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[Eclipse]

honestly, i'm waiting for Mafia 2.

[Sar]

So I have to disagree with the "LOL<adult theme>" sentiment... I mean, I don't know what Martin Scorsese thinks of GTA (maybe he dislikes it with a passion), but I definitely think the series has done an admirable job of capturing the feeling of the gangster flick.  The latest installment has gotten even closer.

See, this was a bit of a sticking point for me with Vice City - It reminded me very much of the de Palma/Pacino Scarface. I'm sure it was intentional. But... well, Scarface had Tony Montana going from cocksure immigrant to increasingly-megalomaniacal paranoid coke-fuelled crazy and not really standing a chance when his mistakes all rushed him at once at the end of the movie; Vice City had the protagonist (whose name I can't even remember!) starting off as a megalomaniacal crazy and it showed no signs whatsoever of an eventual downfall. I don't remember him snorting coke but I'm sure that was more to avoid the game getting totally banned than anything. I get the impression that the game ends with the guy having taken over the criminal world in the city, which is a totally different theme! Scarface is a good movie [over-the-top eighties electric organ aside], it has a MacBeth kind of feel to it with the hero digging himself a hole then drowning in it when it rains. Vice City didn't seem to have a real story at all, just a sequence of events; the theme is more along the lines of "crime pays, so long as you run over enough prostitutes and shoot all your friends".

[shinygerbil]

So I have to disagree with the "LOL<adult theme>" sentiment... I mean, I don't know what Martin Scorsese thinks of GTA (maybe he dislikes it with a passion), but I definitely think the series has done an admirable job of capturing the feeling of the gangster flick.  The latest installment has gotten even closer.

Well, the main one I remember is San Andreas - which I actually tried to get into a couple of weeks ago to see if my opinion had changed - and there was maybe a minute or two of atrociously-acted, wafer-thin storyline veneer, followed by an ostentaciously black guy going "dayum, now I better go bust some niggaz for no reason, instead of personality I'm just gonna be comprised of stereotype so you can pretend, DAYUMM." Then I was put in charge of a bicycle and sent on my way.

Now, if there was some decent gameplay to go with it, that'd all be fine, but there isn't. I am left with practically no choice but to commit crime in one of two limited, well-defined ways (steal a car OR kill someone).

So if the new one has *fully* addressed all of that - i.e. made it into a different game - then I'll be happy.

I guess I just don't think it's quite good enough to actually be satire, or an attempt at a gangster flick. The nods are there, but only in a gangster-flick-by-numbers sort of way. I know what it's supposed to be, but it just doesn't feel right. Which is why I get the LOL<adult theme> impression.

[William Broom]

The one I mostly played was San Andreas, and it was... horrible. As gerbil says, the main character, no, the entire storyline is a 2-dimensional cliche. The graphics were ass, I know it was on the PS2 and had huge cities and so on, but still, it looked so goofy in the cutscenes, trying to show characters doing things like playing basketball or smoking a cigarette when their fingers are stuck together in the same position for the entire game.
And to top it all off, the gameplay was horrible. The combat was a mess. You had to level up your shooting skill just to be able to aim and move at the same time. The targeting system was pathetic and would just as easily lock onto the nearest old lady or prostitute than whoever you're trying to kill.

But with GTA IV, all these problems have, purportedly, been fixed. Great graphics including Euphoria, check. Story that Jeff Gerstmann described as 'probably the best videogame story ever', check. Free aiming while moving, check... I think.

Anyway, what kind of man are you if you can't forgive your enemies? I'm buying GTAIV ... as soon as I get a job.

[Derek]

Haha, yeah, the baseball-mitt hands of GTA III were pretty laughable.  As was the story, most likely (I can't even remember it).

But to be honest, I think playing GTA IV has given me a different perspective on the series as a whole.  It's like I can see what they were trying to achieve with earlier games but didn't have the resources or experience to do.  I think this one takes a pretty big leap ahead, to a point where it's not "gangster-flick-by-numbers," but can stand on its own two feet.

But yeah, enough gushing already.

[Corpus]

Heh, the huge-handed characters were kinda a hallmark of Rockstar games up until recently.

I'm too young to play GTA IV, but I'll be getting it anyway, once my exams are finished... I got GTA3 when I was 11 (my dad didn't see the red "18" sticker on the front, somehow, and also wasn't even aware that such games existed, heh.) I'm really quite looking forward to it, now

[skaldicpoet9]

I'm so poor I had to make a 360 out of cardboard and paste a screenshot of GTAIV on my television.

