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

[Roderick]

Goddamn, Snow Storm is hard

[Nick]

Well Miffy, I was told today that apparently the checkpoint thing isn't that much of an issue as you can just get a taxi back to where you are going and not have to drive there over and over.

[Marek]

And Marek, do tell me about your new job in the UK! I didn't know you were quitting Woedend!. Did they get angry?

No, Woedend! finally mellowed out, which meant it was time to leave. I guess I'll do a little blog update about my new gig soon. Talking about it now feels a bit premature as I haven't even had my first day yet.

I'm still curled up in fetal position sulking over my dead 360. Sure, I can still play GTA4 later on, but I won't have as much time for it as I would have now, and I'm missing out on all those cool spoiler-filled forum threads. Maybe I could buy a 360 and then sell it again. Except that seems like a lot of trouble.

[JoeX111]

Any of you tried out multiplayer yet?

I normally skip that portion of any game, but good lord, I may be having more fun with it than the single player campaign itself.

If you can get a load of people into a Cops and Crooks match, there's some endless fun to be had.

[Wrestlevania]

I'm still curled up in fetal position sulking over my dead 360.

Worth giving it

then, surely?

[Marek]

I did that and then my apartment smelled of burnt plastic. Also it didn't help my console boot up again. :tup:

[ThunderPeel2001]

It's not much of a "fix" if you ask me. It'll still be likely to happen again.

[Thrik]

Heh! Look at what one of the 'Addiction Level' statistics is:

[Wrestlevania]

I bet Fat Rab is weeping with joy into his heavily-soiled dressing gown... Bless.

Also: Which spawny bast's whacking gert telly is that?! :\

Also also: More that 30 hours played and still only scraping 60% completion?!

[Nachimir]

Ahahahaha!

Fantastic.

Finally got my copy tonight. I don't think HMV were pleased, as their supplier wouldn't send them any more copies until they'd got rid of every last one, including the preorders. Ah well, not my fault if I was working out of town and their stock system is that stupid.

[Cigol]

Been playing mine so far, it's very much GTA as I expected. Not bothered doing the missions yet, just arsing around. Impressed, only the PS3 doesn't currently have a working internet. Frame rates can get dodgy as well but they've always been like that on the console. So far I'm liking all the little flourishes, bit overwhelmed at the minute, gotta do the story.

[miffy495]

Shit, that addiction level is awesome! What exactly is it supposed to measure, anyway? Mine is at "That's some good shit" but I have no idea what it means.

[netmonkey]

Uh, am I the only one who thinks that the game is just same old gta 3 with experienced/next-gen polish? Am I missing anything?

Don't get me wrong, the game is pretty awesome, but I don't see why it's getting perfect 10s all over the place. Not that I really believe in those numeric reviews, but it just proves that the system is really broken when the numbers don't really mean that the game pushes the genre in new directions but instead that it's like a new edition of a book with better grammar, spelling, and more detailed description of the events with new characters added. Oh, and and the pages are in color and in glossy paper! Too bad the events are still as shallow and meaningless as the previous editions.

[miffy495]

No, you're right. It's not the same giant kind of leap we saw from GTA3. It is however, still a step up from San Andreas, which was one of my favorite games of all time. I personally wouldn't give it a 10. 9.5, sure. Maybe even a bit higher. It feels like what it is, the pinnacle of an utterly fantastic series. Apparently a lot of places think that means a 10/10. Whether or not you agree with them shouldn't really change the fact that it's a great game and deserves a play.

[Roderick]

The more I play it, the more I crave it, excitingly enough =) But I don't agree with you on the shallow part, netmonkey. What do you mean by shallow? The missions are scripted yes, but they're superbly set up with great feeling and direction. Within the context of GTA gameplay they've managed to load up fantastic bits of character development and oftentimes sharp commentary on the American dream. Especially if you get two people in a car, on a date or guy-date, they'll frequently begin to converse on really good stuff. Especially Roman and Nico are a dream team; Roman will start to rave about the land of opportunities, and Nico gives a shadow side and complains about it. It works because the game never tells you to take either side, but just puts it out there as a hovering query for you to discover yourself.

The people you meet are amazing too; very rich and satirical. They're all exaggerated stereotypes, but they find their place in Liberty City brilliantly. It's top comedy.

I'd say I know plenty of games that are shallower than this. That's not saying lots of stuff wasn't already present in San Andreas, but apparently a level of perfection has been closed in on here, that warrants people to get really excited.

[twmac]

Phew! I was thinking about buying this what with all the Hyperbole.

I've disliked the series since it went 3-D, so if this is just more of the same but shinier then it probably won't be the one to convert me.

[miffy495]

Yeah, this isn't going to change your mind. Maybe give it a rental just to make sure, and personally I can't see any way I wouldn't love this game, but I wouldn't buy it right away if I were you.

I just had one of those perfect moments again. I'd just (midgame spoiler. No story details, just hiding it so that if you don't want to know what a mission involves doing you don't have to look.)

shot down a helicopter with Little Jacob's riding gunner with a rocket launcher

and I ended up with that feeling of a mission well done as I flew over Middle Park with the Who's "The Seeker" coming on the radio. At midnight, game time. Brilliant.

[werd123]

No custom soundtracks, no. The one in there is pretty good, but not the best they've had. The classic rock station (LRR Liberty Rock Radio) is pretty sweet though. The Who, Bowie, the Smashing Pumpkins, Queen, R.E.M., etc. As an added bonus, not only is there an Iggy Pop song in there (I Wanna Be Your Dog), he's also the bloody DJ! Hells. Yes.

WHAT??!!! Their is no custom soundtracks!!! Rockstar put this feature in a Xbox 1 game four years ago and had the feature on the PSP games but they didn't bother with this one feature!!! And the soundtrack doesn't look it would excite me bar Nas "War is Necessary", but everything sounds average, but no country music thank god.

