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Rockstar Announces GTA San Andreas
Tickenest writes "According to a Yahoo-reprinted press-release, Rockstar Games has officially announced Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the latest in the GTA series. The press release continues: 'Developed by world-class designers Rockstar North, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will be available exclusively for the PlayStation(R)2 computer entertainment system and is expected to be in stores in North America on October 19, 2004 and in Europe on October 22, 2004.'" This confirms earlier rumors of (initial?) PS2 exclusivity and possible name for this much-awaited game.
Is this is going to be something new or just the GTA engine with some minimal improvements and a new locale? My guess is that it's the later, from what I remember GTA 4 was supposed to be an all-together new game.
Mike
I was looking forward to the xbox edition.
SIGFAULT
=P Seriously it would be awesome to have an earthquake in a game, I don't think any other GTA-style game has done something like that (i.e. disaster scenarios).
Is this console exclusivity or won't it be reaching the PC at all. They've been vauge in the past and having just released 3 & 4 for the xbox I expect that cash will speak the loudest words.
San Andreas? Where'd they get that name? How about Grand Theft Bicycle: Vatican
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Oh yeah, I hope the game is fun too.
blarg.
Do they make tools for building your own world yet? It would be fun to cruise around your hometown a la Doom.
Stay tuned for new sig...
San Andreas sounds rather based on L.A....
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in all the galaxy...."
I.E., a perfect setting!
"A group of words expressing something other than their literal intention. Now that... is... irony!" - Bender
instead of having a generic ambulance mode, we'll have it transformed into a mode where you chase after gang fights and save the hatians lives after being injured by the evil cubans.
then in grand theft auto: los vegas, you'll deliver hatian hookers to cubans and vice versa to promote love between them and settle the gripes of the previous game by the cuban community.
No screenshots? Aw man...
GTA is fabulous in that in manages to blur the distinction between genres, something that many have tried but few have succeeded.
It's interesting, because I've always loved RPGs, but never been a fan of shooters or racing games. I would never call GTA an RPG, but I would call it a shooter/racing game - but I love it!
The weirdest thing for me is that it's actually making me appreciate consoles. I've been a PC game snob, and my first GTA was Vice City on the PC. I was convinced that superior graphics + smaller load time was better, but having just bought a PS2 with GTA 3 + Vice City, I'm starting to understand that some games are just *made* to be played on consoles.
My religion forbids the use of sigs.
1. Umm, swimming, a little bit, please?
2. More indoor environments.
3. More flying (helicopters were hands down the best improvement to the vehicles in GTA: VC).
4. The property buying in GTA:VC was a good first step, but it can be expanded so much further.
5. NPC drivers, accomplices, bodyguards for hire, etc, etc.
And while I know everybody is clamoring for better graphics, am I the only one that thinks the current engine from GTA:VC got the job done? I'll take gameplay over graphics any day.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
Sony has the rights to the franchise, so they grant themselves a period of time where it is only available on their platform (the PS2). After that, if they choose to, they allow other platforms to pick it up. That's why it took so long for PC & Xbox versions of GTA3 to come out, etc.
GTA3 and VC are two of the few games that I can pick up after playing for 100+ hours and still enjoy, I say bring on the sequels!
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
Fuggettabout X-Box and their oversized controllers. At least they have the Double Pack. GameCube owners are still banging their heads against the wall over the lack of quality games not made by Nintendo. I want to petition Rockstar for a GC release.
And here I thought the Sony exclusiveness was gone...
After owning the amazing Double Pack for the Xbox, I cannot imagine going back and playing the series on the PS2. I own both an Xbox and the PS2, yet the Xbox is my favorite by a landslide. I mainly use the PS2 for Square RPGs and a few games here and there like the Tekken series.
But by the time GTA4 comes out, the GTA series will be old news and I wont be tempted to suffer through a shitty PS2 version.
It will probably be as exclusive as the last games... meaning they aren't ready to release the PC version yet, but maybe next year...
Ha. Considering GTA1 is many years old, and also had a 'time warped' expansion (London in the 1960s), it looks like they've already taken "a viable product [and] beat it into the ground so that no one gives a rip anymore." And it still made a boat of money. Interesting indeed.
Vice City was a PS2 exclusive for a *limited time*. Hopefully it will be the same with San Andreas.
Vote for global prefs bug
Windows
Windows 2.0
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Vice City was one of the best, most polished, immersive and balanced games I have ever played. It had a few AI glitches, but I disagree with you that it was a disappointment.
Care to explain why it was a huge dissappointment? I really enjoyed it, and almost every I know did too.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
developer #1: i have an idea
developer #2: what?
developer #1: you know how no one had ever really heard of GTA 1 and 2, but 3 was a great success right?
developer #2: of course
developer #1: well, lets take the already written game engine and capitalize off it's success by making the same game over and over with different cities!
developer #2: brilliant!
developer #1: brilliant!
- tristan
I was going to moderate this, but I couldn't find -1 bitter.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Seriously it would be awesome to have an earthquake in a game, I don't think any other GTA-style game has done something like that (i.e. disaster scenarios).
One of the objectives in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3's LA level is "start the earthquake". Later on the same level you have to deal with a car teetering over the top of the broken freeway.
The PS2 title Disaster Report places you in an earthquake ravaged city.
Quake, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be earthquake related.
Jeb? Jeb Bush? Is that you?!!!
In case are wondering about the city
Libery City = New York City (Modern Day)
Vice City = Miami (1986-87 there or about)
San Andreas = (I Imagine that is Los Angeles, but when?)
