Why do people say that GTA IV is overrated?

[Eipok Kruden]

Okay in reference to your crap about free mode, if I have to make up a plan ahead of time to do something like land on the roof of the hospital to rescue my friend, than it takes the fun out of it. Not to mention if you have to go to THAT much trouble just to make the game interesting, you need to find a better game.

Artificial difficulty is a bad thing, Niko's absurdly low health doesn't make you think it makes you go about the mission in a slow tedious way. I remember in one mission where I had to get onto a compound, I wanted to get over the wall in a way other than climbing over the front gate. I spent half an hour trying a dozen different ways, none of them worked. No amount of thinking is going to change the way you do missions, tedious artificial difficulty is not good.

I like how good the graphics are too, what I don't like are the fuck ugly characters. I don't care how much detail there is, if the details I'm forced to look at are of the stupid looking big nosed main character's fat Balkan ass then I'm not enjoying the view.

90% of the missions all followed the same boring formula.

A. Needlessly long and boring drive all the way from where you get the mission to the mission start.

B. Shooting segment that varies slightly in length

C. Car chase that is so scripted they could've made it a cutscene and the only difference would have been that people wouldn't get pissed off at how unforgiving they are.

D. run away from the police.

Oh sure some of the missions had those steps occur in a different order, some of them might have had a brief interlude in which you had to make another boring and unnecessary drive to a second locale, and some of them might have excluded one or two but in the end those four steps describe just about every mission in GTA4.

It was mildly fun the first damn time but when I was halfway through the game and realized they had all been virtually the same it got boring as hell. If it wasn't for the decent story I wouldn't have been able to force myself to finish the damn game.

Point taken, I can see why you don't like it that much. I'm just saying that I was able to look past that stuff and enjoy the game for what it is instead of getting my shoe caught on the tracks and subsequently getting killed instantly by the hype train speeding towards me at 200mph. I was able to jump over the tracks and get to the elevator and go up to the giant ice cream parlor in the sky. For me, that 10-40% (depending on what you think is a good mission and what isn't) made the other 90-60% worth while. Things like the cop missions, the theft, the kidnapping, the bank robbery, the heroin deal, etc... Well, that and the good story (fantastic compared to practically every other action game and open world game, aside from RPG's), massive city, the cars, bikes, weapons, graphics, voice acting, radio (the music, talk shows, commercials, all the hosts, prank calls, etc...), the TV shows, the internet, etc... And I didn't find the characters' fuck ugliness bad. It was intentional in most cases, but there weren't too many cases (at least I don't think). GTA IV isn't for everyone, but I like it and so do a lot of people. Especially with the new Lost and Damned expansion WHICH IS AWESOME!

 

[videot76]

I don't get the "GO SEE AMERICAN TITTIE WITH MY COUSIN LOL" complaint.

Cell Phone -> Options -> Sleep Mode -> On

Continue with game.

All fine and dandy if you have already beaten the storyline, I guess, but doesn't this little maneuver put all further story calls on hold as well?

The ceaseless social calls get annoying LONG before the storyline is over, that's for sure.

 

[Looking For Alaska]

Fantastic game with an enjoyable story, but I think phrases like 'perfect', 'living, breathing world', 'best game ever', and 'Orgasmic' were thrown around moderately-to-far too often.

 

[likalaruku]

The game sounds thoughroly uninteresting to me.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

It was great to be honest. Did what it was supposed too. Problem is, GTA4 went for realism...And reality is never fun.

 

[Kajt]

So far, I'd say that GTA IV is the best game I've got for the PS3. There's lots of stuff to do, the story is great, the characters are awesome and Liberty City is really detailed.
Yes, it's a tad too realistic, but it's not really such a big flaw, it adds some skill to car chases

 

[Reg5879]

Personally, I got more fun out of Saints Row 2.

 

[InsanityBaronOfAtrocity]

It was awful. I got a pirated copy and regretted spending a tenner on it. The gameplay was boring and repetitive and I was sick of the protagonist within the first five minutes of play.

I did get one good thing out of it however. The line:

"Hey Niko, Let's go bowling" (said in an insanely thick russian accent)

It is now used among me and my friends to describe a boring game.

 

[Spudgun Man]

people don't likethe gritty change. I personally prefer it.

 

[fenrizz]

Because the GTA series seemed to be progressing with each game.

never played much GTA3 though, But Vice City and San Andreas illustrates my point i think.

Map Size:
Vice City - 2 (relatively) small islands

San Andreas - 3 cities, each bigger than the entire Vice City and with lots and lots of room in between.

GTA4 - small city (although i think it's bigger than Vice, but that's not really the point.)


Transportation:

Vice City - Lots of different cars, tank, helicopter, attack helicopter, airplane.

San Andreas - Even more cars, different types of tanks, several different helicopters, several different airplanes, jetpack, parachute (base jumping was real fun)

GTA4 - Cars (don't know if there were more than in SA, but i certainly didn't notice that many), no tank, no airplane, one helicopter (might be more, but i never found them).


And all thoose damn people that kept calling me, all the time. Problem was that i felt like i needed to maintain my relationship status with them, and gain their favors, so that i wouldn't miss out on them. Damn annoying if you ask me.


See where I'm going with this?
I could list stuff like this all day, and then some.
Vice City was fun, San Andreas was even more fun (and with alot more stuff to do).
To sum it up, GTA4 could just as easily been labeled as something other than a GTA game.
They dragged out all the fun, and beat the fun to death with rusty pipes and hid the poor corpse of the fun where it would never would be found ever again.