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

[Official Site]

[Wiki]

[IGN]

Release date: spring 2008

Saw the trailer today and wow this is gonna be an awesome game, I guess. I don't have a PS3 yet but it seems that I have to get one in October (I hope the price has dropped a bit until then!)
Another cool thing: It's playing in NYC! A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg said "The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers", but I think he can go fuck himself.

Your first impressions?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Actually, isn't GTAIV taking place in Liberty City again? It's just that now they have the ability to further realize their pseudo-NYC. Either way, I'm glad we're back in LC, as that was definitely my favorite city. I like what they did with the processing power they have now, and the main character looks like he fits in.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Musharraf

I don't have a PS3 yet but it seems that I have to get one in October

Lucky for you it's coming to the 360 as well!

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

The trailer does look very impressive, I'm with Musharraf, this could the reason to own a PS3.

Originally Posted by Wiki

The game will be set in a redesigned Liberty City in the year 2007.

Looks as if it will be set in Liberty again, I've no problem with that.

Originally Posted by Wiki

It will include online play, but will not be an MMORPG.

Well, this sounds very interesting, I'd like to see exactly what it is that they plan to do with this part of the game.

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

It's nice to see the game set in Liberty City again. I couldn't really get into San Andreas as much as GTA III, and while Vice City was great I still missed the grungy feel of Liberty.

Originally Posted by sprouticus

Lucky for you it's coming to the 360 as well!

It sounds like the 360 version will be better, actually. According to the wikipedia article it'll feature two downloadable "episode packs" that include stuff beyond extra cars and characters.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Tritoch

It sounds like the 360 version will be better, actually. According to the wikipedia article it'll feature two downloadable "episode packs" that include stuff beyond extra cars and characters.

Oy, I remember the madness of the above info. When Rockstar announced they were gonna make exclusive content for each version, with DLC that was also unique to that version people started ranting. The main complaint was that they don't want to be buying an incomplete game, or some nonsense.

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yeah that's the wrong tag asshole, way to discriminate against xbox 360

Originally Posted by Tritoch

It sounds like the 360 version will be better, actually. According to the wikipedia article it'll feature two downloadable "episode packs" that include stuff beyond extra cars and characters.

360 is already giving the developers trouble with the limited capacity of a DVD (and they can't put it on two discs either, because who wants to switch discs every time when crossing a bridge or something?). I'm sure they'll deal with it somehow, but downloadable content doesn't mean that the game itself will be better.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Domino

Well, this sounds very interesting, I'd like to see exactly what it is that they plan to do with this part of the game.

There's a mod out for the PC version of GTA:SA, called "Multi-Theft Auto", which is essentially a multiplayer GTA experience. I imagine they might do something like that, where you can login to your PS3 Home/360 Live account and access a multiplayer version of the game. "Who can score the highest rampages in X Time" or "Racing through Liberty City" or even a couple bonus "Co-op" Missions. Sounds tantalizing.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Musharraf

So why don't we get a 360 then? Well, I won't get a 360, the design sucks ass!

I won't get a 360 because it has a total of about two games that I'm moderately interested in, but I sure don't think that the graphics are significantly different from the PS3, at this stage.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The only way I'm going to play this is if it features some significant improvement over the previous installments. I like the GTA games, but Vice City and San Andreas didn't really add much to a formula that I was growing tired of quickly. And no, new weapon aiming does not suffice.

From what I've seen so far, no truly unique features have been announced for GTA IV, so I'm remaining skeptical for now.

Besides, why is Liberty City New York all of a sudden? It sure didn't look like New York in GTA III. Isn't the GTA "universe" meant to be somewhat consistent?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Rock

Besides, why is Liberty City New York all of a sudden? It sure didn't look like New York in GTA III. Isn't the GTA "universe" meant to be somewhat consistent?

It's not New York, it's a parody of New York. It has a Statue of Happiness, a Getalife building, four boroughs, etc. It's not sudden, Liberty City has always been based on New York, and current generation consoles are powerful enough to make it actually look like New York.



