Grand Theft Auto IV -- It might feature crime and prostitutes.

but they're not completely invisible? that's okay then, had me a little worried there.

luckily they make a sound too, so with a good ear you can sometimes catch them cooing giving away their presence.

A nice trick i learnt to change the view slightly is to drive around in the larger trucks, the camera moves a lot higher up and you can see stuff you don't normally see in the normal cars.

I've been coming across those flying rats all over the place, but I'm not about to start taking them out until I print out a guide. I learned my lesson with the street tags and oyster shells in GTA:SA.

I was feeling a bit guilty for having left this for so long when I've still got loads to do, but then had a sort of realisation yesterday. There's downloadable content on the way, and it's pretty likely that's just going to be a bunch of missions. But if I get that, and do them, I don't want all the peripheral things to be complete already, that'll just feel weird, like I'm playing GTA lite in a half-empty city. So yeah, I decided I'm actually pretty glad to have lots of stuff still to do. I think I'll save it. DLC in autumn, right?

I turned it on yesterday and the xBox said it had just downloaded an update for GTA4. I have no idea what was installed.

There was a title update to fix some bugs in multi.

Multiplayer stopped working as soon as I downloaded it.

I got through to "Jersey" last night even though I haven't unlocked it yet. I headed toward one of the bridges and got there somehow before the game could load the police roadblock. The game froze up for a few seconds and then whoosh, I was heading straight into Alderney.

I got six stars as soon as it happened, but I just thought it was neat that I didn't have to fight or sneak my way in there.

Jim - the DLC is probably delayed until the beginning of 2009 (or very late 2008)...
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/05/grand-theft-auto-iv-dlc-delayed-until-fiscal-q1-2009/
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53017

Oh. Well, I'm in no rush. :)

Wait a minute, WHOLE NEW CITIES!? Shyeah right.

i was fucking burning over one of the bridges the other day, and i swear i was going so fast that somehow the game didn't have time to draw any other cars on the road. i blasted right across a completely deserted algonquin in under a minute - under ten seconds probably - but of course i ran out of road, and when i did, and stopped (ok crashed), and turned around, all the cars had come back ;_;

That happened a lot to me in the pc version of GTA3.

the behaviour of cars on bridges is stupidly frustrating. why randomly and wildly change lanes like that?

i think i hate this game.

I just fell back in love with this game today. Dangerous.

i find multiplayer race quite glitchy - cars shifting and rematerialising about the track - is this because my internet is too slow somehow?

could be yours or theirs i guess. i always assume it's them. and then shout at them. "stop glitching all over me! get a faster internet! fuck you!"

yeah i've fallen for this game again, i guess i burnt out on it too quickly when it was released. After a nice rest, it's all falling into place again.

The cooing technique became invaluable for a few pigeons last night, no way would I have found them belting around in a car with the radio on full blast.

Just walking around listening to conversations can be hilarious

"I'm a cop, and you're a dick head!"

Once when I was being chased by cops one of them yelled "I'm gonna shit in your mouth!" !!

I want to play the story again, and do things differently. I miss Roman.

Yes. This is what I'm going to do.

the multiplayer races are the only part that holds my attention at this point.

i watched two women brawl it out in the middle of the road last night, with a couple of other onlookers yelling encouraging shouts. The fight was very real, with wild 'wurlwind' punches being thrown and lots of misses. Eventually some dude drove too close and the fight ended with one of the girls turning on the car driver, who in turn fled. I followed them for ages watching the girl constantly fail to land a punch but continue to chase. Funniest moment was when one of her wild punches accidentally caught a poor passerby who was instantly floored. The sound of the punch impact was painfully realistic.

Good moment.

(oh it ended up with her accidentally punching another passerby, unfortunately this guy was a bit tougher and preceeded to kill her. To his dismay tho he turned on me just because I witnessed the event and thus he was put to death also)

and my new past time is driving up to very busy traffic and dropping a few hand grenages out of the window. wooah-kerbloooom! etc.

another cool thing i noticed last night, i was stood on the roof of a high building (playboys apartment) and i was looking over the edge ready to throw a grenade into any passing car when I noticed the shadow of the building i was on which also included the shadow of Nico on the top. It looked really cool because it was so far away. pretty neat coding.

(not so neat coding, when i tried to look at it with the sniper viewer - it vanished!)

this game was so disappointing in the end; in fact I didn't even finish it, so disillusioned with the repetition was I

mine are the usual complaints: they built this glorious world but failed to give us anything halfway interesting to do in it

I'm sorry but I enjoyed crackdown a whole lot more than this in the end; campy fun with great fun physics

also niko is a total downer

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7485022.stm

i sold my copy. it kinda bored me.

it's no 10/10 anyway. I gave up about halfway through, i'm sure i'll pick it up again at some point though.

is there only one place to buy clothes for like the first 1/4 of the game?!?! that is pissing me off more then anything

it's been a slow burner for me, but I'm now finally getting into the single player. I just unlocked Algonquin, which helps a ton.

I haven't unlocked Alderney yet, but it's not like I feel I'm missing anything. With GTA:SA, the different places were different and exciting. I remember getting to Las Venturas for the first time and just walking around looking at the lights.

But with GTA4, it's like, Whatever. I've opened up Jersey and can see more bricks and concrete. Oh, yay. There's a Honkers.

