Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Announced

I missed the leveled power-ups that came with doing certain things. If I'm going to drive a cab or fire truck or ambulance, I want stat bumps or gear for doing so much of that. Same with collectibles; give me new shit if I grab 50 whatzits for doing so much.

Waitamin, there weren't even ambulance/firetruck side quests in IV, were there?

no there weren't. Vigilante missions but you got NOTHING for completing them.

GTA IV was incredibly unrewarding compared to San Andreas. Also far too po faced.

Even though i beat the game, there is still plenty to do, as I only have 78% completed. Finding the missing horshoes and stuff will be a pain, but i just found SAMA. San Andreas Mission Analyzer. AWESOME!

What is it?

Reads your savefile and gives you a rundown of your completion status on all missions in the game.
Shows you the unique jumps that haven't been done on a map. Optionally also shows landing zones and camera positions for the jumps.
Shows you the gang tags, snapshots, horseshoes and oysters that haven't been done on a map.

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=220426

I have one missing horseshoe in my saved game. The pay off is brilliant but I refuse to go all around again finding them. Very frustrating.

I likely already mentioned years ago in this thread that I had 99/100 gang tags. I went around one night with a jet pack and checked them all out, and every one of them was there, meaning that one was likely half-completed.

And damned if I'm really going to try to spray paint each one again to find out.

I was racing the Chiliad Challenge and having a rough time of it, and I just kept respawning the jet so i could fly up to the top of the mountain and try again. I just did so and jumped out of the plane, and it dropped like a rock, landing on the top of the mountain, and sliding down the bike path. When i started the race, the ground was on fire and everyone ahead of me crashed into the wreckage!

Ugh i fell off the mountain too many times, came in 2nd by a FRACTION of a second. Unlike other racing games, if you lose here, you can pull out a chainsaw or rocket launcher and go nuts. Very satisfying.

The racing is fun too! I didn't think it would be this fun but it is. I think there are more races here than there are in many dedicated racing games.

Found it very frustrating that if you lost a race in Episodes from Liberty City everyone just rode away at top speed before you could get a shot in. GET BACK HERE AND LET ME HAVE MY VENGEANCE.

I just did the BMX Challenge, and it was hella fun biking in the skate park. I realized you can hold down jump (CTRL on computer) before you release it to make him jump really high and it made it WAY easier than otherwise.

Even the busy work of finding these photo shots is fun. Oh no, I have to fly my jetpack to the top of a skyscraper.

Oh man, the jetpack. That was the greatest thing.

OTM! I loved that thing. The other thing was the helicopters. There was one that was ideal for the horsehoes - one with floats - the Sea Sparrow:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090506124553/gtawiki/images/a/af/SeaSparrow-GTAVC-front.jpg

I didn't realise it was in VC as well.

I've had GTA V on pre-order @ amazon since Nov 1 2011. WHat the hell.

Yeah, Amazon jumps the gun on pre-orders like that. You'll be sitting in something for years. I think they're as bad as GameStop that way.

Good Lord, autocorrect fixes the GameStop capitalization.

On a semi-related note, I got a ps2 emulator working on my desktop, and so was finally able to play the first few chapters of Red Dead Revolver until it started crashing repeatedly at a certain point.

GTAV is taking place in Los Santos here's hoping it feels as big as the one in San Andreas.

man so i'm back trying to get 100% and doing (the absolute cunt of a mission that is) quarry mission #7... got a good time going thinking ok finally this is it, just in the winch putting the body in the dumper when suddenly the screen's shaking and i hear boom boom boom explosions MISSION FAILED DOZER DESTROYED huh wtf?? i look back across...

http://i.imgur.com/p3lOz.png

motherfucking random plane crashed into my shit offscreen? ffs!!

looool

that mish took me several goes, usually involving watching my dumper truck trundle backwards into the river

yeah i've cracked it now, main problem was avoiding the stuff agonizingly falling out the back on the way

i love how i'd never gotten round to doing those missions before in the assumption it'd be tedious bob the builder busywork and then it's all "now burn the bodies!"

I'm halfway through my second playthrough of Skyrim and really considering dropping it and going back and replaying San Andreas. Can anyone suggest a good graphics mod? I got the ENB but it just makes everything hazy, fuzzy, and too bloomy. Maybe the somewhat cartoony graphics are just fitting to the overall play. I guess the main thing I'd like is better lighting, HD textures, etc. Any recommendations?

dunno I don't like my pc version, I only ever play the MTA version and that mods itself automatically.

This vid on youtube includes some links that might be worth checking out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXFbJijqytI&feature=related

dumb question i could probably google but i doubt i'd understand the answer, but have people somehow been able to mod their xbox360 gta4 games? last time i went online to play it, dudes were fragging me in all kindsa ways that shouldn't have been possible, and the airport was awash with ramps and jumpable obstacles.

yeah its possible

http://kotaku.com/5963131/one-of-the-best-parts-of-grand-theft-auto-is-now-in-app-form

I've been running it with ENB and while the reflections on the cars look AMAZING, it unfortunately puts the reflective properties on assets that don't really need it. The wood in buildings is all shiny like it was petrified. While roads do look cool with some reflective light, it ends up spilling over onto the sidewalks and even part of the grass, so it all looks kinda gross, like the world is made of out greasy plastic. The cars DO look amazing but that's about it, and it seems like there really isn't much of a way to just specify reflection on those.

The lighting too. The first time i was driving, it was really pretty cool to have the headlights of the car behind me light up my car. But to be honest I prefer the original lighting scheme. It's so dreamy and has a nice yellow Californian glow to it that kind of gets lost with the ENB. Everything is alot darker, and it kind of makes things look even more fake than they already are.

Replaying this i realized half of the fun is just the crazy AI that underlines the world. NPCs are always off doing something or other, cops will get into a crazy chase that is completely unrelated to what you are doing, etc. I feel like most Open World games fail to really amp up the non-player action taking place.

It's like the AI is primed for storytelling. Just randomly doing cab missions I brought a woman from the beach to a mansion and then brought someone from the mansion to a hospital before bringing a few more people there. Is the AI having a a house party at that mansion? Did somebody overdose on something at this party? The world is built of so many pop culture archetypes that things just sort of randomly interlock into these suggested cliche pop art narratives.

Show but don't tell is a great game-making rule. Rather than me talking to an NPC and them spelling it out through boring dialog boxes you create the kind of environments with dynamic AI conducive to interactive storytelling between player and game.

posted in the ILG thread:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-30-who-spilled-hot-coffee

"Why would a 17-year-old be allowed to run around the city bearing weapons, a game in which you're free to shoot cops and beat up women but in which you're not allowed to make love to his girlfriend after dating her for a while?" - Patrick Wildenborg

Show bt don't tell is a great game making rulr

So otm

Argh bloody crap smartphone not letting me c&p