Do not read this
Weren't GTA3 and VC big sellers on the PC? Until the consoles get some equilavent of "mouselook", I have zero interest in playing games like GTA on a console.
GTA San Andreas gives new meaning to the term "shake down"
e
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Resident Evil: Codename Veronica was a dreamcast excluive... Code Veronica X came out for PS2 later, the X makes it a whollllle new game.. Now resident evil is a gamecube "exclusive"..
GTA3 & Vice City were PS2 "exclusives", until the PC versions, and later XBox versions came out.
The Final Fantasy series is PS2 "exclusive", nevermind that Crystal Chronicles thing.
It may be exclusive on PS2 for awhile, but I have no doubt a PC version, at least, will surface some time next year.
The only real exclusives are from the console makers themselves, Nintendo's franchise players, etc..
It just doesnt make sense for third party developers to lock themselves into one platform in such a fragmented market.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Uh, people loved both GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City because there were constant improvements. Each had its own story, its own gameplay enhancements and above all, both were fun.
In fact, many many video game sequels are of superior quality to the original, and hence they sell very well.
Call it beating a dead horse if you like, but if horse beating is what people want, you'd be crazy not to do it, marketing or no.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Being able to set off some explosives etc along the fault-line and CAUSE an earthquake. Not sure if it would fly in the anti-terrorist US, but it would somewhat fit in with the GTA theme of mayhem and mass-destruction.
I think this was a bad idea.
;)
It will be all too easy to find fault with this game
Ow! I told you, it was a bad pun! Bad, I tell you! Bad!
Hey tough guy, it isnt 2001 anymore and your oversized controller jokes are redundant and just plain moronic. Obviously you have been blind not noticing a certain "Xbox Controller S" being the standard for the last 1.5+ years.
Many of you will remember the brouhaha over GTA3: Vice City and the phrase "Kill all the Hatians."
It was a big stink - bigger than any of the stuff you thought would be worse (you can kill police, or anyone for that matter, in the game) that ended in Rockstar actually changing the game - they now only push a "patched" version to stores AFAIK.
I was wondering why we don't demand an apology from Francis Ford Coppola about the Godfather movies (to which the GTA series is often, for obvious reasons, compared). After all, there's a line in one about black people being animals "who have no souls."
Then again, that was said by a character, not by the screenwriter.
Isn't it interesting that sometimes we're capable of knowing the difference, and other times we're not?
People apparently love these "gotcha" stories. They have no relation to the facts, and are frightening in their ignorance about the basic issues. I mean, distinguishing between something a character is saying and something the game/movie's makers are saying is a pretty basic feat of human intelligence. Of course the context is everything - the context of the line in the game is a gang war (and "the hatains" are one of the gangs in the game). But when it's time to worry about how many people are watching your news program rather than the competitions, a scare story, a little race baiting, even when the facts aren't exactly straight, can slip through.
Especially when it's a video game.
Where are the defenders of all Hatians now? Probably advocating Edward Norton be locked up for being a Nazi (since he played one in American History X).
Apparently we still hold games to a different standard than movies, even when these games are obviously made for adults, and are rated accordingly. If the game were a movie you'd be laughed out of the room for talking about it like that.
And the amazing thing is that Rockstar has caved to this kind of idiocy.
So what's the point of all this?
If Rockstar feels they have to edit everything in their products to fly this far under the stupid-radar, then they will essentially be neutering their product - which succeeds in a large part on the basis of its funny, irreverent, transgressive "creative" (i.e. game design and story, which are, in this as in many cases, inextricable).
I'm wondering how San Andreas will stack up - if they still have their spine after the "Hatian Incident." If they PC'd and PG-13'd the series, I predict an adverse response from the audience, and at the "box office."
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Great I can pick it up at the same time as my pre-ordered copy of Duke Nukem Forever!
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
My buddy has a 3 year old. During the time his wife was away, my buddy would play GTA: Vice City, and his son would watch. The son thought it was cool when daddy "beat the shit" of of other guys with the bats. Well, Mom came home to see her son, and saw her son going to town on his favourite teddy bear with a kid-sized hockey stick. He said to his mom that it was because daddy did this "on tv". (And yes, the son would say daddy "beat the shit" out of somebody on tv.)
Whether you decide to play these games is up to you, but I believe we do have to be careful with our kids. We need to make them understand the difference between reality and fantasy, and if they can't tell the difference right now, then that's a lesson for later.
I believe it's called parenting.
obviously has never played or even read about the games.
FlopBox owner.
Libertarian.
Two time loser.
Rockstar/Id merger and Quake jokes in 3, 2, 1...
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
The game is mostly a huge bunch of data on top of Renderware Platform. The difficulting in creating the game is the huge amount of artwork required. Unlike a racing game or DOOM, you need to fill an entire city where every building needs all four sides and the roof defined, plus needs a multitude of models so it looks good both close up and at a distance.
Does my bum look big in this?
I find the most fun way to do this mission is to fight my way to the trash truck and then the goons in the comets just bounce off you. much more satisfying than the helo method (unless you use the apache, but that is another post)
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Manhunt
I don't like the GTA games, but that's personal taste I guess. Manhunt on the other hand is hard to defend. It's overly violent for no reason, and boring as hell to play on top of that. Rockstar is also responsible for SOE, though I think that was a different studio...
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
Someone here is a lil bitter towards the wrong crowd ain't he? Xbox is dead? I don't think so. It must be the 100,000+ people playing PGR2 at a time that is giving you that assumption right? Not including 15 mil consoles sold worldwide?