And 60% within only 30 hours, I thought Rockstar touted having 100 hours of gameplay in this version.

[toblix]

but no country music thank god.

The country music was awesome in SA. Of course it wouldn't fit in a city-only game like GTAIV, but in SA it fit like ze glove.

[Erkki]

No, you're right. It's not the same giant kind of leap we saw from GTA3. It is however, still a step up from San Andreas, which was one of my favorite games of all time. I personally wouldn't give it a 10. 9.5, sure. Maybe even a bit higher. It feels like what it is, the pinnacle of an utterly fantastic series. Apparently a lot of places think that means a 10/10. Whether or not you agree with them shouldn't really change the fact that it's a great game and deserves a play.

Yeah, I agree. The review scores seem too high, as if some unwritten rules were changed just to give it 10/10. An average of 9.9 seems pretty ridiculous.

But on the other hand some of the added detail and deeper integration of main themes and side things does add some quality to the game that has never been there before. For example

in the mission "Shadow", where I was following a dealer and trying to do it without him noticing, suddenly Roman called and asked me to go bowling or something. Niko said he can't right now, but the dealer was alerted by the phone ring and made a run for it. I had to replay that mission two times, and the call never happened again, so I think it wasn't scripted. Or maybe it was, but cleverly enough that it didn't repeat.

[Wrestlevania]

No, you're right. It's not the same giant kind of leap we saw from GTA3.

I disagree, quite strongly in fact.

You see, you need to look beyond the gloss for what's really leapt forward in GTA IV: the social modeling; the way police chases work now; the seemingly-bottomless incidental details and dialogue exchanges; the massively improved gunplay and hand-to-hand systems.

Try going back to something like San Andreas after you've played GTA IV for a good few hours--it's almost primitive by comparison if you ask me.

[Nachimir]

The little time I've spent hanging around on streets in IV has been interesting, just as you say Wrestle, there seems to be a lot more depth. When I'm razzing around in cars it seems very like the older GTA games, but there's a lot more to the world when you stop and look.

As I said before, I've been looking forward to seeing NaturalMotion's procedural animation at work in it too, and I'm kind of stunned at what a background thing it seems to be. Developing with it isn't cheap, and NM's promo videos plus the ones for The Force Unleashed all make a huge thing of it. In GTA IV, it seems like yet another detail that adds depth and is never put at the forefront.

[Cigol]

Don't look for something that was never on the cards. The thing I enjoyed about GTAIII's switch to a 3D perspective was that they never tampered too excessively with the core gameplay, it changed to be sure (a more cinematic experience, less arcade-points-based-mayhem, and a 3D perspective) but controlling your character, driving the cars, etc, it all felt familiar whilst also at the same time being a big step forwards.

We all know the rating system is flawed, GTA4 isn't perfect by a long stretch, nor is it this huge next-gen revolution of the existing games. It's just GTA4 as you'd expect. The hype has been a bit unreal but I don't feel like I've been gypped the same way I did after buying Bioshock (a perfectly good game before anyone starts:woohoo:). But I bought into the hype of Bioshock, even after playing the demo - whereas I could tell from watching videos of GTA what it was going to be like (in terms of its sandbox gameplay) very easily, that might even be down to that familiarty that is inherent in the series.

[Wrestlevania]

GTA has always shifted between 'the experience' and 'the mechanics'. The point I'm trying to make is the experience is the biggest differentiator this time in my opinion, and it's not slight in its implementation.

[miffy495]

No, it's not. But that the experience has been deepened and made much more enthralling does not make it a huge leap forward to me. It's a leap, to be sure. What you say has leapt forward, (the social modeling; the way police chases work now; the seemingly-bottomless incidental details and dialogue exchanges; the massively improved gunplay and hand-to-hand systems) I agree with. To me though, all of these things are the polish on the game. The game starts with sandbox gameplay and an impressive story. The mechanics and character of the world, amazingly detailed as they are, are the gloss on top of it. The game in GTA IV is only a small progression for the series. The world is a huge step forward for games, but this doesn't change the fact that if you didn't like the core game before you probably won't now.

That said, I was a fan before and thus have been incredibly enthralled with the game. I just opened up the third section of the map about 10 minutes ago and have yet to journey there. I'm pretty psyched for it. Like Rodi said, the more I play, the more I crave. My girlfriend went to bed early last night so that she could get up for work today and I ended up playing until 3 am with headphones on so I wouldn't wake her. This despite sharing an alarm clock and knowing we'd have to get up at the same time. I'm tired today, but still playing this evening.

To werd123, are custom soundtracks really such a big deal? I've never used them, not once, despite every version I own up to this point having the ability. And III, SA, and VC were all on PC so all it would have taken is dragging and dropping mp3s into a folder. The soundtracks have always been good, and will always be interrupted by gunfire and dialogue anyway, so wouldn't it just be more annoying if it was a song you really loved? And you're complaining that 60% at 30 hours is too little gameplay? I'm hard pressed under normal circumstances to devote more than 10 hours to a game I absolutely love. The last time I broke that rule was when I played Mass Effect over the Christmas holidays when I had no school to worry about. Lucky me, school ended for the summer last week so I can do the same thing now. The only time I've seen a game with a box that promised more than 100 hours of gameplay I put it right back on the shelf. 100 hours is too much game.

Finally, Erkki, I got the same call as you during that mission. It happens a few times in different missions. The few times I've had to replay missions with really long car rides with lots of dialogue, I noticed that the second time I went for the drive, the conversations covered all the same points but was totally different. Very cool little detail there that makes having to replay really long missions (I just did that bank one the reviews all talked about. 2 15 minute tries) not so much of a hassle.