I am driver. I go left, I go right, I go straight ahead. That’s it.
Reviewers finally break out of the 7 to 9 range and all you can do is complain. :)
Chris
So a couple of points:
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I figured Niko Belic was [spoiler nationality? Is that even necessary?] before the game shipped, they certainly dropped enough clues. For one thing, his first outfit makes him a dead ringer for this guy.
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I dunno, I enjoyed the cabaret sequences. You were in a sleazy dive cabaret, they were supposed to be bad. Of course, if the shows in Manhattan are as bad, well, then your point is taken. Similarly, the minigames I thought were pretty good, especially the pool game. It was a nice surprise and was actually pretty well done.
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Uh, the soundtrack is awesome. Dunno what to tell you except you’re wrong! The sheer breadth of it alone is amazing, and they have some pretty good gems as well. Fer cryin out loud, the game opens with an awesome Ukrainian hair band anthem.
I know when I go carjacking on the way to a mob hit, I always bring my CD binder.
C’mon, man.
I have to disagree, you can tell from many areas such as the gps and the much better gunplay that they have learned from Saint’s Row. You don’t recognize a lot of the music? Just what do you listen to?
And no mention of the Euphoria system?
I should add one major complaint I do have is a good portion of the dialogue is missed if you don’t have subtitles on.
Sadly, though, the Jamaican’s jah mon patois is left untranslated. Come on, it’s as inpenetrable to me as Russian!
I think thats the joke. The subtitles definitely help though.
I think the Eastern Promises comparison is fair because it shows that games have got to the point where they can have different audiences. Eastern Promises wasn’t for everyone, but a certain section of the film audience loved it. A few more million people will probably like GTA, but that doesn’t mean every gamer has to.
To me, the fact that its already had a plot twist that you care enough to write about already sets it above the ranks of those other games you mention.
I have to agree with you on the control issues Tom, combat feels kind of awkward sometimes. They may have learned some lessons from Crackdown and Saint’s Row but not the right ones.
They’re not Russian? I tried to sit through the first cutscene and failed; since then I’ve just been skipping them. All I know of the story comes from the cellphone and in-car conversation.
Wow. Just wow.
Well, you could concievably ditch the plot entirely, just hijack cars and punch random people in the face. That’s certainly valid!
(Though you do miss out on gun shops, the joy of driving over a cop car with a Hummer, and … uh… 2/3 of the city.)
That’s the only time this phrase will ever be justifiable.
Lum, yeah, the Russian station is pretty cool. As for the overall soundtrack, I recognize a few tunes from going through the credits at the back of the manual, but not many of them. Which wasn’t surprising in a lower profile game like Saints Row. But this is GTA4, man. Frankly, I’m surprised there isn’t a more expensive song selection. I’m also disappointed there’s no classical channel. Have I just not found it yet?
Maybe the Bellic cousins’ nationality isn’t a spoiler, but listening to Nikko talk about his backstory has a lot more weight if you gradually realize where he’s from. I guess his last name is probably a giveaway, although I think the two L’s in Bellic might have thrown me. Anyway, it’s one instance where I was glad not to have known anything about the game. When he opens up to Mikhail’s wife, I felt the story had gradually earned the gravity for that kind of imagery.
Ooh, BJB, don’t skip the cutscenes, man. Rockstar does a great job. Then again, you have notoriously weird taste, so maybe they won’t do anything for you. :)
-Tom
(BTW, I don’t mean to clog up the forum with yet another GTA thread, but I’ve avoided the other threads for fear of spoilers.)
Thank God!! All this GTA dicksucking has left me feeling like I was the only one with control issues. The driving is decent when you are getting from point A to point B but when there is a chase and they are in an SUV and you are in a sudan, and they are taking turns at hight speed while you are spinning out of control or crashing into a wall is bullshit. Also the on foot controls leave a lot to be desired. I just don’t understand why I liked crackdown so much, yet can’t get into any GTA the same way.
No, that would be you not being very good at driving. I’m not saying there’s no learning curve, because there definitely is, but I can pull off honest to God Bullitt shit at this point.
I agree with Tom for the most part, the controls do feel really loose at times, and they should have taken better notes from Saint’s Row and Crackdown.
The only GTA game I ever finished (aside from the first) was LCS, because the missions were short and easy. I played GTA3 and VC on PC and always got stuck at the radio controlled helicopter missions. But I played them for hours just using the game as a sandbox - launching cars off ramps, driving motorcycles across rooftops, and launching buses off ramps (okay, so there was a lot of launching stuff off other stuff).
Then Saint’s Row made it easier to complete the missions, and added the stuff awesome little things like insurance fraud. And Crackdown was the ultimate sandbox game, especially with the Keys to the City DLC.
So while I’ll most likely finish GTA4 and dabble in the multiplayer, I don’t think I’ll be using it as my go to sandbox game a month from now, sadly.
Still, it does have a lot going for it, and at the moment I am in that “one more mission” phase.
I agree with most of your points Tom, but I’m still finding myself enjoying the game a whole lot. Maybe it’s because I never really got into GTA3 beyond trying to set up police chases, and I never touched Vice City or San Andreas for more than 15 minutes. I really like Niko as a character and I’m always rooting for him and his cousin; the game almost feels like an Eddie Murphy-less version of “Coming to America”. This is the first GTA game where I’ve actually tried to follow the story missions instead of just going off on a rampage. I’ve even tried to avoid killing people on my dates!
There have been moments where I’ve cursed the game for its wretched combat/driving/pool mini-game, but then something like the following happens:
- Niko & Roman do some male bonding at Vlad’s bar.
- They walk out piss drunk, but instead of hailing a cab, Niko tries to drive them home.
- Cops come after them for driving under the influence.
- Car flips over, Niko bails out while Roman is hurt in the ensuing explosion and gets taken to the hospital.
- Niko jacks another car and finally ditches the cops, then gets a call from Roman asking for a ride from the hospital.
Unplanned sequences like this have already happened a few times in just the five and a half hours I’ve put in, and they totally make the game for me.
Well, it’s a game. So they could be showing me Casablanca and I’d still be pissed off at the interruption.
But what I watched of the intro and the first cutscene and what little else I’ve not skipped, I’m not missing much.