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Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Launch
The first of this year's AAA titles has launched, and the first reviews are in. Gamespot, IGN, and OPM all have looks at the game, and it sounds great. If you want to keep track of the pool-shooting race track driving everything-under-one-roof extravaganza, the GameRankings page is available as well. When you play the game this week make sure and tune in to WCTR News to catch Anchorman Richard Burns, TV's Wil Wheaton. More seriously, reviews aren't the only thing the developers are looking for. Commentary regarding Take Two Interactive's slipping stock is available on CNN Money's Game Over.
I'm planning to run out to the store and steal it as soon as soon as I can, even if I don't own a Playstation 2.
And TV's Wil Wheaton? Excuse me! I think you mean Slashdot's Wil Wheaton! Is he the first Slashdotter to do voicework for GTA?
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It's the end of October, and you think that 'GTA 3.2' is the first of the year's AAA titles?
Meh.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Eating food to survive? Did they get a bunch of ex-DIKU mud coders for this one or something?
At any rate, I've never played a GTA game. Is this one different enough to pay full price for, or would I get substantially the same gaming experience buying GTA3 or Vice City for less money?
catch Anchorman Richard Burns
So we can finally drive world rally championship cars in GTA?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
GTA: San Andreas, Halo 2, and Half-Life 2 all coming out within a short span?
Man my GPA is screwed.
Shades of Grayden
Is it legal to release Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with its crime and violence apotheosis in Australia? I hope so, but does anyone know any formal decisions and rationale?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Supposedly the ESRB stuff is supposed to stop retailers from selling the game to people under 18, but I know that many parents don't have the time or the willpower to look into what media their children consume. And I know this series gets pretty bad, with things like picking up prostitutes, car theft, and massacre being rewarded in what some have termed a "pornography of violence".
As fun as the game is, maybe this is something that should be hidden behind the counter or maybe only sold in adult venues/online. We all know where to find it, and we're old enough not to be profoundly affected by murder simulations, but apparently there are still a bunch of chuckleheads out there that are completely unable to determine what's appropriate for their kids. And society pays the price.
I sure can't wait to play it, though.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
This is shaping up to be the best holiday season in gaming history, from a breadth of titles standpoint. Tons of great games for all kinds of systems (some which have been in development forever).
Halo 2
Metroid Prime 2
GTA: San Andreas
Half-Life 2
World of Warcraft
I've been playing for years, and this is the first holiday season I can truely say "Where am I going to find the time/money for all the good games?" Other years we've had one or two blockbusters, but this years there's a ton.
A few titles immediately come to mind are Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2004 and even Sims 2.
If you are meaning fist AAA title to come out for the console, you might be right. I don't follow console releases very closely. But I think that Fable probably fits into that area.
Please keep in mind that there are games that are released on the PC & Mac as well. Consoles are not the only gaming market out there.
Vice City, while enjoyable, is just a variation on the theme. GTA is the rilla.
Speak truth to power.
What next? Have to run around the corner to pee? What does eating matter to a game like this? Pointless.
I got tired boning and killing the same old hookers.
free online diet tracking.
Fortunately, it isn't - I found the main game much more interesting than the previous two, so it'll probably have a longer play-life for me.
I have to admit being surprised that they've managed to keep it mostly fresh - it seems like people can't make a sequel without fucking up the mojo these days.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Too bad it'll be several months till I'll be able to play it.. damn PS2 only releases!
I am the maverick of Slashdot
On Amazon, it almost certainly got numerous rave 'reviews' months before the code was actually completed.
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I love the GTA series, and I keep thinking that it could be the next 'doom' if rockstar would open up the .exe source code for modders. Even if it was something older like GTA3, there is no end to what could be done with a game like this by the mod community.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Knights of the Old Republic 2 (which, together with San Andreas and Halo 2) is one of the games I've been looking forward the most to.
I have to say that this year there are way better games coming out for consoles than for PCs, at least from a single player perspective.
-- the cake is a lie
My local Game Stop started handing out pre-ordered copies last night. Well, I haven't had much sleep but I can lucidly say this game rocks! Huge environment, many many sub-games, really too much to take in overnight...maybe even over a week. Now if Bungie could just hurry up with Halo 2 and Valve with Half-Life 2...my year would be complete. Job...what job?
Stop pummeling me, it's really painful...
