Roleplaying conundrum: 3 characters 1 option

Roleplaying is one of my favorite parts of playing GTA.  Even though the game doesn’t do a lot in terms of giving you options to develop your character, save for a few sliders on their skills and superficial customization; GTA provides the player with such a realistic world that roleplaying feels natural whenever you’re not blowing things up or driving like a maniac.  Going golfing as Michael, hunting as Trevor, or running along the beach as Franklin, the characters lend themselves to actions we can associate them with.

I personally enjoy walking and running, even biking, anything that keeps me close to the street and moving slow enough to see how the NPCs (non player characters) interact with myself, each other, and their environment. Since both Michael and Trevor are out of shape old men, one looking to be as lazy as possible and the other constantly coming off of a drunken and / or drugged up bender, it falls to young Franklin to roleplay the young athletic guy who enjoys walking and running everywhere.

Collision detection and animation triggers

For the tremendous amount of work Rockstar Games has done in developing an amazing world, there are some minor yet pervasive bugs that remain when it comes to traversal.  Not the least of which is one in which a player character will enter a free fall state  when jumping at an objective they could easily clear instead of detecting it, and jumping over it .  The result of which is a comical, if not frustrating, series of events where a character appears to run at a full sprint only to hurl themselves at an object with the intention of hurting themselves a la MTV’s Jackass.

Nothing shatters my beautiful roleplaying world faster than seeing my stamina maxed character Franklin get owned by knee high walls because I tapped the jump button too early and he didn’t detect it.

I made a video of Franklin practicing his parkour and beautifully failing at key moments, enjoy.

(Video footage of the woeful missteps of young Franklin, Franklin can’t jump)

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Andrew Mantilla is a ludologist and video game journalist for Play Professor.  You can check out more of his content on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.