Why don't you take a look at http://www.gamespy.com/stats/ and see if you can find more than 2 PC games with 50,000+ of players. You can't. Goodbye.
is over here: http://www.rockstargames.com/sanandreas/
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
I'll preface by saying I don't want to start a flame war between hardcore X-Box fans, PC gamers, and the Sony elite.
:)
:)
That said, before saying how limiting the PS2 hardware is, you should read up on how the PS2 hardware design is supposed to be used. The emotion engine opens up some insane possibilities...the problem is with developers and not with the hardware. Look at games like Gran Turismo. Disgustingly beautiful, disgustingly smooth. The X-Box can't touch that, even if MS has guides to programming for it. The problem is that the technology is too complicated for most American (and in many cases European) developers to truly comprehend and utilize without trying to hack together.
Couple that with the extra dev time Rockstar had between the PS2 and X-Box versions of the game...your argument there is weak, at best. Just because the same software seems different on two different platforms doesn't mean that software was developed for both on the same schedule or with the same resources. I think it's fair to say Rockstar had a lot of feedback, research time, and some newly-grown muscles when porting their games. I could be wrong, in which case time will tell when GTA: SA comes out. Otherwise your crankiness is unwelcome.
That said, if you don't like a sequel, thank goodness that there are about 50,000 internet review sites, gaming mags, and published reviews of games that hit the streets in advance of a game's release...well, that and the fact that you can rent a game for anywhere from $1-$3 to try it out yourself. In the PC world you can't rent games, which is why the crowd is so unforgiving. When you sink your $50 into a game you just bought because of the pretty box and the reputation (and poorly-set expectations you put on the game's shoulders), you get a little bitter. With console games, the only person to blame for buying a bad game is yourself. This is one of many reasons I try my best to limit my gaming to a console. Not only don't I develop a snappy attitude about my games, but I have an opportunity to sample games I'd normally never look twice at, just because I can spend a few dollars testing it out, then buy it cheap in a few months when the marketing craze for it is over.
"15 mil consoles sold worldwide"
Oh please, give the fake installed base numbers a rest dork.
Grand Theft Trabant: East Germany
Wouldn't that be a dancing game rather than a crime game, given that East Germany's official initials were DDR?
As is apparent from the responses, GTA is a much-beloved franchise. By the same arguement, id is beating the Doom and Quake horses to death, Blizzard mutilated the Warcraft corpse, and Valve needs to just let dead Half-Life's lie ...
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
can I take a message please?
You want to what to who in San Francisco? Well, I'll can certainly convey your mesaage to him...
Well, he's got his assignation followed by the weekly coke run to DC (his brother gets a little antsy without the white, you know..) but I'm sure that Gov. Bush concurs with your moral outlook on things...
Thank you for your call. This answering service for the Bush family is sponsored by the family law firm of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. The Bush family role models.
Why is it that so many titles are released exclusively for consoles, and never released for the PC? Do the game companies NOT realize that the most hardcore, high spending gamers use the PC as their primary gaming platform? Granted, there are a lot (A LOT) of PC titles that don't do so hot. But that is because the genious creative minds behing all the great console hits aren't creating them. PC exclusive games are usually buggy as hell upon release, with poor game play and even more poor acting. If we could get some of these top developers to start releasing their console exclusive hits on PC, I think they would notice that we, as PC gamers, are just starved for good content. Our market SUCKS.
Listen to my experimental-industrial-techno!
You're talking about the Tomb Raider series. Grand Theft Auto is a hot property right now since the last game Vice City was the best damn game in the past few years, and Rockstar now has the reputation of putting out quality titles. When they start putting out crappy games just to get a quick buck off moms who pick up GTA because of the brand name recognition for their kids, then you can say they're beating the product into the ground. Until then, many people care and would be disappointed if San Andreas didn't come out.
And another thing... if a product is "viable" as you said, what else should you do with it besides come out with more properties based on it?
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
"Vice City was a huge disappointment."
How's that?. It had better graphics than the first one and even ran better on the same hardware. How many games can claim that in the PC world? The city was bigger and you got to do things like fly helicopters. Really it was an improvement in many ways but didn't ruin the basic game formula. Sure maybe you wanted multiplayer and custom maps etc, but as far as sequels goes this one was a nice extension of an already great game. I don't know how interesting it will be if they just move it to a new city but Vice City should stand as a solid improvement for those who are fans of the genre.
"That would never happen in the PC world. If you produce a shit sequel, you are done."
Vice City was available on the PC. If if really did suck shouldn't this be the end of GTA?
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Because there have been more than 50 million PS2s sold worldwide?
Is that when I was 3 me and my older brother made these little cardboard cut-out replicas with gold and silver marker of all the items in the original Legend of Zelda.
The fighting part was no different ^.^
A few AI glitches
:)
A few? Oh, come on! I love that game, and have spent absurd amounts of time rampaging around bouncing people off my bumpers [fenders], but be serious. GTA:VC's AI makes yer average brick look like Einstein.
Anyways.. my wishlist for the next installment of GTA -
Proper vehicle damage, ala Viper Racing (remember that?) or better yet, Carmageddon 2 (Remember THAT!)
Guardian-reader-horrifying dismemberment - think Soldier of Fortune 2.. Yes, I am still 13 at heart..
Much expanded property buying - imagine some kind of RTS like element, where gangs can own parts of the city, and there's an ongoing battle of trying to take over the most turf... Now turn that into an online mode!
Ability to use weapons other than the machinegun from cars/bikes. Chainsaw driveby at 120 Mph.. Wheee
Oh, yeah, and AI that doesn't suck, please.. but really, I'm not -that- fussed about that one. It's kinda fun mowing down dumb tards en masse.
