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

[twmac]

Thank you Miffy for coming in with a balanced argument. Sorry I've been reading this thread after just having had the chance to play the game.

The arguments proposed in the last post means I'm not going to rant about how much I can't stand the new game and its perfect score.

[Nachimir]

(This is an easter egg spoiler).

Last night I got into a fistfight in the street, and

it turned out the guy I was fighting was wearing a wig. It popped off his head after I'd hit him a few times, then he suddenly beat the shit out of me No idea if that's because he was scripted to get mad, or because I was laughing too hard to get the timing right.

[Wrestlevania]

Thanks, Miffy. All good points and well reasoned.

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.

Ditto; I've never found very long games appealing myself either. Give me ten 10+ hour games instead any day of the week.

(Just don't expect me to complete any of those either... )

Anyway, I played again last night for a decent chunk of time and it's just drawing me in more and more.

I put the game on immediately after Mrs V and I finished watching episodes 3+4 of Firefly and took the last Vlad mission ('Uncle Vlad'). She was genuinely impressed by the characterisations, dialogue and acting.

I'm starting to get bored of Michelle though. She's sweet, sure, but she's pretty dull. The girl in TW@ seems keen though, but haven't been able to get her details yet - the fact you can't initiate and control incidental dialogue is about the only slight frustration I've had with the game so far. After Mass Effect, it feels like it's missing something.

What's surprised me most away from the core game is the number of achievements I seem to have unlocked relatively quickly. Without being aware of how to get more than 2 of them ('Warm Coffee' and darts '180'). The most satisfying one I've gotten so far was for:

--successfully evading a 4-star police wanted rating.

I'd taken a spin out along the motorway and then crashed my car in the rain. It was so badly damaged that I needed to get something else. I spotted a row of very nice cars off to one side, in front of a large office-like building, so decided to take a sports car.

Unfortunately, a police car was passing just as I smashed the driver's window, so the officers jumped out and gave chase. I raced off to try and lose them, eventually turning right into what I thought was an industrial park.

It turned out I'd just careened through the main gates of the Liberty City airport service area -- instant 4-star wanted rating, 2 SWAT vans barreling towards me and a helicopter with spotlight appearing overhead.

I spent the next 15 (yes, fifteen!) minutes driving like a mad man through parks and greenland, hiding under bridges and generally trying to stay out of the helicopter's spotlight.

Tip: There's a multistory car park next to the airport maintenance area. Drive up to the top and there's a sub-machine gun abandoned on the top floor. There's also a nifty car jump which deposits you back on the street - though you'll need a new car!

In the end, the way I finally ditched the police was by making my way back into the poorer suburbs and then running through side alleys. The clincher was suddenly finding an abandoned police car parked down a back alley, which I broke into and immediately radio'd for backup at my current position.

Then it was a simple case of sticking the siren on and driving away, whilst the helicopter flew around and around the area I'd radio'd in from.

Just brilliant.

I'm loving the weather effects in the game too. The heavy rain storms are particularly good - especially the way the thunder makes your controller vibrate according to how close the storm is.

[Nappi]

I have played through Vice City as well as bits of GTA 3 and San Andreas. I had zero interest in the storyline in each of those games. To me, it was just an excuse of being given a new mission. The story didn't keep me interested and I soon noticed spending most of my time trying to break my bones with a motorcycle or something. Although free roaming can be fun, I usually got bored pretty fast, and the lack of an interesting story (although I'm not completely sure if it was the story itself or the way it was executed) became my major gripe with GTA. In the meanwhile, similar game (to some extend, at least) Mafia completely hooked me with its story and kept me interested till the end.

Where I'm getting with this is that, although I haven't played GTA IV, the most interesting aspect of it, to me, is essentially the storyline. It seems to be strongly present in most of the movies, even some of the screenshots, and it is mentioned in all the reviews. I might be completely wrong but I didn't feel it was like this in, say, San Andreas. Granted, I didn't follow the hype of San Andreas that much, but I don't even know the name of the main character let alone anything about his background.

So clearly Rockstar has done something right, they caught my attention.

[Spaff]

Go go Tanukitsune

[miffy495]

Awesome! Good on you, Tanukitsune.

