Police cars and taxis are usually the most dependable cars.
The BEST car IMO is the... Dammit if I now could recall the name... Roadster sports car, rounded overall shape, one big stripe from front to back.
It's been in all games IIRC so far. Great acceleration, great handling. It's just a little light, but so what...?
And, it's rather rare. I've yet to spot a regular spawn point...

The cars are great fun to drive. They take a little getting used to, but if you drive them properly they're brilliant fun to throw around the place.

During a police chase I managed to throw my half-destroyed Duke (the muscle car with obvious inspiration) over one of the stunt jumps. It so happened that I'd just thrown down a grenade behind me, so cue slow-motion jump complete with slo-mo explosion behind it and bits of police cars going flying in every direction. Shit was epic.

That would be the Banshee; the only sports car you were allowed on the first island in GTA III. They seem to show up on the bridge into South Bohan with decent frequency and are definitely the most dependable car I've driven so far. It actually turns when you tell it to. Shocking!

Yeah! The Banshee. It's been my favourite car since III.
The SUVs in IV aren't too bad either. Decent accelleration, good handling, good speed. No Banshee though. Most of the "basic" cars just suck at that though...
The Banshee, as usual, takes the cake.

Shit made me hard.
Wish you could save video replay in this game :(

And yeah, you get used to the cars. Chases used to be a bitch, but I feel I get more and more used to it. Usually, yellow cabs are very easy to handle. There was this mission involving a truck, it was HORRIBLE.

The first generation Camaro clone is by far my favorite car to drive so far. For those of you who aren't familiar with this car, here is a picture of a real first gen Camaro:

I believe in the past gta games they called that "stallion"

Same, Russ. The way it handles suits my style of driving pretty well.

Daaammmn, Three Leaf Clover pretty much made the game for me. That mission alone was almost worth the 60 dollar pricetag. Actually got my blood pumping there. :tpg:

Big fan of any motorbikes and as for cars, I normally use a comet. (I always have one because of the races lol)

So fun and all plus going "all the way" for the strip club.

I got him the same way, first try. I had no idea he even had biker buddies. :(

omfg! Ezabell's coke mission is so damn hard. I got frustrated and left it as is, I'm just ganna go for another mission for now and ignore it until I feel like it won't frustrate me.

The "Rolled Over" achievement is ... weird. I spent an hour at the airport trying for it, doing well over 5 rolls (yes, i know there is a difference between flip and roll) and couldn't get it. I basically give up and just slam into a car on the way to Ray's, roll only TWICE and it unlocks.

I guess there's no point in complaining, but I mean, WTF are the mechanics for this achievement? I have no idea why that happened unless it's glitched up. :erm:

God damn it the two endings are both fucking depressing. I'm gonna go look up to see if there is anything better. God damn. :mad:

In Country
 

Having heard all you fine people talk about this game, I decided to head down to Blockbuster and rent a copy. Yes, the cars' handling takes some getting used to; yes, I find it an irritation that the franchise tradition of physically blocking off/not having available certain parts of the gameworld continues (more thoughts on this in a bit)... but those don't take away from the fact that so far, it seems to me that Rockstar has delivered. Right now, the LCPD's network just regained operational status, so I cleaned up a couple of minor crimes and crossed one name off the Most Wanted list.
That said... the irritation. It struck me as odd that having gone to all the effort to craft a living, breathing, believable city (IGN article), they then go and strain that believability with the abovementioned franchise tradition. Whatever else one might think of Saints Row, having the entire city explorable from the word 'go' is one thing they did right.
I would've thought the prospect of discovering more about Niko's backstory (and those of the various folks he interacts with) would be incentive enough for people to play through the campaign...

Opening a new area gives you a little something extra to look forward to, and it's a solid sign that you're progressing. I get more satisfaction from that than seeing 21% game completion or whatever in the stats screen. It also allows you really get to grips with an area before moving on. I really don't mind areas being blocked off from the get go. I maybe even prefer it.

Plus, it is rather well explained in IV, and makes it more plausible that you get a six star wanted level if you cross to a forbidden section.

My biggest gripe is that there should have been more checkpoints for you to load during missions. A couple of the missions where you can die or fail really easily (mostly in car chases) should have had a checkpoint that loaded up to the point where you drove to where the mission actually starts. I hate having to drive my honchos halfway across the city over again just because I hit an odd bit of terrain and the car I'm forced to drive during the actual mission flips (FIB bust mission I'm looking at you).

Also, the autoaim mechanism can be awfully retarded at times. It'll keep focusing on some asshole in the distance while a guy is standing right next to you blasting your face with a shotgun. It's times like this that make me wonder why people bother going through the game without using cheats. I went through about 30 percent of the game legitimately until the mission where you have to kill a certain someone in the club that can escape and ruin your mission. I kept trying to kill people so uh I wouldn't die and the jackass kept escaping off of the roof. The body armor just isn't as hefty as it was in the other games. And as a result from trying this mission over and over and having to rebuy weaponry I ran out of funds. Seriously, it's a black fucking market. These guns are supposed to be cheap in theory because noone is supposed to be buying them in the first place. So why is everything so bloody fucking expensive? It's not like the shop keep runs out of the things. Right, so then and there I said fuck it and added cheats to my phone. Fuck playing without cheats. I know the missions now and could probably get through them now without cheats but seriously learn how not to spike the difficulty level, R*.

Oh I just remembered what else pissed me off. Phones calls right after the mission ends and people and police still trying to kill you. Who the fuck's idea was that? I might actually want to actually listen to the phone conversation. Usually there are some humorous bits, but no I still have the cops on my ass and dipshit from the diner wants to blow my head off with a shotty. I'M SORRY COULD YOU SPEAK A LITTLE LOUDER I'M TRYING TO HEAR YOU OVER THE EXPLOSIVE PELLETS COURSING THROUGH MY FACE AND THE BLEEDING TO DEATH!! My only option is to listen to what I can while shuffling away futilely dodging fire or canceling the call to deal with the fucker(s). There's a place for realism in this game and it isn't here. You are free to have everyone right pissed at me after the silly phonecall.

Why didn't you just reload your save if you kept failing the mission? I mean, I agree with you, but if I fail a mission after wasting all my armor/assault rifle ammo I just reload from the safehouse.

... That shouldn't happen though. Clearing a mission removes your wanted level, and in the missions where you end up with a scripted wanted level, the mission doesn't technically end until you bring it down? Sounds like weird glitchiness because that's never happened to me and I'm 64% through the game. :(

It's happened to me once before. I was being chased and I was near the checkpoint to end the mission and I thought "yay! I'm free"
Then there was a short cutscene, the game saved while the gta victory beat sounded off and still I was being chased by the cops and while I ran away, roman or someone called me.
I just tried to listen to the conversation while cops shot at me and I was walking away slowly ~_~
Soon after that, i tried to get away but somehow I aquired a 6 star wanted level and it was too late for me.
I just reloaded he game but I didn't get the call again.

Because I don't feel like loading a game and losing progress. I shouldn't have to do that. That's just bad design.

It's happened to me several times. After killing tons of bad guys the mission will end when the last one is killed and the mission doesn't always care if you have stars or not so you'll be chatting away on the phone afterwards while pedestrians and the popo shoot at you. You must have gotten lucky.

Bad design, or you're just impatient to finish the game considering that you've already spoiled yourself on the endings?