ZZZzzzz...
Taken from gamefaqs.com:
if you eat too much, you get fat. Eat too little, you go gaunt and lose stamina. Work out a lot early in the game to build up some nice guns and just go back every once in a while. Treadmills and the Stationary Bike remove fat and impove stamina, while a bench and dumbells just increase muscle. More muscle, more stamina, and less fat are all very good things. Work out in gyms and in dojos to improve your fighting,running,and biking abilities.
Mmmm, -funroll-loops
Wait time for line losers= 5 hours
Wait time for me=5 minutes
God, did I really just bother pointing that out?
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
Just wait 6 months. They'll release the $20 version. I can wait to get that one! (besides, despite getting to the end of GTA3, I've barely gotten ANYWHERE in GTA:VC...)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
My roommate is playing this right now. And I am working what may be a 16 hour day. By the time I get home the controller is gonna be stuck to her hand and I won't get to play until she passes out from exhaustion.
Why shouldn't he report blatant piracy to the copyright owner.
I believe it's called "civic duty", something that has been long forgotten.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I played GTA3 on the PC and Vice City on the PS2 and loved them (Vice City in particular) but I'm getting a real "been there done that" vibe from this San Andreas. It sounds like they've just added more stuff to do on top of the same old shit and thrown new skins and voices onto the same old graphics engine.
There's such a thing as too much realism. I mean, who wants to eat and work out and ride a bicycle in a video game? I play games to feel like I'm doing something that I can't do in the real world, and between GTA3 and Vice City I've already done all the crazy shit that I wanted to do.
Finally, the early 90s L.A. setting isn't what I'd personally call fun. If GTA3 is comparable to The Sopranos and Vice City is like Miami Vice or Scarface, then San Andreas is like the LA gangsta scene and that wasn't fictional. Lots of young people really died in the places that movies like "Boyz in The Hood" were about. Yeah, eventually that gangsta rap stuff got to be cliche and Snoop Dogg is funny and all that but it all comes from a place where innocent people died. You can't say anything about Tony Montana is real other than there were Cuban cokeheads in Miami in the early 1980s.
The geek part of me says "ooh, shiny new game" but the rational side says "don't believe the hype."
In the previous two games you could stand still, do a 360 turn and pedestrians / cars who were visible a moment ago have been replaced with other pedestrians / cars. Such behaviour might be unavoidable in the PS2 version, but it's seriously annoying in the PC version.
There were some very dumb pathing issues too. A common thing in previous games was to stand under a bridge and watch as police etc., jumped straight off it to their deaths to get you. Or they would drive straight into the water etc.
It's amusing but it screws up some missions too. One mission had you rescuing your buddy from a scrap yard. I did that part and he followed me out. I ran across a bridge and turned around to see him fall straight into the water and drown. The pathing had him make a beeline straight for my character without checking whether he would drown in the process.
Still, GTA games are excellent, but that AI needs work.
I heard the retail version of this game is a dual-layer DVD.
However, the one that was "leaked" last week fits nicely on a plain ol' DVD-R. Odd thing, I've put a ton of hours into it and nothing seems missing. Textures are fine, music sounds great, and all the movies/cutscenes are there.
Does anyone happen to know exactly what the differences are?
(oh wait, I admitted to downloading a game, does that mean the moral crusaders are coming after me to mod me down?!)
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
It's expected sometime around May, June or July 2005.
I just read one from "Evil Jesus" which makes me want to buy it:
"I was a young neoconservative Christian and general admirer of George bush.....until I played this game!"
COUNT ME IN!
It would be a fun change from the FPS's and deathmatches, at the least.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Oh well, at least I can still beat up and rob hookers, right?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
See this game is actually promoting good health. Almost balances out all the wanton death and destruction...
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
VC is somewhat more of the same. It's an update built on the same game engine. But aside from the new city and new missions, the big new thing in VC was all the new drivable/flyable vehicles, the helicopter, seaplane, motorcycles. It's no simulation, but all the vehicles have unique handling, and the basic controls on the plane and helicopter are correct.
Wesley may have been a loser to some, but Wil never was.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
So everyone you knew thought of Wheaton as a loser? Has anyone you know ever met Wil Wheaton? Read his books? Have you ever read his weblog?
I can tell you why I like Wil, but if you really want to know why people like Wil, you should just go read his writing.
