** GTA IV: It feels like a chore to continue playing SP mode thread**

[rp2000]

Are you guys bored cause you played all the other GTA games and its just kinda more of the same, or is it really just stale?

Would like to know how people have never played a GTA game are finding it.

Bought it couple days ago and its still in its shrink wrap. Might just take it back and wait til its cheap if it really is that boring.

Played every single previous game, maybe 95% ish average completion. Normally I love and hammer these sandbox games to death. I can't quite put my finger on what is missing in this game as it is a combination of things, I think.

Interesting thread, I kept away from GTA because I've never played it before and thought i'd just play it at a later date from a Members market bargain.

Don't you guys think the game would have been better if played over say 3 months off and on for an hour or two here and there?

Rather than desperately trying to hammer out such a huge game in a short space of time?

Thats where I think I went wrong with mass effect.

I have put in 14 hours to get 30% completion. This is spread over 2 weeks. Not much at all really. Maybe 3-4 hours in the week and a bit more on launch weekend. Quite a slow pace compared to others, I would say.

It is interesting that many people agree with me (I thought people did discreetly but just wanted to make sure it wasn't just me!!). Ironically, none of the reasons people are annoyed are to do with bugs/pop-up/fps/tearing etc. Despite all the HD advances and everything, it has lost the fun factor somewhere, I think....


rp200

 

[RichieM]

Ironically, none of the reasons people are bo9red are to do with bugs/pop-up/fps/tearing etc. Despite all the HD advances and everything, it has lost the fun factor somewhere, I think....

They aren't reason to be bored though, annoyed; yes.
Pop-up is frustrating when your motoring down a street and corner (or some other "hard" thing) suddenly pops-up in front of you, causing a bad crash
FPS seems to become a problem at certain times of day (lighting conditions in game) and when smoke is present - more annoying than anything.
Bugs & Tearing, personally havent come across.

But all this is OT as it's not about being bored with it

 

[rp2000]

They aren't reason to be bored though, annoyed; yes.
Pop-up is frustrating when your motoring down a street and corner (or some other "hard" thing) suddenly pops-up in front of you, causing a bad crash
FPS seems to become a problem at certain times of day (lighting conditions in game) and when smoke is present - more annoying than anything.
Bugs & Tearing, personally havent come across.

But all this is OT as it's not about being bored with it

Annoyed would have been a better word...


rp2000

 

[Mobius 1]

im bored of it but ill complete it none the less. urgh, makes me a bit annoyed thinking ill have to sit through the first loading screen a few more times. the MP is kinda boring also, once you've blownup/runover/gunned down your mates a few hundred times. i dont know what games get me interested in them anymore kinda lost now as i thought id be playing this for months.

 

[jas72]

I have to agree. I loved Farcray - played it through twice, but I got completely bored with Crysis. Had Crysis been released a few years earlier I probably would have thought it was awesome, but I'm just a bit fedup with the FPS games tbh - apart from COD4 which was awesome, but then maybe they realised they needed to do something different as the format has become a bit stale??? Maybe this is the problem with GTA, for some people, too - played the format too many times???





I would say that in some ways this is the best GTA, but in others it isn't. It's quite difficult to judge it as it lacks the wow factor of the earlier games for me, but I'm still thoroughly enjoying it and it's definately a contender for GOTY for me

I totally agree with your comments although for me COD4 was already a FPS game too far.... (Been playing since MOHAA and now just fed up)

I haven't played GTA since the original on the PS so for me this is my first reintroduction. (I didn't buy a PS2 but I might just to play GTA games on since everyone seems to say how great they were.)

For me it's the small touches which make this an awsome game. The story line is great but on top you have

Witty comments from general public. Stripjoints, comedy clubs darts, pool, bowling, stunt jumps, cars boats, trucks, forklifts, helicopters, e-mail, internet, TV mortorbikes, radio stations, and a beautifully rendered cityscape. (If you want more from a 2 year old console then good luck )

For me the game is immense in it's scale storyline and characters.

I'm at 17% by the way. Not due to non play but mostly getting side tracked by the stunt jumps. (I see one then search for a bike or car to test it out. )

Sorry to hijack the thread but it doesn't feel like a chore to me at all..... hehe

 

[SoapSurgeon]

I have to force my self to play it, the story only interests me slightly but the missions are all a bit samey.

I haven't played SA or VC so can't compare but this just feels a bit cheesey, a bit immature for me. The voice acting is toss, I do a better Eastern European accent that Niko!! The dialogue is average, some funny moments but not many. Even the little things that people mention lose their appeal after a while such as: "Repeating a mission means the dialogue completely changes!" - yeah, great, but so what I have only noticed 2 variations??

