GTA V

[Nachimir]

The fighter jet zipping over the end of the tiny multiplayer preview was enough for me. As I said on Twitter: "Grand Thumbs Auto II: GTA V: I" will be enough to sell it to me.

[Frenetic Pony]

Jesus fucking Christ.

 

the H is for "fucking"

 

That's about all I can say concerning that trailer.

[toblix]

There will be a PC GTA IV multiplayer thing on Monday. Read all about it here: Grand Thumb Auto retro PC edition

[Erkki]

The fighter jet zipping over the end of the tiny multiplayer preview was enough for me. As I said on Twitter: "Grand Thumbs Auto II: GTA V: I" will be enough to sell it to me.

 

If it will be on PS3 and I will have a TV by then, then I'm in.

[toblix]

I have a feeling platform fragmentation is going to be the death of the Grand Thumbs Auto revivening. Damn it, why aren't all games platform exclusive?!

[melmer]

Cool! Another take your friend to the pub and play darts sim......

[I_smell]

The main thing that jumped out to me was that the minimap was like a GPS instead of a circle, there are mountains, and you can hunt animals.

I'm really into hunting in games right now, for some reason, so fingers crossed that's somethin I can get into.

 

Didn't really blow me away IGN.com cos I guess I already know that you can switch characters. I wonder if switching will look exactly like that in the final game.

[Justin Leego]

I ... was not entirely convinced by the switching. Seemed to break the flow of that towernapping section.

[natetwoc]

The amount of stuff that you can possibly do seems absurd which is what has me interested in GTA once again.

[youmeyou]

I actually found the side stuff kind of overwhelming in GTA IV. I would be sat there watching TV... on my TV. Or checking my character's email in an internet cafe. And this is that to a ridiculous extent. The more mundane the activities get in a game the more I feel guilty that I'm performing them virtually. For example, I would feel pretty guilty doing the road bike minigame instead of going out and riding my road bike.

[Thrik]

I have a feeling platform fragmentation is going to be the death of the Grand Thumbs Auto revivening. Damn it, why aren't all games platform exclusive?!

 

It kind of gets on my nerves that it looks unlikely this generation will sort this shit out and get cross-platform multiplayer in place. It's perfectly feasible, don't many PC and Mac games do it? I know patch certification and shit throws a spanner in the works but this is exactly the kind of time where a little bit of cooperation between vendors would work wonders.

 

With the next generation clearly putting more emphasis on enhancing the single-player experience by throwing some online stuff into the core experience rather than a separate mode, it seems even more like the right time to finally figure it out. Gah.

[miffy495]

With that thing coming out of Rockstar Leeds yesterday looking for people to help them port "The latest Rockstar games" to PC, I'm even more willing to wait for PC now. Grand Thumb Auto V PC looks like it may be the most likely of all, especially as multiplayer is so much easier there anyway.

[Erkki]

I probably can't wait and will buy it for PS3, then PC later. That's what I usually end up doing with GTA games.

[Thyroid]

Anyone get serious Tony Soprano vibes off the first character?

Anyway, I've been waiting for them to revolutionize the GTA formula for years. Very exciting.

[Professor Video Games]

I actually found the side stuff kind of overwhelming in GTA IV. I would be sat there watching TV... on my TV. Or checking my character's email in an internet cafe. And this is that to a ridiculous extent. The more mundane the activities get in a game the more I feel guilty that I'm performing them virtually. For example, I would feel pretty guilty doing the road bike minigame instead of going out and riding my road bike

 

I agree. While I think the character switching could be interesting I hope these side activities are optional. They always seem more tedious than fun.

[toblix]

Though it's only a wild theory, I believe all these extracurricular activities – even if you choose to ignore them – add to the feeling of an actual living world. One of the things that makes open-world worlds feel real to me, as opposed to some kind of Truman Show, is the impression that things are always going on all over, and people aren't just standing still waiting for me to come around the corner before they start selling hot dogs or whatever. The enormous amount of non-critical-path content like TV, stand-up clubs, radio stations and so on all contribute to cementing the city as real. Or so I believe, anyway.

[clyde]

The extra curricular activities in GTA 4 were great for me because sometimes I just wanted to role-play living in a city. Most of the time when I played, I would do missions and cause ruckus, but sometimes (typically after something happened in a story mission that seemed like it was supposed to have emotional weight) I would just take a walk or a cab ride or sit in my apartment and watch television. While I was doing those passive activities, my contemplation of what had occurred would sometimes be forgotten or would be interupted by bumping into someone who gives me a WTF?! Look and obviously thinks I should have to pay for their coffee.

