Wrestlevania

So, this "GTA 4" thing then...

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Wow! I just unlocked Algonquin and drove down one of the roads next to Middle Park. That place is really busy and full of traffic compared to the earlier areas. It was especially awesome taking a cab ride there during a thunderstorm at night, just looking out the cab window and enjoying the sights. That one cab ride almost made me change my opinion that the game is a little bit overrated (with all the 10/10s).

PS. Is the unlocking of Algonquin supposed to happen silently during the mission in which you meet Playboy X or did I miss something? I remember that in the previous games there were usually announcements about bridges opening on the radio.

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I've watched my brother play for about ten minutes, and I'm amazed that there's so little talk about how fucking amazing the cabs are.

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Is there not some kind of in-joke yet about hooker killing? You would think so seeing all the fuss it caused in the mass media, to the point where it is all a lot of people know about the franchise. It would be great to see headlines about "Police Searching For Liberty City Slasher" and "Another Body Found".

Hmm, how about GTA: Victorian London next time? Jack the Ripper would make an excellent protagonist.

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Is there not some kind of in-joke yet about hooker killing? You would think so seeing all the fuss it caused in the mass media, to the point where it is all a lot of people know about the franchise. It would be great to see headlines about "Police Searching For Liberty City Slasher" and "Another Body Found".

Hmm, how about GTA: Victorian London next time? Jack the Ripper would make an excellent protagonist.

If you watch the TV there's an insurance advertisement ('VIG' or something like that) where the client 'accidentally' runs over a hooker on the pavement and worries about the consequences. Apparently if he takes out this insurance policy, he doesn't have to! Does that count?

I've watched my brother play for about ten minutes, and I'm amazed that there's so little talk about how fucking amazing the cabs are.

I use them to get around all the time :clap:

The first time you call Roman's personal (and aesthetically inferior) cab service there's a hilarious exchange of words I wasn't initially expecting which was made all the more real and exciting by calling someone on the phone, of my own volition, to discuss further details on a mission I was on my way to. It's just so surreal :D

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Wrestle, you do know that if you go to "load" in the pause menu and go to the very bottom of the save lists (under all the "empty slot" ones) it shows your last autosave and will allow you to load it, right? That's come in handy for me a few times.

As for the hooker thing, the Weazel News updates do occasionally carry details on the latest exploits of a serial killer who's beheading people around Liberty. Never payed that close attention to them, but the victims may well be prostitutes.

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Note to self: do not go for a joyride with a car along the subway route. Doing so will result in immediate six star beatdown. :shifty:

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Never payed that close attention to them, but the victims may well be prostitutes.

No, those're all joggers.

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Note to self: do not go for a joyride with a car along the subway route. Doing so will result in immediate six star beatdown. :shifty:

Haven't unlocked all of the islands yet, eh? Must have ventured into forbidden territory.

On the last mission right now. Third try of it, anyway. I'm taking a breather before having another go. They do provide you with a checkpoint between all of the initial driving and the ensuing shootout, but when it takes you back there, your status is not reset. Say I have full health and armor going in to the mission, with all of my ammunition maxed. Then I fail with a quarter of my lifebar left. If I choose to retry, I start back at the beginning of the shootout, but with only a quarter of my lifebar. So I load up an older save and try again. Real effective checkpoint system there, Rockstar.

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...

...

I'm beginning to be a bit envious of you people.

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And done. Even got the "Liberty City Minute" achievement for completing it in under 30 hours. My time was 29 hours, 25 minutes, if you're curious. Damn, that last mission was hard, but suitably epic. Now to raise the friendship levels of a bunch of people, find myself a bunch of pigeons, cars, races, etc. And then there's multiplayer. Still, now that I have the achievement, I don't feel any need to rush things. I figured if I was ever going to get it, I'd better do it now as I wouldn't have time to go for a 30 hour run any other time in the forseeable future. So I raced a bit. Blew off a couple of dates and drinking escapades, etc. Good thing I did, too, as I probably would have been just over 30 hours if I'd done any more than I did.

Oh yeah, there are assassin missions too. Maybe I'll give one of those a shot. I now have $750000, so loading up on sniper ammo and whatever else I may need shouldn't be an issue. Getting the $500000 achievement turned out to be a no brainer. In fact, there are two missions (one halfway through and the final one) that each give you $250000 for completing them, so if you spent everything but what you earned from them you'd get it. Score.

There is now nothing keeping me from wrecking up a lot of stuff online. Hope to see some of you on there. Cheers.

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Put in the GTA4 disc .... got red ring of death. This is bullshit. I'm trying the towel trick now :(

The same thing just happened to Iain Simons :-(

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Haven't unlocked all of the islands yet, eh? Must have ventured into forbidden territory.

Oh. That makes sense. :getmecoat Yeah. I shall avoid doing that from now on. But yes, I'm still pretty early. Still doing things for Vlad and Roman. I'm definitely liking the city more and more as I become familiarized with its environs. it certainly has a kind of character that none of the other "open world" games' cities ever had.

Wish I had more time for this now. Christ. 30 hours already? I've been too busy with work and quadruple overtime hockey games.

