GTA IV: In Retrospect

[Mr. Backlund]

I decided to play GTAIV today, as I was sick of Seth cheesing my to death in Street Fight IV and figured I'd go on a random killing spree in GTA IV to creatively work out my pathetic frustrations from SF. Now that the glitz and glamor of it "finally being release!" and everyone tripping over themselves to give it a 10/10 and A+ on every website, I've come to a conclusion:

It wasn't that great.

It's still as clumsy as it was when GTA III hit and revolutionized the industry (and created the despisable term "Sandbox" that everyone fails at creating), as the controls still have issues and a lot of things just flat out aren't natural and there's really nothing new to be had. The city itself was extremely boring, as there wasn't the same level of thought put into it as the other cities for the sake of "authenticity". Yea, it was (for the most part) a recreation of NYC, but San Andreas was a lot more fun to play because you had 3-5 extremely unique zones to visit and wreak havoc in. To top it off, the game seemed to take itself way too seriously and the narrative was grueling to get through. At the end, I didn't care about anyone or anything. In San Andreas, I got to customize my character and choose what to do to make him somewhat unique and could get into turf wars. Instead of develop that further, I had to babysit a needy cousin and a bunch of other annoying characters who would cry if I turned them down because I was on the otherside of the city in the middle of a mission.

That said, am I alone in realizing that we all may have jumped into a bit of hysteria when this thing hit and confused a game that would likely be a 7/10 into perfection by the hype? Recreating NYC was a triumph by itself, but besides that, its the same broken game with annoying features that take away from what was previously established.

[Alucard]

I still liked it over San Andreas.

Just my opinion.

[AFN: Judge Shred]

I have been saying it isn't all that great since the start. I played it for a week then stopped, outside of some online shenanigans with friends. I played Vice City for 2 years, San An for one year, this for a freaking week. We need a shake up.

[biafra]

I love it.

I'm a GTA fanboy so take it for whats worth but I think it is a great game.

Not as good in some ways as San Andreas but in other ways better; the graphics and game play mainly.

A lot of people talk about the missions getting repetitive and they have a valid point; but I still enjoy them and I don't see many gaming franchises that don't usually have the same general mission/quest template.

[Ramses]

it was one of the few GTA's I really enjoyed and still do. The problem with the game I have is it's moonman physics, other then that, great game.

[King of Fighters]

I like it alot, better than SA in the graphics *Of course*, Character design, world design, game play, and story areas.

[LARIATOOO!]

Well The Lost and The Damned is great. No babysitting. Calling for back-up is a nice idea. Also it fixes the motorcycles so they actually are rideable.

[Marvelously Mediocre]

I played it for about 9 months and loved it. now I play it and hate it.

[Mr. Backlund]

Feb 22, 2009 15:48:16 GMT -5 biafra said:

I love it.

I'm a GTA fanboy so take it for whats worth but I think it is a great game.

Not as good in some ways as San Andreas but in other ways better; the graphics and game play mainly.

A lot of people talk about the missions getting repetitive and they have a valid point; but I still enjoy them and I don't see many gaming franchises that don't usually have the same general mission/quest template.

I think that's what really bothered me about it, now that you bring it up. Every mission was to go get something/someone and bring them back, get ambushed, have the item/person taken, chase it/them down, kill everyone, lose the cops and drop them off. Granted, it didn't have an RC plane level, but there was nothing new or exciting, like all the other games had. It seemed every game prior had almost a "reward" mission, where you got to do crazy things like a stunt jump, go on a killing spree, snipe from a perch, etc. and break up the feeling that you were doing nothing but driving around fetching things for people.

Without a doubt the graphics are much improved, but they had a lot of things in San Andreas that seemed like a logical jump forwards (eat a lot, get fat/work out a lot, get buff and the gang wars) and axed it for "The Babysitter's Club" so you can listen to Roman whine to you when you don't take him to a strip club.

Its a game series that was at its best when the tongue was firmly implanted in the cheek, but this one tripped over itself to tell a convoluted and rather over-written storyline that ended up going no where. Yea, we don't play the game for the storyline (thats like reading Playboy for the articles), but this game stripped all of the fun stuff out (parachutes, jet packs, flame throwers) for drama.

[shiranui]

The only problems I have with GTA IV are the Shenmue-esque walking controls (the driving, however, is fine. It's not as easy as it was before since the vehicle actually have a sense of mass now, but once you get the hang of it there should be no trouble whatsoever), the lack of mid-mission checkpoints (which are now thankfully included in The Lost and Damned) and the constantly ringing phone (which is eliminated in TLAD, you only need to go do stuff with your buddies if you invite them yourself). Otherwise, I have no complaints really.