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
I love shooting people; I love stealing stuff !
Until the consoles get some equilavent of "mouselook"
What practical problems have you had with the C-stick of the PS2, Xbox, or GameCube?
I suspect it will be set in 1977 because a sign on the "Pay N Spray" (which is a feature of all GTA games) says "founded in 1977"
-ssmith2k3
Where, exactly, is the rape in GTA? I'd love to hear the explanation of this rumor.
My idea is pretty unimaginative, but all I would need is a few grey textures, a square arena, and four divided areas with jumps, climbable buildings, a "pit", and an indoor area to satisfy my designing needs. Oh and all the guns and vehicles in the game.
Well, wasn't Max Payne (and Max Payne 2) published or co-published by Rockstar?
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
New lead designer Harvey Smith, of Deus Ex: Invisible War fame, has announced some changes to the GTA format.
/still bitter about DX:IW
-To better accomidate the casual player market, there will only be one car model. It will come in 196 colors, but they will all have the same handling and radio station.
-The "New and Improved" physics engine will allow players to jump their car over a mile. Crashing into a fence, however, will still ruin your ride.
-There will approximately 600 blocks to explore, each one requiring a 30 second loading delay.
-To avoid the "What do I do next?" question, the mission system will be replaced with a multiple choice plotline which will feature the same exact missions but one path will always lead through a vent.
Parenting Group officially releases "Lawsuit 2: We're back"
Developed by world-class lawyers and parents that want to blame everyone else for their children problems, will be exclusively targeted at GTA: San Andreas. The lawsuit is expected to be released in North America on October 20, 2004.
Josh
wait, you must mean like, super mario bros 1, 2, and 3?
for clarification, super mario 2 was another game, the japanese game was the exact same thing as the first one... but even 1 and 3 are the same... exact... thing
wanna go back farther? pac man, pac man 2, mrs pac man, oh boy... i could go on and on.
Runnin' On Empty
All those great chases would hardly happen for more than a block in SF. It may seem thrilling, the prospect of just missing a cable car or MUNI bus, but every block is a light or a stop, 25 MPH speed limits all over the place and grades which would wreck a car over 30 MPH. You could probably tear down a few streets, but eventually you run into some mess. Good for fantasy, sucks for reality.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Call it beating a dead horse if you like, but if horse beating is what people want, you'd be crazy not to do it, marketing or no.
I gave back my assigned mod points just to say what a great quote that is.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
Fortunately, the GTA franchise is nothing like a dead horse -- more like Secretariat in its prime.
The two games can't really be compared when you are talking about exposure to violence. Sure, Zelda had fighting, but you were fighting strange pixelated monsters in a fantasy world. In GTA, you are watching violent scenes that look pretty damn real. The cities look real, the people look real, the blood looks real, and hey, that is kind of what I would expect it to look like if I took a flame-thrower to a crowd of people. GTA is different. Please don't let kids watch it.
Am I misunderstanding you? Are you saying that Halo is an exclusive for XBox and EverQuest is an exclusive on PS2? Both Halo and EverQuest have been out for PC for a while. Mario, on the other hand....I'm not sure there's EVER been a Mario game for PC.
My PS2 is by far one of the best investment ever.
There is already a great lineup this year with FF online, smackdown hctp, virtual fighter evo.
I don't know how to squeeze in any more hours when gran turismo 2004 and this new GTA comes out.
Well, there WAS sexual tortue in GTA3. Akira (or whatever her name was) and Maria with that Columbian guy in the construction site on the middle island. Granted that was a very minute detail which had no bearing on the game whatsoever, but it WAS in the game. Aside from that, I would say all sex in the game is strictly prostitution.
"In the past couple of years, we have put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to ensure we do everything possible to exceed people's expectations with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,"
Does he mean that 40 people, instead of 20 people, will be killed as a result of someone imitating the game in real life?
An official site is up (but no content yet):
http://www.rockstargames.com/sanandreas/
One thing worthy of note: the script in the logo for the words "San Andreas" is in that faux-English "newspaper-title" font that is popular among Latinos who put it on the back of their pickup trucks (often along with a decal of the virgin Mary - I don't get it either) and what not. Dunno if that means anything...
RadicalBender.com
To those complaining that Rockstar lacks production polish, citing games that came out 3 years ago like 'Oni' (see Bungie for that one)Let's just have a little history lesson, shall we?
Manhunt - Excellent twist on the stealth genre, great game play, killer sounds. Hollywood stars rounding out the voice casts. "..the most important game in the last 5 years..." -The Chicago Tribune
Max Payne 2 - Love it or hate it, this game on Xbox/PC is gorgeous. The textures and level designs are top notch. Story is on par with most movies being churned out by any major hollywood studio. Artistic storyboards, full mo-capped character models, and again, excellent voice acting round out this game. Several PC GOTY and Action GOTY nods.
GTA:VC - Dozens of authentic tracks from the time perioud. Amazing radio stations and voice acting. Full hollywood cast. Beautiful cut scenes. Immersive, large locale. Game of the year almost everwhere, including an Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences award.
Midnight Club 2 - 9.1 out of 10 IGN. 91 out of 100 Gamerankings. Killer music, awesome graphics and killer gameplay including online component. Set a new standard for environment freedom in a racing game.
What makes Rockstar great is not just their awesome games, but their attention to production and detail which blur the lines between games and other traditional forms of entertainment, such as movies. I have a feeling GTA:San Andreas will be no different.
6. Segways.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
The developers acknowledge how pathetic it is trying to aim with an analog stick by incorporating auto-aiming in their games! NOTHING beats a mouse. When you absolutely, positively have to aim at every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes!