### I know it would take development resources, but how cool would it be if I could actually take a mission from them to get them another coffee. When you bring it to them they say "thanks" sarcastically because it was still an inconvenience to them.####

It's nice when the stuff is there, horrible when a mission depends on you doing it well, and rarely appreciated. But I like playing dolls sometimes.

One time I was just doing some urban exploration into a train tunnel and I was worried about a train coming. I was looking for graffitti. At somepoint the celing started glitching out and the geometry of the city appeared to me in a really odd broken way. I was thinking how awesome it would have been if i could have asked a pedestrian if the were seeing what i was seeing and then have them walk off disinterestedly. Later a cop would come come up and arrest me for intoxication in public. So many fantasies. These ideas occur to me while I wander around GTA 4 more than when I wander around other game worlds, so there is some value in that.

[Thrik]

Haha. I absolutely love the notion of having glitches be integrated into the game's fiction, explained by you tripping the fuck out.

[clyde]

Assuming it wasn't substance induced, Nico could go see a psychologist and have to fill out a multiple choice dicotomy key of symptoms for prognosis. The finished report is then sent to the development team as a bug report.

One of the questions should be "Do you often have thoughts about hurting yourself or others?"

[youmeyou]

Haha. I absolutely love the notion of having glitches be integrated into the game's fiction, explained by you tripping the fuck out.

 

I still would like to play some Dead Space 3 coop if only to experience that aspect of the game (different players experiencing different things on screen and asking each other if they saw it or not).

 

I do agree that all the ancillary aspects of GTA IV added up to more of a sense of a living world, but I found them more interesting to think about than to interact with. 

 

Living world elements that I would love to see more of: vehicles have constant states - that heli i landed on my penthouse roof should still be there when I wake up, dammit! Characters should have constant states. It's kind of what you were talking about toblix. I loved that in Fallout 3 an NPC could walk around the world (totally independently of whether you were sharing the same loaded chunk as them) and could even die! It's something more open world games should embrace, despite (and because of) the added complexity.

[Zeusthecat]

Though it's only a wild theory, I believe all these extracurricular activities – even if you choose to ignore them – add to the feeling of an actual living world. One of the things that makes open-world worlds feel real to me, as opposed to some kind of Truman Show, is the impression that things are always going on all over, and people aren't just standing still waiting for me to come around the corner before they start selling hot dogs or whatever. The enormous amount of non-critical-path content like TV, stand-up clubs, radio stations and so on all contribute to cementing the city as real. Or so I believe, anyway.

 

100% agreed. Even though the extra stuff wasn't necessarily that fun to play I still got a sense of satisfaction out of it and have found that even 4 years later some of the strongest memories I have of GTA IV are the times I went to throw darts, went to the comedy club, or watched Republican Space Rangers on my tv at home.

[Nachimir]

I ... was not entirely convinced by the switching. Seemed to break the flow of that towernapping section.

 

I almost hope that if you switch while two characters are next to each other, it zooms all the way out then back in again.

[Thrik]

And when it zooms back in, they're bumming each other.

[Frenetic Pony]

Though it's only a wild theory, I believe all these extracurricular activities – even if you choose to ignore them – add to the feeling of an actual living world. One of the things that makes open-world worlds feel real to me, as opposed to some kind of Truman Show, is the impression that things are always going on all over, and people aren't just standing still waiting for me to come around the corner before they start selling hot dogs or whatever. The enormous amount of non-critical-path content like TV, stand-up clubs, radio stations and so on all contribute to cementing the city as real. Or so I believe, anyway.

 

I mostly agree, though what that "non critical" path is can vary a lot so far as I care. I never did bother with the TV or stand up clubs or whatever in IV because they were boring. Other open world, or open worldish, games had much much more fun activities than that stuff from.

 

But the main thing I question is, why have a critical path at all in some games? What if you just got rid of it in an Elderscrolls game? You aren't the whatever, you're just a dude that can go about his business. I know a lot of people might say "but some people love that stuff and that's all they do!" But it's all they do because they lack the imagination to try other things. I can't count the number of people that thought Fable 1 was better than 2, but never bothered learning you could dress up like a pirate, or be a rich land baron, or get into a drunken threesome in 2. But I also suppose you can't force people to explore and have an imagination if they don't want to.

[Nachimir]

And when it zooms back in, they're bumming each other.

 

Going "Oooooh, you're so gangster"

 

This is from Twitter:

 

I'm excited to see what gangster films they've been watching since GTA IV.