"When you crash you can fly out of the windscreen!!" - yeah, great, but it is inconsistent! I crash at 100 mph into another vehicle and im fine. I hit a wall going slower and im thrown out the windscreen and skid down the road. Why for the love of god does Niko INSIST on not wearing a seat belt, even after he has munched on tarmac for the third time that day?!?

The aiming system is good but now missions are so easy it just isn't fun. Get behind cover. Lock on. Adjust to head. Shoot single bullet. Repeat. I find I die most on missions because i get impatient and just go in guns blazing on free aim.

"The mobile phone is central to everything, you can control the entire game from your mobile phone." Yep, great, but you can't run when using it. You can't get in and out of cars while using it. You can't jump while using it. Most of the time you just get voicemail, it is all very scripted.

"You can go for beers with your mates, go to a strip club and even have virtual girlfriends!" This loses its appeal VERY quickly. Getting drunk just gives me a headache, darts, bowls and pool are good for 1 go but i haven't played them since. Virtual girlfriends?!? Whose idea was this?? Why would I want a virtual girlfriend? My only 'alone' time during the day i sit down to play on my xbox and what happens? I now have a virtual girlfriend nagging at me to take her out! The reason i started playing in the first place was to get away from the nagging!!! I know you can ignore them but it doesn't stop them calling you up, texting you, whinging when you tell them to **** off etc...

Driving seems is an odd one, cars can take ridiculous amounts of time to brake, and most have the turning circle of the earths orbit! Maybe this is more 'realistic' it is hard to judge as I can't tell what speed I am travelling at...

Sorry for ranting - I will go and throw my controller now

just a small edit: even though there were far less 'small things' Mafia was, IMHO, a far far more gripping game. I couldn't stop playing that, I felt attached to the characters etc. It was to all intents and purposes THE best 'gangster' game I have played.

 

[Nanoman]

I haven't played GTA since the original on the PS so for me this is my first reintroduction. (I didn't buy a PS2 but I might just to play GTA games on since everyone seems to say how great they were.)

GTA4 must be a seriously awesome game if you haven't experienced the first 3D ones!


For me - 3>VC>SA>4. But I cant help but feel its more related to the feeling i got playing them, rather than the gameplay itself, if you know what I mean. I must just be getting bored of the series.

 

[jas72]

GTA4 must be a seriously awesome game if you haven't experienced the first 3D ones!

Yup I was PC gaming during the original 3D gtas

hehe

 

[wannabedamned]

I didn't really like GTA3, I felt the story was weak, and am I right in saying there was very little if no voice acting??

Anyways, For me it goes

GTA VC > GTA SA > GTA 4 > GTA3

 

[SoapSurgeon]

...Witty comments from general public...

I'm not sure 'Cheesey <ladies part>' counts as wit. I didn't even laugh the first time I heard it. In fact, I'm not even sure why they say it!!

 

[beachBOYken]

although im still playing this GTA , i dont enjoy it as much as the other series, i would like the next gta (if there is one) to be set in a completly different city and perhaps enviroment

 

[cu3ed]

Yep, alittle bored and I was taking my time with it, babysitting is annoying, numerous text messages, and got to the Snow level for Elizabeth and all of a sudden the difficulty leap was pretty ridiculous (anyone else find that?).

Multiplayer might yeild lots of fun from time to time (dispite the annoyence of having to go in and out of single player mode, (esp when you dont get cvonnect the first few tries!).

Im thinking of what game I can buy now that will quench my thirst!

 

[rjk]

i have a few solutions
i got a call from packies sister last night, Kate i think her name is?
so i picked her up - put on a nice suit - stole a nice turismo to pick her up in

she got in the car and insulted my suit that i had paid a lot of money for
so i drove like a maniac into every car possible - my expensive ferrari lookalike was a mess - fire burst out of the back arches going full belt across a bridge
as i noticed the fire i leapt from the vehicle and let it slam into a wall and explode with kate inside

a furious untamable fire swept across the highway - i ran over to admire my handywork on the fool who insulted my suit and pestered me with constant phone calls

i took a few pointless pictures on my phones camera...

all that remained after the flames died down was a charred corpse

the phone calls from her were eliminated -

not one minute after this event - packie calls me
'you wanna go play some darts'
so i agree thinking to myself
'yeah sure packie - you know your sister, well...'

mwah ha ha ha

 

