GTA:IV Official Thread

[murray]

Course not.

[macosx]

Had some great mutliplayer matches on Live tonight. During one robbers escape we kept driving through barricades on a bridge, four of us in a car. Before I could express my concern, the car with all four of us launched off the bridges broken span, with multiple ' Oh shiiiitts' coming' out over the headsets! And how good is that rocket launcher

Jumped back in the singleplayer for a bit. It's a little world on a disc!

[Argh]

For anyone who's interested I just found hidden

body armour at one end of Meadow Hills, behind a double garage

[Silence]

A little niggle - when running at full speed and then jumping, there appears to be no transfer of momentum from the run to the jump - he actually stands still for a split second before jumping.

[Timmo]

I've just read about a glitch that can completely stop your progress, leaving you unable to continue, and forcing you to reload a game. It involves making sure you don't delete a text message or a miss a call. I'll say exactly where it is in a spoiler tag:

It's in the mission where you have to take an interview at a law firm. You submit your resume by email then afterwards, if you miss their response you're stuck... forever with no icons or anything, forcing a reload. Personally I didn't but I've read of it happening.

If you don't want to read that, make sure you keep two saves running, switching between them every so often, just in case.

[Guest]

Course not.

Don't worry. We're putting £20 on a horse and if we win we're going to split it! YEAH!

[Kinketsu]

I've just read about a glitch that can completely stop your progress, leaving you unable to continue, and forcing you to reload a game. It involves making sure you don't delete a text message or a miss a call. I'll say exactly where it is in a spoiler tag:

It's in the mission where you have to take an interview at a law firm. You submit your resume by email then afterwards, if you miss their response you're stuck... forever with no icons or anything, forcing a reload. Personally I didn't but I've read of it happening.

If you don't want to read that, make sure you keep two saves running, switching between them every so often, just in case.

Fuck this might have happened to me. I got a text message from them but it just said

your application is being processed

or something and they haven't called me. I've done a lot of missions since then. How long did it take other people to get a call?

EDIT panic averted, they just rang me!

[Corleth the Fey]

I've never played a GTA game properly before, I normally just mess around on San Adreas with the cheats on, letting me choose any vehicle or weapon or location at will. So it's kinda frustrating having to do missions and that with this one rather than putting the cheats on and going crazy.

You are quite unbelievable.

[Warszawa]

Yes it is. We've been over this. There's a few differences here and there.

There's a good comparison vid with a chopper flying over the city. 360, smooth. PS3, chugging every second or so. It's small but its noticable.

Look guys. We know the PS3 version wasnt ready for release, which is why the game was delayed. So the PS3 was obviously not going to be up to speed onthe 360 version. Just like about every other game that's had a 360 lead/not been in development from the very start.

Also seeing as Rockstar "can't even get things like disappearing cars right, the IDIOTS", do you expect them to be able to do this? LOL

I'm gonna say again: The PS3 version has its advantages though. Richer colours & lighting , less pop-up, better visual effects in some cases (explosions in particular appear to be a bit more flamboyant in general on the PS3) and no dithering. The PS3 team couldn't quite get the frame rate on par (and of course it suffers from more aliasing) but they deserve credit for tailoring the game to that console pretty nicely. It's unfair to compare it to most PS3 versions of multi-format games because there's hardly ever any technical area in which the PS3 version wins...that's not true of this game. Both are fantastic and they both have niggles and plusses.

Disregarding the frame-rate, I prefer the look of the PS3 version to its sharper but duller cousin. That said, the kind of FR lag which occurs when you're speeding along a stretch of road in a vehicle is jarring and I'm looking to buy the 360 version as soon as it's back on shelves so that I can see if it's significantly better in that area, as that would make a huge difference for me. My time with the 360 version has been relatively brief so I didn't find myself speeding along the bridges, but if it proves substantially smoother in such instances it could really help seal the deal with that version being the one I'd keep.

Seriously, if anyone has bought either version and is worried that it's vastly inferior or that all of the advantages are with the other, don't. They're both outrageously brilliant.

[Uncle Nasty]

This thread is sucking the life out of a one-off, extraordinary experience. Depressing and pointless.

[Guest]

Seriously, if anyone has bought either version and is worried that it's vastly inferior or that all of the advantages are with the other, don't. They're both outrageously brilliant.

Agreed. Whatever version you get, you're in for the rarest of rare treats.

[choddo]

As far as the single player game itself, I'm about 7 missions in and it's okay, but I'm not sure I'm loving it. I've never played a GTA game properly before, I normally just mess around on San Adreas with the cheats on, letting me choose any vehicle or weapon or location at will. So it's kinda frustrating having to do missions and that with this one rather than putting the cheats on and going crazy.

Errr

ok so I'll buy that sometimes just utter carnage is very entertaining but... if that's ALL you do... it's not entertaining at all.

Have to say the missions are getting a bit samey and boring at the moment, I think I'm in that lull period about 15% of the way through.

And I hate cheats. I'd rather earn the good shit.

[Couch Corpse]

Nah I think Kerraig means he recons the area before starting each mission like some kind of mental army OCD cunt.

I agree with Kerraig, it's a wonderful world but the game they've attached to it is disappointing.

Oh and Disciple you're coming across as a dick because some people want to discuss the game with both criticism and praise and not let the thread descend into the fanboy circle jerk you so obviously desire.

[biglime]

Dude, but thats my point. Saints row didnt have the writing or the endless resources, but it got the fundamentals better than even GTA IV does. With an endless deadline and more money than god, it should have been better in EVERy area. the simple fact that a cheap knockoff does some things better is pretty embarrassing for rockstar

You don't need masses of money to make sure your game isn't derivative, cliched and badly written.