Maybe the libraries are poorly designed?
Programmer's should not have to jump through hoops to do things that are industry standard functions, like anti-aliasing. Sony did a shitty job with their programming tools for PS2. Boo on them, not on the "incompetent" programmers in America and Europe.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The PS1 game Driver was set in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, with the maps based on the real streets. I'm not making a judgement, I just thought it was an interesting paralell.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
GameCube owners are still banging their heads against the wall over the lack of quality games not made by Nintendo.
...) and you've got a great selection for the cube. Though I must admit that if there is one non-cube game that I wish I could play, it would be Vice City.
What about these:
XIII
Beyond Good and Evil
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Resident Evil
You add 3rd party games like the above to Nintendo's home-brewed specials (Zelda, Metroid, Mario,
Magnatune: Quality (DRM-free) MP3/FLAC/
I heard it was going to be GTA: Spira. You'd play as Paine after she goes insane from snorting tainted megalixer crystals. They said you'd be able to jack chocobos, do jobs for the LeBlanc syndicate and pick up lesbian hooker nuns in Bevelle.
And Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan was going to be a playable character with a +7 bowel disruptor.
Or maybe I just dreamed it all.
Oh well.
--- Ban humanity.
I have an Xbox and 2 PS2s.
I really don;t like the controller for xbox.
I got a me the new white PS2 from Japan.
With white controllers.
People have asked me why I have 2. Well damn it because its WHITE! LOL!
It is So HOT w/ GT4-Prologue. Its a great Game!
I haven't found a xbox title that I have really loved. I hate 1st person shooters on the console games. I can't aim w/out a mouse.
1) The ability to turn around on the spot without all the cars disappearing;
2) Some semblance of draw distance so that if you're standing on top of a building there are actually cars and people to shoot at?
This is 2004; we have decent hardware now!
"Sony did a shitty job with their programming tools for PS2"
Wow, did you read that on xboxfanboy.com?
If they are actully going to spend more time testing this one, instead of trying to shove it out the door ASAP.
They won't mention this anywhere on their site, but they did release a "fixed" version of VC for the PS2. This was only found out because the saved games are not compatiable, and the newer versions will not load the old saves!
Where are the defenders of all Hatians now?
I think they have more pressing matters than critiquing a game.
On the issue of "advanced cencorship", if the people involved didn't like the effect a previous decision produced, then I'd expect them to learn from the experience.
My opinion is that they screwed up when they decided upon a compromise with the activist group. Such groups have the purpose to bring issues to debate, specifically to take a firm stance on a subject - how do you negotiate with that? You can't. And that's what Rockstar experienced when they announced modifying the storyline for future copies.
tsk tsk
why do games that are awesome on their own merits succomb to this shit?
id much rather have an xbox version that takes advantage of the extra power....something a little above the ps2....
or any of the other features xbox has... HD, Live! hello...multiplayer gta...mmmmmm
And now...some hits from the 80's...The 1780's!!
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
How about Minnie Mouse? Those bloomers... God I love those bloomers.
Is it too early to sue them yet for warping my impressionable, young child's mind, or do I need to wait until the game is actually released?
1) get book and find 90 secret packages
2) get tank from base (crashing a helicopter near the tank, get to tank, back out like hell)
3) drive tank carefully to the Malibu
4) drive tank fast (point gun behind you, fire rapidly) once you start the mission
5) park tank in front of Quonset hut and kill minders
6) get Lance into tank and run like hell (Comets and tanks don't mix well...for the Comets, and the tank protects you from some of the fire from the sniper)
7) get to hospital
I did this once and it worked well - the main liability is getting to the junkyard (the tank is surprisingly unstable at high speed).
"The Driver" mission is lots of luck. You can block the road in from of the police station with cars, but most of the time it doesn't hurt him (only you). Mostly you have to hope that the other guy gets caught somewhere (like between the building) that the AI can't get him out of.
This is my experience, but YMMV.
What I would like most in SA is the ability to replay missions - when the main missions are clear, the computer assigns random or sporadic missions, either versions of earlier misions or new short-term ones.
Think about it. Starts off in the bay area, works his way down south to LA... Drugs, guns, violence, et al. Perfect for Rockstar. Just throw in some movie references and music from the early 70's and your done!
Now, if they actually were to put Hunter's voice into the game...
--
T.bias
Plastination
Indie Gram Rock
By the same arguement, id is beating the Doom and Quake horses to death, Blizzard mutilated the Warcraft corpse, and Valve needs to just let dead Half-Life's lie
Actually yes those are perfect examples of the same problem. id is beating the whole Doom thing to death. I wish Carmack would get a new genre for god's sake! This whole FPs thing has been so very much beaten into the ground it's practically turning into coal.
And Blizzard are mutilating Warcraft. We've had Warcrafts 1 through 3, Starcraft (same game but with spaceships whoohoo!), and coming soon World of Warcraft, and Starcraft 2. Not to mention the copious expansion packs.
There's a difference between expanding on a great game (say Diablo plus Expansion pack) versus beating the damn horse to death (Diablo plus expansion packs plus Diablo 2 plus more expansion packs).
Or, for the movie analogy that /. geeks might understand better, it's the difference between stopping at Return of The Jedi and doing the three "prequels".
The former is good creatively. The latter is just milking the consumer - and boring them to death while doing it.
I may be wrong on this, but I think Rockstar is a developer which is wholly owned by Take-Two, a distributer. So I guess Max Payne(2) was developed by Rockstar. At any rate IMHO Max Payne 1 was worlds better than Manhunt, but it's also the only shooter I can think of that could be described as pretentious.
