What is so good about GTA4?

[Wereduck]

Not to distract from the criticisms of GTA IV above (Furburt's already hit all the biggies) but I'd like to chime in with my own pet peeve. Although Niko's constantly bitching about how he needs more money in the cutscenes, there's nothing of consequence for him to spend it on by the time you've moved out of Brooklyn.

San Andreas and Scarface did it much better in the last generation and Saints Row 2 does it far better now. GTA IV isn't a terrible game by any means but the only really good thing about it is the name.

 

[Blue Musician]

I haven't really played it, I have only played GTA Vice City. But I guess the city is what made the game fun to look around. But again this comes from someone who hasn't played it.

 

[Woodsey]

the combat is DREADFUL (anyone to claim otherwise is simply wrong)

snip

I've played it on the 360 and PC. Can't remember what it was like exactly on the PC (I've tried to erase the single-most awful PC port EVER from my mind for the most part) but I still remember it being clunky like the 360 version.

Basically, it utilises the worst cover system I've ever used in a game. You stick to the wrong side of things; half the time you don't unstick; the game chooses whether it's going to actually flip Niko from one side of the door to the other, not you; Niko's got the turning circle of a fucking hippo; shooting someone 5 times in the chest means they fall over like the Michelin man, then just roll about meaning you can't shoot them still; running whilst in "aim mode" is awkward; the weapons menu is clunky; you have to lean out of cover before you can zoom, because if not the camera looks behind you, despite that being a useless feature in a gunfight; when you pop out the reticule pops over to somewhere different to where you were aiming; when you first enter cover you have to move the reticule across twice, because the first you do it it yanks back to the position it was in when you entered cover.

Yeah, I hate it.

 

[ScarBrow07]

I found that the game felt like a step back from San Andres. I found GTA IV took itself to seriously. San Andres still has one of the best open worlds. GTA IV has a very dull one. On another note, Red Dead Redemption is amazing.

 

[mad825]

Eating? Gone.

wait, this was a bad thing? having to constantly eat for no real reason? to prove that GTA:SA was one step towards boring realism?

And finally, it runs worse than any other PC game I've ever played. I have a pretty good computer, I can run Crysis, ArmA II, Metro 2033, you name it, I can run it on highest settings with full resolution, but GTA4 chugged and chugged and chugged. That's laziness, right there.

from the last I heard, there was a memory leak for those using the high settings however I am almost using the highest settings and it running fine for me.

 

[ender214]

I thought it was a fairly decent game, especially considering it only cost $7 in a Steam sale. Gameplay felt solid and the story was fairly good. Graphics were decent while not detailed to the point where I had to reboot every couple hours due to overheats.

In fact I had only two real issues with the game:

1) Flying helicopters: Seriously, the keyboard controls for this SUCKED.

2) Quicktime event: The game did a good job of avoiding them up until the last mission. And since the game was ported to PC, the fact that my PC's framerate is a lot higher than that of consoles was not considered. I'm amazed my spacebar was even functional after the beating I gave it.

 

[Jaqen Hghar]

I just like it. Shouldn't that be enough? I like GTA IV, had a lot of fun playing it. I also liked San Andreas, but not more than IV. Not sure why. Maybe the fact that IV is more gritty and realistic, instead of over the top silly.

 

[Locko96]

I think Red Dead made GTA4 completely obsolete anyways. That Euphoria engine that GTA4 runs on is not fit for handling cars. I loved GTA4's story and characters but, to me, it fell flat on the gameplay.

 

[Valkyrie101]

It does have a good story. It starts off pretty slow, and I fell into the trap of skipping a lot of the cutscenes because theyw ere too long (first playthrough). But it is good, and full of deep, interesting characters, a lot of whom I grew to like. The gameplay mechanics are mostly solid and fun, though I'm not too keen on the clunky cover system and autoaim. It also gives the player quite a lot of freedom, even though admittedly wreaking havoc isn't as fun as previous games.

Above all, though, it's the humour and the richness of the world. A lot of the radio adverts and DJ dialogue are hilarious, and everything is just so detailed and well-crafted.

 

[MattyDienhoff]

You stick to the wrong side of things; half the time you don't unstick

I'm not sure what you mean by wrong side, and I don't recall ever having any trouble leaving cover.

the game chooses whether it's going to actually flip Niko from one side of the door to the other, not you

I did find switching from one piece of cover to another in that way to be rather awkward, so I just do it manually. Leave cover, walk towards the piece of cover I want to use next, press cover button, done.

when you pop out the reticule pops over to somewhere different to where you were aiming; when you first enter cover you have to move the reticule across twice, because the first you do it it yanks back to the position it was in when you entered cover.

I only have this problem on rare occasions.

It's very odd that we have such different experiences.

 

[Isalan]

GTA4 was good for a while, then the repetition and spending time with people thing kicked in and suddenly I couldn't be arsed with it anymore.

For something that was supposed to be a form of entertainment, it was an awful lot of work at times.

 

[E-Penguin]

now if someone can tell me how to complete that level on ballad of gay tony where you're chasing the boats with that helicopter on PC then i would be very thankful, its almost impossible

Get behind them as low as possible, and then fire as many rockets as humanly possible against them.

That took me 15 tries or so to find out.

 

[Woodsey]

1.

You stick to the wrong side of things; half the time you don't unstick

I'm not sure what you mean by wrong side, and I don't recall ever having any trouble leaving cover.

2.

the game chooses whether it's going to actually flip Niko from one side of the door to the other, not you

I did find switching from one piece of cover to another in that way to be rather awkward, so I just do it manually. Leave cover, walk towards the piece of cover I want to use next, press cover button, done.

3.

when you pop out the reticule pops over to somewhere different to where you were aiming; when you first enter cover you have to move the reticule across twice, because the first you do it it yanks back to the position it was in when you entered cover.