Wrestle, don't worry about Michelle. She'll soon have a much larger impact on you than you anticipate. That does sound like an amazing chase though. I actually have yet to get over a 3 star wanted level myself. Wait, that's not exactly true. The bank heist level gives you 5 stars, but for some reason doesn't give you the achievement when you get away. I need to get out there and cause some havoc, but I'm really waiting until I have a rocket launcher at my disposal. The only achievement I figured would be particularly hard was the $500000 in your account one. At least, I thought it would until one mission gave me $250000 for completing it. Now I'm only $100000 away and quite confident I'll make it. Also, there's that "survive a 6-star wanted level for 5 minutes) one. I'm probably going to get the level and hole up in the subway trying to stave of NOOSE teams until the "achievement unlocked" thing pops up and I can let them riddle me with bullets. Actually, the Subway seems to be a good way to lose wanted levels. If you can take a motorbike down into the tunnels and just run for a while, you'll eventually get out of the wanted circle and be able to hide.

[Nachimir]

Michelle is so so so

obviously an undercover cop. I haven't got any further than shagging her yet though.

My hunch is that

she's a red herring, and her finding out Niko and none of his associates are whatever terrorists she's looking for leads to the reopening of some bridges. The kind of stories spawned during the Bush administration around terrorism give plenty of scope for Niko's kind of problem solving to be used by "The Good Guys" in this story, and it already seems to be (maybe) foreshadowing it with piss taking of homeland security and immigration control.

I am usually wrong about these kind of things though. Perhaps

she works for a rival gang, which would go some way to explaining why she's so crap/untrained.

[Thrik]

Hahaha:

http://www.sonydefenseforce.com/?p=404#more-404

Is all that about the pop-in true (I haven't played the game yet) or is it just the total bash-fest it seems to be?

[miffy495]

I've experienced pop-in exactly once. And not in the manner that they claim. It took approximately 2 seconds for the texture on the road I was driving on to appear after I'd been playing for 6 hours straight. Before and after that one incident, there were no problems at all. As for slowdown, a few times, but not in any really problematic ways. Say I hit a ramp and fly over about 15 police cars all with their lights flashing and sirens blaring and my car start to do a barrel roll. It'll slow down a bit until I land. Once the wheels hit the ground and I can actually control things anyway I was perfectly fine. Trees, signs, whatever appearing out of nowhere has not happened at all to me.

Compare this to Vice City Stories on the PSP, where I could drive across an entire neighbourhood without the road texture loading yet, and there is no problem whatsoever. I'm actually curious what SDF said about VCS now given how much worse the performance was.

[Thrik]

I figured it was massive exaggeration on their part (of the frequency of it if nothing else).

The review is generally pretty amusing at least. Gotta love that first screenshot. ;

[DanJW]

I found out the most fantastic thing tonight. Our very own B0b is currently London based, working for a huge conglomerate gaming company. This means he does not have much time to visit his girl here in Brighton. She told me, tonight, that she has been getting jealous of this "Michelle", who he just took out for a date bowling in GTA4, and banned him from answering any calls or text messages from her.

This is some kind of awesome metagaming going on right here.

[twmac]

Dan that is gold.

Reminds me of when I triggered one of the sex scenes in Fahrenheit in front of me then girlfriend and she walked out in a huff. She wouldn't speak about it for about a week, then confessed that she was extremely jealous.

[Nappi]

That is just awesome!* And In a way, very impressive.

*Well.. maybe not for some.

[Nachimir]

Is all that about the pop-in true (I haven't played the game yet) or is it just the total bash-fest it seems to be?

Total bash-fest with doctored screenshots. In about ten hours of play, I've noticed one item of scenery pop in once, during a cutscene, and it wasn't at the focus of anything.

My housemate is playing the PS3 version on the same TV, and they're close enough visually that you'd have to put them side by side and toothcomb them for differences.

[brkl]

Yes, although GameTrailers' comparison shows that PS3 has lower texture resolutions in some places, shorter view distance & more pop-up and generally softer visuals (lower resolution). But just a bit, it still looks good. SDF is pretty obviously a humour site, though I don't find it particularly funny.

[Tanukitsune]

Go go Tanukitsune

I'm playing Viva Piñata now!

Does it make any sense that I don't want to get GTA IV yet because I'm going to be in Manhattan in about a month?

[miffy495]

Nah, that makes perfect sense. I stayed there a month in '06 and it was one of the reasons I wanted to unlock Algonquin so badly. It does improve the experience if you've got a point of reference for it. Also, Viva Pinata is awesome. You have my approval, though that likely means nothing at all.

Brkl, I heard SDF was actually started by the guy who made the Wii60 site as a way of parodying Sony, but it actually attracted a base of legitimate Sony fans which scares me a little. Either way, never really worth reading except for thing like that comparison screenshot which I'll grant was kinda funny.

