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March 28, 2024, 07:13:47 PM

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Grand Theft Auto IV

Started by El Unicornio, mang, March 02, 2007, 12:34:53 AM

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Mister Six

How do you take them hostage? I bought the game second-hand with no manual. Is it a case of sneaking up and pointing a gun at their heads or do you have to grab hold of them and do something or other?

I still resent having to do this instead of being able to just HAVE FUN though.

Mr. Analytical

Quote from: "Mister Six"
I still resent having to do this instead of being able to just HAVE FUN though.

 It is fun... MGS3's the best of the series because it encourages that kind of exploratory play.  That and it has a number of really quite decent ideas in it and is arguably the most playable of the lost.

Fry

Quote from: "Mister Six"
I still resent having to do this instead of being able to just HAVE FUN though.
Please, it is so very fun.

Mister Six

Fucking great argument there, fella. Well done.

Maybe it becomes fun later. As it is at the moment (I've just gotten into the base that's through the swamp with the flying platforms) it's a tedious fucking slog interspersed with occasional fun shooty action.

Each new screen goes like this:

1- Fanny about getting the perfect camouflage, spend 5-10 minutes crawling through grass, cut a guy's throat and hide the body.
2- Change camouflage and sneak up on another guy.
3- This guy is apparently fucking psychic or something because he just happens to wander up to the bit where Snake is and spots him. Or someone I can't even see from my position glances over and sees Snake without warning because I don't have any sight cones in my radar and had no way of predicting what he would do.
4- Run away for ages, getting shot in the back all the while, and try to find a hidy place then go make a cup of tea or something while the alert level drops, then use that pointless surgery option to scoop out bullets OR
4- Just get myself killed and restart the screen, which is faster.
5- Repeat steps 1-3 over and over with different guards until I get to the end of the screen then do it all over again on the next one.

Compare that to MGS2, which at least had the good grace to let you hide in lockers and things when you were seen, and had the sight cones to let you plan out your moves without the tedious trial and error chore that MGS3 makes of the whole thing. And how is repairing your own wounds and changing camo every thirty seconds "fun"? It's not a gameplay point, it's just a little timewaster to try and give this thing some depth.

I remember watching the DVD about the making of MGS2 and there was a bit where they talked about creating an (impressive looking at the time) sequence where Snake has to outrun a wave of water that's flowing through a sinking tanker. They said it looked good, but wasn't any fun to play so they took it straight out.

Why wasn't that same philosophy used here?

Little Hoover

Oh really? I wonderd about that because I rember seeing a trailer for the game, after finishing it, with a bit of that sequnce of outrunning a wave of water and was very confused.
Incidentally, it also featured Snake, in place of Raiden, for various bits of the game.

But I guess, I and others will just have to disagree on MGS3, it's really quite hard and frustrating at first, but I got used to it, and to  slowly and carefully moving along, and using what equipment you have. And it makes it different enough to feel fresh.

I think it helped that I had the demo, so I was able to practise a few times before getting the main game.

Beck

Mister Six, I had the same experience of being thoroughly pissed off with MGS3 for the first few hours of gameplay, but once you've mastered the controls and learn how to deal with enemies without getting spotted quite so often it becomes a lot more enjoyable.

*digs out manual*

Stalking:
Quote from: "The MGS3 manual"Use the directional button to move around by stalking. By stalking, Snake moves with extras caution. This reduces his movement speed and uses stamina, but eliminates footstep noise.

Grabbing:
Quote from: "The MGS3 manual"Press the O button next to an enemy without moving the left analog stick. Snake grabs the enemy from behind in a chokehold and holds him prisoner. If the button is pressed too hard, Snake will finish the enemy off.

Interrogating:
Quote from: "The MGS3 manual"Press the L3 button (push down on the left analog stick) while holding an enemy prisoner. Snake threatens the enemy with his knife and interrogates him/her (her?). Interrogated enemies can provide hints on strategy and other valuable information.

It really is worth sticking with - you'll get a lot better at it, and once you do there's a lot more opportunity to piss about, and things will get more fun. I'd say Mr. Analytical's probably right in saying it's the most playable of the series.

Mister Six

Cheers, Beck. I'll give the interrogating thing a bit of a whiz next time I play.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I always felt that MGS2 was the real dog log of the series. The level design was too claustrophobic and you couldn't shoot the enemies, because their mates would come to see why they weren't  radioing in every five seconds, which made for a very restrictive experience.

Plus it lurched too far into clichéd sci-fi fantasy anime territory for my liking. Obviously the first one wasn't 100% realistic, but things like the cyborg ninja and Metal Gear itself still felt believable somehow. Whereas MGS2 tries to be all gritty and then throws in Fortune with a huge laser cannon and Solidus with Doctor Octopus arms.

Capt.Midnight

Quote from: "Claude the Lion Tamer"The level design was too claustrophobic and you couldn't shoot the enemies, because their mates would come to see why they weren't  radioing in every five seconds, which made for a very restrictive experience.

Personally I thought that was great, as it gave the added pressure of either finding somewhere to hide the body  or shooting the radio out before they had a chance to respond.

