Poll: What was wrong with GTA IV?

[EgoDeusEst]

Boring location, even though I hated San Andreas it was a somewhat unique location and vice city was stunning. Lack of obvious humor, what happened to all the cheesy posters, elvis impersonators and the like? The soundtrack was unengaging, though I didn't really give it much of a chance.

The gameplay was far more solid than any other GTA game since the old top down ones, but it wasn't really backed up by any particularly zany missions (the only one I can even remember is the bank robery mission). It really did focus far too much on the characterization which was never a strong part of the GTA series. It was also a lot less free because of it (you could no longer buy properties, you had to work through the properties to attain them).

Overall, it moved away from the light hearted tongue in cheek attitude of the old GTA games and went for something grittier and more realistic, that ruined it (at least for me).

This.
I miss the ridiculously cartoony glorification of drugs, murder and violence. AND LAZLO! All he got this time around was a lousy 2-minute skit.
When I first started playing the game I thought it was great. It started out like any other GTA game - doing lame escort missions, as a prologue before the REAL fun kicks in. Soon you'd travel out of the grey suburban areas and into more spectacular locations, buy the entire state with coke-money, travel around the sky in floating death-fortresses and blow sh*t up, slap people silly with dildos, bang hooker, then kill the hooker and have your money back, customize cars, and... etc.
But that stuff never came, and that's why I think the game is crap.

 

[Credge]

I didn't find it fun for just about every reason listed. The characters? Didn't care about any of them. The phone system? Holy hell what an annoyance. Gameplay mechanics? I don't like cover systems unless they're done right (BIA: Hells Highway, as an example). I, however, voted for realism.

See, the cars handled like crap. It just wasn't fun having to slow down to 5MPH to take a corner. That was the biggest problem.

 

[joshhewer]

personally my main problem was it takes its self WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to seriously!

 

[Thurmer]

I never understood why gtaIV got such great reviews when I found it totally lacking. GTA ViceCity is probably one of my top5 favourite games of all time and it was by far better than IV regardless of graphics and physics.

For me the character of Niko was a hypocrite, whinging one moment ooooh i killed people in the war, it make niko sad, then a second later: so how many people do you want me to kill? yea i just acre about the money, the money, just in it for the money. I had more money than I could spend yet he still wanted to continue the cycle of killing random and on occasion innocent people?

Also most of the supporting cast was completely unlikeable even as villains. Cortez was a great villain, Lance Vance was a great twist and Tommy Vercetti was a licensed badass, what does IV have that gets close to VC cast and storyline.

I quit playing by the time I got to the last island because I was completely unmotivated to continue.

edit: the car controls were excellent and imo added to the game in terms of skill, anyone who didn't like the new car controls really hasn't spent enough time driving in IV because the harder controls gave the player greater control over the vehicle.

also i totally agree that it took itself way to seriously and ended up imo very, very poor

 

[floppylobster]

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.

 

[Iskenator67]

Your annoying friends calling you all the time and the fact that they sacrificed realism for gameplay.

 

[ddq5]

I enjoyed it. Sure it had flaws, but I overlooked them. I almost never took anyone on man-dates, except for Dwayne, and I spent about equal time doing the the story missions and just dicking around in the city. I had the most fun when I was playing with friends, and they thought it was fine and dandy too. The story definitely had its funny moments and was pretty well paced. After I got used to the weird controls, the game finally came alive. One thing I would say sucked was the online multiplayer. It's like taking all the worst XBL players who aren't playing Halo or COD and putting them in a sandbox with broken rules and pathetic glitches. Plus my friend took my mic and made me sound like an indecisive racist.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

There is little left to say about the problem with the realism. I played it a couple of times at my friend's house on the PS3 and... ehh. It was so brown and grey that you could barely see the differemce between a kill-crazy cop and a tree. San Andreas at least had colour. Also, the lack of whacky cheats (flying cars, wink wink, at least I didn't see any) was disappointing and the on foot controls were so stiff that you could no longer just go banana-crazy and beat the crap out of everyone.

what the **** where they thinking?

My guess is that they decided to change the formula from power fantasy for 12-year olds to gritty drama for more mature audiences. Why the hell would they do that to a game that built its name on being nothing but controversial power fantasy for 12-year olds?

 

[uguito-93]

the fact that it was pretty much identical to all other 3d gta games, just with better graphics. The only reason that this really pissed me off was because nearly every reviewer gave it a perfect score and called it a master piece. Take any other sequel in a franchise (Animal Crossing: City Folk), if it is almost identical to its predecessors it would immediately receive a lower score. Take Assassins creed 2, a game that is trying to be significantly better than the first one.

This is why in my eyes gta 4 was bad, apart from the graphics no effort was put into improving the formula. It was just the same thing we've had for nearly a decade with a new paintjob.

