Lets Talk About GTA

[Mozgus]

[Daniel Primed]

Geeze, whats with al the razzing on GTA? People need to get over their retro/niche/anti-mainstream approach here as these games are really quite good games and GTA4 looks to be exceptional in my opinion. I never use to be very interested in this franchise until I tried the GTA3 out a few years ago (I had played the original games but that was a long time ago). People can hate on this game for having sex or violence on it, for having a large fan base (including obviously a lot of morons) or for the countlss rip offs but who really cares? These games are great fun. Why must people be so concerned over their gaming reputation and have to attack this game? Beats me, in anycase I look forward to trying out this game later down the track. I also wonder how the ratings with preceed once the 95% embargo is lifted.

[Mozgus]

Again, my opinion is that they are average games. I am allowed that opinion because I've sunk a lot of hours into every one of them, besides the 2 PSP ones. They're just average and over-hyped. It doesn't matter if they let you do a lot of different things, because the means in which you do them are always so fucking average.

When I want to race, I play Burnout or F-Zero. Not GTA.
When I want to shoot in third person, I play Freedom Fighters, Hitman or Max Payne. Not GTA.
When I want to explore wide open areas, I play Oblivion or Guild Wars. Not GTA.
When I want to play ANY of the mini-games that GTA might offer, be it a sport or whatever, I simply play a game that surely did that activity 10x better, because it was designed to emulate the one activity and nothing else.

I mean no one says , "Hey, I wanna play some darts", and then they fire up Shenmue on their dreamcast. That's retarded. Actually if they had any sense at all, they'd just buy a dart board. There's a lot of shit in GTA that just doesn't belong in a video game to begin with.

There's nothing that GTA has ever offered that other prior games didn't offer better. And please, argue this. Make a direct game to game comparison. Just try.

[Flak Beard]

I have no clue whether its worth a ten (I would have given San Andreas 9 at minimum though). HOWEVER, I don't know how you couldn't be pumped to play this after that video on ign. That looks incredible! The cover system looks awesome, the cars look awesome, the RPG looks awesome and the multiplayer looks wicked! The graphics look so smooth and detailed - as well as so large in scope (whole city). I haven't seen anything like that on my 360 yet. Crackdown looks like a joke in comparison.

The graphics are good but they aren't a 10. CoD4 deserves a 10. This deserves a 7 or 8. The cover system doesn't look awesome, it just looks like an upgrade over the running-around-like-an-idiot system they used up til now. Want a great cover system? Play R6 Vegas 2. Even in the text the review admits its not all that great, and in the video you can see he's struggling with it. And you can also tell that the frame rate isn't very good during action. Its better than the PS2 entries, but still doesn't meet current standards.

I just don't think a game should get a perfect score if it has even one confirmed flaw.

I'm slowly realizing that user score averages are much more trustworthy than professional score averages. Right now GTA4's user scores are around 8/10 on gamerankings and metacritic. That could mathematically be used to say 1/5 people dont like that game. But a week from now when all the professional scores are out, you'll be lucky if even 1/30 reviewers disliked it. Why is that?

I have no doubt that GTA4 will be like the others, just a little better. It'll let you do countless things that you've had much more fun doing individually in other games already.

You have a good point. I was watching the Gametrailers review and they mentioned things like there being some repetitiveness, a few awkward control issues and quirks with the way the cars handled, but yet they dropped a 9.8 as the score? I guess maybe it's "the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts" philosophy, but just like you, I don't see it. No doubt it's a solid game, but I haven't seen anything yet that's shown a huge leap for the franchise. It's just another GTA to me, which at this point I could care less.

[aaron]

Again, my opinion is that they are average games. I am allowed that opinion because I've sunk a lot of hours into every one of them, besides the 2 PSP ones. They're just average and over-hyped. It doesn't matter if they let you do a lot of different things, because the means in which you do them are always so fucking average.

When I want to race, I play Burnout or F-Zero. Not GTA.
When I want to shoot in third person, I play Freedom Fighters, Hitman or Max Payne. Not GTA.
When I want to explore wide open areas, I play Oblivion or Guild Wars. Not GTA.
When I want to play ANY of the mini-games that GTA might offer, be it a sport or whatever, I simply play a game that surely did that activity 10x better, because it was designed to emulate the one activity and nothing else.

I mean no one says , "Hey, I wanna play some darts", and then they fire up Shenmue on their dreamcast. That's retarded. Actually if they had any sense at all, they'd just buy a dart board. There's a lot of shit in GTA that just doesn't belong in a video game to begin with.