Little Hoover

And you could still have some fun with it, because if there was no one else around, you could shoot their radio, without them noticing, and then you could start doing all sorts of stuff to mess with their heads.
Although I'm struggling to remember the best tricks you could do.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Didn't shooting their radio have the same effect though? As soon as they didn't report in for whatever reason, their buddies always came and gunned me down. In any case I definitely think 3 was a big improvement. I particularly like blowing up the baddies' larder and then feeding them rotten food.

Identity Crisis Ahoy!

BUMP. The official site is revealing the spoiler in a day or two.

http://www.rockstargames.com/IV/

1 day 22 hours at time of posting! Wahey.

Hypnotoad.

Quote from: "Identity Crisis Ahoy!"BUMP. The official site is revealing the spoiler in a day or two.

http://www.rockstargames.com/IV/

1 day 22 hours at time of posting! Wahey.

1 day 16 hours now.....I make that about 11pm tomorrow night BST

Intruiging that they have the game ready enough for a trailer, assuming the usual Rockstar method of "using the actual game for a trailer rather than cutscenes"

As someone on SA said, it would screw things up for other software companies if this trailer ended with "IN STORES NEXT FRIDAY"

I'm sure there will now follow months and months of agonizing and speculating over what will be a few minutes of fascinating game footage, which will no doubt disclose location, timeframe, lead character details etc

Marv Orange

Quote from: "Homer J"
Quote from: "Identity Crisis Ahoy!"BUMP. The official site is revealing the spoiler in a day or two.

http://www.rockstargames.com/IV/

1 day 22 hours at time of posting! Wahey.

1 day 16 hours now.....I make that about 11pm tomorrow night BST

Intruiging that they have the game ready enough for a trailer, assuming the usual Rockstar method of "using the actual game for a trailer rather than cutscenes"

As someone on SA said, it would screw things up for other software companies if this trailer ended with "IN STORES NEXT FRIDAY"

.... PC VERSION FOLLOWING YEAR

Mister Six

I shall be a cunty bastard and say that I can't wait for the howls of disappointment when the trailer comes out, but won't say why.

(Sorry. I've never had 'insider info' before and wanted to show off. At least I waited 'till one hour and thirteen minutes before the video comes out.)

Famous Mortimer

Ho hum. I shall no doubt enjoy it no matter what the disappointing announcement is, no matter where it's set or who's cast in it. As long as it's got the flair from previous GTA games, I'll be a happy boy.

hansen mork

I can't really think of a situation where this game will be a let down. I suppose people might be annoyed if it was just one small city, or if the main character was a woman, or even if it was in the future. Unless it's just the trailer thats rubbish and not the actual game.


Quote from: "Mister Six"

(Sorry. I've never had 'insider info' before and wanted to show off. At least I waited 'till one hour and thirteen minutes before the video comes out.)

Could you reveal all in 1 hour and 13 minutes please?! (the trailer will be out by then anyway *cough*)

Little Hoover

I'm not really expecting too much from it really, a blade runner esque world probably wouldn't be very good and make it loose it's charm, and just because San Andreas was about 5 times bigger than Vice city, doesn't mean you should expect this to be 5 times bigger than San Andreas.
So it won't suprise me if it doesn't look like that much of an improvment at first, but I'm sure when you play it, it actually will be.

Mister Six

Quote from: "hansen mork"
Quote from: "Mister Six"

(Sorry. I've never had 'insider info' before and wanted to show off. At least I waited 'till one hour and thirteen minutes before the video comes out.)

Could you reveal all in 1 hour and 13 minutes please?! (the trailer will be out by then anyway *cough*)

Nice try. :)

Unless my "source" is a big fibby fibber, that disappointment should be obvious in the trailer (well, it's not that big a thing really, but I was a bit bothered when he told me).

Erm, sorry.

Mr. Analytical

I work under the general assumption that the games industry produces and wants to produce shit.  A decent game is not so much an expectation as it is a fucking shock.

If GTA IV pisses in my eyes with its shittyness it'll be business as usual.

Famous Mortimer

I don't think the bigness of San Andreas worked in its favour, to be honest. Those long-ass drives between towns got really boring really fast. Maybe fewer cities, but make them much bigger?

SetToStun

That long-drive thing really fucked me off. Especially because on the "nick the lyrics book" mission (which involved quite a drive), the first time I set off from the burger bar I briefly saw a "press L1 to auto-drive" message which I followed and got teleported to the driveway of the house in question. I never, ever got that option again. Flashing that joyous shortcut in front of someone once and then taking it away again is a real cunt's trick and no mistake.

Mister Six

I thought the auto-drive only came on if you redid a mission after failing/dying?

Quote from: "Famous Mortimer"I don't think the bigness of San Andreas worked in its favour, to be honest. Those long-ass drives between towns got really boring really fast. Maybe fewer cities, but make them much bigger?

See, I actually quite liked the scope of San Andreas and enjoyed barelling around the freeways (although, yes, the drive between Los Santos and San Ferrino was a bit of a trek). An "auto drive option" when entering the freeway would be great though.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: "Mister Six"I thought the auto-drive only came on if you redid a mission after failing/dying?
Correct. Although when I played through the game for the first time I didn't know this, so I'd always reload if I failed a mission.