Now seriously, why is "I don't get it." modded up? Since when was ignorance insightfull?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
heheh. I'll give you 10 xp for that, and a quest point.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
I heard there will be an expansion pack were you not only have to feed your GTA character, you also have to purchase various household items with various stats such as "Hygiene", "Environment", etc. and your GTA character will have several meters showing what his mood is related to each of these values. If your GTA character's mood falls too far, he will simply refuse to pop a cap in someone and instead make a puddle on the floor and/or set himself on fire.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
GTA:SA does not fall into the thoughtless exploitation of "the hood," which many people may have expected from a series that sports almost comical violence and detachment from reality. This lack of exploitation is in stark relief when played against the lyrics sung by Snoop about killing cops. Rather than experiencing a bunch of empty-headed black charicatures in a consequence-free environment spurting "ebonix," drinking 40s and shooting each other, there's a definite desperation in this game that you sympathize with immediately, to the point that you almost feel you know how Laurence Fishburne's character felt when he proclaimed that rich white men are infecting the hood with drugs in order to destroy its inhabitants. And the characters are complex, wallowing in the self-destruction that they're so desperate to destroy. And it's obvious the effects that their environment has on them. While GTA had you initially sickened with, and eventually lavishing violence, this game bound my emotions to every kill, every chase, and just about every action. When my mission was to kill a crack dealer in broad daylight, I really felt it; I really wanted him dead.
I'm a little fuzzy on this. If I commit copyright infringment on the high seas, with a comission from a sovern nation, am I cool or what?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I've been playing around with it for a few hours. You can swim now, which makes for an intersting addition. If you try to leave the SA (Yeah, we all know it's really Los Angeles: Check out the Vinewood sign) area, you encounter road construction. So I decided to try to swim under the closed-off bridges. Bad Idea. When you arrive on the opposite shore, you are instantly a super-wanted criminal, four stars.
Another intersting change is the geography-relevant vehicles. You're not likely to encounter a fancy import car in CJ's home neighborhood, nor will you find any two-tone beaters in the glitzy parts of town. If you drive out into the countryside, you'll encounter 10mph tractors, and on the highways, you might even see some 18-wheelers (although I have yet to see any carrying a trailor: If they are present, it might be another optional mission type, like the vigilante, rescue, and fire missions in other GTAs).
Also, car surfing is alive and well. You can ride on someone's hood clear around town, and this is a good way to quickly explore the city. It is a bit confusing, however, to see the particular pathways some drivers take. Also, it's interesting to note that since the clock goes at 1 game-minute per real second, several traffic lights take 15-20 minutes. Man, that's awful.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
if your computer is only 10x as fast as a PS/2, I doubt you'll be able to run it anyway.
After reading some of the posts on here regarding the game's launch, it's readily evident that the people who post here, have at least mastered not using 4aX0R 5p33k in a post. If you don't believe me, go look at the forum for this game on Gamefaqs... You'd never guess that mods sit on that thing.
There's a variety of posts, including users who don't believe that people get review copies of games, others that believe the game destroys PS2's, and polls asking how late someone will stay up tonight playing it. Really engaging conversations.
All I was wanting last night was some help on the game, and all I got was a lousy flame.
ok not really, but I have heard record amounts of people say "I dunno, I am gonna buy it but I dont wanna be a gangsta, I wanna be tommy vercetti" I get the distinct impression that people (fellow geeks) are having a hard time adjusting to having a black main character.
Maybe they need to add an arcade in the game which the character can play on when the player is bored of the story line. I heard Dance Dance Revolution is good.
you laugh, but apparently there IS a DDR-like minigame.
According to this page at the Australian Goverment Office of Film & Literature Classification GTA:SA will NOT be censored like GTA3 was and we Australians should get the original version like the rest of the world.
mv
"And TV's Wil Wheaton? Excuse me! I think you mean Slashdot's Wil Wheaton!"
Captain's log, stardate 3.14159265
Ensign Crusher has been missing for nearly 6 months, which has been confirmed by the lack of entries in his personal log.
Tomorrow, I will instruct Commander Data to assemble an away team to look for our wayward ensign. He's probably hanging out with that Traveller nut again.
Still not Admiral. Riker may be sexier than me.
End log.
_________
Seriously though, he's probably staying away from Slashdot because of all the lame Star Trek references.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson