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

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.

I must have seen the loading screen goodness knows how many times by now, but I never noticed this until it was pointed out to me.

http://www.multiplayernetwork.net/files/filesystem/images/LollipopSeries_591_1203624622.jpg

There's something a bit wrong with lollipop woman's fingers.

yes, there's a lot wrong with that.

i got bored with this quickly.

still the best GTA i've ever played though.

ooo... 5 fingers! gross!

I finally opened my copy last night. Instead of being run over by the jet taxiing on the runway, I got stuck to the landing gear and dragged around aimlessly for 15 minutes, or so, with cops and helicopters shooting at me the whole time.

Why did you only finally open it last night, out of curiosity?

The end of the last mission was kinda weird. SPOILERSSSSSSS I killed Dmitri in some bushes, and couldn't even see him apart from the fact that my gun was locked onto him. I was like "that's it?"

I found out today that if you shoot or crash into the fuel pumps at gas stations they explode. Great fun in a cop shoot out.