I only have this problem on rare occasions.

It's very odd that we have such different experiences.

(I've labelled each with numbers just for easy reference).

1. I meant I was running straight at the corner of the wall, but Niko stuck to the other side of it even though I wasn't pointing at the side. This happens numerous times, and normally results in a fair amount of health being chipped away whilst I move his fat fucking arse around the corner.

2. Easy to say, difficult to do. The fact that he controls like a 3-tonne hippo means that when you start to walk he lurches a fair bit foward, making controlled maneuvering in a tight environment very difficult.

3. It happens 8/10 times I pop out. Again, you're forced to pop your head out of cover to zoom, meaning you can get shot whilst you're trying to aim at someone's head (which you can't do if they're a good distance away because of the bloody Vaseline smear).

 

[MoNKeyYy]

Honestly to everyone who's saying that it sucks and listing a bunch of reasons why it sounds like GTA IV just wasn't your cup of tea. I mean just because you personally didn't enjoy a game doesn't mean it's bad. I liked neither Dragon Age or Little Big Planet but I'm more than aware that those are both good games and other people love them. Personally I loved it to death and it's one of my favourite games of all time, but that's just my personal opinion.

 

[Airsoftslayer93]

now if someone can tell me how to complete that level on ballad of gay tony where you're chasing the boats with that helicopter on PC then i would be very thankful, its almost impossible

Get behind them as low as possible, and then fire as many rockets as humanly possible against them.

That took me 15 tries or so to find out.

I managed to destroy one of them once, but every other time ive crashed into the sea, or ive just landed and tried to kill them once they get out of the boat, but it takes the mick

 

[The Rockerfly]

The writing and solid gameplay mechanics.

I love it to pieces.

Thank you, it seems to be so popular to hate but it's a fantastic game.

OT: So you say people tell you baout the story yet you whinge about the gameplay? Good one

If I were you I would look at the games realism, how gritty the world is and see it like real life then get a car a drive off a ramp. It's not a ridiculous game constantly like Just Cause but it can be a serious and then ridiculous but it's also not completely realistic (for example,you can have more then 1 weapon on your person). Also what other game has realistic driving physics, gunplay mechanics and a compelling story in one? Exactly, none

Don't view it as a dicking about sandboxer and see it as an amazing take on reality with a hint of gameplay mechanics. You will then more likely see it as the masterpiece many see it as

 

[aarontg]

I have to agree that the story takes a while to get going but I still had fun with it and what are you talking about the multiplayer? it's awsome if you get a friend to play with and just rip up the city. Me and a friend would arm ourselves to the teeth, find a confined space,shoot the nearby police, and see how long we could hold out until we had to escape to our helicopter we used to get there. And have you ever been chased by a guy in a gun ship on a motor cycle? that can get fun.

 

[Blue_vision]

I think that the best thing about GTA4 is it's story, really. All the missions and story parts were by far the best part of the game. The story was just massive and the voice acting was actually really, really good. After that though, there's really not that much to do. Your friends get really, really annoying, and somehow there's only so many times you can enjoy ramping down a road chased by 10 cop cars. After you're done the story, there's not really that much to have fun with, when compared to Saint's Row 2 or Just Cause 2. Those two games really make the best use of the sandbox to have fun with, while GTA4's sandbox is more as a supplement to the story.

I wouldn't say that GTA4 is the kind of game that you play over and over again. Definitely a good experience; I found the story to actually be quite moving at many parts, and the grit and realism does the game a lot of good. But if you went into it looking for a whacky game where you could have fun dicking around like Vice City or San Andreas, that part's not quite there I find, especially when compared to similar sandboxes.

 

[ToAsTy McBuTTeR]

i can NEVER get into GTA games. i find the missions to be little more than boring tedious walk-throughs of mechanics you use when you're just faffing about (favorite yahtzee quote apologies around) and it wouldnt be so bad if the controls were difficult enough to REQUIRE walk-throughs but all things aside the missions go too damn slow half the time. even in vice city i was bored as soon as i started the missions. the stories hardly ever interest me enough to PUT UP with the shitty missions so all i end up doing is trying to invent new and creative ways to get a helicopter from the most heavily guarded area. and by the ninth "holy shit that way doesnt work" i cannot bring myself to subject my braincells to anymore lame controls and repetitive radio stations (yes they are funny and cool and good music but 12 hours on the metal station starts to wear my nerves).

along with that wall of text: the missions never seem very "tight", you do missions for one guy until he stops asking you for help or something... then you go somewhere else... and at some point in the distant future... maybe... the "WHY?" will be made clear?

i DO like Red Dead Redemption though... probably because there's some overall hanging "GOAL" to WHY i am helping West Dickens be a lying cheating shithead.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

When I read the title, I actually thought about why GTAIV wasn't my favourite of the series. So I wrote down the first thing that came to my mind when I thought of VC and SA; driving that Ferrari-esque car at dawn along a beautiful beach while listening to Lovefist's Fury (VC), and driving a motorcycle from LV knock off through LA knock off to SF knock off while listening ot Ozzy's Hellraiser (SA). In GTAIV...well, the first thing that came to my mind was that bloody cell phone.

I can't claim that GTAIV is a bad game, but it doesn't feel as funny to me as the others. There are serious gameplay flaws: the aforementioned social aspect, the way the cars handled, gunfights, or that you can fly through a car's windshield. Liberty City is very detailed, true, but it lacks diversity in a sense. I never found the story to be particularly motivating or even interesting, but I suppose that's just personal taste. I can see how someone might love the game, but it definitely isn't my cup of tea. If I think GTA, I think whacky humour followed by (vehicular) homicide galore, along with kick-ass music. GTAIV didn't provide that for me...