New York

Liberty City:

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

If the multiplayer is such that myself and a few of my Live buddies can free roam doing missions together, it will probably be worth the price of admission. Hell, if I can crash a Learjet into a car that happened to be carrying Skills, Roflfox, and Iwata at the same time, that alone would be worth it. "Sorry guys, lost control of my plane."

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

No planes, only helicopters in this GTA.

I was speaking idiomatically.

That sucks. I suppose it would probably be easier to crash a more slowly moving chopper into a moving vehicle than a jet flying several hundred miles per hour, so I guess that would just have to suffice.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Aardark

It's not New York, it's a parody of New York. It has a Statue of Happiness, a Getalife building, four boroughs, etc. It's not sudden, Liberty City has always been based on New York, and current generation consoles are powerful enough to make it actually look like New York.

I'm aware of that. What I meant was that this "New Yorkesque" Liberty City has nothing to do with the original Liberty City from GTA III. Why they couldn't just come up with a new name is beyond me.

FELIPE NO

I'm with russ. This'll be great from a multiplayer standpoint. Multi turned a good sandboxer like Crackdown into a great one, and if an already well done GTA game has multi, it could make it absolutely HILARIOUS. I picture people rocketting each other in the middle of a mission for no other reason than pure hilarity. I just hope the multi is drop-in/drop-out, and doesn't require someone to reset the damn game room for someone to join ala RTW's implementation in Crackdown. That was aggrivating.

As for the hilarious "360 looks worse than PS3" debate, they're quite close to each other right now. Especially in regards to cross platform games. I'm sure that'll change eventually though, but I thought most people knew this by this point.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Aardark

360 is already giving the developers trouble with the limited capacity of a DVD (and they can't put it on two discs either, because who wants to switch discs every time when crossing a bridge or something?). I'm sure they'll deal with it somehow, but downloadable content doesn't mean that the game itself will be better.

You actually mis-read what rockstar was saying. What is giving them troubles is making the game run smoothly on a 360 without a HDD. all SKU's of the PS3 come with built-in HDD, whereas one of the 360 SKU doesn't come with a HDD and so rockstar is trying to figure out a way to make it work on the 360 where they won't alienate the userbase without a HDD which is quite miniscule IMO.

It is the same thing that plagued oblivion. Try running it on a 360 without a HDD and you will get a un-playable game basically.

Anyways, this is one of my most anticipated games in 07 right along with Mass effect and Bioshock. Also from what i recall and i'm pretty fervent on keeping up with Rockstar related news is that the Story add-on packs are timed exclusive for the 360. Meaning that they will be launched on the 360 first and the PS3 owners will probably have to wait 2-3 months after the 360 gets em for them to get em.

If it does get a Multiplayer function, it will be even 10x better game. Will love obliterating Skills, Fox, Russ and espically mo0.

Also someone fix the tags considering that the way things are going, The 360 version is going to move twice as many copies then the PS3 version due to established console user-base.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Iwata

You actually mis-read what rockstar was saying. What is giving them troubles is making the game run smoothly on a 360 without a HDD.

I didn't mis-read, this is where I got it from:

Originally Posted by http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=163233

During an interview with our partners in crime at Official PlayStation Magazine, Rockstar's creative vice president Dan Houser was asked: "On PS3 you've got a guarantee that every machine is going to have a hard-drive and, with Blu-ray, you've got plenty of storage, whereas on Xbox 360 there's no guarantee of a hard-drive and you're working with the DVD format. Does that create limitations?" To which he replied, "Yep."

Now, it's not a given that a creative vice president actually knows what's creating technical limitations and what isn't, and it was kind of a loaded question anyway, but on the other hand I wouldn't be surprised if they did have trouble storing a game as large as GTA on a 7 GB disc.

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Originally Posted by Aardark

Now, it's not a given that a creative vice president actually knows what's creating technical limitations and what isn't, and it was kind of a loaded question anyway, but on the other hand I wouldn't be surprised if they did have trouble storing a game as large as GTA on a 7 GB disc.

