The Big GTA 4 discussion thread. (Mild Spoilers)

[drumboi88]

I don't understand the hype behind the game to be honest. In fact, I didn't see any except for the hype in NYC they showed during "Attack of the Show" the day before it's release. I played Liberty City and Vice City, and never enjoyed it, even though I mowed down about 150 different civilians and racked up a 5 star warrant in less than a minute. The plotlines behind those games never amused me. Basically, I'm a guy, who wants nothing more than to ruin a city by robbing, stealing, and killing as much as possible. Oh, and an organized gang of people.

My brother on the other hand wouldn't stop drooling, and due to the fact that I didn't have work the DAY of the release, and he had school, he would incesantly bother me to actually wake up at 7AM to go drive to GameStop, stand in "line" and buy the thing for him. Amusingly enough, I ended up working that day, and I was 5 minutes late. Why? I dropped off my stuff at work at 9.55AM, headed out the door to stand in front of GameStop (literally a 40 second walk), and waited until the doors open at precisely 9:59.43AM (and two people had joined me in line: a private school student who had class in roughly half an hour, and a mother who probably had nothing better to do than to purchase this game for her 14 y/o son). I was first to purchase that game in the store that day, and forced my brother into waiting longer than he wanted.

The game was in my works locker until 8.30PM. He got home at 3.15PM. He complained: THATS OVER FIVE HOURS OF GAMETIME I LOST.

So now I'm a "sick son-of-a-*****" who wants nothing more than preventing his brother from having sex in a car, or watch two women "play" with eachother.

I am real sick.

 

[richasr]

I think the key thing here is GTA 'IV' or Four, or 4. It's no longer GTA3:That Next Installment, it's a completely new game.

It's still Grand Theft Auto though. It feels a lot different but it's still GTA, the attention to detail is immense and where the graphics aren't Gears of War, the detail, care and work that's gone into the game is far greater.

I'm loving this game, a friend and I played Free Roam on Multiplayer for 4 hours lastnight, just annoying the police, brilliant.

 

[wilsonscrazybed]

This comment is useless unless you say why you don't like it. I was on the fence yesterday but did end up buying it because I had trouble finding a comprehensive list of flaws about the game. There were people who liked it and gave reasons, and there were people who hated it and... didn't.

- J

Well put, I am finding most of the negativity aimed at this game has less to do with the actual game and more to do with people not liking the genre. Remember that 1up review where the reviewer just complained about leveling up and customizing your character in RPGS? A lot of people got swept up in the hype, but truly the newest installment is quite good when you compare it to some of the other games in the genre.

 

[ilves7]

So far I am enjoying the two hours I have played it. The reasons I like it are not the same reason a typical GTA fan would. There is a lot more depth to everything in the game when you hold it to GTA: San Andreas. Mechanically the game shines, cars feel right, the minigames are presented well, and the shooting is pure bliss when you compare it to older iterations. Regardless of polygon count or blood-to-bullet-wound-ratio, the real improvement is that they finally wrote their characters deep enough to appeal to adults who want more out of a game than a "hit and run" simulator.

I plan to spend the next month playing this game for a few hours a week. Perhaps play some online matches with my friends or just walk around Liberty City seeing what there is to do. I spent so much time thinking about this game it would be a shame to finish it so fast.

Your post is so far the only one that makes me want to play it. I'm on the side of gamers that actually want some character and story depth rather than pure run and gun lets kill the hookers for no good reason action. I actually just bought fallout 1 and 2 recently because I wanted a game that had some point to it... I'm waiting to hear some reviews that aren't completely fanboy obsessed before making up my mind, but if the story and character aspects of the game are improved I might go for it.

 

[Niniux]

I find it funny that people always bring up sleeping with and/or killing hookers when citing reasons they don't want to play this game.

So far, I've put in about 12 hours of play time, and the number of hookers or even civilians I've killed is 0. The closest was during one mission, I was ducked behind a car I was trying to lift fighting off thugs who didn't want me to lift it. A civilian gets spooked when I unload a shotgun round into the door of the car that the thug is hiding behind. The civilian then runs right in between us to get mowed down by the thugs SMG fire.

Mostly, I've been playing through the story of the game, which has me pretty interested so far. Been bowling and playing pool a bunch too.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

I've been playing it pretty much non-stop for the past couple of days and think this is quite possibly the best game ever made. Wait, don't lynch me yet! The hype for the game is ridiculous, as is IGN's review. The game isn't perfect- if you don't like GTA then this game probably isn't going to change your mind.

But the attention to detail is staggering. Little details you see in the game world help to make it all the more realistic. Police arresting other people. Random crazy coke-heads that give you money for no reason. People engaging in conversation. I walked round the back of a house in a nice area to find people having a barbecue. The way you can make some people leave their car just by pointing a gun at them, whilst others will back up and drive off and others will just try to run you over. It's a result of the more focused attempt Rockstar have taken at simulating a city and it's without a doubt the most complete videogame world ever made. I could lose myself in it for weeks and still not have seen everything.

Perhaps my favorite experience so far occurred when I was stealing a car. Having pointed my gun at the guy sitting in the car, he tried to run me over. So I shot him, and his passenger got out and tried to beat me up. Ignoring him, I get in the car and try to drive off but this guy starts banging on the window. He grabs the door handle and I hit the accelerator. He doesn't let go. I dragged him for about 3 blocks before he finally let go, screaming in pain.

Stuff like this happens all the time in the game, and I'm fascinated to see what it's going to throw at me next. So all you naysayers about the hype of the game can moan all you want, but look past the hype and there's still an incredible game there.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I haven't read through this thread to get these questions answered, but this forums members type a lot >_>

Anyway, here are my questions:

1.) I hear the missions are still crap, the story is cool, but it's still "pick up this persons car, BUT OH MAH GAWD 'TIZ AN AMBUSH!" - and things like that....is that true?

