The GTA IV Thread

[mrandyk]

I got it at midnight...barely, got the second to last 360 copy (about 20 ps3 ones left at the time). This game is simply amazing. It takes a lot of getting used to that is for sure, but I am sure once I do get used to it I will enjoy it for a very very long time. Driving for example, just driving down the street is hard at first. I was driving down the street quite slow and was turning around the corner only to drift into a building, kill people, and have the cops come and kill me after a chase. I have yet to do any missions yet besides the begining one when you arrive in Liberty City, but just walking around the city observing people and their behaviors is fun. The new system when you have the cops chasing you is so much better than the one from the previous games, it actually makes sense. I kill a man in the park and no one finds out unless someone calls me in on their cell phone.

I just finished San Andreas on my 360 over the weekend, and the controls are quite different. It will take getting used to for me, but now instead of me pushing RB to look right in my car and shot it is the hand brake. LT is to target, RT is to shoot, and B seems to only be used for punching people instead of shooting. The camera is a bit annoying, especially inside of Niko's apartment (the only building I have entered yet).

I am probably not the best one to describe this game for you guys, but once another member of this site who is good at describing things gets this game you will be quite happy.

[MulletMan13]

I'm so happy that the driving isn't super easy to master (like in past games). There is depth in it, and it requires a lot of practice to get decent... then a lot more to get good. Also each car handles MUCH more differently... it's awesome.

The new physics engine is my favorite part.... hitting pedestrians has never been so good.

... oh, and I love when somebody tries to re-enter their car you stole, and they either get caught in the door (and dragged for 300 yards), or fall under the rear wheel.

[melancholy]

So yeah, I picked up my copy along with a Dualshock 3 controller. I was quite excited when the game first booted up and it had that ominous music playing as it installed to the PS3 hard drive. I immediately started following the story, and got all the way up to the point where I meet my cousin at his work when...nothing. The cutscene only gets a couple of seconds in before a complete freeze. I had to force restart my console, where I jumped immediately back in. This time, though, I easily get past the scene so I chalked it up as a fluke. Later I started roaming the city, breaking into cars (I love how you bust open the window and actually hotwire the car), speeding around town (the car handling actually has weight to it and reacts differently on different surfaces), crashing into things (if you hit something hard, you actually fly out the front window complete with ragdoll physics), and in generally observing the city and it's residents. This game isn't about an overall effect, it's all in the details. Speed along and you'll miss the true nature of this game.

It's just a shame that half an hour in I had another freeze...and again 10 minutes later. After the third one, I scoured the internet and found that many people with 60GB PS3's (like mine) are having freezing problems as well. Hopefully Rockstar kicks in and offers a fix really soon, because these frequent crashes are really pissing me off.

[az_bont]

I got myself an Xbox 360 last Tuesday, and hacked the firmware. Within a few hours, the game was leaked, but I remained very hesitant to do anything with it in case I increased my chance of getting banned from Xbox Live, as I've got four friends with 360s who all play online who had been convincing me to get one for months. In the end, I bit the bullet, and after they'd seen the first ten minutes of the game, they all asked me to do theirs as well--a small comfort, as if I do get banned now, we all will, so I won't really be missing out much, if you'll excuse the twisted logic. We all went and hammered the single-player mode whilst impatiently waiting for the time to go on Xbox Live--two of them managed to get to the third island in the meantime, while I just managed to scrape to the second.

Come release night, we all ended up gathering together in the same room (all five of us) and playing online for the best part of eight hours, pausing briefly to pop up to Tesco for supplies and having a peak at the 50 or 60 people already queing up at 11PM for 20 copies of the game minus whatever was being held behind for staff (me and another one of the group work there and were offered first dibs--we politely declined).

I must say that it really was quite fun. We only bothered with the Free Mode all night, but that was fun enough in itself. Tonight we all had a couple of hours trying out the deathmatch and race modes, but we've still only scratched the surface. A couple weren't convinced that you could squeeze as much out of it online as Splinter Cell or Halo 3, but those weren't really much my cup of tea, so I couldn't agree.