GTA IV isn't quite a 10/10 game, but it's damn close if you ask me (I'd say it's worth 9.5/10). Then again, as I've mentioned before, I play these games completely and utterly wrong because I think going around randomly wreaking havoc and killing civilians is completely stupid and pointless and detracts from the overall experience. GTA IV IS different from the previous games in that its emphasis is more on the characters and storyline, which is fine by me because that's what I always focused on in the past GTA titles anyway.

So yeah, basically what I mean to say is that it is that good.

[biafra]

I think with Saints Row and other games taking the over the top, cartoonish aspects and runing it into the ground Rockstar wanted to seperate itself from the copycats and go in a more serious and realistic direction.

I do hate the constant cell phone calls even if the rest of the game is top notch for me.

As far as the missions being repetitive...I see the point but I ask

A. In what long time series do the activities NOT more or less following the same patterns and

B. Using the backdrop of a GTA game are there really enough possible mission varieties to even fill one game without doing some of the same things over again?

[El Hijo del Havoc]

I still think its a great game. It may not be San Andreas, but its still better than the stuff coming out now

[Matt]

I liked it a lot more than San Andreas. I only played SA for about a week and didn't like it at all where as GTA IV I can still play and enjoy. Though the online is a big part of that but I also thought the characters and city were much better in IV. The calls can be annoying but it added to the storylines for the most part.

[Mr. Backlund]

Feb 22, 2009 16:08:37 GMT -5 biafra said:

I think with Saints Row and other games taking the over the top, cartoonish aspects and runing it into the ground Rockstar wanted to seperate itself from the copycats and go in a more serious and realistic direction.

I do hate the constant cell phone calls even if the rest of the game is top notch for me.

As far as the missions being repetitive...I see the point but I ask

A. In what long time series do the activities NOT more or less following the same patterns and

B. Using the backdrop of a GTA game are there really enough possible mission varieties to even fill one game without doing some of the same things over again?

Valid points, and I agree the copycats are lesser and force Rockstar to differentiate their product instead of rellying on whats already been watered down past the point of return. That said, that's almost the issue: the genre's already tired and its only been 7 years. Instead of actually jumping to the next level with GTA IV, we get another entry into what seems like III (better graphics and more polish, no doubt). I don't know what else they really can do, but its still the same thing: an open environment that somehow seems really closed and forces you to follow a strict order to actually complete it.

As for the questions:

A. Point taken, but a genre that prides itself on being open-ended and a "Sanbox", its very restricting and forces you to follow things to progress.

B. If we're keeping it "gritty" and "real", there's definitely only so many things you can do to keep it fresh. That said, the other entries weren't so bent on keeping it like this and let you have some variety, like breaking into Area 57 or having RC cars blow up people, etc.

Even in genre defining games, there's some variety to keep things spicey. 2D Mario had Underwater stages, dungeons and flying orange penguin stages. GTA IV had retrieve, recover, kill, lose cops, bring back missions over and over and......

I guess my complaint is really its the same thing it ever was since, but with a storyline I didn't personally like (complete with annoying characters and missions) and pretty graphics. Nothing new and missing some stuff that used to be great (albeit repeated by knock-offs ad nauseum).

[BHB]

I still love Vice City the most, and still play it now. I should really dig it out again........

[Phosphor Glow]

Feb 22, 2009 15:30:52 GMT -5 Alucard said:

I still liked it over San Andreas.

Just my opinion.

This.

I can go back and play SA, and it's fun...but something about GTAIV is just better to me. I can't quite figure it, but I just love it.

[Janitor From Mars]

I like it more than SA. SA has too many RPG elements that I just don't care for.

GTAIV brings the series back to its' roots for me.

[FrankGotch]

Funny this thread came up as I have just now bought and beat the game this week. As far as the game goes I think its tied with SA for my favorite.

Things I liked. Love the driving I honestly have no idea how people could complain about it. I found it easy, and very reliable, I love the fact that you can tell the difference immediately between muscle cars, sports cars, luxury cars, and so forth simply by the way they feel when you drive them.

Liked the combat system, though there is still massive room for improvement. One thing I would like to see added would be a way to aim at specific body parts while locked onto a target. I like handing out head shots and being as accurate as possible, but holding down the trigger half way puts a strain on your figure after a while.