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
Speculation and rumor-mongering has been going on for over a year at GTA-SA.com... Now finally, some substance!
-1 knows nothing about videogames
play the game Mafia. It a GTA3 style game based in 1930-40s New York. You are a cab driver who gets mixed up into doing jobs for the mafia. Great storyline and is really long. It also has an upbeat swing jazz soundtrack by Django Reinhardt.
God is real unless declared integer.
That said, before saying how limiting the PS2 hardware is, you should read up on how the PS2 hardware design is supposed to be used. The emotion engine opens up some insane possibilities...the problem is with developers and not with the hardware. Look at games like Gran Turismo. Disgustingly beautiful, disgustingly smooth. The X-Box can't touch that, even if MS has guides to programming for it. The problem is that the technology is too complicated for most American (and in many cases European) developers to truly comprehend and utilize without trying to hack together.
r gin Interactivem ap Brothers
I won't even comment on half the blabbering you've just done.
If you knew anything about game development, much less programming...
Just because you drive in Grand Turismo, and you can drive in GTA, doesn't mean you can compare them.
Ever heard of a trade-off? Game programmers have limited resources to work with and make some decisions. GTA has better graphics because of many reasons.
You don't have a 'city simulation' running while you play Grand Turismo. You can't jump out of your car and blow stuff up. You can't pick items up on the road. You can't go in buildings. There's no 'mission' going on in the backround. Not to mention how big the city is in GTA and how detailed it is. There's no helicopters in Grand Turismo or cop cars that shoot at you. Hell, you can't even damage your car in Grand Turismo.
The bottom line is you only have so many CPU cycles and so much memory to work with in a game. I'm sure there are American programmers that are every bit as adept at using the hardware as the Japanese, unlike what you're implying. Then you bash the Europeans. Europeans as bad programmers, especially game programmers? You honestly know nothing.
Stop me when you've heard of a game company:
Argonaut
Probe
Rare
Codemasters
Eurocom
Vi
Criterion
Eidos
Rage
Cavedog
Bit
Peter Molyneux
That's just the UK! I'm not even getting into Finland, Russia, Croatia, and all the other places that some genius stuff has come out of.
Hell, Rockstar North is based in the UK, and thats where the game was developed! Another popular UK-developed game that you might have heard of was Metal Gear Solid 2!
Everyone knows the XBOX hardware is much more powerful that the PS2. It came out later, of course it should be. Have you taken a look at RalliSport Challenge 2 for XBOX?
Leaps and bounds ahead of the Rally cars and track of Gran Turismo. Again, you've got a slightly more specialized case of game programming/optimisation.
Put a side quest in the new game where you, as a Haitian enter 'Kill all the Honkies!' mode.
Hilarity ensues.
-Z
You now qualify for the official Slashdot T-shirt. Well done! And welcome to the exclusive club!
They spammed my mail.com account with ads for the GTA2 over and over and over despite repeated requests for removal. Never signed up in the first place.
EQ, UO, SWG, none of those are through gamespy but hey... they've all had many more than 50,000 players in their day... i could also include Lineage (has a huge cult following in South Korea) oh wait you wanted only on that one site... sorry... but I hate gamespy and as such never use it and i know many more people who hate it just as much...
"Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will be available exclusively for the PlayStation(R)2 computer entertainment system" was said word for word (take San Andreas and replace it with Vice City) when Vice City was announced. the exclusivity is that the only console it will come out for is the PS2 it will come out for PC probabaly 6-8 months later. they always put updates in the pc version... so to whine about no PC version is like saying theres going to be no pc version of Vice City.
will have full weather effects, complete inside environments, rpg elements, and that's all i'm saying...
alright, boys. start crankin' out the (WORKING!!!)PS2 emulators, daddy's got a game to play.
nothing.can.stop.me.now
I remember Driver's engine assessed damage based upon how long you were in contact with another object, so that scraping the side of your car along a wall would at 5 mph would total you in about two seconds. Also, your car bounced up and down like some ridiculously over-sprung thing from a 70's show that had been tuned for jumping. Collisions between moving vehicles were handled with all of the realism of Rad Racer. And woe be to the driver who collided with the smallest twig.
Personally, I would love the Carmageddon engine, or something similar. Could you imagine jacking a dump truck, and getting money for smashing up all of the police cars? Or plumetting through mines outrunning rival drug dealers? Getting the turbo boost and ramming a barricade at the top of a hill to go sailing through the skies of Vice City?
The ______ Agenda
Likewise, after months of Goldeneye, I thought a mouse was "slow and imprecise" when I first tried Quake III. Either method just takes getting used to.
I can move my mouse and know how much it directly coresponds to movement of the reticle on screen.
Even with the nonlinear acceleration curves that most mouse drivers implement? Not everybody has an expensive enough mouse to be able to move over hundreds of mickeys (mickeys == movement quanta in a pointing device) quickly without acceleration.
You can't do that with a C-Stick, simply because of the nature of the controller.
With a C-stick, each position of the joystick corresponds to a particular angular velocity of the camera. The shape of the mapping may be nonlinear, but it's no less linear than what a mouse driver uses.
I think San Andreas ROCKS.
If San Andreas turns out to be anything like the city of the same name in the original GTA game, then it'll be a hybrid of SF and LA. I'm hoping Rockstar will do a play on the whole "North Side/South Side" thing, considering the animosity NorCalers and SoCalers have for each other.
This post sponsored by Ninja Burger. "
A better crash engine. I WANT TO SEE BURNOUT 2 STYLE CRASHES.