 

[bluemistake2]

It was too dark,gritty,serious,and brick-faced all the time. What is the point of having an open world if i can't grab a tank,a minigun,and rampage through the streets killing everyone and blowing shit up? If so-called "sandbox" exists only as a backdrop for story and stupid unfunny minigames to play with a virtual friends,what's the point in having it? What was the point of ripping all the fun and craziness out of a franchise famous for them? Why is there only one truly funny thing in that game - getting protagonist drunk?

And on PC,optimization was done by a chainsaw up the arse. Hell,Saints Row 2 was optimized better!

Postscriptum. Can you believe they wasted $500 million on that game? Like,really?

Well for one fact carrying a minigun throught the streets?
A M134 also more commonly known as a minigun is a turret and weighs over a 100 kilos and is handled by a group of people you can just seem to carry it down the street and pull it out your back pocket ey?

Driving a tank, well a tank in new york seems to make sense and a take would absolutely not fit the gameplay because the driving would be complete crap.

And you can completely rampage down the street and blow "shit" up even more entertaining so then in GTA San Andreas because of the new physics engine, like in SA if someone were to die they always die in the same position shoot them of a roof they just drop if they fall off the roof there position will not move at all while dropping.

Why the "unfunny" minigames and the "sandbox" are even made?
Well let me start of the mini games aren't ment to be funny there ment to be fun do you know the difference?
If not i'll explain it funny is when something you can laugh about and fun is something entertaining.
As for the sandbox is made so the game lasts longer, hours longer, days perhaps maybe even weeks. i mean whats not "funny" about going into a hospital with two of your "homeboys" and fighting of cops and just piling up bodies.

Theres notthing wrong with GTA IV because its a new, great addition to a fantastic franchise.

 

[bluemistake2]

Personally I think it's pretty retarded going from a whacky, easy to pick up, sand-box shooter to a realistic simulation of crime in a city. Simply put, what the **** where they thinking?
According to wiki (Had a more reliable source, no idea where it went), GTA4 is the lowest selling GTA by a few million copies. That's a hell of a lot. And what did they really expect mixing up a great forumla by completly chanign it.
Gone were the easy to handle cars with a nice difficulty curve - apparently in reality, all cars handle like crap.
Gone were the days of having 9999 rounds for guns.
Gone were the large open environments. Back to a piss-poor small, bland city, with significantly fewer cars, guns and extras than San Andreas.

Honestly GTA4 felt like a step in the completely wrong direction. However, I doubt the next installment will pick up on this. So yeah, I'm calling it, GTA this generation will be going down hill quickly if it doesn't get back to it's roots.

"gone were the easy to handle cars with a nice difficulty curve - apparently in reallity all cars handle like crap." well the cars handle different but aren't hard to work with i find these cars easier to handle with and more fun"
"Gone were the days of having 9999 rounds for guns." GTA IV actually lets you have more rounds then that if you finish the game %100 you have no ammo limit which would let you have up to a million its more of a reward like its suppose to be.
"Gone were the large open environments. Back to a piss-poor small, bland city, with significantly fewer cars, guns and extras than San Andreas. " the cars and area is more complex but GTA IV would be terrible with forest areas or big open areas as in GTA SA the big open areas were just a nuisance because if you're car crashed in the middle of the bloody forest it took me half a bloody hour to find another vehichle so, so much for the more cars.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

What was wrong with it?
Helicopters are nice, but where are the [diety]damn planes?
Sure, it's fun weaving between buildings in a chopper, but, I wanna fly a jet through the streets.
one reason why San Andreas is better.
apart from that, and the annoying characters, it was ok-ish.

 

[Ernie Devlin]

Once you finish the game, their really isn't much to keep you interested.
The story was excellent and the gameplay was great don't get me wrong.
But driving/killing your way through a city with nothing to do gets old fast.
The needy friendship system is really annoying also.
San Andreas spoilt us all with the insane amount of things to do so GTA IV felt like a step back in gameplay for a more realistic story that ended with a fizzle.

 

[ShotgunSmoke]

Hey cousin, wanna go see some big Amercan tee-tees?


Also, a wider customization would be nice.

 

[tehroc]

Jaded on genre. It didn't offer anything new. Well not true the friendship system was new but another implemented horribly. I couldn't really enjoy playing the game until TLAD was released, as your friendships aren't important.

 

[Helgi]

The story was great I loved that but pretty much everything else was crap. The gameplay was annoying and uninteresting.

GTA IV made me loose all interest in GTA.

 

[TheDuckbunny]

I honestly think it's one of the better games of this generation.

 

[x434343]

Things missing: clothes customization, better garage, veicle customization.