[Wrestlevania]

OK, I lost my temper with the game last night; if you try to join Live whilst the game is in progress, it drops you back to the opening scene of the game and you lose up to your last auto-save.

So I've now lost about 3hrs of gameplay, as I didn't manually save my last session on Friday night. Absolutely livid, as my game time is so rare a commodity.

*deep breath*

However, in the interests of balance and remaining positive; I tried multiplayer last night for the first time. It's quite good -- nothing outrageous or world-shifting, but it makes good use of the world and it's fun.

The team-based stuff is probably the best of the lot. (I'd rather concentrate on the single player game than waste time in multiplayer 'Free For All' and other similar modes.) Cops 'n Crooks is a good laugh, with the crooks having to drive to their boss to a predefined getaway point, whilst the police must give chase and try to kill the leader before he escapes.

As you can imagine, it gets quite frantic. Especially when someone blockades the road with a car or two, then pulls out an RPG. (The explosions are magnificent in this game!) And, because the multiplayer environment and mechanics are exactly the same as single player, you can do crazy things like leap off a suspension bridge into the river below and swim for it.

Good fun, but not an essential experience. I'm going back to focussing on the single player game again for now (to try and make up those lost 3 hours).

[toblix]

Okay, so is this like Zelda, in that there's a weird saving system where you're never actually sure if you have saved the game? Is it different from the previous GTA games?

[Tanukitsune]

Nah, that makes perfect sense. I stayed there a month in '06 and it was one of the reasons I wanted to unlock Algonquin so badly. It does improve the experience if you've got a point of reference for it. Also, Viva Pinata is awesome. You have my approval, though that likely means nothing at all.

Brkl, I heard SDF was actually started by the guy who made the Wii60 site as a way of parodying Sony, but it actually attracted a base of legitimate Sony fans which scares me a little. Either way, never really worth reading except for thing like that comparison screenshot which I'll grant was kinda funny.

Actually, it's more because NYC is already freaking me out enough to play a game that takes place there.

A part of me is convinced I'll get mugged by a puppy nun the moment I set foot there... I know that doesn't make much sense...

[Cigol]

I had to restart my game last night. Whilst loading the game I realised I didn't have time to play so used the XMB button to quit the game and shut the PS3 down - I guess that was a no-no as it wouldn't load up for me again! Had to delete the save and start over but as I'd only really been one mission away from completing Vlads quota it wasn't so bad.

Besides, not having to worry about getting used to the controls or inspecting every little detail (etc) was refreshing as it allows you to focus purely on the gameplay/story and it came across much better like that. It also opened my eyes to the variation in missions and choice. Obviously they are linearly scripted to be a choice (so it's quite arbitrary) but it was fun all the same. I made two choices before I decided to hang up the controller and rest my eyes. I think I'm just going to dick around some more before going on another mission marathon, try and spread it out.

As for the PS3 version, I have it. It has all the usual GTA trademarks in performance issues. If you play GTA on the console you have to put up with them and they aren't exactly consistent. You might get pop-in in one area for example, but you won't the next time, or vice versa. I don't know why people get all hot and hairy over it, the PC is kicks both the XBOX and PS3s arses so it's a moot point

[ThunderPeel2001]

Anybody had difficulty getting hold copy? Everywhere in the UK is sold out!

[Wrestlevania]

Okay, so is this like Zelda, in that there's a weird saving system where you're never actually sure if you have saved the game? Is it different from the previous GTA games?

It auto-saves upon successful completion of a mission, but these never show up in the save slots when you manually save (i.e. sleep).

So I don't quite know what's going on, or why Rockstar have obscured auto-save data. It's obviously a fragile implementation, however they've done it.

[Wrestlevania]

Anybody had difficulty getting hold copy? Everywhere in the UK is sold out!

Been hearing that a lot all week, which is why I'm glad I put up with this at midnight on Monday:

Royal pain in the arse, but I'm glad I did it now.

[Ginger]

Anybody had difficulty getting hold copy? Everywhere in the UK is sold out!

Have u not learned anything from the previous games, u don't buy it. Wait outside a shop where someone would have pre-ordered it and wait for them to pick it up and leave the shop then either,

a) jack a car a run it into them

find a baseball bat lying in the street or steal it off someone in a gang and go and smash his head in.

c) fuck stealing the game, go a score with a prossie and then kill her for laughs and to get your money back.