could go an help him and he picked his revolver off the floor and shot himself! Only a game I know but I completely agree that it's capable of producing an emotional response.

  • CaptainQuint #12 2 years ago

    As daft as it might sound, I actually found the story of CoJ: Bound in Blood to be rather engaging - so far moreso than anything in RDR.

  • MiniAmin #13 2 years ago

    The glitches have contributed towards many emotional responses :D

    On a serious note it's a shame the game is so buggy as its essentially wonderful.

  • aled #14 2 years ago

    Oh please, get over yourself Rockstar. Your stories aren't THAT GOOD! RDR's characters and story are mediocre at best.

    to mention this in the same breath as the Sopranos is ridiculous. stories for games like this are recycled from a hundred different movies and TV shows and as a result feature none of the depth or coherence of their influences.

    I think we need to stop comparing games' stories to those of other games and start comparing them to movies. This is the only way we're going to see real development in videogame narratives. If RDR was a movie it would be a really lousy one.

    come on and hit that red comment button, fanboys. :p

  • mezzomorto #15 2 years ago

    @CaptainQuint: I really enjoyed CoJ: Bound in Blood and maybe that storyline is slightly more engaging, but then again as other posters have pointed out this could be due to the sandbox model jarring with linear storytelling.
    In any case, last night I found myself thinking that RDR drew me in more and made me feel a lot more like I was actually in a Western than COJ: BiB ever did (then again I also found CoJ pretty buggy whereas RDR has been glitch-free for me so far despite other users' apparent experiences).

  • beyond_17 #16 2 years ago

    I'd give them an emotional response if they brought RDR to PC

  • ignatiusjreilly #17 2 years ago

    Come on, aled is right. R* do a much better job in the writing thatn most other devs, but it is nowhere near the standard of The Sopranos. The Sopranos is absolutely first-class, and its recognitions are well deserved. Games are a long, long way from that level, although to be fair, most of TV is too.

  • PlugMonkey #18 2 years ago

    @Rirekon

    Bonnie is quite good. She has a story and a motivation.

    In half decent screenwriting (or any writing), every character has to have some sort of conflict and story arc to make you interested in them. Admittedly, I'm not very far through yet, but so far I've met:

    (No real spoilers, but just in case...)

    Bonnie. She's struggling to keep her ranch afloat, and will do whatever is necessary to protect her land and her father. She actually has a story, and so I care about what happens to her. The mission Rirekon mentioned was very good. Unfortunately that was ONE mission out of the15 or 20 or so I've done so far.
    Then we have:
    The snake oil salesman. His motivation is, er, snake oil selling.
    The gravedigger guy. His motivation is, er, he's trying to find some sort of treasure. Or something. We don't really know what it is or why he's so obsessed with it.
    Drunk Irish Guy. His motivation is...he's drunk...and Irish.

    These characters have no direction, no story and no purpose aside from setting me errands. They are terrible, terrible characters. Neg me all you like, they still will be.

    Personally, I'd much rather have characters that fulfill the basic rudiments of story telling than authentic period interiors.

  • ctankep #19 2 years ago

    Like some of the other commenters have said, I'm finding the story and characters pretty 1-dimensional so far though the relationship between Bonnie and the protagonist is thankfully conveys some subtlety. One of the best aspects of the writing so far seems to be the layering of a historical perspective of early United States commenting on current political stuff like Blackwater, government and so on as the world of Red Dead goes through these transitions.

    On a negative note: all this story takes place in cutscenes & exposition whereas the actual gameplay does little to evoke the same ideas. Ride, shoot, shoot, left, right, shoot.! Might as well be Space Channel 5 in this regard and Rockstar as with lots of other developers are investing millions into "film" narrative which is totally at odds with "interactivity" and figuring out the hard stuff of how to engage players with choice / emotion / consequence in games. So all this talk of "emotional response" is kind of shallow as its basically using the same crutch of exposition to fill in all the gaps.