I also liked the story, but found many of the missions to be kinda dual. Most of the missions that I liked were ones where you were protecting someone or assassinating someone like the late check out mission where you go into the hotel to knock off Hymen Roth. I also loved the bank mission. Missions that I hated were the ones where you drive around doing busy work for people.

After reading Godz on here when the game first came out I was very surprised that I did not find any of the chase missions that hard. I got through the whole game without having to replay a chase mission. In fact I got through the whole game and the only missions I had to replay were the one for the assassin where you fight the triads in the construction zone, and the final mission (hit a freaking barrel right before I made the jump with the dirt bike). If anything I thought the missions were too easy either I'm getting real good at GTA or this game was much easier then 3, VC, and SA.

Now for my major compliant if I want to go do something with my digital friends I will call them. I don't need my game play to be constantly interrupted by people calling me to whine because I'm not spending time with them doing repetitive task. There are only so many times you can bowl, play darts, ect before it gets boring. The only places I really liked going to were the cabaret and the comedy club. I honestly felt that I didn't get to explore the massive world as much as I would like because I was constantly getting called by people. I finally worked out a system where I would do four missions then spend a day taking everyone I knew out. I also took cabs everywhere because if I had driven around to meet everyone I would have taken a lot more the n 19 hours to beat the game.

Other then that I loved the characters, thought the story line was solid, and pretty deep, I kind of liked the way that Nico starts out wanting to find and kill one man, but to do that he ends up killing people for whoever he is working for. Then he just ends up killing most of the men he was works for, and by the end of the game Nico has needlessly killed hundreds of people, and he is left with an empty feeling when he finally get the revenge he wanted. He has killed so many people and really has nothing to show for it.

Things I would like to see changed. I would like to see them make out running police, and stealing cars harder. The fact that I can just walk into a dealership and take a brand new sports car right off the floor is goofy. I also hate that fact that if you drive around without the cops seeing you for a minute they forget. I think you should have to change the plates, or something. I also think you should be able to sell the all the cars you steal if you want to.

Last but not least I really really want them to do something about the way your guy handles when he is just walking around. No body runs jumps walks or reacts like your character does. They need to totally rework the out of vehicle physics.

Overall liked the game thought it was solid not much replay value but I think I will play it for a bit longer mostly to watch TV, catch all the shows, and explore some other things like the internet, I didn't get a chance to do most of that crap during game play because I always had someone calling me to do something.

[Biafrasbaby]

Feb 22, 2009 16:51:41 GMT -5 Mr. Backlund said:

Feb 22, 2009 16:08:37 GMT -5 biafra said:

I think with Saints Row and other games taking the over the top, cartoonish aspects and runing it into the ground Rockstar wanted to seperate itself from the copycats and go in a more serious and realistic direction.

I do hate the constant cell phone calls even if the rest of the game is top notch for me.

As far as the missions being repetitive...I see the point but I ask

A. In what long time series do the activities NOT more or less following the same patterns and

B. Using the backdrop of a GTA game are there really enough possible mission varieties to even fill one game without doing some of the same things over again?

Valid points, and I agree the copycats are lesser and force Rockstar to differentiate their product instead of rellying on whats already been watered down past the point of return. That said, that's almost the issue: the genre's already tired and its only been 7 years. Instead of actually jumping to the next level with GTA IV, we get another entry into what seems like III (better graphics and more polish, no doubt). I don't know what else they really can do, but its still the same thing: an open environment that somehow seems really closed and forces you to follow a strict order to actually complete it.

As for the questions:

A. Point taken, but a genre that prides itself on being open-ended and a "Sanbox", its very restricting and forces you to follow things to progress.

B. If we're keeping it "gritty" and "real", there's definitely only so many things you can do to keep it fresh. That said, the other entries weren't so bent on keeping it like this and let you have some variety, like breaking into Area 57 or having RC cars blow up people, etc.

Even in genre defining games, there's some variety to keep things spicey. 2D Mario had Underwater stages, dungeons and flying orange penguin stages. GTA IV had retrieve, recover, kill, lose cops, bring back missions over and over and......

I guess my complaint is really its the same thing it ever was since, but with a storyline I didn't personally like (complete with annoying characters and missions) and pretty graphics. Nothing new and missing some stuff that used to be great (albeit repeated by knock-offs ad nauseum).

I understand your criticisms.

I myself wonder just how many times they can go to the well and keep me entertained.

[Biafrasbaby]

Damn it I'm under my fiancee's account.

Still, the post stands.