Poll: What was wrong with GTA IV?

[Ren3004]

I saw very little of the game, but I guess there were too many tutorial levels, the approach they took was too realistic and the constant phone calls. My God, the phone calls...

 

[TheZapper]

I liked it, for the most part. Would have like a bit more variety in the missions though.

 

[Xelt]

There didn't seem much story to me. I mean, the others didn't have much either, but GTA SA had a reason for you doing what you were, GTA VC had a reason. This? The reason seems to be just money, and it isn't that interesting.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

It tried to stick to realism too much. They forgot that what makes a Sandbox game fun is the ridiculous shenanigans you can pull off. Saints Row 2, while not a great game overall, really nailed the Sandbox aspect.

 

[CNKFan]

Bad controls, crap vehicles, and a horrible color palette were my problems.

 

[Teh_Doomage]

For me, it was a close race between the annoying phone and the lack of fun. Trying to make GTA realistic, just fell flat on it's face. I tried to give it a chance, but Saints Row 2 just did everything better.

 

[Kasawd]

Reading this has made me realize two things.

1) This thread reminds me of a similar thread discussing the St.Anger album(Which wasn't at all BAD, it was just DIFFERENT)

2) GTA: Vice City is still going strong, baby!

Personally, this game was cleverly made and deceptively realistic while mainting a very subtle playful attitude.

I loved the fact that they went with believable charicatures and kept the humour to a more stereotypical mockery of real life instead of balls in your face ridiculousness.

Also, all vehicles DO handle like shit if you are trying to take an E brake turn at 90 Kilometers an hour! I found it quite immersive and as annoying as real life can, and, lets face it, should be. Although my friends won't magically like me less if I turn them down for bowling, blowing them off can't help matters. I missed the clothing customization from GTA:SA but found it a fine sacrifice for the silly little minigames.

Characters were well done and believable in their stereotypes. Especially Packie. I found myself WANTING to take packie out on man dates or getting him drunk just to hear his rendition of Danny Boy.

Now, graphics. I thought they were well done and portrayed the depressing streets of new york rather well.

I appreciate that Rockstar is trying to move this series in a new direction instead of just rotting in it's old ways(Zelda) just because they work.

Also, I hated Claude from GTA III, the mute lifeless bastard.

 

[JWAN]

To answer the origional question
.
Whats wrong with GTA:IV is that its not GTA:Vice City and therefore total crap.

 

[Shadowfaze]

It got annoying when Roman rang you up in the middle of a massive firefight to ask you to go bowling. NO, I CANT GO BOWLING, IM IN A FIREFIGHT! (HAHAHA, NOW ROMAN HATES YOU!)

 

[Zenn3k]

1: Having to kiss up to your "friends" all game. I honestly felt like I had to take everyone out for food, strippers, drinking, bowling, etc about 1-2 per person for every mission I attempted. It got REALLY old, REALLY fast. Turning off your phone is only a solution if you want to drive around running from the cops for hours.

2: Which brings me to the Cops. One thing thats always annoyed me a bit in all of the GTA games, but IV especially were the police. Constant re spawning police, get annoying. If you're shooting for realism in this game world, they should NOT be able to just spawn where I am at all times. Simply switching cars should be enough to drop a wanted star (if they don't see me, how do they know I'm driving something else???).

3: The cars drove like bricks, removing the fun from the high speed chases.

4: The toll booths

 

[Jaqen Hghar]

As a long time GTA player (been playing them since the first one) I have to say I found nothing to complain about in GTA4. I loved it. Yes, the constant "Hey cousin! Wanna go bowling?" got a bit to much, but it didn't drag the game down much. It is different from the other GTA games, sure, but I think it was a natural "growing up" of sorts. For me, this game is better than all the others, because it is different from the others. The crazy style everyone loves made San Andreas great, but why make another game just like that?

Besides, we have Saints Row 2 which delivers that, and more besides. Which means we got a great "realistic" game, and a over the top chaos-fest. It's a win-win situation!

 

[smithy_2045]

The only issues I had with the game were the constant phonecalls (although I mostly just ignored them), the overuse of the colour brown (stop making me squint, assholes), and the abrupt end to the story (the last mission was frustratingly difficult for a while, but I never noticed any sort of indication that it was actually the last mission. I just figured it was me killing off some other jerk and then moving on to bigger things)

Apart from that, I loved it. Combat was excellent (apart from melee, but then again melee combat is only good for mauling civilians), the driving was excellent, the characters were pretty good (I kinda felt guilty when Roman's taxi depot was destroyed, and the Irish dudes were pretty cool), the graphics were good despite looking like someone had taken a dump on everything, and the difficulty was easy enough to complete any mission within 3 attempts (except the last one, which I missed the jump to the copter the first few times, and the next few times I got my helicopter stuck in the water)

Also, unlike San Andraes, it was actually possible to aim at whatever you're trying to kill. The manual aiming in that game was horrendous.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

way too realistic in a not-very-fun kind of way. Also, taking all of my friends out on dates was pretty stupid and I felt, unnecessary. I didn't really like any of the music on the game either but then, I don't like the music that comes on the radio in the real world either. Also: there's nothing to be gained by watching television.

The cars have horrible handling
There are no malls in Liberty City
Motorbikes don't like people riding them
Moral Choice system!?
Not nearly enough talk radio [but then there never is]

 

[Asehujiko]

I'm not sure if anyone else found this, but there was something fundamentally wrong with GTA IV. On a technical level, the game was great; great physics, good graphics (considering the size of the game) and a solid layout. However, there was something lacking; the sparkle that encouraged the player to replay the game or just spend hours reeking havoc throughout the city that the other games were so enriched by. There was a sense that I was playing the game just to get through the story, not particularly because I was enjoying it.
I know that there was nothing technically wrong with any of the characters or their portrayal but they somehow completely failed to engage me: They were somehow empty. I found similar problems with the driving, the police, everything seemed too highly synthetic and overworked.

I know that I spent countless hours on the previous games just causing chaos in a tank, killing as many people as I possibly could. Although that sounds unhealthy to me now, it was great fun and was one of the high points of the previous games. However much I try to do this in GTA IV, the fun is not there; I get bored and end up playing a different game.

So I put it to you, wise people of the escapist, what was wrong (if anything in your opinion) with GTA IV?

You are missing the biggest problem of them all: The PC port set a standard for absolute QA failure that only two other 7th gen games ever got close to.

 

[irishdelinquent]

The game is fine....if you play it muted. Listening to the characters talk is like an exercise in redefining torture.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

Some of the things I hated about this game was that the cars controlled like crap, the police shoot at me if I even so much as pass one on the sidewalk, the ridiculously low ammo limit, the annoying missions that involved chasing (a the enemy is too good at evasion for some reason) and running away (which the enemy is too good at as well as shooting in a car), and the sluggish controls. But I could always speed into a light post and break it, but mother nature (aka trees) will make Nico fly out the window.

But what was even worse than the game was its multiplayer. I'd rather punch myself in the face than play that ever again. Oh, I hated when people never stopped calling.

One reason why I loved GTA: San Andreas... flying tanks.

 

[AlphaOmega]

I really enjoy this game to this day, mostly due to great physics and Euphoria.
It had its fair share of flaws but it also had some great missions and setpieces and the city does feel alive.

 

[WrathofthePenguin]

Realism
Not that its a problem being realistic but you play a videogame to get away from the shitty reality, why make the impossible still impossible in a virtual world. That and it got to the point that it became less GTA and more Carpooling