[Multiplatform] Grand Theft Auto IV. Not as much fun as shooting real Albanians

I keep hearing that you can and cannot install GTA4 to the 360's HDD. Which is it really? And honestly why the hell wouldn't they give the option?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Forsety

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.

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

Originally Posted by Forsety

... 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 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.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Bigblah

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

What? Getting to the end of the game doesn't refute that I shouldn't feel the need to reload the game every time I make a mistake and have to restart the mission. I wasn't impatient. I retried levels several times and took my time. I did sidequests and all kinds of crap that I felt like doing. Really, what the hell, Blah?

Originally Posted by Forsety

You get autosaves after every mission though, how much progress could you possibly lose by reloading a save?

It really depends how long ago you saved and I save pretty much when I've made a lot of progress or when I'm going to take a break from the game or when I think key plot events are going to occur.

Originally Posted by Forsety

For the second thing, I guess so? I've played the game for like 40 hours though and it's never been a concern... so I guess I'm not just lucky-- I'm insanely lucky?

I dunno. I remember always getting that shit after assassination missions you do later on in the game. While you kill them your star level goes up and it doesn't go away after you kill the last guy and the mission is over. Niko pulls out his phone to talk and the cops just play duck hunt with you. *shrug* Just one example but it happened like half the time in my play through.

Originally Posted by Dennis Franz

I can't say I've had anyone shooting at me even once after a mission has ended. Also, I'm amazed that you're managing to get killed in missions without killing enough people to replenish your ammo from what they drop. Are you using the hiding behind cover button? I find that even when I get killed in missions I generally end up with more ammo than I started with with the possible exception of ones where you're chasing someone down in a car.

Well in the one mission where you have to chase down a guy on foot you don't really have time to pick up drops and you run out of ammo for good guns and your hiding mechanic has the asshole get away so you have to run out guns a blazing and since body armor gets demolished ever so easily it's easy to get killed and like I said since you don't get the drops you have to go buy weapons all over again. I just got fed up.

Originally Posted by Dennis Franz

Also, reloading is dumb as the game makes the missions easier each time you fuck them up. Sometimes it's as blatent as getting free armour or guns that weren't there before or the getaway car being slower and sometimes the bad guys just miss a lot more.

I only got the free armor once. Nothing else like that happened. Would have been nice.

Originally Posted by Dennis Franz

At first I thought there should have been more collectable items lying around but having played through a load more, the only thing I ever really need to buy is body armour and even that's only if I'm feeling too lazy to go find any. Also whilst I agree that driving back to the mission point is annoying, you can always get a taxi there (Or at least nearby) and steal a car when you get there.

A taxi isn't always nearby and the taxi will with good judgment get you as close as it can which on some missions can mean a decent walk. But I suppose that's not too bad. Doesn't make it any less annoying.

Yeah, I was looking for collectible stuff too. The pigeons are amusing though. I've found like 3 of them I think.

I was speaking idiomatically.

o u~

Actually I am willing to admit at that point in the game I did suck and was still getting adjusted to it. I could probably tackle it easily now, but the game did suddenly spike its difficulty after a long streak of fairly easy missions. My friend says they gave me some pointers that I just must have completely not noticed because it wasn't until much later in the game that I figured out burst fire by accident. Doh.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Spoiler:

Bulgarin isn't involved in the final mission at all besides being some shady figure you never see again after the gunfight in the warehouse or whatever it was about halfway through the game. He's just mentioned as that dude who blamed you for the shit that went down in Europe that then ruined you there causing you to leave for America. I'm guessing that he could turn up in DLC like you said.

What I want to see is where they take the GTA4 engine like with GTA3 and Vice City/San Andreas. The expansions and refinements of this engine excite me.

FELIPE NO