I'd say its greatest strengths, in contrast to the aforementioned games, is that it doesn't reward obsessive players to the point where a relative newcomer can come in and still get in a few kills and have a good time. And with the levels being as big as they are (you can access all of the islands in the game online from the offset if you so choose) there's nothing stopping you from making a speedy getaway to somewhere a bit more quiet and remote and coming back when you're stocked up and ready, rather than going through the same spawn -> shoot -> die -> spawn cycle twice every minute like so many other games. We've been playing in a lot of private rooms for the most part, but when we have been in rooms with strangers everyone for the most part seems to be happy to let you get on with your own thing if that's what you want to do, so you won't get chased down on first sight by every player on the map--though I imagine the 16-player deathmatches are bloody fierce for when you want it to be, too.

As for the single-player, I've enjoyed it a bunch. I can't say I'm overly-thrilled with the little mini-games and mostly-pointless runaround tasks they've stuck in, but they're at least a couple of degrees less annoying than the ones in San Andreas, and fit with the flow of the story. Towards the end of the first island I was nearly pulling my hair out with all the phone activity, when I managed to get half a dozen phone calls in the space of a drive covering a few blocks. Aside from these brief spikes, however, its fairly unobtrusive. Missions are along the lines of previous games, with some of them possibly feeling a little samey, but when you add the new pseudo-stealth crouching/ducking/shooting style, combat system, building climbing, driving scheme, and all the other various little bits and pieces I'll not mention for fear of spoiling it, it does start to feel a world apart from everything that came before.

The new wanted level system deserves high praise indeed, though. Before, losing your wanted level was just a case of driving around until, seemingly at random, your wanted level began to drop, which became next-to-impossible beyond one or two stars. In GTA4, you can see a radius around your player on the map which indicates that the police are still looking for you, which grows depending on your number of stars, with individual police cars marked. This way, you can really make a conscious decision to take this turn or that turn, and it seems a lot more likely that you'll be able to lose them without resorting to a spray shop for the higher levels--I managed to lose 4 stars in a few minutes with a bit of clever driving, something I don't think I could ever do on the older games (if it even can be done).

The story seems a lot more polished this time around, with a few of them sticking around for a long time, giving them a bit of a chance to develop. That you're not playing the professional odd-job man from most of the others is refreshing, and the accents are nowhere near as grating as that gansta prick from San Andreas. The only problem is now whenever I get an Eastern European customer in work I can't look them in the face, because there's a voice in my head screaming lines from the game's script at me.

I'll leave it at that, because I have no idea if I'm even writing about the right stuff or not. The game is utterly immense, and I imagine everyone has already made up their mind whether or not they were going to get it long before it was released.

[melancholy]

Well, I started playing again to see if I could keep it running. This time I took some suggestions from other forums on how to keep the game from crashing by turning off the internet connection. And to my surprise, I got a solid 2 1/2 hours of gameplay with no crashing whatsoever. Of course that means no online play until someone at Rockstar fixes the crashing bug, but I didn't buy this game for the online anyway.

[politoe]

So far the physics is what has me enjoying this game the most. It has a more realistic feel with it, but the Ai is still retarted. I started hitting this russian guy in front of his homie and his friend didn't make an effort to help out.

[toastman]

Picked it up Monday at midnight for the 360. Played single player a bit until my friend got home and got through the beginning missions (he lives a bit further away than I). We then spent a couple of hours just screwing around in Free Mode. Tuesday, got on Free Mode with a lot of strangers and then did some more missions. I've discovered the bowling alley and pool hall.

Impressions:
The game looks amazing. No other way to describe it. And it's not just the quality of the graphics, but the style as well.