Read what he said once again. he singled out the problem as dealing with 360 users without a HDD paired with the DVD format. It is easy to see that he is insinuating that it is difficult to play GTAIV on a 360 without a HDD, nothing else. Have you even messed around with a 360 in the first place? The HDD is an integral part for load speeds and framerate, espically when dealing with a space cramped format like the DVD. Notice how that entire paragraph you quoted basically discussed the HDD function of the two systems and the one time DVD was mentioned, it was mentioned along HDD-less 360s.

As someone who owns all 3 next-gen systems, i can tell you that gaming in this next gen at least among the 360 and PS3, is that a PC technique employed for years is playing a big part which is using the HDD as a data cache to speed up everything about the game. The Rockstar VP didn't word what he was saying all that well but what he was trying to say essentially boils down to

" If you have a 360 that doesn't have a HDD, currently we are having troubles making a GTAIV version that will run correctly on your HDD-less 360 and we are working on the problem"

It is also absurd to assume that since that GTAIV is going to be on the PS3 it will look better on the PS3 because the blu-ray has more data disc room to provide. This theory was instantly rebunked 6 months ago. If you take a look at Resistance which is the PS3's current flagship title that clocks in at 14 gigs and Gears of war which clocks in at 6.37 gigs compressed. Gears of war looks 10x better then Resistance when compared side by side on a HD-TV or even a plain TV and this is notion is unanimously agreed upon by the majority of the videogame community.

It is absurd to assume that the PS3 version of GTAIV is going to be supreme, when most facts point to the opposite spectrum.

Also the PR end of all Videogame companies tend to word what they say horribly and this applies to everyone. Hell, one just needs to take a look at the Sony of Europe head who made the ambiguous comment about FFXIII or the OPM article that stated Bioshock as a confirmed PS3 game when it was debunked countless times by the dev's.

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

Originally Posted by Iwata

" If you have a 360 that doesn't have a HDD, currently we are having troubles making a GTAIV version that will run correctly on your HDD-less 360 and we are working on the problem"

Okay.

Quote:

It is also absurd to assume that since that GTAIV is going to be on the PS3 it will look better on the PS3 because the blu-ray has more data disc room to provide.

Didn't say that. I said that both versions will probably look very similar, but they are currently having some problems with the 360 version (which they will most likely solve).

Quote:

Gears of war looks 10x better then Resistance when compared side by side on a HD-TV or even a plain TV and this is notion is unanimously agreed upon by the majority of the videogame community.

...ok?

Quote:

It is absurd to assume that the PS3 version of GTAIV is going to be supreme, when most facts point to the opposite spectrum.

Again, I never said that the PS3 version is going to be 'supreme,' where did you get that from? All I said is that downloadable content alone won't undisputably make the 360 version better.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Iwata

It is absurd to assume that the PS3 version of GTAIV is going to be supreme, when most facts point to the opposite spectrum.

What "facts" are you talking about? Nobody has seen GTA IV on the PS3 yet, so nobody can say whether or not the "PS3 version of GTAIV is going to be supreme", and as far as I can see, nobody did.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Musharraf

Well that's awesome but I don't have a 360 either. I seriously don't think that the 360 version will be better anyway, be it only for graphical reasons. I have a HD-TV so I want to have "high digital" graphics, not some average 360 pixel bullshit

The above shows you insinuated the PS3 version would be better and this could be reinforced by you tagging it originally as a PS3 game and to Aardark, the part about graphics was addressed to Musharraf, not you. Sorry i didn't make that more apparent.

I used the Resistance/ Gears example to make a point to mush that as of currently, many 360 games look better then most PS3 games.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

You should have noticed, though, that I made a mistake in that post which was pointed out to me in a very clearly manner exactly one post later.

Originally Posted by Iwata

and this could be reinforced by you tagging it originally as a PS3 game

Umm that's because I actually didn't know there was a GTA IV for 360 as well. Look, I'm not some PS3 fanboy or whatever you think I am because, umm well, I don't even have one yet.

FELIPE NO

Well, IGN/Gamespot just got several new shots of the game (and some artwork). It looks pretty damn good, considering the scale of the game.

Spoiler:

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Game looks pretty good, but then again, it doesn't look like too much of a leap over Saint's Row.

I still think this main character looks FUGLY, like a damn caveman.

Jam it back in, in the dark.