    Another criticism is that Rockstar games for all the money spent on development still don't allow players to role-play their own character. I started Red Dead fucking about and doing some evil shit, because I wanted to be a bandit and you pretty quickly realise that the game will punish you severely for this with endless bounty hunter posses after you which get quite tedious and you only get the good narrative stuff from following the story quite closely and sinking your imagination into the beautiful environments. Yes it's hard, but 100 million and 5 years in development I would have hoped for something more in the game design. Ah well still enjoying it as riding through the landscape is enjoyable [ in a Zelda: Ocarina of Time kind of way ] and the gunfights are fun though have to avoid all the broken stuff like the clumsy Euphoria implementation and lack of interactivity with most things ..


    -- Chuan
    Edited by ctankep at 24/05/10 @ 12:16

  • Paperghost #20 2 years ago

    @plugmonkey I found those characters to be reasonably interesting, the big problem was their missions. said this in the main forum thread already, but all the missions from about 27% to 30% consisted of marston saying "if you guys mess me round one...more....time...." which of course they kept doing, and all the missions seemed to involve riding shotgun on incredibly lengthy cart shootouts - the only one that seemed different to the others was the assault on the mines. it stood out all the more because they came immediately after the "rescue bonnie" mission, which they then dropped altogether and the potential for an awesome revenge rampage became replaced by "get on this stagecoach and shoot people again" which drove me round the bend.

  • makeamazing #21 2 years ago

    I am enjoying it alot so far, trying to ignore the bugs (like the whole world taking 5 seconds to pop in when taking my first stage coach ride)... but its just the random stuff that happens that is making me smile... hardly done any single player core missions yet... but enjoying it far more than GTA4, and i didnt mind GTA4... :)

  • PlugMonkey #22 2 years ago

    Paperghost
    @plugmonkey I found those characters to be reasonably interesting

    Really? How would you describe the emotion that you feel towards them.

    I think snake oil guy is very well animated, but I really don't care if I ever see him again. Same goes for the rest of them. They have no story.

  • jefranklin18 #23 2 years ago

    Was undecided about this, but decided to to take the plunge and (for reasons best described as pure impulse) opted for the Collectors Edition. Only played a couple of hours so far and it's enjoyable but I have yet to be fully emotionally attached to the in-game characters as I am in (for example) Heavy Rain.

    Still, recommended and fun though.

  • Spency #24 2 years ago

    I think it's a bit out of order to complain about the storyline and characters when you've only played a few of the missions. I like the characters so far. West Dickens and Seth are sort of the comic relief and don't need to be fleshed out too much. I'm sure there are plenty more characters to come who will be a bit more engaging and deep [Like Bonny and the Marshall]. Give it a bit of time for the story to develop. I agree it's no Sopranos but it's keeping me interested so far.

    [P.S. If you look on the gravestones at the church where you first meet Seth you'll notice that Marshall Johnsons' wife is buried there as well as one of Bonnie's brothers - He got killed trying to milk a bull!)

  • jefranklin18 #25 2 years ago

    One thing I think it does need however is the ability to take in-game pictures - I was riding a horse along the side of a canyon as the sun was setting; it did look very impressive and would have made a nice desktop image for the PC. R* could have extended this to include an (optional) sepia tint on the picture to add to the old west feeling.

    Of course, this may already be in the game and I have not found it yet :)

  • PlugMonkey #26 2 years ago

    @Spency: If West Dickens and Seth are the comic relief characters, and therefore don't need fleshing out more, why are they:

    a) In it more than the other characters?
    and
    b) Not funny?

    I may only be "a few missions in", but that still must be six or eight hours. Are you seriously suggesting that they haven't had time in that, and during some pretty lengthy cut scenes, to imbue their characters with some depth?

    Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the game. It does a lot of things very well. The emergent side missions where you just see something happening and intervene are very cool and really quite innovative.

    However, if Lazlow thinks that they are blazing the trail for "emotional response", then I think he's sadly mistaken, regardless of how detailed the building interiors are.

  • Stratix #27 2 years ago

    Yeah, I played the game, and I had an emotional response. I also thought it was worth more than an 8/10. *Grumble grumble* ...

  • TheJuriel #28 2 years ago

    "I'm sure there are plenty more characters to come who will be a bit more engaging and deep"

    Nope.