The controls are a little off. Neither Classic nor Standard mode offers exactly what I'm looking for. Although Standard is better for driving cars as with the 360 triggers, you can actually regulate speed. No more tapping the button or just driving like a maniac everywhere. Hand-to-hand combat takes a bit getting used to. 'B' is your standard melee attack. However, hold down the left trigger for targeting and all of the buttons become attacks. 'Y' is a second punch, 'X' is a kick, and 'A' is a block. Bowling and pool are decent minigames and the controls work fine for them. Flying a helicopter becomes a bit problematic. I think they've changed the way copters control and handle from San Andreas. It seems like now the copter will try and perform all necessary movements to obey the direction you want to go (you press left on the joystick, the copter will tilt to the left and rotate counterclockwise a bit). In San Andreas, the joystick only controlled the tilt, and the shoulder buttons only controlled the rotation. It took a bit to get used to, but you could become a pretty decent pilot with a little practice.

The camera. The camera is the only thing about the game I really don't like. It seems to low and too close for my comfort. Especially while driving. Not to mention that the lag between action and camera follow just means that while performing a 180 degree handbrake turn looks cool, I can no longer see what's going on until the either the camera catches up or I press R3 to reset it again.

So far online is fun, but I've only played in Free Mode as I've mentioned. If anybody else with the 360 version wants to play online - gamertag: dctoastman

[az_bont]

Hand-to-hand combat takes a bit getting used to. 'B' is your standard melee attack. However, hold down the left trigger for targeting and all of the buttons become attacks. 'Y' is a second punch, 'X' is a kick, and 'A' is a block. Bowling and pool are decent minigames and the controls work fine for them.

Something I completely missed the first time around and only happened to catch by glancing over at a friend's screen is that if you block with 'A' and immediatley punch back, you perform a powerful counterattack. Can't say I've had much success with it personally, though.

[mrandyk]

How do you get offline multiplayer like in San Adreas? Is it like the two player spots in San Andreas or is it accessed from the cell phone and I havent figured it out? There is offline multiplayer right?

[MulletMan13]

No, there is not offline multiplayer.

[ace]

lol "offline multiplayer"

I keep trying to write a review of Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV), but every time I start, I can't put words to paper. This game has me quite literally dumbfounded. Just, I was walking around Young and Dundas square yesterday (our version of Times Square) and all I could think about was that Downtown Toronto has nothing on GTA IV.

God, I can't even finish this half assed review, because all I want to do is go play the game! Look, just trust me, this is one of the best games I have ever played. One day I might be able to phrase it properly, but until then, just get the game. You won't be disappointed.

[Nyarlathotep]

Republican Space Rangers is almost worth buying thegame for by itself

I always wonder when Americans love the GTA games if they realise just how much of it is R*North taking the piss out of their entire culture and belief system?

[MulletMan13]

What percentage is everybody at?

I'm at 33.25% so far, and just completed a mission that reminded me of a certain Tarantino flick...

[mrandyk]

Im at about 4% because everytime I go to do a mission I get sidetracked and end up just going on a killing spree.

[ace]

Republican Space Rangers is almost worth buying thegame for by itself

I always wonder when Americans love the GTA games if they realise just how much of it is R*North taking the piss out of their entire culture and belief system?

Of course, the satire in the game is have of the fun.

[Specially Cork]

Just put my order in for a PS3 and GTA4 at my local games place. 3300 yuan (£240) all together. Takes 3-4 days to smuggle in from Hong Kong. Most Chinese people laugh when I tell them this because "there is no such thing as a PS3".

[melancholy]

I haven't really touched it since I'm determined to beat Crisis Core before I play anything else. I'm 60 hours in, so I don't want to stop now.

So yeah, right now I'm only like 3% done with GTA. This is a terribly slow month for video games, though, so I'm sure I'll have time to make some progress later.

[Skynet]

~14% because I keep playing online.

[ace]

Taking a few days break. I played for seven days straight, min. five hours a day.

[MulletMan13]

Finished this morning at 4am (despite having an exam at 9:30am). It was excellent.

I finished only with like 73% completed, so I still have quite a bit to do