There's nothing that GTA has ever offered that other prior games didn't offer better. And please, argue this. Make a direct game to game comparison. Just try.

a jack of all trades, yet a master of none. mozgus describes the gta experience for me very accurately.

[Mozgus]

a jack of all trades, yet a master of none. mozgus describes the gta experience for me very accurately.

Actually I think you did a better job.

[Niode]

I think it's the fact that, yes you can do whatever you want, which dilutes the content somewhat. Like the PA comic above hits the nail on the head. Having so much choice of something to do, what do you do? I found that in SA, i just ended up driving around and randomly doing silly things to entertain myself. I procrastinated while procrastinating doing something else (like uni work, housework etc). Where does it stop, will I find myself procrastinating about procrastinating about procrastinating… I could go on all day. I think that's the crux of the GTA experience, it's there if you want to. Nobody is forcing you play darts or go bowling. It's just there to add to the experience of a living city. Thats the illusion Rockstar wanted to create with the game. I think they have stepped that bit closer (from what I have seen from reviews, guess I won't find out until I get the game to play myself) to immersion. It's the omissions that break immersion for most people. Like, why can't I walk here? Why is there an invisible wall blocking my progress. I'm not saying that GTA 4 doesn't have these. It would be impossible to have something like this in a game to stop it from crashing (you will eventually max the possible data field a game has and cause an overflow and/or a result the cpu won't be expecting and then panic and crash the game, unless of course you get very clever with that sort of detection or just have manual override, like invisible wall or a limbo area). What Rockstar have tried to do is say, why bother going somewhere else when there is so much to do in the city. You won't need to search elsewhere for things to do.

I think the reason why it's been getting high reviews is despite it doing most things in an average manner or having certain quirks to the control scheme. It's because there is so much content and things to do that it truly justifies the £49.99 price tag for once.

Mozgus the arguments you said could be applied to any action adventure game really. EG Ocarina of Time. The critically lauded 'best game ever' tm. The fighting system is basic. If I wanted play a sword fighting game i'd play soul blade as the fighting system is much more in depth. The minigames are pointless why not just play a light gun game and get an authentic representation of target shooting. Why bother with horse riding, if i wanted to ride a horse i'd just play final furlong etc etc.

I think saying a game sucks for having too much things in it is silly when nobody is forcing you to do any of that extra stuff. You don't have to do any of it to complete the game. It's just there for extra icing on the cake. I could understand if the game say forced you to play a perfect game of bowling before you can unlock the next bit of story, but it doesn't. Just enjoy the (as far as i've heard) excellent story-telling and great voice-acting.

Having said that I can an understand your opinion that there's nothing really new in the GTA games. It's just combinations of things that have been done better before. It's just that GTA combines everything. The reason it's so popular is it's an every-mans game. The swiss army knife of casual gaming. Every idiom is there for anyone to experience or play however they want.

The truly interesting thing is Freeplay multiplay mode. That is what I'm most looking forward to. Creating my own games within a game with my buddies. That's what i've enjoyed the most about the previous games, passing the controller round friends and doing dumb shit just for a laugh. Even if I never complete the story mode I'll still get enjoyment out of 'free-playing'.

[D.D.D.]

Again, my opinion is that they are average games. I am allowed that opinion because I've sunk a lot of hours into every one of them, besides the 2 PSP ones. They're just average and over-hyped. It doesn't matter if they let you do a lot of different things, because the means in which you do them are always so fucking average.

When I want to race, I play Burnout or F-Zero. Not GTA.
When I want to shoot in third person, I play Freedom Fighters, Hitman or Max Payne. Not GTA.
When I want to explore wide open areas, I play Oblivion or Guild Wars. Not GTA.
When I want to play ANY of the mini-games that GTA might offer, be it a sport or whatever, I simply play a game that surely did that activity 10x better, because it was designed to emulate the one activity and nothing else.

I mean no one says , "Hey, I wanna play some darts", and then they fire up Shenmue on their dreamcast. That's retarded. Actually if they had any sense at all, they'd just buy a dart board. There's a lot of shit in GTA that just doesn't belong in a video game to begin with.

There's nothing that GTA has ever offered that other prior games didn't offer better. And please, argue this. Make a direct game to game comparison. Just try.

