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Grand Theft Auto IV

Started by Barry Admin, August 11, 2017, 02:05:38 PM

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Barry Admin

I have way too many games on the go at the minute, but I found this last night, and am very intrigued, and tempted to start going through it again. I got both DLC packs on my laptop in a sale years ago, but was never able to play them as I have no puter now sadly. You can get both installments for under a tenner at the minute on Xbox, which is very tempting. I know Ballad of Gay Tony is well worth a fiver, and it's backwards compatible so I can play with the lovely XBone controller and get the benefit of my big telly and stereo. Hmm. (Bully is on sale again too, by the way! Can't see how much as I own it, but probably like 3 quid or something.)

It was rather nice to look through the packaging last night, and have a look at the Liberty City map. I think I really do want to revisit Liberty City.

And yet... this is obviously the GTA that's considered as being the disappointing one. I think that was largely because it was grittier and more releaistic and depressing, with Gay Tony evidently going some way to finally address that.

I think I remember Brooker saying it was a brilliant satire of the American dream? You get that flavour from the booklet included, and I vaguely remember some of the telly shows and stuff. Mainly just Bas Rutten yelling.

The cars were harder to control as well, weren't they? What about my beloved Buzzard though? Ever since I fell in love with helicopters in Battlefield 2, their controls have been steadily dumbed down/made more accessible.

What are your memories of GTA IV?  Have you ever decided to revisit it yourself?

I'm kind of intrigued by how they can capture a time period. Like I know the phones are going to look wank, and the concept of going to the Internet cafe seems really fairly passé now, for most westerners, of have thought. It does of course have Ricky Gervais doing hack fatty jokes, so some things are timeless.

The stuff about it being a satire of the American dream is spot on, as far as I remember. The ending is wonderfully deflating, like the ending of a cynical 1970's movie. The camera panning up to the statue of liberty, after Niko concludes that he still hasn't found what he's looking for even after all he's had to do, is a perfect re-contextualising of everything that's come before. The story of GTA V seemed so much more brainless by comparison.

I've probably played it through more times than any other game, often on mute so I can listen to music/podcasts and stuff. The New York setting still feels very rich and full of detail and character. It's still a high watermark for open-world design, imo.

Barry Admin

You make it sound great man, I'm really getting won round towards starting a new playthrough as I want to experience that grittier, bleak feeling. I mean I just love the setting, and can kind of still remember the grubby bedsit you end up in. And... you can play bowls, right?

"Nikooooo... my cousin!"

Fuck it, I'm installing it.

Twed

Cousin, it is your cousin. Let's go bowling.

Blinder Data

Quote from: Barry Admin on August 11, 2017, 02:05:38 PM
the concept of going to the Internet cafe seems really fairly passé now, for most westerners

But Roman's a newly arrived immigrant, so going to a net café would make sense?

Used to play this loads. Mostly mucked about with cheats trying to cause as much carnage as possible. It doesn't have the charm of other instalments and even though the city still looks amazing, it feels impenetrable. There aren't enough buildings or structures that you can enter.

Great fun driving cars off skyscrapers, jumping out helicopters to jump into the pond in Central Park.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I've tried several times, but I just can't get past the terrible driving controls. I never even had a chance to get pissed off by all the forced socialising missions that everyone complains about. Thank fuck they fixed it in GTA5.

Barry Admin

Blinder, thats a fair point, I more meant that in the west cyber cafes generally seem like an outdated notion now, given the proliferation of smartphones.

Quote from: Twed on August 11, 2017, 02:41:01 PM
Cousin, it is your cousin. Let's go bowling.

Hehe. I have dim memories of Roman being really funny and popular, leading to interviews with the guy behind him? Having a look online shows - as you've illustrated - that there's tons of memes about his somewhat obnoxious addiction to bowling. Including this song: https://youtube.com/watch?feature=kp&v=zxMLVlspD1Y

Barry Admin

To touch on the telly stuff again, that's definitely one of the things I'm really interested in revisiting. There's such a phenomenal level of attention to detail in GTA games, and it was a joy to go through the Internet stuff in GTA 5 again recently. Obviously there's a lot of scatalogical college humour, but they marry it with great satire. Then there's all the radio stations too, and the Fox News parodies that give a recap of what you've just been up to.

I'm also intrigued to see how much of the city I remember - how well I can nagivate around it. In my minds eye I can see that little apartment under the tram lines, with some kind of shop round the corner?

Also looking forward to hearing the NPC chatter.

Mister Six

Been thinking about revisiting this since I moved to Actual New York but I doubt I'd bother to do much more than drive around and see how much effort they put into recreating Coney Island or Central Park.

All my memories are of being forced to slog through far too much tedious shit, grappling with cars that drive like a trolley full of cinderblocks, paying tolls and other boring fucking nonsense so I can experience a 40-hour-long version of The Godfather written by someone with a fraction of the talent. Even the fun pickups involved shooting pigeons (in turn attracting cops that are hard to lose) for no purpose rather than collecting packages for cash.

