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

What about the multiplayer, though? I mean, who played GTA III and didn't think "what if I could play against someone else, and with the whole city as my playground?" And now you can play against 15 people in an even bigger landscape, in some very fun scenarios, with pedestrians and traffic. That's no small feat, regardless of how you feel about the single player.

One thing I loved about SA was the countryside, and that gave the game a scope that GTA IV can't match. But I think the GTA IV map is easily the best. I love how multileveled it is. You can drop from the top of a building to the freeway to an overpass to an underpass to a subway. It's just much more three-dimensional than any of the other maps, AND it has a ton of character. I wish there were more indoor spaces, but there are still plenty of them compared to SA.

I miss all the vehicles ... especially bicycles ... and I wish the motorcycles controlled better. I miss the harrier jet and the jetpack and planes and all that stuff, but the vehicles that are there have a weight to them that adds another wrinkle to the experience.

I agree that the missions aren't as varied, but I think the missions themselves are much more nuanced and visceral. The car chase missions are well-scripted, but not being able to kill someone until some artificial event (bad guys flip over, cops start chasing speedboat, etc.) pisses me off.

I do think there's just a general fatigue that arises from the fact that the single-player really hasn't added very many new wrinkles apart from the cover system, and the cover system is maybe a C+ at best compared to something like Gears of War (or some game I haven't tried). But the rag doll physics alone makes this game a real gem. Shooting guys out of helicopters and watching them fall on cars and buildings is amazing.

Mixed emotions, etc. etc.

I'm only about 20% into the game, but I admit, it has started to bore me something bad. I dread turning it on again and having my cell phone ring and having to drive across town to pick somebody up and take them out to dinner and then drive them home again. Phone rings too damn much.

Don't get me wrong, I like GTA IV a lot... but overall, I appreciated the experience of SA more. I am mostly talking about the single player, because while multi is fun, it doesn't really blow my mind. There are plenty of other games I'd rather play online... this one feels like it does a lot of things, but only competently.

But, like I said, it's the single-player experience I dig. And IV is really amazing in that sense; the whole off-the-boat, exploring-the-american-dream-lie thing is awesome. But really, with CJ coming back form wherever to Los Santos, he sort of explores the "gangsta" dream and uncovers how bullshit it is, and at the time, it just seemed a lot more... I don't know, poignant? Maybe I'm just a crazy bastard but "boy the american dream is bullshit" feels like old news by now. Plus, while the writing is better than other video games, I still get frustrated by the childish heavy-handedness of everything that isn't delivered with a sneer (see: most of the car rides w/ Roman when you talk about America on the way to see teetees). I mean, yeah, I like the sarcastic shit on the radio but yeah... the one thing that needed to get "next-gen," the subtlety they could've pulled off in the cutscenes and conversations and shit... just left me really disappointed. Especially considering how the first hour or so REALLY LOOKS like it's going to be "next-gen" as far as the writing, acting and mocap went. It looked fucking great.

xpost of course

Jeff, people don't get that pissed if you say "no" to the cell phone, only if you do it to that particular person like 3 times in a row.

The person upthread who said they couldn't do the final mission - I picked "revenge", and it sounds like exactly the same mission anyway. It took me a few goes but you don't need to go too fast on the bike to keep up so it's worth trying to just drive it carefully.

ugh it took me SO long to actually get on the bike fast enough + keep up for the first 50 metres. i kept fucking up and hitting the rocks right at the beginning and failing. the first time i finally made it past i had virtually no health, caught a stray bullet out of NOWHERE and died. I HATED that mission.

Yeah, actually, the cellphone friend-management aspect of the game definitely teeters it below SA, now that I think about it. It's much, much worse than the RPG elements of SA, which at least gave you the option of being fat and winded.

And I agree that the cutscenes are a huge disappointment. They look like crap.

Again, to be fair, this game at elast gives you the option to be sad and friendless and unable to call cabs ;)

I thought there was an option to just turn 'story-advancing' calls off if you want? I'm sure I saw it in the mobile menus someplace.

yes, you can plonk the phone on 'quiet mode' which just turns off anyone ringing you. Quite useful if you just want to fuck about and explore.

The 'revenge' mission is slightly different, instead of a bike I had a boat. It was such an annoying mission that now that I've completed it, I don't even want to be reminded of it ever again. (the mission, not the game)

I watched CSI NY tonight and it featured, very briefly, Russian gangsters in Coney Island, lol.

yes, you can plonk the phone on 'quiet mode' which just turns off anyone ringing you.

shit, i had no idea about that. well that removes one black mark i had against the game.

you still hammering the multiplayer ledge?