  • soviet_ #29 2 years ago

    I'm sorry but where is the comparison between how well the story/characters are written in RDR with The Sopranos?

    He is clearly referring to the acceptance of violence and bad language when it's a TV show

  • ruckus #30 2 years ago

    ctankep: "and lack of interactivity with most things"

    +1000 Let me use the fecking chair.

  • Dewis789 #31 2 years ago

    If my horse dies im going to through my 360 out the window and cry in tge corner :(

  • Spency #32 2 years ago

    @PlugMonkey I guess 'funny' isn't really the word. 'Quirky' maybe?
    I'd have to argue your point that there is no 'depth' to the characters. It's an ambiguous term anyway but what do expect R* to have done? They've given most of the characters a bit of a backstory (some more than others, granted, but there is a big ensemble) and they all have their own distinct personalities and maneurisms. If you listen to the conversations during the journeys then it fleshes them out a bit more (but you already knew that). If that isn't enough for you then that's a shame. I'm sure R* would be upset that they've disappointed you.

    I'm curious to know if you enjoyed GTA4 because there is a certain similarity in the amount of 'depth' they go into when they introduce those characters.


  • Eraserhead #33 2 years ago

    He wasn't comparing the game's writing to The Sopranos, though - he was just pointing out that you can have violence and misogyny and 'adult' themes on TV and it often gets lauded as being art, whereas in games it's always moral outrage and "Won't someone think of the children".

    Edit: Soviet got there first!
    Edited by Eraserhead at 24/05/10 @ 16:50

  • Marshall2008 #34 2 years ago

    I got all emotional with RDR last night. A glitch meant I had to reload an autosave when, during a mission, the wagon containing the gattling gun ammo wouldn't move. Complete SHOD !
    Edited by Marshall2008 at 24/05/10 @ 17:03

  • PlugMonkey #35 2 years ago

    "I'm curious to know if you enjoyed GTA4 because there is a certain similarity in the amount of 'depth' they go into when they introduce those characters. "

    GTA VI's characters had a lot more depth. Not a lot of depth, but off the top of my head:

    Nico Bellic: An immigrant fresh off the boat who has come to America to escape his violent past, but violence just seems to follow him around.
    Roman Bellic: Came to America searching for The American Dream, an ideal that he desperately clings to disguise the harsh reality of his own limitations, and an immigrant's true expectations in the USA.
    Brucie: A deluded ego-maniac who is obsessed with cultivating his macho playboy image, probably as an over-reaction to his latent homosexuality.

    You get all that from the first few seconds of meeting any of those characters. It's not rocket science. It's really basic stuff. They all want something, they all have an obstacle to getting it. This is engaging.

    Likewise Bonnie: She's a woman in a man's world. She wants to establish her ranch, but she is beset on all sides by violence, corruption and stupidity. She's interesting. I want her to succeed.

    Now do the same thing for West Dickens, Seth and Irish. I can't. I can tell you what they are - a snake oil salesman, a grave robber and a drunk, but that's about it. I can't tell you WHO they are.

    If you can't either, then they are just bad characters. Why would you care about them? And why are you so willing to accept that you just couldn't expect anything better from R*? This isn't particularly deep stuff, it's just plain bad writing. Why should we be so accepting of it?

    If this still isn't making any sense to you, then go and read any site - literally any site - on how to build interesting characters in fiction. Or watch that multi-part YouTube review of The Phantom Menace. That's got some good bits about why the characters in the 1st Star Wars films work and are good and interesting, and why the characters in the new films are bad and you just don't care about them. And it's funny too. It might help you see what I mean.