GTA V is far more playable but still a slave to the Housers' insane obsession with making things "realistic" so you end up doing loads of missions for bugger all money and having to dick around on a virtual stock market to raise decent wads of cash to have fun with. And yet they still can't resist putting adverts for Sprunk drink or Pisswasser or whatever barrel-scraping gags they managed to contrive this time.

Meanwhile, Sleeping Dogs - which I finally started playing properly this year - has loads of shrines, boxes of cash to find and meaningless shit to spend your virtual money on. It's far more videogamey and consequently far more entertaining. And yet none of it detracts from a decent story and characters.

The Housers made a better fist of things in Red Dead Redemption - towards the start, at least. There was a real sense that Bonnie and her dad were real people whose world was coming to an end. And then they pissed it all away with the snake oil salesmen and fucking Irish, because they just can't help themselves.

biggytitbo

'Interestingly' Rock Star recently patched this game to work better on newer computers, which shows someone there still cares about it.


I had the original on PS3 which ran at about 20fps, and just farted about with it then did some cheats to get all the vehicles and weapons. But after Kim Justices review raving about how great (and better than the base game) Tales from Liberty City is I got that in a sale recently so will play at some point.

mobias

Quote from: Barry Admin on August 11, 2017, 02:05:38 PM


What are your memories of GTA IV?  Have you ever decided to revisit it yourself?



After playing GTAV its pretty clear GTAIV was actually quite a daring attempt by Rockstar to make a more 'mature' and complex game out of GTA. Problem is after the massive free roam fun of San Andreas GTAIV was just one huge disappointment list of game features they'd removed. I think it rather unfairly gets slated these days as being downbeat and boring but thats only because of missing game features, the story and atmosphere is all really well done.

The Ballad of Gay Tony DLC was great. The Hercules nightclub where you could have a little dance off to the soundtrack of Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton is probably the best moment in any Rockstar game to date.

Apparently it was a nightmare production. Believe it or not for the first two years of its production it was being made to work on the then last gen (PS2 and Xbox) consoles as well as the PS3 and 360. That was all shelved and they started again. It also originally had a large countryside area which was also ditched. Then the Euphoria physics engine was implemented quite late on and it was very difficult to get working.

At some point in the recent past there were apparently plans to bring Liberty City into GTA Online, bits of coding alluding to this have been found by people rummaging around in the current game files so its no real secret, but I'm not sure if its happening now or not. Be amazing if it did though. 

Mister Six

I went to the trouble of pirating this so I could drive about a bit (hey, I already paid for it back on the 360) but it looks like it's not compatible with Windows 10 or my fancy pants new graphics card. Has anyone got it working? Would buying a legit version help? I don't want to fork out 20 quid for something that's going to load in textures five minutes after I reach them.

TheManOne

IV was my introduction to the series. I'd never played one before. It's still one of my favourite gaming experiences as I'd never really had such a convincing sandbox experience before.
I've replayed it twice, except for Lost and Damned as I found that a bit dull.
Also, The Ballad of Gay Tony is my favourite piece of DLC I've paid for.

I replayed it recently. I have had the two DLCs for years and had never played them, and I finally decided to give them a punt. I started with Gay Tony.

I found it difficult to get into the game after playing GTA V. The city feels empty in comparison, and everything looks dark and washed-out. No matter the time of day, it always gives the impression of a city at dusk or dawn.

The sandbox gameplay has not aged well either. When GTA IV came out, the most impressive thing was playing a GTA game with reactive physics. This was a big deal at the time but it has obviously lost its wow-factor over the years. What you are left with is action which by modern standards seems quiet and subdued, and a frustratingly sparse distribution of cars and civilians even in Times Square. You want it all to come to life in a way that it never really does.

As I was playing it, I couldn't wind back time and forget the fact that GTA V is a net improvement in every way, with the possible exception of the story if you happen to be one of the people who prefer the GTA IV characters and tone. (I don't.)

I do intend to finish the DLC though. I should probably just stick to the missions, which seem decent enough.

Quote from: Barry Admin on August 11, 2017, 02:05:38 PM
It does of course have Ricky Gervais doing hack fatty jokes, so some things are timeless.

Which gave modders the character model to make this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ube3owo16ZM

Paul Calf

The correct order:

1. V
2. San Andreas
3. Vice City
4. III
5. II
6. Grand Theft Auto
7. IV

mobias

Other than recently discovering the joys of GTA Online I would say V is the GTA I ended up playing least. Following the months and years of hype surrounding its release ended up being more fun than the finished game.  The three main protagonists were pretty much forgettable and utterly unlikeable and I can't say I can really remember the story much despite playing through it all twice.

Vice City had the amazing 80's atmosphere and the best soundtrack ever. San Andreas back in the day had a far more interesting sand box game world than GTA V and had a story that made use of almost every inch of it all.

QDRPHNC

For GTA6 they should just slack off the single player story and put all their efforts into online. Would like to nice to see the reappearance  of the San Andreas cities.

I'll never forgive San Andreas for making you have to eat, ffs.