The engine is great for it, if they'd just tweak the physics for extraordinary crashes, hell, maybe even make it where you can switch between normal and extreme physics.
If your decision to kill someone is fomented by a video games, you are 1) an amoral SOB and/or 2) a complete and utter moron.
Besides, it isn't like there are any other depictions of violence accepted in our society, right, other than action movies, TV, our foreign policy... In addition there are no other ways in which one would get the impression that we don't value human life as much as we claim to, so I guess GTA:VC, etc. would have a monopoly on hypocrisy in that aspect, right? Oh, and that unlike other adults only actions (alcohol in particular) GTA is advertised far less to those who should not participate and not advertised as a key to attractiveness, happiness, and sex.
So, you have 1) sociopaths who want to kill or 2) morons who want to kill. Although GTA didn't create them and is likely to give no more encouragement than other sources of violence, it's GTA's fault. This logic has so much precedent that it's irrefutable...if you discount the Kojak case (kid claims he killed because of watching Kojak) or the Judas Priest suicide pact case (boys try to committ suicide claiming that JP led them to do so - one died, while one was horribly maimed)...or any of the other cases in this vein.
Stupid or sociopathic people + no/insufficient supervision = bad things. It's like a room full of gas waiting for a spark - blaming the spark doesn't make a whole lot of sense if one realizes that rooms were not meant to be filled with gas.
The simplest way to beat the driver is to either get out of the car right away, and snipe his tires, or, how i beat it... Just knock into him at the start of the race. The sabre turbo has better acceleration, but it doesn't have the handling or the speed the sentinal do, yes, the sentinal has a higher top speed than the sabre. If you can spin him out at the start of the race you can beat him easily.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
It's only exclusive until they announce a PC version 8 months after the initial release. I'm sure they will do a XBox release at some time as well, not that I care. I'm gonna hold out until the PC version.
Insert Sig Here
I don't know that impressive is the word I would use...
Another thing that people overlook is the fact that the game is just amazing on an HDTV in component video mode.
Seriously, you haven't played this game until you've played in that mode. It's just... wow.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I can see your point, and I can't at the same time. I'd love to see a /. poll on the expectations for Doom III. Probably wouldn't get a lot of "dead horse" type responses. Who thinks StarCraft is crap, just because of "similarities" to WarCraft? Diablo II sold fanatically, and is still played fanatically. You're not forced to buy an expansion pack.
You didn't mention Quake and Half-Life. Again, many sequels and/or expansions, few complaints. Give the people what they want.
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with you about the graphics quality PS2/XBox wise. I have both, and have rented the same game on both platforms at the same time to compare.
/. , where saying anything remotely positive about an MS product is a Troll, and today we love Sony. (Love Sony on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and alternate Sundays. Hate Sony on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.)
There is really no question that the graphics quality is better on the Xbox. I'm no XBox fanboi, but it isn't even close. Name a single game available on both platforms where the PS2 graphics are better.
Also, if you compare GT with PGR2, GT comes off as pixelated. There are a lot of arguable points PS2 vs. Xbox, many of them valid. A lot of it comes down to personal preference.
There are a lot of great things about the PS2, but the graphics just aren't one of them.
Of course, this is
I dunno, I strongly suspect this stuff is being taken too seriously around here, but what else is new?
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
that makes me sad to hear that. You may think that the GTA3 engine had dated graphics when it was released on the PC, but I just finished playing it last month, probably 2 years after its release, and my 1ghz Athlon with Geforce2 could barely run it at 640x480. 640x480 is the minimum resolution you can possibly run the game at.
Meanwhile my roommate who has a 1.4ghz Athlon and Geforce3(?) also had terrible framerates.
You may think that GTA3 has dated graphics, but there's not much sense in releasing a game that people won't be able to run on $3k PCs for another 3-5 years...
But yes, the innovation part is a good point to think about. Even though I loved GTA3, it spent a LOT of time playing it, and don't intend to get Vice City if it's the same routine in a new city.
Sam Houser, president of Rockstar, back when he was a teen. (SW London) I popped around a year back to visit his dad and was astounded by what he'd gone on to do (I was playing GTA3 at the time). His dad was wearing a Rockstar Biker Jacket, and gave me a rockstar tshirt that I'm wearing right at the moment :)
Nice people
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
So basically you're saying that a massive amount of people are buying (and still playing) the above games only because they're sequels? I find that hard to believe. After all, as long as a game is fun, who cares? I'm all for creativity, but I'd rather have a fun game that doesn't do anything new than a creative game that fails to entertain. Of course, there's some games that are fun and also extremely creative; those are the real gems.
Anyway, you may be bored to death by sequels, but that doesn't mean that everybody is.
10 Billion is "portable and console hardware, software and accessories".
1 Billion is "PC game software industry".
It goes on to say "The driving force in sales was led by the console software and portable game software categories, which saw a record breaking $5.8 billion".
It is still much larger, I'm just pointing out you are comparing apples to oranges at first. Plus they are lumping portable game software into that also, even in the $5.8B number.
-Comedian
are that the main character is black, and voiced by Ice-T.
I also hope that this time, you can be hired by the Police (as a gang) to do missions deemed too sensitive for the regular cops to do.
They are bongs.
Err water pipes.
Whatever you want to call them.
I'm sure your going to say they were "gifts" too right? Little presents/packages not little packages of coke.
I'm don't mean to sound so mean. But it's funny.
PS2 Only!
F Microsoft. F Xbox. No, I'm not joking.
San Andreas?
Personally, I'd like to see some effort put into GTA games that we'd all want to see.