    Edit: Here's the link
    [link url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI
    ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI
    [/link]

    I'm not just ragging on the game - I like the game - but the worst part of it is when I have to go and to another mission for another character I just don't give a shit about because they haven't bothered to include a reason why I should give a shit about them. Then they wan't to talk about the "emotional response" of the furniture? Please! Put the basic ABC character stuff in first, R*, then we'll talk about the furniture.
    Edited by PlugMonkey at 24/05/10 @ 18:05

  • makeamazing #36 2 years ago

    Perhaps you are looking at a different emotional response that some of us are talking about? I am a big fan of history and "real world" stuff..I love to play open world games that try to mimic some aspects of real life. its difficult to explain, but your stood out in the rain in a storm, and in the distance you see the train pull up... its amazing, just taking the train journey looking out of the window was brilliant...I got that response a little bit in GTA 4 , but RDR is such an advancement in terms of how i feel... of course from a character point of view, i think HR pushed that well, its not the same emotional response i got from Heavy Rain, but they are two totally different games.

    So far ive had a number of great moments with this game, far more than most others i've played, so do i think it works on that level, then Yes i do :)

  • aled #37 2 years ago

    @PlugMonkey - your last comment is superb. Sums up how I feel about RDR's ludicrous claim of a "deep, engaging storyline".

    I love the game, don't get me wrong, but the story and characters are at best mediocre.

  • Spency #38 2 years ago

    West Dickens: A clearly intelligent but morally ambiguous entrepeneur. Aware that the world is a dishonest place but believes he has a place in it. Pretentious and manipulative, he just wants to make money but Marston takes advantage of his cowardly nature to get what he needs.
    Seth: An obsessed treasure hunter who's complete fixation on his goal has left him emaciated and paranoid (probably schizophrenic). He is aware of his own disgusting appearance and poor mental health and appears to regain a certain amount of sanity when he finds his 'treasure' . The story of how he got the map in the first place is not explained, leaving it open to the player to speculate (which I actually like). Has mother issues.

    (Haven't done any of the Irish missions so far)

    I understand that these characters have not been fleshed out as much as they otherwise would be in something like a film, but to state that they are 'terrible, terrible characters' (and to say it as if it is a FACT, rather than your opinion) is an insult to those of us who found them interesting. You seem to suggest that anyone who was engaged by their stories doesn't understand the complexities of storytelling as much as you do.
    My issue with what you have been saying is not that you aren't interested in or don't care about the characters (that's up to you), but that you think that is is down to the fundamentals of 'bad writing'.
    I'm not going to let a website (or a star wars youtube video) tell me whether I find something, or someone, interesting.

  • Spency #39 2 years ago

    Whoops! Haven't worked out how to use the spoilers tag, obviously.

  • PlugMonkey #40 2 years ago

    The idea is to say what the character wants, and what the obstacle is to them getting it. That creates the conflict, or - to give it another name - drama. I think these characters have no drama. Nothing to make me care about them.

    I would say that your descriptions are more about what the characters are, not who they are or what they are motivated by. See how all the GTA IV ones they are all trying to get something they can't quite get?

    The thing is, I'm not saying that's what makes them 'good' by some high-brow, literary measure. The cart and the horse go the other way round. First you see whether you care about a character or not. Then you look at why. I'm playing RDR and a West Dickens mission comes up and I think "Oh, not him again. I want to check on Bonnie." Then I wonder why that is. Whether or not you can write 3 sentences about a character isn't really much of a measure of anything. The point is whether you care about them, and with the GTAIV characters is that I cared enough that I can still remember who they were two years later!

    Personally, any one of West Dickens, Seth or Irish could get shot on the next mission and I wouldn't bat an eyelid. I don't care about them. But, if Bonnie got shot (or Roman, or Brucie) I'd be quite upset. Why is that? Well, all of the reasons I've posted above.

    If Seth or West Dickens got shot in the next mission, what would you feel? If you'd feel nothing, then they're not very well written characters, because what's the point of a character you have no interest in?

    (Notice the "if/then" statement. Hardly a declarative statement of FACT. Personally, I don't care about them. IF you also don't care about them, then they're not really working. Does that not seem fair?)

    The star wars youtube video, as well as being quite funny, has some interesting exercises that go through why some characters 'work' and some don't. Watch it. Don't watch it. See if I care.

    I went to the effort of finding a link because I thought you might like it. Ignore it. It's no great loss to me. I've seen it. I'm not trying to 'win' here, so you can't really score points just by ignoring something interesting without even looking at it.