The bigness never bothered me because there were so many ways you could get from A to B and there was always something decent on the radio. I guess it would be good if you could hire taxis to skip long drives if you couldn't be arsed driving yourself though.

The only way GTA4 can be a disappointment for me is if they don't learn lessons from Saints Row. That game near-perfected what GTA started and if I have to go back to 12 levels of unpausable ambulance missions, I'll be pissed off.

Little Hoover

The skip trip, option seemed to come up a couple of times in the early missions, but then they just stopped doing them, and I'm not exactly sure why,
and regardless, even with that option, usually it's much quicker to just load up again, because otherwise you'll also want to go and buy weapons and armour again to be ready for the mission.
Unless you're happy to just do the weapons cheat, for time convinience more than the tactical adavantage it gives you.
I really don't understand why they couldn't just have a restart mission option and checkpoints.
Well, they did have checkpoints in the last mission.

Rubbish Monkey


Quote from: "Rubbish Monkey"oops

Yeah, I'm like that on GTA sometimes, like when you've just done a mission where you need to use a camera, forget to switch it to a weapon and then get shot to fuck by the police/other gangs while you're merrily taking pictures of them

samadriel

An 'alterna-jack' button which could've been used to hop into the back of taxis and so on would've been tops.  Did you guys know you can buy flights between cities at the airport terminals?  It really cuts through the bullshit sometimes.

QuoteUnless my "source" is a big fibby fibber, that disappointment should be obvious in the trailer (well, it's not that big a thing really, but I was a bit bothered when he told me).

Gay lead character!  Yessss!

QuoteSo it won't suprise me if it doesn't look like that much of an improvment at first, but I'm sure when you play it, it actually will be.

I don't like to begrudge you your good faith, but, on reflection, I'm not so sure Rockstar have earned it.  Maybe it's just because I'm a PC gamer (ie, one of the people on whose patronage Rockstar made their name before electing to shit on us from a great height with their ultra-late PC releases and quarter-arsed conversions), but it seems to me that, while there have been occasional leaps of excellence in the GTA3 series, they've just as frequently displayed a tendency to rest on their laurels.  While a lot of attention was obviously given to the urban and rural landscape of San Andreas (apart from the big flat nothing that is Las Venturas), gaping flaws remain in the gameplay -- usually from good (or at least 'interesting') ideas which become misguided, or are halfbaked in execution.

Girlfriends (who should've had proper missions, like Zero -- the inane chores they had instead are exactly that -- chores, not gaming as it should be); customisation (every element of which was blighted by tiny range, from clothes to hairstyles to cars; never mind the miniscule resolution of the tattoos, and I don't even know how it's possible to write code that will forget you gave your car a custom paintjob when you store it in a garage), stealth (which doesn't work outside of specifically prescribed missions, because the enemy/police AI is omniscient, and they spawn out of nowhere); the 'trip skip' (which is available in abouuuut five of the ninety or so missions of the game -- not that they all involve driving, but come on, most do), the lack of a 'restart mission' feature, and all the other GTA negatives we're familiar with from Liberty and Vice Cities.  Oh, and they fucking butchered the camera system -- I have to switch to 'steer with mouse' just to get a shitty approximation of Vice City's perfect camera system, and that means I can't touch my mouse while I'm driving, or wheee, off the shoulder I go!

Now, Rockstar have definitely done a lot to polish the 'sandbox' nature of GTA, with the huge map, variety of vehicles, and places built perfectly for crazy, murderous chases and so on, but, apart from taking the odd state-crossing blast in the Harrier (which unfortunately has to be done at ionosphere-level due to popup glitchiness so appalling you'll smash headlong into trees which haven't appeared yet, even though you can see the ones in the distance), I don't actually enjoy 'sandboxing' in GTA very much.  Once I know the lay of the land, and seen all there is to see, I'm not that interested in Uzi-ing hordes of mindless kamikaze police and pointlessly dashing from someplace to anotherplace; I like dealing with clever missions, a smart AI, difficult choices... stuff which requires a more attentive pool of writers and coders than Rockstar tend to exhibit.  I suppose that's just personal preference -- hell, I'm the only GTA player I know who likes a good mission, and isn't that interested in big self-engineered countryside chases -- but while they've made commendable progress in designing an enjoyable 'sandbox' with the San Andreas map and features, a lot of the gameplay and novelty within it strike me as a cynical case of 'near enough is good enough'.  If Rockstar were a "gamer's game company", like, say, Valve -- interacting with the modding community, diligently playtesting and fine-tuning before release (a crucial task for any console project, even in these days of online consoles), the swift building of patches where required -- then they could do amazing things.  As it is, their efforts smack of merely gulling the GTA player base with misdirected flash to keep them buying, simply to keep the stockholders happy; that's not how the truly great stuff gets made.

Of course, GTA4 could turn this around completely, buuut that remains to be seen.

Custard

Oh my, I cannot wait for this trailer.

Please be in Tokyo, please be in Tokyo.