Five Days Locked in a Room With GTA IV

bippy writes "Five days, one game. The Rocky Mountain News has a write up of five days spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV recently in a San Francisco hotel. It ends: 'In Grand Theft Auto IV the story isn't just an amalgam of cut scenes and cleverly written dialogue, it's the experiences I create, too. It's now, watching Niko stand, his shoulders slumped, that the depth of this game finally hits me. Niko's journey, the one crafted by Rockstar, may have ended, but Niko's adventures in the story I am creating have just begun.'" The most anticipated game in a while, to be sure. I'm certainly looking forward to busting some heads and jumping ramps.

hmmmm...

[MagdJTK]

Is it just me or are people getting way too excited about this game?

Now before everyone instantly mods me troll, I'll point out that I own GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas and loved two of those three games (I'll leave it to you to guess which ones), but I never saw them as deep or as art. I saw them as a fun way to pretend to be a gangster and run around causing mayhem.

Yet this GTA comes out and people are practically wetting themselves over what is going to be the same thing but shiny? Don't get me wrong - I'm sure it'll be a good game and win lots of GOTY awards, but does anyone honestly think they'll see a lot they're not expecting?

Re:What next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yakuza or Triads would be a viable route. We saw them in previous games, but didn't get deep into their practices and rites.

Re:hmmmm...

[MagdJTK]

I guess you're right. I mean no disrespect to people who are looking forward to it --- it just seems that GTA is going the way of FIFA, which worries me slightly.

Depth...

[dreamchaser]

I never thought I'd hear the words "Grand Theft Auto" and "depth" in the same context and at the same time.

Yay

[OverlordQ]

Remind me in a year or two when the PC version finally comes out.

Re:What next?

[_KiTA_]

What's next?

They go 60's camp. You are a super villains side kick, dressed in fluro spandex you have to try to dominate your city before the other super villain gangs do, all the while evading police and the occasional vigilante dressed in a leotard with a really cool utility belt.

I would buy that in a heartbeat, there's not enough supervillain games out there.

A sandboxy Batman game would also be pretty good.

I would also buy "Grand Theft Auto: Mushroom Kingdom", a self-parody with Wario running around outrunning Toadstool cops and the like.

Re:My Impressions

[Anonymous Coward]

My main complaint is that GTA IV is just a souped up version of the previous GTA games. You play a gangster who goes around breaking laws and doing gangster stuff. The missions are basically the same since the first GTA III - Steal this, muder that, etc.

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

Re:Yay

[Tatsh]

Have you seen/dealt with the Xbox 360 SDK? Just curious to see if you are pulling information out of the blue. Secondly, Xbox 360 is PowerPC based and whilst cross-development is possible probably, they probably just serial cable or even USB these days the executable code to their dev machines. Perhaps the SDK runs on Windows (I'm sure it does), but it may indeed be a lot more work to get the PC version going than you think, and that especially includes the fact that ATI and Nvidia DX implementations are slightly different, supporting those, supporting all these different PC configurations, testing A LOT, and all that. Even so, I have found all of their PC ports to be buggy at times, and they never make enhancements to the PC versions either (like better graphics, we all know GTA 3 could have looked 3 or more times better on PC than PS2).

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that R* doesn't seem to care much about their PC releases once they've gone gold. And there are bugs that could do with fixing (not so much with San Andreas imho), but overall the PC ports are reasonably polished if you ask me.

And they most certainly do make enhancements to the PC versions. They all have higher resolution textures than their console counterparts. They all support using a mouse in a reasonable fashion while also using a controller for driving/flying. You can configure every single key, and you never have to deal with unbindable keys or unchangeable binds. If anything R* probably is one of the best development houses at making decent PC ports of titles that started on a console.

Still, it's certainly disappointing how little they appear to care for PC gamers.

Re:My Impressions

[Anonymous Coward]

Also there are some frame rate issues, I notice FPS lagging on some occasions. Strange because Burnout looked better and didn't have these problems.