[ScarySquirrel]

i have a few solutions
i got a call from packies sister last night, Kate i think her name is?
so i picked her up - put on a nice suit - stole a nice turismo to pick her up in

she got in the car and insulted my suit that i had paid a lot of money for
so i drove like a maniac into every car possible - my expensive ferrari lookalike was a mess - fire burst out of the back arches going full belt across a bridge
as i noticed the fire i leapt from the vehicle and let it slam into a wall and explode with kate inside

a furious untamable fire swept across the highway - i ran over to admire my handywork on the fool who insulted my suit and pestered me with constant phone calls

all that remained after the flames died down was a charred corpse

the phone calls from her were eliminated -

not one minute after this event - packie calls me
'you wanna go play some darts'
so i agree thinking to myself
'yeah sure packie - you know your sister, well...'

mwah ha ha ha

She must still be alive as she comes back into the storyline later on.

 

[Nismo]

i have a few solutions
i got a call from packies sister last night, Kate i think her name is?

She somehow managed to kill herself walking out of a bar whilst drunk on one of my dates, next time I loaded it up the bitch was back and frigid as ever :/

 

[rjk]

She somehow managed to kill herself walking out of a bar whilst drunk on one of my dates, next time I loaded it up the bitch was back and frigid as ever :/

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

i thought i was the ultimate murderer

 

[Bonjour]

Not bought this yet.

How does it compaire to, say, Saints Row or Crackdown? I thought they were both about the right length.

 

[Vern1961]

After a few days timeout (due to an HDMI - DVI issue with my hardware, now resolved) I'm now back playing it. However I must admit the game does seem to suffer from an excessive amount of padding. While taxis or Roman's car service (if available) can teleport you around the map there's still an awful lot of travelling doing nothing. The mission restart feature is useful but would be more effective if it was restoring a proper save point - when you restart in poor health or with no armour it's a tedious trek to get armour and weapons before you can attend to the mission proper. This option could also use a "trip skip" feature - who wants to spend 5 or 6 minutes *again* driving from the mission pickup to the actual start point?

I'm coming round to the view that the missions are more repetitive than previous GTA's. Start to think here we go again, when you have a firefight and the protaganist promptly jumps in a vehicle which you spend the next 5 mins vainly trying to catch. Drivebys were quite do-able in GTA SA (PC version) but opponent cars in IV all seem to be driven by Formula 1 drivers and trying to point the aim cursor with one waggle stick while focusing on driving with the other requires more manual dexterity than I possess. In previous GTA's the driveby or drive forward shooting auto-aimed, to some extent. I've already attempted and failed about 5 times the Dwayne mission where you have to kill the nightclub owners. The Brady guide laughably suggests a stealth kill on the first manager but the poor melee controls rule this out, leaving open battle, a police wanted rating and tedious car chase the only option. "xxxx got away". Again. Oh, what a surprise...

Back to padding again - I've all but abandoned the schmoozing not essential to the main storyline. It does become rather invasive in the middle of a mission or trying to evade the cops when your mobile keeps ringing. The lack of safe houses and gun shops again mean travelling vast distances to re-arm, then save the game, then off to the mission pickup. Yes there was some travelling in SA but I actually found the country areas a pleasant change which added variety to the experience. After a while, one tacky city street looks pretty much the same as another.

Can I really be bothered to shoot 200 pigeons just to unlock a helicopter? I need this now to travel around the game board, not in the last 10% of the game. Although SA did have some of the side missions appear a little late to be of much interest R*'s answer in IV seems to have been elimination. No paramedic (for health boost), no firefighter for fireproof - I'm not even sure Vigilante offers anything other than financial reward. Where is the levelling up so my strength, weapon accuracy and driving skills improve?

There's a lot going on but after a while you do begin to wonder what the point is. Everything is dark and depressed - in SA your character developed beyond his humble origins and became a kingpin in his own right, before the triumphant return to Los Santos and the uplifting denouement. It seems whichever endgame you choose in IV, there is tragic death and destruction.

It is still an enjyable game but certain things are starting to grate and I do begin to wonder whether Rockstar need to go right back to the drawing board for the next instalment. In the meantime I would still like to see IV on the PC, perhaps with better controls and graphics etc.

 

[flat-6]

Good post vern

 

[Joebob]

She somehow managed to kill herself walking out of a bar whilst drunk on one of my dates, next time I loaded it up the bitch was back and frigid as ever :/

I have taken her on a few dates as I really want to get into the silly cows knickers - just to **** her brothers off but on the last date I bumped into her whilst walking and she said I was a maniac and wanted me to take her home. Now whenever I call her she goes off on one.... jeesh, anyone would think I smacked the butch up rather than just bumped into her!!!!