And GTA...well, I never really had too much of a problem with it, besides the fact that the core gameplay was somewhat monotonous. I think my favorite thing about these games are the variety of things you can do in the missions (using the helicopter to drop charges in GTA: Vice City comes to mind) and the extra side missions like finding the best spot to do an insane stunt or stealing a cop car to do Vigilante missions.

I was playing VC earlier this week and I did notice how there wasn't much effort put into fleshing out the character of Tommy Vercetti. However, what I have seen of IV looks like they actually put a lot into trying to make Neko a somewhat likable character. 

More then anything I tend to agree with what Derek said: these games are the closest thing we have to the great crime dramas that we have all watched in the past, and from the looks of it GTAIV has only matured that concept further.

[Radnom]

I think there are a lot of haters in this topic because it's cool or """indie""" to hate popular stuff, but the whole series (or at least the 3D releases) have been getting some pretty decent reviews across the board... they can't be all that bad 

I do like the GTA series. I love the whole 'roaming' aspect. San Andreas is my favourite because it wrapped the free roam sandbox-y gameplay with an intriguing story and characters you could sympathise with (but not necessarily relate to...). Also because it has a giant fricken mountain. I never beat it though because the missions ended up getting too frustrating. I think there are quite a few design issues (or creative differences) that I don't agree with that would make me enjoy the game more, but it's still an incredible game.

I find it funny that whenever my friends play GTA they get a pile of guns and shoot up pedestrians then try and avoid the cops for as long as possible. Whenever I see this I get really frustrated and think "GAH THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO" because the way I've always played GTA is I would go from mission to mission, reloading if I failed because I didn't want to lose any weapons. I never go on killing sprees for some reason.

My favourite part of the whole series is getting a motorbike, driving to the top of the mountain then jumping off. It's incredible. That game gives an awesome sense that it's a real place. Even just driving around in the countryside was an incredible experience.





Unfortunately GTA IV has been censored in New Zealand for GOD KNOWS WHAT REASON. It's absolutely ridiculous. Australia censors it because they don't have any R18 classification for games. New Zealand does. There's no reason to give us the censored version.

AND IT'S STILL R18 ANYWAY!

Absolute bullshit. I'd only get the game if I could import a PAL, uncensored version from Europe. (and if I had an Xbox360 or a PS3)

They censored the PAL version of No More Heroes as well which put me off getting the game, but that's ALL PAL versions, so there's no way to get around it without somehow hacking the wii or something 

I hate censorship.

[Hideous]

Radnom: The blood effects have been removed from the game disc itself, so hacking the wii is pretty silly for just that. I have a modchip in my wii, so I've been playing the american version.

[mewse]

I think there are a lot of haters in this topic because it's cool or """indie""" to hate popular stuff, but (they) have been getting some pretty decent reviews across the board... they can't be all that bad

Yes, clearly my opinion is invented in a bizarre scheme to make myself appear cool to anonymous people I've never met, and you can tell that it's true because my opinion doesn't precisely match the opinion doled out by the media. 

I hate censorship.

Then don't state that my opinion is invalid simply because it's different than yours.

I mean, honestly.   

[Sar]

Offtopic, but:

They censored the PAL version of No More Heroes as well which put me off getting the game, but that's ALL PAL versions, so there's no way to get around it without somehow hacking the wii or something 

Or getting hold of the US copy and a 'Freeloader' disc, which lets you play most out-of-region stuff; supposedly the US NMH runs fine on a PAL Wii with Freeloader.

Of course, the problem then is that the next time around they're less likely to release it in the PAL territories at all 'cause the last one only sold to NTSC customers where they hadn't horribly butchered the aesthetic for some totally inexplicable reason.

[Lazer]

I had a really awesome "wow, this is perhaps the coolest thing I've ever done in a game" moment playing it yesterday.

I was just exploring around with a friend, booking it on foot from a two star wanted level, when I hopped a wall and suddenly PLOP, to my surprise (and at the time, chagrin) I noted I had fell 15 some odd feet into a sewer entrance of sorts. Naturally I follow it out, only to discover the wall has fallen in and leads up into an abandoned factory building several floors high.