The score system you mentioned, does this carry on to all multiplayer modes? How does it work?

(in the ranked multiplayer modes) you get dollars for every game - about a grand for winning a race, $100 per deathmatch kill, about five grand for completing one of the co-op modes. the more you earn the more you rank. I'm nearly on 8, which takes ONE MEEELLION DOLLARS. To get to 9 will take another mill and a half :/ don't even know how much for 10.

how did I get so much cash? by playing hangmans noose about 200 times. what do i get for all this hard work? some extra outfits for my avatar. mostly just helmets. why am i bothering? <shrug>

The game is basically III with a facelift. Not that I'm complaining though.

Caved in yesterday and bought a PS3 & GTAIV. I managed to wait a year for the PC version of San Andreas, but just couldn't handle the wait this time. Only played a couple of hours so far, but WOWS @ gameplay.

The cars handle so differently to previous games; I used to be handbrake turn ninja, but I keep wildly overshooting corners and spinning out now. Fortunately, it feels and looks way cooler, so I just need to adjust my technique somewaht.

It looks good enough, but I am an antialiasing snob, so I'm kinda distracted by jaggies a lot of the time.

Combat system is taking some getting used to, since I'm used to mouse & keyboard style, but the autoaim is a godsend for a noobstick virgin like me. Does anybody use free aim? Seems fairly impossible to get fast, accurate aiming with the analogue stick.

Itching to play some more... can't wait to get out of introductory missions and into the thick of it.

good to see you gkit,

i have a hunch that they've made the basic cars handle so wildly just so that they can make the better cars feel more superior.
I'm still ticked off that I've still yet to come across a non-mission spawned Infernus, Comet, or even a Super GT - and I've played for 130 hours now. This feels like a dreadful oversight on the developers part.

yeah it's totally horrible trying to get an accurate aim with the ps controllers, keep the autoaim on for most missions.
But I use free aim now, I prefer being in control of it that way. Hopefully I'll get better.

I've definitely seen and nicked some supercars - turismos and maybe comets too. Will have a drive around in a bit to see what I can find. And having done lots of multiplayer racing I can say that the faster cars don't handle any easier. I wouldn't say the handling is wild though; it seems more realistic to me than GTA III. I mean I've never actually attempted a 60+mph 90 degree handbrake turn in real life so don't really know what to expect, but to win multiplayer races you basically have to corner properly, ie foot brake before the corners to a sensible entry speed.

Well... I found a banshee. Ho-hum. But y'know there is a car showroom next to the northern Perseus on Algonquin, just near your safehouse, that always has Turismos. And there's a bike showroom full of NRG-900s on Lemhi st in north Alderney.

yeah Turismo's are a-plenty, as are Banshees. Just no Comets or Infernus's anywhere though.

'Wild' may have been a crap word for me to use. Sluggish might have been more appropriate, that horrible after over-steer effect that you find on the shit cars, so annoying. The super-cars are a delight however, altho the Super GT is slightly over rated.

Just had a shoot out with a police chopper, I like how after I'd taken out one the shooters the helicopter span around so the shooter on the otehr side could have a go. Took him out as well, the chopper flew away.

I just found a Comet, upper west side, just parked on one of the main roads.

cool. what were you driving at the time? wondering if it makes a difference to the spawn factor.

POSSIBLY MILD SPOILER FOR MID GAME? --Once you complete a certain mission and an Infernus spawns for you, it will always spawn in that location.

no it doesn't, I think I know which mission you're referring to. I've tried that place, and nothing.

(B' mission?)

(i may have been unlucky, and catching dead spawns. How reliable is your info?)

Har Har

Getting GTA IV has sure increased my interest in san andreas

looks like my info may have been wrong, i misread something-- actually unclear as to whether or not it actually respawns there.

Speaking of cars: there are two versions of the Sentinel in the game, and one of them is sportier and has a spoiler. It's definitely my favorite car in the game. It's not quite as fast as the top tier cars, but much more durable, almost never flips, and it's narrow! Great handling, too.

My trick for the cars is that once I find a rare one (SuperGT, Comet, etc.), I will drive around my neighborhood to try and find another one, because the game tends to populate the environment with the class of car you're currently driving. So it's a good way to stock up.

Does anybody use free aim? Seems fairly impossible to get fast, accurate aiming with the analogue stick.

I only use free aim when the situation calls for it, but it works pretty well for me. It's hard for me to reliably press the trigger halfway, but the aiming works fine for me, especially if I'm crouching.