That is a good point to essentially say GTA is the pupu platter of gaming and I can see negative side to that.
For me, I got into the fact that I was playing a role in this "role playing game" and aside from all the main missions, GTA is like fresh breath of freedom in that, you can do things in their city that I most certainly shouldn't and can't do (without dire consequences) in any city and that is what makes it fun by allowing a wide variety of things to do. So it allows me to do "whatever" the game permits but has been something that really hasn't been done well by any other game; the pupu platter and that's why I enjoy it. And most certainly, if I did want a strictly racing or 3rd person shooter, or anything like that, I know there are tons of games that do it way, way better.
But I too most certainly wouldn't fire up Shenmue for darts nor would I really want to play them in GTAIV either.

[aaron]

I think it's the fact that, yes you can do whatever you want, which dilutes the content somewhat. Like the PA comic above hits the nail on the head. Having so much choice of something to do, what do you do? I found that in SA, i just ended up driving around and randomly doing silly things to entertain myself. I procrastinated while procrastinating doing something else (like uni work, housework etc). Where does it stop, will I find myself procrastinating about procrastinating about procrastinating… I could go on all day. I think that's the crux of the GTA experience, it's there if you want to. Nobody is forcing you play darts or go bowling. It's just there to add to the experience of a living city. Thats the illusion Rockstar wanted to create with the game. I think they have stepped that bit closer (from what I have seen from reviews, guess I won't find out until I get the game to play myself) to immersion. It's the omissions that break immersion for most people. Like, why can't I walk here? Why is there an invisible wall blocking my progress. I'm not saying that GTA 4 doesn't have these. It would be impossible to have something like this in a game to stop it from crashing (you will eventually max the possible data field a game has and cause an overflow and/or a result the cpu won't be expecting and then panic and crash the game, unless of course you get very clever with that sort of detection or just have manual override, like invisible wall or a limbo area). What Rockstar have tried to do is say, why bother going somewhere else when there is so much to do in the city. You won't need to search elsewhere for things to do.

I think the reason why it's been getting high reviews is despite it doing most things in an average manner or having certain quirks to the control scheme. It's because there is so much content and things to do that it truly justifies the £49.99 price tag for once.

Mozgus the arguments you said could be applied to any action adventure game really. EG Ocarina of Time. The critically lauded 'best game ever' tm. The fighting system is basic. If I wanted play a sword fighting game i'd play soul blade as the fighting system is much more in depth. The minigames are pointless why not just play a light gun game and get an authentic representation of target shooting. Why bother with horse riding, if i wanted to ride a horse i'd just play final furlong etc etc.

I think saying a game sucks for having too much things in it is silly when nobody is forcing you to do any of that extra stuff. You don't have to do any of it to complete the game. It's just there for extra icing on the cake. I could understand if the game say forced you to play a perfect game of bowling before you can unlock the next bit of story, but it doesn't. Just enjoy the (as far as i've heard) excellent story-telling and great voice-acting.

Having said that I can an understand your opinion that there's nothing really new in the GTA games. It's just combinations of things that have been done better before. It's just that GTA combines everything. The reason it's so popular is it's an every-mans game. The swiss army knife of casual gaming. Every idiom is there for anyone to experience or play however they want.

The truly interesting thing is Freeplay multiplay mode. That is what I'm most looking forward to. Creating my own games within a game with my buddies. That's what i've enjoyed the most about the previous games, passing the controller round friends and doing dumb shit just for a laugh. Even if I never complete the story mode I'll still get enjoyment out of 'free-playing'.

not trying to put words in his mouth (or anything else for that matter), but i'm pretty sure mozgus is just trying to point out that the GTA series has a pretty storied history of combining a lot of bits and pieces of different games in a lackluster fashion, then jazzing it all up by including pop culture references, gratuitous sexual and violent content, and massive media overhaul to promote themselves. ocarina of time is a poor analogy because the bits and pieces of other games it combines are all done very well (for the most part), and are all integral to completing the game. i don't think you can say the same for GTA.

in the end it boils down to how you like to play your games and what you like to view in them, i think. but for me i'd choose final furlong over any of the GTA III games. maybe this new one will be different though.

[RadarScope1]

Not having spent a lot of time with GTA, I can't argue the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none thing. From what I know, Mozgus is right about that.

But I think one reason people enjoy these goes beyond the gameplay. Something many of the reviewers mention is that the city just feels alive and "lived in." I have to admit this is the main thing that's grabbing me and making me want to take the plunge with this franchise. I want to see the medium pushed beyond its current limits as far as the creation of virtual worlds -- not necessarily a totally realistic one, but one that feels like a character in and of itself. I have only felt that in one other recent game that I can remember and it just happens to be one of my all-time favorite games for that very reason -- Shadow of the Colossus.