GTA IV review thread! - Page 9

I haven't had this happen at all yet, and I am about 25% into the game. Are you playing the Xbox version or the PS version? I know when I play Hot Shots Golf with a non-DS3 controller (i.e., using the sixaxis that came with the system), I get some wonky controller issues where the camera keeps spinning for about five or six seconds after I let go of the stick.

Oh man, I don't know how many times I had to restart that mission because I thought I had to kill him before he got to his brothers, and I kept crashing because I suck at shooting and driving. I was getting so pissed because I was wondering how many times I had to shoot him before he went down. Then I was annoyed when I realized all I had to do was follow him to his brothers and I wasted all those bullets along the way.

I just picked up the game, did like two missions, but mostly am just driving around so far... there's a few controls issues that I don't like (besides the fact that at this point I still suck at driving.)

The big huge issue is that you can't change weapons while moving, since you need to keep your thumb on the joystick and then can't press left or right. Also, I'm having a little trouble changing between targets when locked on, and also, am I mistaken or is it the same button for locking on as it is for free-aim? I end up doing one thing when I want the other, and the other when I want the first.

Change out your controller, you probably need a new one for all the frustations you have with any of the games.

You push 'X' to change weapons while driving. You lock on by pressing the left trigger all the way. You can free aim by pressing either the left or right trigger half way. Pressing the right trigger half way will also shrink the reticle and make your first shot more accurate (that can be used for both free aim and auto aim situations). To change targets while in auto aim, you tap the right stick toward the new target. It doesn't seem like it seeks all that far, though, so the new target needs to be relatively close to the old target. I find it much quicker to just release the left trigger half way, re-aim in the general direction of the new target and press the trigger all the way down.

While Deus Ex is a great game, it definitely doesn't get my vote for best game of all time. It also didn't do anything all that complex with letting you do what you want. It mainly let you kill anybody and had multiple ways to get into areas. It did have the old Sierra Games annoyance of letting you kill key characters with no warning. In that respect it's not vastly different from a game like Oblivion, although Deus Ex was more "here's 3 or 4 options to get into a room, pick one", where Oblivion is more here's a big open world.

The changing weapons thing, my biggest issue with it was while running, not while driving. Thanks for the tips on everything else though.

Look this game sucks I can offically say. Im kinda mad I wasted 5.50 on a rental. How frustrating. The part where you gotta kill all the members in the gang where there talking on the corner and one drives off and like three or 4 stay back. And getting hit by cars all the time. The screen being so cut off. This game is junk man. How the hell do people love this. The story makes me laugh here and there but playing just is annyoing. The shooting from the car does suck so much. Throw a cocktail out the window he like drops it. What a joke another disappointment. At least I didnt buy it. I dont even think I will beat it its more annoying than fun by far.

Thats just your opinion and many others differ. If you hate this game so much, then why do you even bother coming into these threads. Just move on.

You on welfare? You are complaining about a rental? Like someone else said, 500M in the first week....I think a "few" people may disagree with you.

Everyone has a right to their opinion. There have been some completely horrible games, and others have trashed them as well. It's just when a game is very popular, people tend to not respect opinions that don't match the groupthink. It can be annoying. However, I think everyone has recieved your message by now.

And while I agree with some of your stuff, I wouldn't say the game is totally junk. You just get accustomed to things, have some patience as you do with anything in life.. remember it's just a game, and you saved yourself $50... so you can buy some other game.. Not too shabby eh? Move on, man!

Payne - he's getting the bashing because he posts the same thing about every game that comes out, not that people aren't entitled to their opinion. Also, plenty of us have gripes with the game and still have a blast with it.

GTA IV is a very good game. It is not revolutionary or the greatest game every in exsistence. I will agree with some reviewers that San Andreas has much more freedom. My advice to people who think this game sucks is give it a chance. When I first started playing it I thought it was ok. Then when I realized all the little enhancements(breaking windows to get into locked vehicles, hot wiring, car damage modeling, overall graphics, individual car handling, cover and fire system, cell phone integration, etc.) and I played a little more of the game I started liking it more. I read the reviews about this game before I played it so I knew what to expect. I think some people just rent it or buy it blindly and expect it to be the best thing since sliced bread. It does have some flaws. For instance, the multiplayer I have played a couple of times and I think it is fun. WHEN I CAN CONNECT! I would say I've tried getting into a game about 12 different times and connected twice. If you have a bunch of friends that have the game I have heard it can be easier to get some mayhem going. I haven't finished the game but I plan to. At this point I would give the game a 8 out of 10. If the multiplayer was easier to get into I would give it a 9 but not higher than that. It's hard to go from a game like San Andreas which was so huge and free to GTA IV that's smaller with less freedom and expect it to be better. Nonetheless, I've had fun with this game and most people will.