I worked my way to the top, before I finally reached the end: Two windows that weren't boarded up. I bust out of them and land atop the neighboring building. Soon enough I'm climbing a ladder to the top of what can only be described as the ultimate hobo den.

The inside of the building was breath taking. There was a sewage spill-off into the ruined basement that greeted my entrance. I basically got to fulfill a real life hobby of urban exploring in GTAIV. It was badass to the max.

Soon enough my friend found his way in, and we were having a running gunfight through the hobo den, leading to him chasing me out through the windows and leaping to my escape. It was just something so minute but impressive, I still can't really comprehend a game being that cool.

Also as a side note I'm getting really into the singleplayer. Some of the things Niko has said really wrenched my emotional gut.

[shinygerbil]

Stop saying things like, that, you'll make me actually want to play it

[jstckr]

I enjoy hunting for the 200 pigeons, they're hidden really, really well and force you to have a good look at your surroundings and also explore the city. Unless you use a map that gives you at least a raw direction on where to look - like I do - this alone could take a month or two.

[Sar]

I enjoy hunting for the 200 pigeons

Please tell me you're making this up. One of the things they got me to buy this game on the back of was that it didn't have any more stupid collect-the-hidden-packages objectives... :/

[jstckr]

Oh, it's totally not an objective, and you don't get any rewards for it (at least I didn't yet, but I just found 25 pigeons or so). You either do it or you don't.

[team_q]

well if you have a three sixty, you get an ACHIEVEMENT!

but yeah, its like finding pearls in San Andreas or flags in Assassin's Creed, not necessary and fun for weirdos that like that thing.

[Sar]

Oh, it's totally not an objective [...] You either do it or you don't.

I suspect you underestimate the motivational power of obsessive compulsion.

[Movius]

I think there are a lot of haters in this topic because it's cool or """indie""" to hate popular stuff, but the whole series (or at least the 3D releases) have been getting some pretty decent reviews across the board... they can't be all that bad 

*snip*

Unfortunately GTA IV has been censored in New Zealand for GOD KNOWS WHAT REASON. It's absolutely ridiculous. Australia censors it because they don't have any R18 classification for games. New Zealand does. There's no reason to give us the censored version.

AND IT'S STILL R18 ANYWAY!

Absolute bullshit. I'd only get the game if I could import a PAL, uncensored version from Europe. (and if I had an Xbox360 or a PS3)

They censored the PAL version of No More Heroes as well which put me off getting the game, but that's ALL PAL versions, so there's no way to get around it without somehow hacking the wii or something 

I hate censorship.

it's MA15+ in Australia.

Also PS3 games and many 360 games are region free so it wouldn't matter where you imported from.

Agree with the first paragraph though.

I think there are a lot of haters in this topic because it's cool or """indie""" to hate popular stuff, but (they) have been getting some pretty decent reviews across the board... they can't be all that bad

Yes, clearly my opinion is invented in a bizarre scheme to make myself appear cool to anonymous people I've never met, and you can tell that it's true because my opinion doesn't precisely match the opinion doled out by the media. 

I hate censorship.

Then don't state that my opinion is invalid simply because it's different than yours.

I mean, honestly.  

disagreement = censorship now?

[Melly]

I had a really awesome "wow, this is perhaps the coolest thing I've ever done in a game" moment playing it yesterday.

I was just exploring around with a friend, booking it on foot from a two star wanted level, when I hopped a wall and suddenly PLOP, to my surprise (and at the time, chagrin) I noted I had fell 15 some odd feet into a sewer entrance of sorts. Naturally I follow it out, only to discover the wall has fallen in and leads up into an abandoned factory building several floors high.

I worked my way to the top, before I finally reached the end: Two windows that weren't boarded up. I bust out of them and land atop the neighboring building. Soon enough I'm climbing a ladder to the top of what can only be described as the ultimate hobo den.

The inside of the building was breath taking. There was a sewage spill-off into the ruined basement that greeted my entrance. I basically got to fulfill a real life hobby of urban exploring in GTAIV. It was badass to the max.

Soon enough my friend found his way in, and we were having a running gunfight through the hobo den, leading to him chasing me out through the windows and leaping to my escape. It was just something so minute but impressive, I still can't really comprehend a game being that cool.

Also as a side note I'm getting really into the singleplayer. Some of the things Niko has said really wrenched my emotional gut.

Hobo dens improve ANY game.