2.) The reviewers and critics over-reacted, it's great game and the city is amazing, but it's still just GTA. What gave this a 10 everywhere? Is it how detailed the city is?

 

[curryinc]

god damn. my copy still hasn't come in from ebay =| (the version they sell in australia is censored)

everyone is raving about it.

good thing about Rockstar is that they aren't afraid to take out the dull stuff they implemented. ie. having to eat, work out, ambulance missions, fire truck missions

one thing i wanted to know, is the gang system that was in san adreas, in GTA 4..?

i found that a really cool feature.

 

[curryinc]

I haven't read through this thread to get these questions answered, but this forums members type a lot >_>

Anyway, here are my questions:

1.) I hear the missions are still crap, the story is cool, but it's still "pick up this persons car, BUT OH MAH GAWD 'TIZ AN AMBUSH!" - and things like that....is that true?

2.) The reviewers and critics over-reacted, it's great game and the city is amazing, but it's still just GTA. What gave this a 10 everywhere? Is it how detailed the city is?

you say "it's just GTA" as if being GTA is a reason to not get a 10. every installment as been rated highly, so why would you be surprised that the best installment gets a 10..?

 

[Evilbunny]

god damn. my copy still hasn't come in from ebay =| (the version they sell in australia is censored)

everyone is raving about it.

good thing about Rockstar is that they aren't afraid to take out the dull stuff they implemented. ie. having to eat, work out, ambulance missions, fire truck missions

one thing i wanted to know, is the gang system that was in san adreas, in GTA 4..?

i found that a really cool feature.

unfortunately, no. Well, at least not where I am. I'm like 40% done with the game so it might come later, but I doubt it.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

you say "it's just GTA" as if being GTA is a reason to not get a 10. every installment as been rated highly, so why would you be surprised that the best installment gets a 10..?

When I say "Just GTA" it's to make my post short - I'm not gonna go into detail about how all the previous GTA games had their flaws and things like that, this is a GTA IV discussion thread, so I assume everyone knows what I'm talking about.

Now stop patronizing me mr. literal

 

[stompy]

I have to say, I love that article - Its sad though that the gutter papers still try and pin things on video game. And I do feel sorry for Australian gamers who have to put up with that BS from their government

Surprisingly, it's not our media which is the problem. On one of our morning shows (Sunrise, if you live here), on the 1/5/08, presented an bit on GTA4, and the tech guy actually said "I would recommend this game to anyone who is over 15. It's a good game, but not for those under 15."

No, it's some polititians, such as Michael Atkinson. They believe it will negatively impact on children, even though the evidence doesn't back it up, and they are under fire for it.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

1.) I hear the missions are still crap, the story is cool, but it's still "pick up this persons car, BUT OH MAH GAWD 'TIZ AN AMBUSH!" - and things like that....is that true?

2.) The reviewers and critics over-reacted, it's great game and the city is amazing, but it's still just GTA. What gave this a 10 everywhere? Is it how detailed the city is?

1.) Though you do still see those missions, you will often see more interesting variants (e.g. having to go on a date with a gay guy who's late on payments to a loan shark and then killing him) on that formula, together with interesting moral choices at certain points in the game. The missions do still tend to follow that formula though. The conversations that occur during these missions help to make them more interesting and they're implemented much more smoothly than they were in the past.

2.) It is a 10/10 game, if you're using that scale. Due to the detail in the city, the amount of things you can do, the excellence of the multiplayer and the amount of problems that have been fixed for the game, it is undoubtedly one of the best games ever made (based on what I have seen so far). I dislike the 'out of 10' system because no game is absolutely perfect. A percentage system leaves more margin for error and slightly more focused reviews. If I were to give it a review it would score at least 94% or higher.

 

[wilsonscrazybed]

I haven't read through this thread to get these questions answered, but this forums members type a lot >_>

In fact this is the reason many of us come here, because we're tired of internet meme's, slurs, and people who just want to see their name said on the internet.

2.) The reviewers and critics over-reacted, it's great game and the city is amazing, but it's still just GTA. What gave this a 10 everywhere? Is it how detailed the city is?

Think of it like this. If you see a movie with 5 stars it means that the person reviewing the movie had a good time and thinks everyone would find something about it they liked. I agree that the 1-10 scale is confusing and probably unnecessary. The 1-100 scale in my opinion even more-so. I don't think we need 10 degrees of separation between utter dross and a critical triumph. To be honest I think the 1-10 scale panders to anal-retentive people who like to argue about things like "how much drift ratio a specific model of car should have."

 

[Drong]

Nicko this time seems to have a really rich back story and some good lines, I assume he was in the Afghani war when he was just basically a kid, and his whole intro video explaining him really took me aback, especially when the quote "A creature that could do this, has no soul" came, it seems that the writers of rock star went back to high school again and picked up some short story tips.

Erm... I'm just curious, but why do you think he was involved in the Afghani war? Not to rain on you parade or anything, as I think your right about the changes to the story, although I found that the characters in GTA Sa were alright (maybe playing the earlier ones fill in the back storys - that assumes you didn't play them...?)

Anywho, Nicko is definitely from the Balkanlands, (I think Albian?) which is in east-Europe, and has had its only set of wars, so of them genocidal (although my history of the area is patchy so I don't know if Nicko could have been involved in any).

This could be construed as a slight spolier but it does not really give away anything much and you find it all out within the first hour anyway

He's serbian, Vlad reffers to it a couple of times right at the start and i think Roman mentions it too, Nico just calls it 'the old country.'

The war would have been The Kosovo war (96-99) a real nasty little spat in which both sides commited some pretty horrific attrocities, in mentioning it to Michelle, Nico says 'It ruined me'