I personally like GTA4 better than San Andreas. San Andreas to me was just way to big and i got very bored with it. All the open space, mountains, deserts etc etc, was just very boring to navigate. GTA4 may be smaller, but its still huge with a hell of a lot more to see. I didnt even finish San Andreas just because it got so boring. Plus i'm not a huge fan of the whole ghetto aspect, that kind of turned me off as well.

I will be finishing GTA4 tho because i absolutely love it.

No I actually live in one of the most expensive places and goto a private college. But that doesnt mean I like to waste money. I feel bad for people who wasted it on this game. Once your done with this game will you really play it again?

So far I have put about 19 hours into the game and am about 23% in. Don't know how long the final tally will be but I can easily imagine myself spending 50-60 hours in this game and if the rest is half as fun as I have had with it already it is money well spent.

+1. if only the ignore feature worked for quoted posts too.

Everyone should completely ignore posts by this guy. Look at his previous posts and any credibility or sanity for that matter go right out the window. He's truly the troll of all trolls.

Yeah, I think that is the general consensus.

Finished up the main story last night with about 30 mins to spare for the Liberty City Minute achievement.

Rockstar really did a good job with this GTA, I never finished any of the previous GTAIIIish titles because I would always get bored. The story and the character interactions are really involving. I think this is the first game I've played on the 360 that my wife didn't mind sitting down and watching.

Finished the story last night. The only things I really hope they change for the next game are the auto-centering camera (at least give us the option). I prefer the strafe style controls of 3rd person games like Crackdown. Also, checkpoints in the longer missions. The last mission in the game was getting incredibly frustrating having to start all the way over. Other than that though. LOVED the game and would probably give a 9.9/10, not that that means anything anyway. I would give it a 10 if not for the camera. The no checkpoints at least adds more tension. Definitely in my top 5 of all time. It's the first GTA I've finished completely (though I may have finished Vice City - can't remember now). Love the story, the characters, the city. There's a lot of places in the city that weren't used very much. DLC!

Well, I "won". Not 100% completion, but beat the main storyline.

So I figured I would give my score card.

Missions - grade B; Some were better than others. I felt the game provided maybe too many learning missions. More variety is always welcome. I still feel Vice City set the standard for fun and creative missions, but of course after you have played GTA III, Vice, Liberty City Stories and San Andreas the GTA formula is going to start to feel less original. I was impressed with some of the in mission scripting, that happens during some chases with stategic cars coming in a certain way to create certain crashes. I like that kind of thing a lot.

Controls - grade A (driving); D (on foot); Driving controls were the best yet. When I compare them to trying to drive in Vice City using the PS2 accelerator button, or even San Andreas, they are perfect. Good cars handle good, bad cars handle bad, and speed control was an absolute joy! As usual the on foot controls were clunky, and at time manuverability in combat situtations was tricky. Manuverability in the weapons shop was horrible. I applaud the addition of a cover system, but it was awkward at times.

Graphics - B; Admittedly, they did not blow me away, but they did not really dissapoint. Rhere's a mission on a cargo ship, where they really did this amazing detail work; there's a pizza in the ship's kitchen that looks exactly like you would expect a pizza to look like. There are asphalt roads were you can see the brick work underneath where the asphalt has worn, just like you would see in real life sometimes. There were cool graphics variations in cars, such as rusted out versions.

Goodies - C; Where's the RC missions ? I have not found them yet in any case. No rampages, I guess I can live with. They spent 100 mil on this game supposedly, but there seem to be fewer side missions/games. No arena, no RC missions, no rampages, no property buying. I miss them.

Dialog/story line - ?; Not sure what to think. Too many bosses, Niko always felt like a pawn. I was looking for a little more innovation. The characters Niko worked with never felt likable. Most were annoying. This is highly subjective though.

Weapons - A; Nothing new, but everything you needed. Auto aim and free aim were both great.

Cars - B; Great handling, nice details, could shoot out tires etc. But no innovation over previous games. Not enough motorcycles on the map for quick use when you find a ramp. You should be able to buy cars, IMHO.

Radio/TV stations - grade B; The radio stations were great musically, especially Liberty Rock. They chose some great songs, and a lot of variety. Commercials were ok. Talk shows were not really innovative. The TV shows were really well done, but why would they spend money on something that did not happen during game play? I would have rather they put that money into cooler missions and such.

Difficulty - grade B+; There was really only one mission I thought maybe was a bit too hard. My nephew stepped in after I got stomped quite a few times on it, but I am sure I could have done it with enough patience. Some missions were surprisingly easy. I would say only five were hard, making this perhaps the easiest GTA ever. In part the ease was due to the new evasion system and the amazing driving control. It was much easier to maintain control. The cover system helped a lot too in making some missions pretty easy. Of course ammo was easy to get ahold of, I remember running out a lot more in previous GTAs. I like games you don't have to retry missions 20 times. So I am ok with the overall difficulty level reduction. Perhaps a few more slightly harder missions

Overall - B; I give it a B because I LOVE the GTA series and they did not screw it up. My main complaints were some on foot movement annoyances, lack of mission variety and the lack of RC missions or some other cool side missions. I enjoyed beating it and will probably play longer, to do the races and such. I don't think you can go wrong buying this game if you are a fan.