I gotta say that playing this has made me want to stay the fuck out of the NYC area...not so much because of the crime in the game 'cos I know it's a game, but because of how drab everything seems, with subway lines and overpasses everywhere.

guys maybe the missions suck but how can you not say that liberty city is beeeeaauutiful. ok there's no spectacular canyons or rock formations, but so much detail. the weather, the textures, the shadows.. it's alive, man.

it's so gray sometimes that I wonder if the color on my tv has broken. I guess that could be my shitty tv but I don't think so.

nah there are really gray days sometimes. and rain at night is the most depressing. but on a clear sunny day... i could just live there.

yeah i'm with ledge, it maybe lacking elements but its still vastly playable and just so beautiful to look at.

I think it gets greyer in the Dukes area than it does in say Algonquin.

yeah I just got into Algonquin and Star Junction is beautiful. Mind you, I'm complaining about game play: I'm playing and enjoying it more than ever. I just find driving through Bohan pretty grim, which is intended I'm sure but kinda turns me off a bit too.

er, make that I'm not complaining about game play

ah yes, when I said Dukes I meant Bohan, yes it's pretty grey even on the good days there.

Oh shit Carmen has dumped me! All because I shot a cop when we out on a date. So now I have no emergency health boost. At least I still have my Kiki - she sent me a text message with a photo of her arse.

okay name the movie that my brilliant action sequence was off : A car chase and I'm being chased by an FiB car. Suddenly I quickly spin my car around 180 and slammed into reverse whilst at the same time shooting through the windscreen of the FiB car.

(ok i didn't manage to quite pull it off, and i got killed but i know i've seen it in a film before)

Die Hard 3

How does this game compare to GTA:SA?

Here's my review of the story mode:

GTA 4 is really great, but also a huge disappointment. There are a lot of big improvements in terms of graphics, physics, etc., game dynamics, etc., and the Choose Your Own Adventure-style of plot development feels nice, even if it's obvious that the choices don't really affect anything important. And I think some of the characters have a more sophisticated arcs than those in previous games.

But the problem is that not of those things make the video game more fun. And some weird dissonance happens when Niko is being a gentleman in one scene and stabs a random stranger in the face in the next. It was easier to overlook with CJ and Vercetti because they were more cartoonish in their rendering.

In terms of driving and killing, all of those aspects are pretty solid. The lack of bicycles and airplanes and jetpacks is a pretty big bummer, and the boating is really underdeveloped.

Also, while I think IV has the best map of any of the games, you can't help but miss the open roads and country settings of the last game.

The radio stations are pretty boring, so I usually just play my own music off my portable hd.

Also: I miss the fat/thin/buff thing, the more-diverse clothing options, the katana, etc. The comedy shows suck. Going to the strip club makes me feel gross. The story is kinda boring and overserious. Many of the major characters are grating.

Also, the dudes who play multiplayer are more annoying than usual, but some of the modes are fun.

...

Meanwhile, San Andreas was just pure, unadulterated fun for me.

"not many of", rather

See, I liked GTA:SA's map better. Now, imagine if they had just used Los Santos as the setting and stretched it to the size of San Andreas, and that's what you get in Liberty City. I was still holding out that they'd come up with a GTA where you could drive across the country. I had an open mind when the decision came out that they were going to compress all that into one city, but damn. You don't feel like you're going anywhere new when a new part of the map opens up. I was all excited about opening up the Manhatten part after a mission and except for being able to jump off of the Empire State Building now and buying a tie, it's pretty much just like the first part of the game.

I'm still adjusting to the realness of the game too. Anyone who's criticized violence in video games before could actually become an advocate for GTA4. Violence has repercussions. When you shoot someone and they don't die, they crouch over and limp away. Sometimes, even a character who's officially "dead" will still stir on the ground and move, like he's entering his final death throes. You can shoot all the cops you want, but boy, they're not going to let you get away with it for too long. And it's still a bit disconcerting to be roaring through Bohan in a stolen sedan and hit a Jewish cleric across your hood.

(Has anyone noticed that you can't point-and-aim at a stripper? You can bring up the "rings" on any of the bouncers or patrons, but not the girl onstage. It was almost like the gamemakers saying to the player "What are you doing?")

Kingfish, my wife played GTA4 for a bit and then went right back into GTA:SA. SA has more to do, a goofier (and more fun) plot, graphics that are realistic but not so realistic that you expect to see at any minute a rolling baby carriage careening down some steps Battleship Potemkin style.

I never played San Andreas so I have no point of comparison. I played a little Vice City but it was on PC and with the mouse it was really hard. I think the story in GTA4 is great so far. Niko is a scumbag, as is everyone else you meet. I do a lot of driving around and that can get tiring, but I could take cabs or the subway instead. The radio stations are great: I'm loving The Journey in particular, which gives the game a Risky Business vibe.

still baffled that two of the clothing stores are the same brand

everyone otm mostly, especially PP about the strict cops and violence not being an easily accessible activity anymore.

i think the biggest damning is the severe lack of races, in a game called GTA you'd think car driving missions would be big on it's list.

Even side race missions are non existent here, like in SA you had the stadium races, the street races, the checkpoint races like the downhill mountain bike ones amongst the many many other hidden ones.

What do we get in GTA4? some really lame races, not even that many, which are so easy you wouldn't believe. And the prize for winning them? almost fuck all.

In comparison SA wipes the floor with it really, but there's still something beautiful about exploring this new Liberty City.