Tokyo.
Hong Kong.
Rome.
Paris. (We'd all have fun with this one because we ALL hate the French.)
and other exotic places.
San Andreas just sounds lame compared to the above listed, don't they?
---
IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
there are a ton of PSX's out there too but I don't see developers making games exclusive for it anymore. Don't get me wrong, I have a PS2 and it had some great games in it's time, but it's time is just about up.
Keep Austin Weird!
I find it amusing as hell that this was modded as a troll. I have a PS2, and a GC, along with my X-Box so I'm no fanboy. Only on slashdot would a post be modded as a troll for complaining about a game being developed for an obsolete system just because the next best thing is made by Microsoft.
Keep Austin Weird!
Grand Theft Auto: Cannonball Run Edition
---
IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
I don't feel it's a matter of getting used to it so much as each controller has it's advantages - else, why wouldn't we be using joysticks to control our desktop environments?
I understand that point. I guess titles designed for analog thumbsticks have been so designed from the start, and so have titles designed for a mouse. Perhaps your complaint is with venture capitalists who fund the development of less risky ports rather than more risky original titles. (Halo was originally a port of a shooter for the Mac.)
Most crime probably doesn't look like the crimes for which Rockstar is being held responsible - there aren't all that many killings by 18 year olds (but I don't have the data, so salting is appropriate). It's hard for me to see anyone killing another person without an understanding of what they have done, even children as young as eight or ten years old. The kids that kill are likely to either have had no other choice, to have been abused (in one of his books, Gavin DeBecker (ex-FBI crime person) said in one of his books that the best ways to avoid having your kids kill you is not to abuse them), or to be sociopathic. Games aren't likely to change any of these (nor are movies or music, etc.) but may determine how they are expressed. Determining how they are expressed is a lot different from determining that they are expressed, and in most cases parents have a formative role.
I think these parents have decided that since everyone else (or a lot of people in any case) is either getting away with bad things or transferring responsibility for them, that they can do so; they are probably uninformed by the idea that they might have had something to do with their child's acts. (Some kids might be sociopathic or evil, and beyond their assistance, but I don't think that's true for most). The problem that they don't understand is that while messing up an adult's life can have deep consequences, most adults either have or can get get the resources to build themselves up afterwards. Kids are just constructing themselves - if mistreated or abused, they may not understand that the abuse is not either a normal state of things or their fault. Thus, bad parenting is a mistake that may never be correctable; in the long run, it may have effects just as bad as abusing adults but be less easily dealt with.
i don't know that financial penalties for parents would help - their other kids if they have any may simply pay for their sins as well, further propagating the stupidity. Criminal penalties are likely to be seen as unfair, and I'm not certain that they are fair in any case. Society as a whole has decided that responsibility is situational, and people are taking advantage of it - in the case of child rearing, the results of this are hard if not impossible to correct, damaging to others who may have been responsible in their rearing, and long-lasting.
The title question still stands as well - why were 14-year olds playing a Mature title? Did the parents know and let them, or did they purchase it and play it secretly?
Awwww cmon, that's not flamebait, its funny :)
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
Stupid whores, I bet the progammers KNOW that the xbox is better.
AND besides the 3d engines rockstar uses, "renderware" etc... and most big ones DO RUN on xbox too. So porting it, is just basically a recompile and a bunch of xbox only files or ifdefs.
ah well, i better whipe the dust of my ps2.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I wonder if 90% of the 2.6 kernel is the same as 2.4
:)
Damn another rehash , no rewrite eh??
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"I wouldnt play driver that much, thanks anyway" - The Cockmaster
The decal is not as you may think the Virgin Mary but usualy the Virgin of Guadalupe. more information here
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
I must be the only one around here who thinks the GTA is waaaay overrated. IMO, it benefits a lot from all the hype. I've played much better.
True Crime did a great job on the Los Angeles area maps. The first thing I tried doing when I got the game was check out the accuracy of the maps, and the routes I tried were more or less identical to their real life counterparts. These werent even major locations, I was just driving the routes I take to friends houses and places of business.
Get a 4 door vehicle, and 3 random girls (or a 2 person vehicle, then you only need one in the car), and for each woman, type "hopingirl"(yeah, it's a cheat code, but I dont think they will advertise rape as an ability of the VC engine). Find somewhere secluded, park, and let the action happen. Best done when using a keyboard macro or gamepad macro. Rinse and repeat, you might be lucky and get the same three. Heck, you could even get away with one on the motorcycle - although Vercetti is the kind who wants some privacy if he can get it.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
I'll only but it when GTA: Launceston, Tasmania comes out.
BLAM: Take that you Monkeys!!
Burma?
I still miss the free health boost you could get by getting directions from a passing nightclubgirl in your car (what else would you be doing?) and then asking politely for your money back which she was borowing. The programmers for that MUST have had some experience with that sort of direction asking.
"Persistance is Fertile" - Me. I can quote myself if I want to.
I know the whole "Kill the Haitians" thing out there and the subsequent editing of the game, how in the hell are they going to handle a Los Angeles type game? The race implications for an underworld type game like GTA will undoubtibly offend many. It will be interesting to see how they handle it.
http://www.tomandemily.com
i dunno about anyone else, but i'm beginign to get a little tired of the GTA games. sure senseless violence can be fun, but three games of it is getting rediculous. no one wants to see the same fat italian mob boss over and over and over. this is begining to look like Tony Hawk and his Pro Skater line of games.
::leon::
That's not rape. That's sex for money. HUGE difference.
Should have explained further, it's that you can force it to happen on your demand - by the use of that code.