The Telegraph has a fascinating interview with Rockstar co-founder and main Grand Theft Auto writer Dan Houser. It's fascinating for a couple of reasons, one of them being that Houser doesn't do a lot of interviews. (But he seems to be in the middle of a full court press to promote the upcoming downloadable content for GTAIV, as well as Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS. Note this embarrassing article in the Chicago Tribune. Come for the headline: "Is Grand Theft Auto IV the Greatest Writing of the Century?" Stay for the strained appeals to opera, Greek mythology, ethnomusicology, and Peter Travers.)

But the most fascinating bit of the more grounded Telegraph interview is that it provides some insight into Rockstar's skewed perspective is on what does and doesn't work in their games. Says Houser:

We always try to get the tone of the story and tone of the graphics to feel seamless. We're trying to make a world that feels like it exists. And the old graphics were far more cartoony because that was all we could to, so the story and the writing needed to be as well. It's all about tone. What we're aiming for, is to make everything consistent. The whole game should feel like an integer where everything is balanced against itself and all bits are equally good.

I agree with Houser's comments, but he's talking as if Rockstar actually came close to pulling it off. They didn't. In fact, the lack of a consistent tone is Grand Theft Auto IV's biggest failing. The graphics are tremendous, and Liberty City is an awe-inspiring place to be. But the writing, which starts off promising and introduces a wonderful character (who apparently won't be back) falls apart. It eventually bogs down into pedestrian gangster tropes, neglected opportunities for character development, and wacky radio stations in which Judge Grady hits on the plaintiff, haw haw haw, now let's listen to a funny cartoon-world commercial about some hos.

Houser also says:

The idea that as you play the game you are Niko, because you're learning about the world with him, is very much the case. We tried to push that relationship with the player and the character to a new level in this game. That's why we kept the back story reasonably vague, and at a kind of mythic level, rather than go into the specifics about what his role was in any of the wars he'd fought in.

Kudos to Houser and company for pulling this off: If there's one thing videogames do poorly, it's this kind of understated "less is more" writing.

And then there's this bit of "aww shucks":

Movies and TV and books have become so structured in the way they have to approach things. Not working in that environment gives us enormous freedom. I'd rather keep the freedom and not have the respect.

Houser seems to think he's free to write what he wants because he's making a videogame, not because he's making a videogame in a monumentally successful franchise that can essentially do whatever it wants.