Saints Row was alright, but it was a humourless slog, and not even worth mentioning in the same breath as ANY Grand Theft Auto game.

[biglime]

R* are victims of their own success and expectations blown out of proportions by the media and the fans.

This.

If youse lot are going to whine so much about little issues in a masterpiece of a game, youse should probably stop championing so much average shite every other week of the year.

I love you all really.

[Pob]

I'm not sure why people making valid criticisms are getting so much stick. As K said, the seven-year-old GTA3 had more open missions than GTAIV. For some reason, story missions in GTA games have become excuses for dialogue and cut scenes rather than actually playing the game. I've just been playing for three hours, and had so much fun doing the police missions and other general side quests. I couldn't really bring myself to attempt any story missions, as they just aren't as good (in general).

[McSpeed]

More brilliant fun today, though I encountered my first freeze too: when I got to the burger stand counter near the east-side beach on a bike, I got off and tried to order a hamburger, then it stalled. I could still pauze the game, and there was sound, but I couldn't move Niko any more. Oh well, hopefully the last, too.

Something else: when taking out this guy in a Banshee near the station (

Lenny

), it took me about five tries. The trains ran me over two times, I jumped off a railing which was too high and one time I even got blown away when his car exploded (because of my bullets).

The fifth time however, I finished it off with a brilliant move: I popped two of his tires before the car chase commenced, and chased him until we crossed the minor industrial area (with the trucks on the sides). I kept shooting the car (and without noticing it directly, the headrest of his carseat), and suddenly, his horn kept sounding. I got out, opened his car door, and his body fell out. Lovely!

[Fugitive]

This thread is sucking the life out of a one-off, extraordinary experience. Depressing and pointless.

* Speech *

[kerraig UK]

You're right. Again bang on.

"They" clearly didn't realise or know what they were doing. What idiots, what fools! Oh the irony! We could all do better right?

Here's your stick. Here's your moon. Go suck on it.

Erm, not really sure why you're acting like such a prick, but as I stated before, its not really the moon on a stick if a 2 year old game with a third of the budget and resources managed it. Maybe you just like it when people continuously repeat themselves for no purpose. Didn't you have some bet with Murray or something?

Look, if people HONESTLY think the game is perfect and wouldn't be at all improved with a few checkpoints, and a few more options in the missions, then good for them. Likewise if people HONESTLY think putting a checkpoint at the mission destination rather than where you pick the mission up from, makinng someone ride a train accross town several times or check a computer database for a name several times is a difficult task, again, good for them. But for me, those AREN'T good design decisions and the one place we can voice these concerns would be on a gaming discussion forum on the internet.

[Kinketsu]

Three Leaf Clover was a good mission but

Derrick's weird bullshitting about Belfast was eyerolling. I take it its at his expense. Fingers crossed we get to kill him

I found three 'friends' on the street now to give me missions, yay.

[Majora]

It's not exactly asking for the moon on a stick to want checkpoints is it? I genuinely can't think of the last game I played that didn't have a sensible checkpoint system, it's just become a part of modern gaming. God, even the new Mario had several checkpoints per level. It's so annoying having to drive across town just to set the mission into motion again, especially if it's the third part of the mission you keep failing at but you have to keep repeating parts one and two.

I just think that for a sandbox game, the missions are very very prescriptive and linear. A lot of them offer precisely no freedom, and a lot of what you have to do is very perfunctory. A few people were bigging up the porn shop mission before, saying nothing since had come close to it. Well, I'm assuming I've played it, unless there's another one later, and I'm a bit worried if that's the best of the early stuff. Great location and everything but you hardly do anything.

The GTA games have always been more than the sum of their parts though. The only parts GTA4 excels in are location and character/dialogue. If you take any of the gameplay mechanics in isolation, they're very very average and plenty of games do each of them better. To me, it's a fantastically detailed world with like six 7/10 games bolted onto it, but then the 3D GTA games have always been like that to me. I'm not saying I'm not enjoying the game, but I'm hardly one of those people who thinks it renders all other games obsolete when many other games have more solid or inventive actual gameplay.

[Super Craig]

Can someone ban Disciple?

[Wallace]

Anyone who thinks this game cannot be improved is nuts, ofcourse it can, all games can.

BUT, those who aren't generally happy with what they have got in this game are even more nuts, IMO. Its still fucking excellent, the good stuff far outweighs the bad not as good.

[Lerschumbo]

I want to ask one thing: are there extra missions where you can plug in another controller and play with your friend in the same shared screen like in San Andreas?

[rylee]

the good stuff far outweighs the bad.

By a long, long margin.

Saints Row may have featured a few features that Rockstar could have implemented, but I know that only one of those two games will see me put in a large amount of fun filled hours.

[Lerschumbo]

Oh, and there's a comparison video between PS3 and 360 versions on Gametrailers if someone gives a fuck about the differences... http://www.gametrailers.com/player/33470.html?type=

[macosx]

I wish people wouldnt keep posting those vids. I can never see anything in them they are so small and lo-res. Just play the game now, I think we all know the differences now.

And the nit-picking on here is ridiculous, ie the frame blending betwen jumping and running etc. FFS get out the house more or go and play White Van Racer.

[Meh]

It's a poor game in a fantastically realised world. FACT.

[Lerschumbo]

Hi-res: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/33469.html

But whatever.

[Meh]

By a long, long margin.

Saints Row may have featured a few features that Rockstar could have implemented, but I know that only one of those two games will see me put in a large amount of fun filled hours.

No, it doesn't.

The GOOD is completely and utterly seperate from the actual gameplay, which is poor.