Poll: What was wrong with GTA IV?

[Whistler777]

The way I see it, they made the driving a chore, and because driving is 70% of the total gameplay, 70% of the game became about as enjoyable as raking leaves. The other 30%? Not nearly worth the price of admission.

Sold my copy on eBay for $15, and I haven't looked back since.

 

[Kajt]

The realism of the game was a real pain in the ass. It seemed half finished.

 

[Ernie Devlin]

I loved it, as my 5 playthroughs show. It was a great improvement on the originals - a good turn for the franchise.

By simplifying everything just to make it more realistic?

 

[Uncompetative]

I picked "Too Realistic" as it was closest to the real problem of being straight-jacketed by narrative, insufficiently non-linear (I mean, what is the point of having such a marvellous open-world city and then being at the beck and call of your idiot cousin - I wanted to kill him for lying to me about his mansion... but couldn't), learning the controls through an overlaid HUD both broke immersion and split your attention from the action as it unfolded. Every other game I have ever played has told be how to play it, then let me use those practised skills. Learn as you go does not work, another context-sensitive system was needed, like holding the D-pad in a given direction to show applicable actions for the current situation and then activating them with the Use/Right Trigger or a click of the Right Thumbstick.

Why couldn't Rockstar simulate a collection of AI driven NPCs in both criminal, legal and civilian roles (with complex inter-dependencies) and then have you be the rogue element to this simulation. The missions/story would then be emergent. The trick would then be to keep a theme reinforced throughout and to evaluate the player's psychology through how they acted in the game so that the missions offered to them were things that they willingly opted-in to and felt compelled to complete (rather than skip out of for some random short-term hijinks).

Story really is the enemy of gameplay. Unless done in this way, without a pre-determined, restrictive, script.

 

[Brainstrain]

Nothing to do! Someone mistook realism for gameplay. Watching television isn't something I want to do when I put in a videogame. Watching virtual standup comics...not what I want to do. Plus, there weren't any sunglasses; I felt like Niko was some guy I was assigned to playing, as opposed to MY character. And it's not like he was a generic, Gordon-Freeman-style protagonist; his feelings were substantially less masculine and assertive, and more schrizophrenic, than mine.
SR2 had it right. Your character is a jerk because 99% of people play sandbox games to be a jerk. If I'm going to throw grannies into traffic, I want a cutscene-avatar who would probably do that, not a 180-flip to the "oh, pity me, I was in war!" that Niko was.

I mean, he really didn't have to do ANY jobs after the Bank Heist. The only reason I did them was out-of-character; I wanted to beat the game. Niko could've waited a few weeks until UL Paper brought in his old rival, but I couldn't do that because the plot progressed in terms of completed missions.

 

[Dancingman]

Simple, they killed it by going for or at least imitating the "grim and gritty" style of game and by making people call me every five minutes to go do some stupid minigame, also, if I want to receive no calls and just do what I want, I have to put my phone on sleep mode, which prevents me from doing story missions. Seriously Rockstar? Making people chose between the story and the right to goof around has never been a good choice in gaming and one GTA has never done before this.

 

[RobCoxxy]

Well, fine, I liked it but whatever.
I guess next time if they could combine the gritty, serious storyline of GTA4 with the madcap asshattery of free-roaming in tanks, planes, etc of earlier games, hell, why not?

 

[Kollega]

snipped for sheer leghth

Oh,lookie here. A rabid GTA fanboy. Well,let me explain. The physics engine is fun indeed. But.

A) What is GTA without tank over-the-top rampages? No-one cares M131 weighs around 100 kilograms,it's always satisfying to use them. Screw realism,i want entertainment!

B) Minigames were just dull. Ones in Saints Row were mildly enjoyable,but bowling? Or darts? Come on! It's too mundane for Grand Theft Auto!

 

[Woodsey]

Main problem for me was how sluggish Niko was. I often found myself sprinting and then running into walls because he's got the turning circle of a bus. The complaint that the game is realistic though is stupid. It may be more realistic than previous iterations but it isn't realistic when you look at it by itself.

The fact I had it on PC where the experience was wholly reduced was also a piss take. I think I'd of enjoyed it more if there wasn't constant texture pop-in, a frame rate that's all over the place, stupidly awkward controls in some cases (that bloody helicopter anyone?), etc.

And no, it wasn't just a case of my hardware not being good enough. It was a case of the worst technical port in history. Quad core recommended? Seriously?

