Yeah, I noticed this too. It’s especially jarring because most of the graphic elements have been significantly improved over the PS2 era games, but the animation is as awful as ever.
I smell fear… I dunno why… But after the delay from the original release date, and lots of secrecy around how the actual gameplay will work, I’m suspicious. The graphics also seem to get closer and closer to last gen with every trailer I see. Rockstar needs to foot up some details already, as well as a new release date :) I remember when it was first announced, it was hailed as “things will be different”, well, up to this point, things look about exactly like they always have (obnoxious stereotypical cutscene that leads into one of four types of missions).
-Chris
I’m not sure. There’s something in the way Rockstar presents the games that just never speaks to me at all. To be honest the last GTA game I actually physically played was GTA 3.
I think for me the three main problems are: I’m not all that interested in the settings/environments aesthetically or thematically, I generally find the character designs actively ugly, which is a turnoff, and because of the way morality and conflict are modeled in the games (at least so far as I generally understand them), I find it hard to get invested in who wins or loses.
I think the games generally say something ugly and uninteresting about life. I felt it especially strongly with San Andreas, I think because I had personal experiences growing up that I’m not really interested in turning into video game play. I know that comes off as prissy and moralistic. I more just mean the hooks built into the games are not the hooks I respond to emotionally.
Now, I’m a sci-fi junkie. If they made a sci-fi GTA game (no, not fucking Crackdown), with a big interesting city, a lot to do, lots of politics and factions and whatnot, plus all the combat and racing around, I’d probably begin to be hooked. Especially if it looked good. And especially if they somehow presented my character as someone I liked and someone who was justified in their actions.
Take the Mass Effect Citadel stuff, toss in some next gen G-Police, some Shadowrun, some Blade Runner, some Total Recall, divorce the setting from the grubby contemporary world I can see on the evening news or on my commute home, make it look good…I could get into that. I know that gets people’s eyes rolling, but I can’t help it, setting makes a huge difference to me.
For the record, I really appreciated Rockstar doing Bully. I liked that idea much more than their regular GTA stuff. And I liked the look of LA Noire (I know Noire is other people really and the whole thing is in development hell/limbo).
What’s wrong with Crackdown?
Sigh. I found Crackdown to be stupid and shallow and arcadey. All that jumping around stuff and stacking up stacks of things and blowing the stacks up and kicking people over buildings felt like the most pointless, asinine play possible, and I didn’t like the shooting.
Well, the part in San Andreas where CJ teams up with David Cross gives you a remote control hobby plane with a minigun on it to shoot up the vans of a rival hobby store owner does say something ugly about life, I guess.
Then there’s the part where you befriend the Triad boss by beating him in a race and later find out he’s actually blind. His boys, who try very hard to make him feel like he’s not, tell you. And you go on a mission with him, and he thinks you haven’t figured it out, and then he keeps running into walls.
Then James Woods tells you to steal a jetpack from a military base by strapping it on and flying it out of there.
And don’t forget about the hamburgers. They cure your bullet wounds.
…not to mention that they fixed that shitty, shitty, shitty control system.
Seriously, Rockstar. The right stick being used for camera control has been pretty standard since PS1 dual shock games. What the hell were you thinking? Twice!
There’s “gangster” and there’s “gangsta”.
I’m sure I’ll pick it up, love it, and maybe even complete a large part of the so-called storyline, but I’d really rather it opened up more, say, Ronin, Jackal or Bourne Conspiracy (for example) and less “wassup dawg”.
I like the trailer a lot - wish there was more gameplay, but I like the Eastern European theme this time around. Preordered the game.
I’m sure I’ll rent it and play it until I’m bored of it, which will inevitably be long before the cool stuff that everyone else is talking about…
I’m hoping the world isn’t too big. That’s what killed San Andreas for me.
Concur. I liked the ambition behind it, but it just took too long to get around once the initial exploration glow wore off.
lol, because Ronin’s car-chase centric storyline is more mature than any storyline involving “gangstas”.
Heretic.
I really liked the size because I spent a lot of time just cruising around in addition to the storyline. However, the extra cities didn’t feel quite as well fleshed out as San Andreas.
As for the trailer, it’s not bad. Here’s hoping it makes it to the PC. I think San Andreas was Rockstar’s last PC port.
I know we’ve had shots and trailers for, like, months now, but I’m still disappointed that they didn’t do something more interesting with the graphics. Like, remember the illustrations for GTA3 (box art is the best example I can find off-hand)? I thought that sort of gritty comic style was really strong, and I wish they’d have used the NEXT GEN POWAH to try to bring that to life — something similar to Team Fortress 2 perhaps. Unfortunately, with each successive title, it seems they’re moving farther away from that, and more towards standard photo-realism.
Still definitely looking forward to it though.
I did, too, and I totally see where you’re coming from. For me personally, a lot of the late-game stuff started to feel more like commuting than gaming because of the daunting distances involved.
I felt like I was spending forever dicking around in the woods getting yelled at by a crazy chick.
Cars are way better than blacks. Secondly, who doesn’t want a game inspired by The Jackal? No one, that’s who.
I don’t even know what that means. Well I think I do but I hope I don’t.
Anywhooo… Compared to the kickass music in the teaser this one sounded WAY lamer. And there is way too much ‘uncanny valleyism’ in the characters. I note that they blink about once ever 30 seconds. I’ve seen ventriloquist dummies that looked less wooden. But meh, it’s probably still 8 months from release so whatever, hopefully they get it right.