I got 100% a couple of days ago (had some time off last week, hehe), and I thought overall GTA IV was quite a lot of fun. Now my expectations were set from playing San Andreas (also got 100% on that one), which is a bit of a problem, since the scope is so different.

San Andreas had *so* many fun things to do and places to go it was just insane, but it also had more of a cartoony / goofy / over-the-top vibe a lot of the time. GTA IV dropped a great many elements from that for a more "focused" experience and a bit less of a silly factor. That's both good and bad if you're directly comparing it to San Andreas. I happened to really dig the craziness of San Andreas, but I can appreciate the new direction.

On its own terms, GTA IV still provides a ton of opportunities for fun. I mean, I got a solid 90 hours of fun out of it, and that's only counting the single player experience. Since it seems that most games are 8-15 hours these days, that ain't bad!

Even with all of the stuff I missed from the previous game, there are quite a few significant upgrades to the core gameplay, most notably the combat, amped up climbing ability, GPS system, and taxi rides to instantly warp across the map.

So I didn't go *quite* as nuts over it as I did with San Andreas, but it's still very much a GTA game and definitely a must buy.

I personally found GTA 4 a step back for the franchise. San Andreas had infenitly more customization then 4. The only two big new ideas for the franchise with 4 were the cop chases and the cell phone. The cop chases are awesome and way more fun than ever but the cell phone made the game almost too real. I play GTA for that rediculously unreal video game experience and having to make all of my video friends happy is just not my ideo of a great escape from reality.

Here are my thoughts on GTA IV:

Better:

Graphics, fewer tedious side missions, cover system, no cliche gangsta crap.

Worse:

Game play too linear, world is beautiful but boring, missions are repetitive, cliche mafia crap.

In sum I like this version better than San Andreas, but GTA III and Vice City were emminently more fun.

Why did they try to turn this game into a shooter?

Mike

yeah they've been calling me on the cellphone every 15 minutes now. I'm not sure if it's a certain point in the game, where everyone wants to hang out... but I'm really getting sick of this mundane routine of answering the phone, calling back to cancel.

So who, I would REALLY like to know. WHO at Rockstar thought this would be enjoyable? Is this entertainment? Did they really think I would ENJOY playing darts every 15 minutes? They thought I would get off on a video game stripper every 15 minutes? That I WANT to "eat"? Surely this idea had to go through levels of approval, but not ONE person on the Rockstar staff thought this was a bad idea?

After 2 "dates" of the same activity, we should not be required to do these activities anymore. What's the point? Carmen barely helps me out and she's 98% like. Once you get 90% that should be it. Move on to another aspect of the game. Not halfway thru the game, and Roman STILL wants to see a show and he's already 100%. WHY?

Why should I have to turn the phone off? This isn't real life. GMAFB, this is supposed to be fun. And even when the phone is off, I take on a 'most wanted' mission, and ring ring, here is Brucie, on my jock wanting to hang out AGAIN. And Little Jacob seems to always call right after I agree to go out with Brucie. WTH is this crap?

Yeah, anytime you make a call it turns the phone back on. Also, you'll get less calls once you go on enough "man-dates" that they give you their bonus. I got very good at putting the phone on sleep very early in the game.

Especially once I started to take cabs between all the spots, it seemed that way too often I would get a call from a friend requesting to go out JUST as I was approaching a marker to trigger a mission. So then you get to decide whether your trip was a waste of time or your going to let down someone who you made efforts for recently.

It's like they sense that you're about to start something and then they present the social dilemma.

I was thinking this too. It can't be coincidence! Especially the LJ and Brucie always calling within minutes of each other. Unless those 2 have something going on that we don't know about...

Well, I haven't gotten to the point where I'm getting calles every 10 minutes, but judging from your posts, and knowing the fact that R* is big on throwing jokes and things into it's games, it's probably meant as a little joke on the player, forcing them to constantly choose who they care about most and sit through mundane activities out of a sense of loyalty to the character/game. Also could be a joke on how people of that nature (Bruce, Jacob, Roman)(stereotypically) have one track, dead end minds when it comes to fun only wanting to hangout/get wasted/chase girls.


Even though I love this game so far, and can't see myself hating it later on, yeah, it's a bit of a step back from SA. Even though the terrain wasn't as interesting in that one, and driving accross the game world consisted of long boring stretches of country road, I still loved the endless customization and side missions.

Though I'm just going to bear in mind that this is their first attempt at a GTA on a next gen console, when you look back at it, GTA III wasn't nearly as open ended and deep as SA. So I'm sure the third or fourth game of this generation will have a plethora of side missions, extra goodies and such as well as a bigger world after they learn to use the systems power better.