Five Days Locked in a Room With GTA IV

bippy writes "Five days, one game. The Rocky Mountain News has a write up of five days spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV recently in a San Francisco hotel. It ends: 'In Grand Theft Auto IV the story isn't just an amalgam of cut scenes and cleverly written dialogue, it's the experiences I create, too. It's now, watching Niko stand, his shoulders slumped, that the depth of this game finally hits me. Niko's journey, the one crafted by Rockstar, may have ended, but Niko's adventures in the story I am creating have just begun.'" The most anticipated game in a while, to be sure. I'm certainly looking forward to busting some heads and jumping ramps.

Comments

hmmmm...

[MagdJTK]

Is it just me or are people getting way too excited about this game?

Now before everyone instantly mods me troll, I'll point out that I own GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas and loved two of those three games (I'll leave it to you to guess which ones), but I never saw them as deep or as art. I saw them as a fun way to pretend to be a gangster and run around causing mayhem.

Yet this GTA comes out and people are practically wetting themselves over what is going to be the same thing but shiny? Don't get me wrong - I'm sure it'll be a good game and win lots of GOTY awards, but does anyone honestly think they'll see a lot they're not expecting?

Re:hmmmm...

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>it just seems that GTA is going the way of FIFA

what... the... fuck... ?

they just released the first game in 3.5 years. aside from downloadable content, the rumours are that the next full game won't appear until the next generation of consoles.

so I ask again: what... the... fuck... ?

Re:hmmmm...

[justinlee37]

GTA is still the finest sandbox-game series

Civilization 4, Fallout or The Elder Scrolls are better candidates for the "finest sandbox-game series" than GTA will ever be.

Not that GTA doesn't fill it's own little crime-and-mayhem niche or won't be fun or anything.

Yay

[OverlordQ]

Remind me in a year or two when the PC version finally comes out.

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that R* doesn't seem to care much about their PC releases once they've gone gold. And there are bugs that could do with fixing (not so much with San Andreas imho), but overall the PC ports are reasonably polished if you ask me.

And they most certainly do make enhancements to the PC versions. They all have higher resolution textures than their console counterparts. They all support using a mouse in a reasonable fashion while also using a controller for driving/flying. You can configure every single key, and you never have to deal with unbindable keys or unchangeable binds. If anything R* probably is one of the best development houses at making decent PC ports of titles that started on a console.

Still, it's certainly disappointing how little they appear to care for PC gamers.

Re:What next?

[_KiTA_]

What's next?

They go 60's camp. You are a super villains side kick, dressed in fluro spandex you have to try to dominate your city before the other super villain gangs do, all the while evading police and the occasional vigilante dressed in a leotard with a really cool utility belt.

I would buy that in a heartbeat, there's not enough supervillain games out there.

A sandboxy Batman game would also be pretty good.

I would also buy "Grand Theft Auto: Mushroom Kingdom", a self-parody with Wario running around outrunning Toadstool cops and the like.

I dont like this

[milsoRgen]

That summary read like a piece of proganada. I mean I have no doubt its going to be an excellent game and I am huge fan of the series and video games in general. But with so much hype before release, as seems to be the norm these days. I'm started to wonder about the motivation of such glow reviews. Sure it's probably fanboyism and follow the leader mentality, but a small part of me wonders if this isn't just some propaganda to ensure a nice bottom line.