The story wasn't bad though and I really liked the characters - Brucie made me LOL a couple of times.

 

[Lord Monocle Von Banworthy]

I sometimes just steal a truck and pretend to be a truck driver in San Andreas to kill an hour. I haven't put GTAIV in my console since I got to the ending.

It was small and uninteresting. Driving was tedious and I usually just took a cab. Shooting, fighting...damn it, you name it, they had to make it all different. I wanted another GTA game and I got something else entirely. I really think Saints Row 1 is a more worthy successor to the GTA throne than GTAIV was.

My ideal game I'd waste my life on would just be if somebody stuck a couple of bridges between San Andreas, Vice City, and GTA3 Liberty City and wrote some new missions. Unfortunately I bet you'd need a Blu-Ray to hold the game even at original XBox graphics quality.

 

[Joa_Belgium]

I thought the game was fine the way it is. Gameplay mechanics a bit more realistic than before and I finally could sympathize with the protagonist. Niko Bellic isn't just another criminal who's after drugs and all the cash in the world, he's out for vengeance on the traitor in his squad during the war.

They probably could have been more up front about this motivation. There were hints of this storyline as you went through but it didn't come through early enough or strong enough and I ended up turning it off after a few hours. If I'd known then it might have motivated me to play further.

They could have, but it gets already pretty clear in the cutscene where Niko kills Vladimir. From there on there are a few hints, but the synopsis is that he's building up his reputation in the criminal underworld to make new contacts who can keep their eyes open for Niko's traitor.

 

[Laura.]

AND LAZLO! All he got this time around was a lousy 2-minute skit.

Lazlow rocks!
And GTA4 is way too serious...

 

[MR T3D]

For a change, it was made for an adult audience, and to be enjoyed mainly by mature persons. Personally, i think its a great game, an atempt to set a standard for games in general.
DAMN i am sounding like a fanboy right now.

 

[JohnSmith]

Why can I only click one of those buttons. The only un-broken thing in the game was the driving. Also why did that game punish anyone who decided that the intelligent thing to do would be to block the rear exit to the store where you were about to intimidate a guy.

 

[CK76]

I simply did not find it fun like III and Vice City. I chalk that up to all the options listed, driving wasn't as simple and fun, no tank ruined rampage options, phone calls annoying. I just felt like this massive title with so much potential that was diminished by poor design decisions. I hope V goes back to PS2 GTAs or I've said my good byes to the series I once loved.

 

[Trifer420]

The phone system was awful. every other annoyance was just a minor one for me.

 

[Aitruis]

The stars system irked me somewhat. At one star, one or two cops follows you. At two, a lot of cops follow you. At three, you might as well suck on a grenade, because thats when they get the choppers out, and they (combined with the massive amount of mind-reading cops that show up) are hard as fuck-all to get away from.

If you pop up in a still-locked area, you get six stars, which apparently calls every living citizen to take up uniform and arms, because thats the only justification I can think of for how the streets clear of squishies so completely and quickly.

Point is, four and especially five stars were so difficult to obtain, even while cheating. Damn near impossible without, as far as I saw. I know how it's realistic to shoot one cop in the foot and have the whole department after you, but gameplay-wise, I think the stars could have scaled better. As it is, to me it feels like it's all or nothing, jack a car and shoot something, then run away so you don't get the almost certain death sentence of Star 3.
Or run onto an island you haven't unlocked yet to incite Red Faction-style rebellion against you and only you.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

A host of problems really. The phone system was annoying at best (primarily because the minigames simply aren't fun to partake in). Apparently in the GTA universe, car suspension consists of wet sponges leading to attrocious handling. Only a handful of cars in the game are even worth driving if you have a choice, and unfortunately you are often forced to take the first car you can find. The combat itself wasn't as fulfilling as I would have liked. All in all, this is a shame because these three things consist of 90% of what you do in the game.

To be honest, the game only really succeeded in a few areas. The first is simply the city itself - it is, far and away, the best city I've ever seen in a video game. It actually does an excellent job of feeling like a living, breathing place. The second is the game's story actually delivers. It may not be a happy go lucky story or any of that but it works far better than the average game story. Finally, the game actually manages to give you morally ambiguous choices that caused me to pause for more than a moment while I weighed my options.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

No tanks and planes, and the weapons weren't too varied.
The phone was shit, and the minigames sucked.
So did that bullshit friend system. (well cept for drunk driving)
And the story was overly serious, but atleast Niko was a likeable character.
Other than that, it was a pretty good game.