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Yeah, it's been a bit crazy. I've somehow still managed to have a life in there as well. Thing is, I keep crazy sleep habits. Usually from about 5 in the morning until noon. Thanks to insomnia, it's meant that the time I usually spend doing nothing online from 11-5 has been 6 hours of GTA. I watched the Canadiens games as well, which means I'd kept the weekend clear on my schedule in case the series went to game 6. It didn't, so Sunday became all GTA.

If you're still on the first island, you can get the "survive 5 minutes on 6 stars" achievement pretty easy, I've heard. Something about driving across the walkway between lanes of the Algonquin bridge and hiding out in the tunnels at the other end. Probably be a lot simpler than what I did. Getting a rocket launcher, going nuts, and running like hell.

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And done. Even got the "Liberty City Minute" achievement for completing it in under 30 hours. My time was 29 hours, 25 minutes, if you're curious.

I beat it yesterday, coming in at 30:30. :tdown: I fucked around a ton at the beginning of the game. I'm trying to decide if I want to go back to a 29hr saved game and try to get through the last few missions. I think I can do it, just don't know if it's really worth the trouble.

If you're still on the first island, you can get the "survive 5 minutes on 6 stars" achievement pretty easy, I've heard. Something about driving across the walkway between lanes of the Algonquin bridge and hiding out in the tunnels at the other end. Probably be a lot simpler than what I did. Getting a rocket launcher, going nuts, and running like hell.

There's a video on the "Inside Xbox Live" or whatever from the dashboard, though I didn't do it that way either. I jumped in a helicopter, landed on a building with no stairs, but one that had a balcony with a roof, and had to keep shooting helicopters to get my wanted level up to six (it actually took a while, because I couldn't see over the railing to shoot people on the ground).

I'm still messing around with the game of course, going to do most of the side missions, and I want to just explore and whatnot.

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Wrestle, you do know that if you go to "load" in the pause menu and go to the very bottom of the save lists (under all the "empty slot" ones) it shows your last autosave and will allow you to load it, right?

No, not a clue - why aren't these things more obvious? But thanks.

So, the 'Key to the City' deadline passed yesterday; anyone know anybody who managed to get 100% within the first week of the game being out? I suspect one Robert Florence will have done so, the amount he's been playing, but I could be wrong...

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Wow, I'm 20 hours in but still only at 35% of the missions. That kicks ass. I love taking this thing slowly =)

I just had the bank robbery with Packie... what a mission! Running through the streets, then escaping through the subway... fantastic! And when you exit the bank, you have like 5 stars or something; I was pooping my pants! But I made a clean getaway. Great fun!

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Yeah, for some reason once you get onto the freeway after the initial escape, your wanted level drops to three stars. Or at least it did for me. It's entirely possible I beat that mission with the assistance of a glitch. Still, brilliant mission all around, I just wish there were checkpoints as I died coming out of the subway my first time through.

Anybody go to www.littlelacysurprisepageant.com yet? Redirects to the FIB's website and gives you an automatic 4 star wanted level. Very nice if you're going for that achievement and also pretty funny.

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It dropped to 3 stars after the subway for me as well. It's just the way the mission is built; because it'd be a death warrant to have to escape from 5 stars after a tough mission. Also, I confess to using the health/armour cheat. I just don't want to have to redo missions because of that. I leave all the rest alone; so I still need the driving and evasion skills, have the necessity to think ahead and be careful.

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Wow, I'm 20 hours in but still only at 35% of the missions. That kicks ass. I love taking this thing slowly =)

I finally took a look at the stats -- 20 hours and 28% (is that percentage just the missions though? I think 100% is when you complete absolutely everything there is to do). Or maybe there's % of missions completed shown as well that I didn't notice?

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The % is everything -- I beat the game and I'm at 60-something percent, because I still have side missions.

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Been killing pigeons all night. Got about 50 of the little fuckers now, 150 to go. I really want to get these guys dead ASAP as I hear the unlock for it is a hunter helicopter. Fun times ahead.

Oddly, there's not much I've found more satisfying yet than going completely over the top on how I kill a pigeon. On a rock right in front of me? Grenade the bastard from a block away. Hiding up in a tower where I can't reach him? Rocket launcher. The splash damage will take him out. Firing a rocket blindly into an apartment block and seeing a puff of feathers fly out the window followed by "164 flying rats remaining" made me very very happy. $5000 worth of ammo to kill a bird! Whee!

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Last night I played various multiplayer modes with a small group of friends on Live for about 2 hours and I'm warming to it a little more.

Free For All remains a waste of time if you ask me, but GTA Race and Cops 'n Crooks just seems to be getting more fun with each play.

The Cannonball Run sub-mode of GTA Race is particularly funny - especially when people get hold of molotov cocktails and grenades.

On the single-player side of things, I've been asked by a friend to play the game in a very specific way and blog about the experience. As I'm only a few hours in still* I figured I might start from scratch for this little pet project.

More details if and when I decide to go for it.

* I found the auto-save slot, Miffy, but it was still about 2hrs behind where I'd gotten to. Still can't determine what precisely happened to loose my progress.

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