Poll: GTA4... have you really played it?

[Orcus The Ultimate]

it's a very well made game, if only the story wasn't so linear, if only it wasn't so serious, all previous GTA games at least had the decency of having fun making wacky sidestories. This one didn't, and if you tell that Ballad of Gay Tony was wacky i'd punch you for not comparing it to previous opus's.

 

[Kurokami]

So we hear all the time about GTA4. In this weeks latest Extra Consideration, Yahtzee said "GTA4 was the biggest release of any form of media ever". Pretty big words for a game I've never played! Now, I did play GTA I, II, and III, and thats where my GTA experiences stop. Why? Just not my type of game I suppose. 3 was decent and all but I didn't think it was that special (tho I'll admit at the time it was pretty crazy).

Anyway there's still a ton of media about GTA4. It pops up in seemingly every "gaming culture" article/story.

So what I want to know is, who here has actually sat down on this game for more than 6 hours? And do/did you like it?

Played it lots, and it was good for what it was. I appreciated it but I personally enjoyed 3 and it's subparts better, San Andres in particular.

 

[Togs]

I played it when it came out and I was very dissappointed- it was a rapid change in direction for a series that had always been about over the top, cartoon satire to gritty realism.
Whilst some people loved that I didnt and found myself getting very bored very quickly.

 

[octafish]

-The friends constantly buggered you, and you were penalized if you didn't go bowling.

That doesn't mean what you think it means, unless you played with some kinky mods...

I just ignored every friend and girl in the game and stuck to the main gameplay. GTAIV is full of fripperies that could have been left out of the game, watching TV in a game? Come on. Despite the game being a resource hog and not working at all on Radeon cards on release it is still better than Saints Row 2 on PC. I like the car handling and thougt it was a fun game. As long as you ignored the unnecessary friendship crap.

 

[zombiesinc]

I've owned it since release, yet haven't played much more than... maybe five hours of it. I loved the previous games in the series, but this one didn't catch me as quickly, and I lost interest. I will eventually play through it, regardless of how annoying the damn phone calls get. I do not want to play darts, or go bowling, dammit!

 

[Serps]

Also played Ballad of Gay Tony and Damned aswell.. all decent games...

Would play them all again.

 

[Canid117]

Played it for about 40 hours but never finished. Its a damn long game.

 

[Breyder]

When GTA4 first came out I played it on the Xbox 360 for about 30mins at a friends house, that was about 27mins too long.

I hated the over emphasis on realism, the main reason I used to like playing GTA was to do the stupid stuff I couldn't do in real life like blowing up petrol stations, going on the run from the cops or pulling a handbrake turn around a corner at 80mph in a mule.

San Andreas wounded the franchise and GTA4 finished it off in my eyes.

 

[hardpixelrain]

I played a lot of it actually. Got into it quite a bit. However the drive here shoot this mission structure and lack of checkpoints, as well as the tedious pacing and extraneous missions, eventually just stopped me from finishing it. Same with all other GTAs.

 

[FalloutJack]

Sorry, I have San Andreas.

 

[JdaS]

I have. I am. I will. At first, when I decided to get it, it was this random purchase of a critically acclaimed game. I thought it was okay but didn't even play it all the way through in one sitting.

Then one day, the crime drama hardened version of myself picked it up again. I was hooked. I loved the plot, the characters, the way the DLC (big ups to TLAD from a big Sons of Anarchy fan)
intertwined with the main game in a Crash-esque way. The cellphone stuff, Roman's constant need for bowling, Brucie's heli rides when I was just going to start a mission and such were annoying, especially when the time given to get to the location was always one hour (minute) whether you were close or on the other side of the city (thankfully both issues were fixed in the DLC ones).

Other than that there was nothing I didn't like about the game. I was never a fan of the "ultra violence death maim kill blow up fucking everything with tanks"- style of playing GTA so the new, gritty, realistic GTA really won my heart.

 

[Something Amyss]

I borrowed it off my friend a while back and got to the last island. Didnt finish it.

But I've borrowed it off him again and Im determined to finish it this time. (started new game)

Its ok, I prefere Saints Row 2. But I liked it enough to at least try to see it all the way through a second time(currently on the second island).

I love SR2. Still play it.

To the topic, I played GTA IV and I was in love for a little while. But once I got past the shininess, there wasn't much. I hated the cardboard characters and the clunky controls. I played at least 80% of the game's main missions (Given the FAQ I just referenced), and spent a fair amount of time messing around, but it just got so...Boring. It was more like a chore.

 

[SpaceCop]

I've still got it, but dang, I've yet to finish it. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly impressive--Liberty City itself is a living, breathing work of goddamn art. And the new level of maturity and semblance of realism exhibited by the series is really refreshing, and I think a good sign of the medium continuing to evolve.

But. It got really boring really fast. Taxi to get food and armour. Taxi to a mission hub. 10 minutes of chauffeuring and exposition. Obtuse, finicky cover-based shootout/timed, scripted vehicle chase with poor-(realistic!)-handling cars. 10 more minutes of driving and talking. Ignore a pointless minigame. Repeat.

On the other hand, while I don't respect it anywhere near as much as the venerable GTA series, I found Saints Row 2 to be a much more fun, satisfying game to play. It was crass and cartoony and relentlessly stupid, but goddamn it, it was fun. Getting into firefights with the local law enforcement while joyriding a helicopter in Grand Theft Auto is fun, but doing it with regenerating health, diverse weapons, and a character I built from scratch in Saints Row is awesome.

GTA IV was significant as all hell, but I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as, say, R*'s Bully or Red Dead Redemption. Or earlier GTAs for that matter.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

I played it for a bit at a friends place. I liked it. He showed me the heart of New York City. It was creepy.

Id buy it, but I just have too many other games to play

 

[AMMO Kid]

It's like every good game, it has lots of flaws. For example, I don't make my moral choices in the game based off of moral choice, so much as off of which option doesn't give me another homie that will bug me day in day out... I played it through twice by the way

 

[tigermilk]

I've completed it on both PS3 and 360 more than once, all in all I have probably played over 150 hours and I loved almost every minute.

 

[Xman490]

I've been playing Free Mode on Live for several months now, and it hasn't gotten old. As for the story, the characters are great, either funny (Roman or Brucie) or dickish (Ray).

 

[Sneeze]

Played it and completed it twice (not 100% mind, fuck the flying rats). It's a great game in its own right but San Andreas was miles better in my opinion. GTA IV tried to take it self to seriously, I missed the humour and over-the-topness of it, the story was pretty good though; better than other GTAs but the gameplay wasn't up to par. I too prefer Saints Row 2, sure it's not as deep or immersive, but on the other hand you can throw pensioners under the wheels of oncoming traffic.

 

[Merkavar]

i played about half of it but stopped for some reason and never went back. not sure why. san andreas was like on of the best games.