Grand Theft Auto: Arrested

Wrong. Shotgunning bad guys as you slowly Bronson your way over to the staircase is awesome. Running? Cover? Pansies!

I like those moments too:

Niko shit talking goons and calmly mowing them down while slowly tilt-walking his way towards cover. Fully bad-ass.

Carmen is not only easy, she also likes to go to the strip club and it makes her horny. Now that’s a fun date. “Sit here while I get a lap dance. I’ll be out to take you home in a bit.”

Kiki is funny though when you show up in nice clothes or a nice car she’ll ask if that’s what you where when out with your other whores. Too funny.

Yeah, Kiki has amusing emotional issues, especially when drunk. Alternating between proclaiming her love and accusing you of treating her like a whore. But she still puts out on the second date.

Yeah, whenever I bust out the shotgun, I feel compelled to walk slowly and whistle “The Farmer in the Dell.” But that’s just The Wire talking, I think.

The most accurate simulation of internet dating ever.

Ugh, I gotta do every race twice for the achievement? Lame.

Actually, Wholly, I’m pretty sure the achievement is to just finish 20 races. Once you’ve done all six or seven, you can repeat each race as many times as you like. So you’ll have to do each one three times, or just do your favorite over and over. Each race also gets you $500 and one percentage point of Brucie like.

The good news is that the AI is mostly incapable of actually racing, so winning isn’t a problem.

-Tom

Sheesh, in what world is this good news Tom? If the AI was even remotely capable of racing, the races would actually be more fun, and then it wouldn’t matter if it required 30 wins for the achievement, because we’d have a better time getting that achievement.

I meant the good news in terms of not having to run the races more often. Right now, they’re not races so much as timed courses. If you want to make them more challenging, take a crappy car.

But, yeah, the racing AI is retarded.

-Tom

P.S. Ten points off for using the ‘F’ word! Personally, I think the races are still plenty “fun” by trying to beat my best times. Not that I’ll have any interest in doing it once I’ve gotten the achievement, but I am having “fun” working towards the achievement.

Heh. Yeah, sorry about using the ‘F’ word. And to clarify, I did find the races entertaining despite the lack of trying on the AI’s behalf, because it’s still a blast to try to go as fast as possible through traffic. But it could have definitely been even more exhilarating to go through traffic at high speeds with other racers on your tail.

Oh yeah, I realized that after I kept playing. I had lost count, and thought that I had just finished 10 races when I’d gone through every race once. Then Brucie’s next race was one I just did, and for whatever reason it had exotics for the AI instead of the crap cars I’d been racing, so I jumped to the conclusion that I was now going back through each of the “ten” courses against faster cars.

Turns out there are only 9 different races, you’re right you can do the same ones over and over, I have no idea why it gave me exotics for opponents that one time, and it didn’t matter because it still wasn’t a race past the first turn, so pretty much everywhere, it’s gonna be boring.

I think – and I could be wrong here, because I haven’t verified it – that each race is scripted to have particular cars. My guess is that they’re scaled based on which of the islands you’ve unlocked.

So if, for instance, you really want an Infernus (I frickin’ lost mine when I got greedy and tried to park three cars in my safehouse’s reserved parking), just call Brucie to set up the last race and jack an Infernus from one of the contenders.

But, yeah, like many of the minigames, Rockstar seems awfully lazy about implementing the racing.

-Tom

I don’t think that’s the case. I did every race once (all nine of them), going through them in the order the islands are unlocked (but I didn’t even start the races till I had all three islands unlocked). After the ninth race, the first repeat I did was still out on the 3rd island, and was a repeat of the 8th race, which I’d just done 10 minutes before, and it was definitely different cars.

I did about half the races up to that point with some respectable but not too fancy sedan, and it was putting me up against crap cars, so I thought maybe it was picking opponents based on what I was driving. I switched to the Ferrari look-a-like for the rest up to that point and it was still all crap opponents. And after that first repeat put me up against the Porsche/Ferrari style opponents, the next two I’ve done have been back to crap again. I really don’t think there’s any method to it at all.

Something’s been bugging me: who’s the woman on the cover with the lollipop (also featured prominently in advertising) supposed to be? Everyone else is a recognisable character from the game.

I’m guessing that’s concept art that eventually turned into Carmen. Sans lollipop, of course.

-Tom

I’d rather they went back to lollipop girl. Carmen was freaking annoying.

Carmen wouldn’t be so annoying if you showed Carmen more attention!

It’s been bugging a lot of people. Apparently she is in the police database as Lola, and people have been trying to find her around liberty city. There’s even a competition for who finds her first. So if you find her first, you can win a prize.

She’s probably a showgirl.

Sorry.