Burnout doesn't have PEOPLE, for starters! GTA4 does a lot more than a racing game like Burnout or Gran Turismo does.

It's like comparing a fighting game to a game with dozens of enemies onscreen at the same time.

I dont like this

[milsoRgen]

That summary read like a piece of proganada. I mean I have no doubt its going to be an excellent game and I am huge fan of the series and video games in general. But with so much hype before release, as seems to be the norm these days. I'm started to wonder about the motivation of such glow reviews. Sure it's probably fanboyism and follow the leader mentality, but a small part of me wonders if this isn't just some propaganda to ensure a nice bottom line.

Re:hmmmm...

[nEoN nOoDlE]

I agree with you 100%. I just don't get all the hype around this game. I loved GTA3 and Vice City, but I don't get how a sequel to those can spawn hyperbole such as:

"Niko's journey, the one crafted by Rockstar, may have ended, but Niko's adventures in the story I am creating have just begun."

It's a game, not a novel, and even as a game the story in it is on the lower tier as far as game stories go. This isn't Half Life or Bioshock where the stories are integral to the game. It's a game where you go around killing gangsters and prostitutes on the way to becoming a mob boss. And while that's a lot of fun and the game will be great, there's no need to use flowery language to build the status of the game up to legendary.

Re:censorship

[jollyreaper]

There was a time when people said that FPS games would never catch on with consoles, but dual-analog controls proved them wrong. RTS games and MMOs are another two PC-centric genres, but maybe it's only a matter of time until their console equivalents get worked out as well.

They've caught on but I'm still hostile to the controllers. I can play Oblivion well enough with the standard 360 controller, though I did move like a drunken Bush on a Segway for the first few hours. But the shooters I've tried playing on it, ugh! I'm going to have to put it on "arthritic grandmother" difficulty mode to get anywhere, I lack all accuracy. Give me a mouse and keyboard, I'm just hopelessly used to the idea of playing shooters hunched over a keyboard with the screen a foot from my face, ready for anything. I'm assuming this is just a generational bias, the kids growing up on the dual thumb controllers would probably find keyboard and mouse just as offputting. I hope that's the case, I plan on smoking their asses at LAN parties. "HA! Take that, whippersnapper! Where is your thumbstick now?"

Re:hmmmm...

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>it just seems that GTA is going the way of FIFA

what... the... fuck... ?

they just released the first game in 3.5 years. aside from downloadable content, the rumours are that the next full game won't appear until the next generation of consoles.

so I ask again: what... the... fuck... ?

Re:hmmmm...

[justinlee37]

GTA is still the finest sandbox-game series

Civilization 4, Fallout or The Elder Scrolls are better candidates for the "finest sandbox-game series" than GTA will ever be.

Not that GTA doesn't fill it's own little crime-and-mayhem niche or won't be fun or anything.

Re:What next?

[Archimonde]

The game you describe is already made. Please don't tell you never heard about Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven [wikipedia.org]?

Kids these days...

Re:hmmmm...

[Woundweavr]

Civilization 4, Fallout or The Elder Scrolls are better candidates for the "finest sandbox-game series" than GTA will ever be.,

You'd have an argument if those are sandbox games, but thats highly disputable.

Elder Scrolls has the best argument, but I would argue both Fallout and Elder Scrolls are actually simply RPGs with larger worlds than most computer versions. The thing is that even if you're doing nothing, you're still advancing one of the primary components of the game/plot (gaining XP/equipment whatever). Plus, you're still in the framework; there isn't the ability to experiment in the same way. Then again, someone else might simply have a broader definition than I do. To me the Civ games aren't even close to sandbox games (there's only a handful of final outcomes as interesting/addicting as those games are), but something like the Sims or large scale single player RPGs have an argument.

However, the idea that those three games are 'better candidates' is highly subjective as well. Those three games all have gamer 'street cred' but when I think sandbox, I don't think any of them (I'd think Wing Commander: Privateer if I wanted to be l33t) and the commercial/mainstream/widespread appeal doesn't compare. But to each their own.