Barry Admin

I lasted about an hour. I'm still really curious to revisit GTA IV, but the cars are even worse than I remembered. I suddenly recalled that I ended up just taking quick-skip taxi visits everywhere, and that's no way to enjoy a GTA world. I do wonder if some of the supercars might control a lot better, but I suspect it's just the physics, and getting around is always going to be a hateful chore.

Thursday

It still infuriates me to think instead of offering proper checkpointing or skip trip options, they would write long alternate dialogues between Niko and the NPC you were travelling with. I mean it was a nice gesture but... why? Why not save themselves the effort of writing, and make things even better for the player?

It's easy forget what a pain repeated journeys on a mission you were struggling with in GTA's prior to V were. Was it really so difficult to implement?

slapasoldier

Downloaded vice city on my phone. It's all right.

FredNurke

Quote from: QDRPHNC on September 08, 2017, 03:13:50 PM
For GTA6 they should just slack off the single player story and put all their efforts into online. Would like to nice to see the reappearance  of the San Andreas cities.

I'll never forgive San Andreas for making you have to eat, ffs.
But you could make your character a right fat bastard, which was brilliant. Although mine spent too much time pedalling around on his BMX to keep the weight on.

Also, cutscenes were much improved by your guy standing there, looking serious, in his pants. Likewise flying the jetpack.

Beagle 2

Quote from: QDRPHNC on September 08, 2017, 03:13:50 PM
For GTA6 they should just slack off the single player story and put all their efforts into online.

Fuck no


AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: QDRPHNC on September 08, 2017, 03:13:50 PMI'll never forgive San Andreas for making you have to eat, ffs.
That plus all the fitness stuff put me off GTA:SA, it seemed a bit too much of a chore. I appreciate it was an interesting idea but I didn't get on with it.

Quote from: Beagle 2 on September 09, 2017, 06:04:50 AM
Quote from: QDRPHNC on September 08, 2017, 03:13:50 PM
For GTA6 they should just slack off the single player story and put all their efforts into online.
Fuck no
Fuck no indeed. Fucking fuck no.

Thursday

They pretty much will though, it's a shame but that's clearly what more people want and it makes them insane money.

I doubt they'll sack it off, but it'll be secondary, the way it is in COD/Battlefield.

Barry Admin

I seriously doubt it. Having said that, a lot of people are braced for disappointment for RDR2 and GTA VI because of the sacking of Leslie Benzies. He's seen as being the real driving force behind the narrative, and wanted to do single player DLC for GTA V. His plans for GTA Online were amazing, too: he wanted new areas of the map, and a lot more attention paid to underwater areas with more submarines and stuff.

With his departure, there's been a good lot of extra content added to GTAO, but most of it just cut-and-pasted fetch quest stuff for your businesses. The grind has been upped considerably.

If you look at the research projects they added, that shit is just a time and money sink designed to keep you online. There's like 50 of them, they take ages to tick over, and you CANT PICK THE ONES YOU WANT! Take Two need GTAO to live a bit longer to balance their books, so here we are.

I would be intrigued to see an attempt at really merging online and single-player, somehow, but it would need to be better balanced than it is now.

biggytitbo

Does there need to be a GTA6 anymore? GTA5 is effectively a game as a service, couldn't they just keep that going forever and slowly evolve it, in the same way that windows 10 is the 'last version' of windows?


I hate the death of the single player game but that seems to be the way its going in the 'triple A' space.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on September 09, 2017, 10:22:50 AM
That plus all the fitness stuff put me off GTA:SA, it seemed a bit too much of a chore.
I thought all that stuff was going to be insufferable when I first read about it. When I actually played the game though, if was perfectly innocuous.

Thursday

The only time I remember it actually being annoying was when you had to level up your lung capacity for a mission, other than that it was never a real inconvenience.

Barry Admin

People always talk about the death of single player, but I just don't see it myself. Mind you, I mostly play multiplayer myself as it's a lot more fun and exciting.

I was gonna start a thread a while back actually... I know a few guys who never, ever play single player. They have hundreds of hours logged in GTAO, Destiny and Minecraft, but never once played the single player part of GTA V. One of them just plays games purely as a social thing. Never played a single player game in his life.

Anyway, yeah, look at Destiny 2... they're trying to get more people to play it by opening up the story/single player stuff, they've really put a lot more focus on actually having a story now. Dice have been paying more and more attention to single player too, with BF3, BF4 and Hardline, and were widely applauded for what they did with BF1 single player content. CoD: Infinite Warfare is as unpopular as Ghosts, but apparently has the best campaign in years.

biggytitbo

I've never played a multiplayer game and have zero interest in doing so. I want good narrative based single player games, but they seem to becoming less of a priority in the big budget space, which was why the excellent single player campaign in Titanfall 2 - stupidly short as it was, was so welcome. It makes sense for the developers I guess, considering who punishingly expensive AAA games are now, to try and eke out more life out of their property by concentrating on multiplayer and all the opportunities for microtransactions and so forth.

The other big problem for me with the multiplayer focused games is you're effectively moving towards a model where you only rent the game and never really own it. I can take a megadrive game or a PS2 game and be absolutely sure it will work, and always work. In 5-10 years time half the games these days might be nothing more than a useless file on your hardrive or a shiny coaster.