Yeah the Sentinel has consistently been a great car in the GTA series. And Vice City had a spoiler 'boy racer' version too. And of course GTAIII had the Mafia version, which was fucking sweeeet.
It's one of my faves too, very reliable.

A nice touch in the game is when your car can just fail to start, instead of bursting into flames. That fateful dead sound of the radio going off, and Niko attempting to tick the engine over.

On some occasions I've managed to restart them again.

allegedly if you dial 911 after your car dies it will magically start up again. i have not tried this tho.

I've noticed lots of 'two versions' of the same cars in this one, cars with spoilers, spot-lights, or some such add ons. Sometimes its only subtle differences - the Turismo has a version with small sticky out engine intakes, while the normal one has grill intakes.

how sad am i.

ledge, reall?
i've used the 911 call to report crimes, i love how the cops can start helping you waste gangs. Gives me a community feeling yer know.

'really'

i had a date with Packie last night and during the car journey neither of us spoke. At the bowling alley there was no dialogue like there usually was. And again the journey home was silent.

It felt really stange and awkward, and then Jacob rang me for a game of pool and i felt great again.

jesus christ almighty

The other night my housemate walked in and found me chopping up people with the helicopter blade, to the tune of some creepy cult chanting from the "Rosemary's Baby" soundtrack. There has been a distance between us since then.

Had hueg lolz @ drunken Niko & Roman last night. Roman fell down like a sack of shit.
Also tried multiplayer. So good! I particularly enjoyed Car Jack City.

Oh man, there are just too many points in this game where its hidden rules fill me with fucking despair. You can't get in this car, you can't blow up that car, you can't actually go about things in your own thought-out way because there's a script to this mission and fuck you, we're following it. I'm on something like my 15th attempt at a certain perticularly hard "kill a guy and his bodyguards" mission, and every time I try to come up with a way of making it easier for myself, the game engine fucks me over. I'm only about 2 missions from the end of the story now, but if this one doesn't work itself out in the next 3 or 4 attempts I'm going to be quitting and selling this shit. This is meant to be a recreational activity, it shouldn't be making me want to smash things.

don't smash too much of your stuff up just yet, you'll need some left over for that last mission.

i used 911 so i dont have to go find the cops to shoot them. convenient.

I climbed to the top of a billboard sign only to turn around and discover that a tramp had followed me up, it spooked me at the time. So I walked over to him and pushed him over the side to his bloody demise, nach'

has anyone found anything worth spending money on?

also... WHY are there only 4 clothing stores and 2 the same kind why why why

I know. Love my "disco king" outfit but want more threads.

Yeah, this game could use a clothing expansion pack or something.

I didn't really spend any money until I beat the game, and I decided I wanted a bunch more RPG rounds and grenade rounds and shit. That and hospital bills and food are it for money use IMO!

I had a spending spree about 2 missions from the end and blew loads on an RPG and a dozen rockets. Regretted it soon afterwards though, when I got another big mission pay out and ended up only 30k below the "half million" achievement.

The mission which was making me swear lots above (sorry!) ended up being really easy the one time it worked. Through no real change of approach on my part...it just felt like I finally got lucky (or stopped getting unlucky). Last mission didn't feel too tricky at all to me though, did it on my second attempt, and only failed on my first because i'd been too lazy to pick up body armour before I started it. I guess that's one of the major issues GTA games have always had though, isn't it? YMMV. Wildly. And usually just as a result of random environmental differences.

Anyway, finished now! Might take a week off before I get stuck into mulitplayer (or start thinking about 100%).

Found one of the endgame decisions pretty annoying, cos I chose a certain option for a certain reason, then everyone in game (including Niko!) kept going on about how I'd chosen that option for a completely different reason! ie...

(SPOILERS)

I decided not to kill Dimitri, cos I didn't feel particularly vengeful after letting Darko live...but then the game assumed I'd decided not to kill him jsut because I wanted loads of money! Grr.

(/SPOILER)

Oh, and if Xbox exclusive downloadable content ends up just being more outfits, I'll be disappointed.

My spoiler response to JimD is below... in italics. Which are easy for the brain to skip over if it chooses.

JimD, flip it around-- if you didn't want the money, you had a third option-- don't do either. If you do neither, Dimitri stays alive, and shit never goes down with Kate. But, you don't beat the game. If you want to see the ending, the flipside of that is no matter what, it's a tragedy. The only way to escape the bad ending is to get no ending at all-- and the game completely llows you to continue playing without beating it.

Interesting, huh?

Ha! You're right, that's kinda great really. :)

yeah that's pretty cool, i like that.