GTA IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony... (**NEW** trailer)

[bassman]

A question - do you always have a parachute, or do you have to keep buying them somewhere whenever you use one to replace it? You have a mission that starts on the Empire State Building. After that mission there are parachute challenges that pop up around the city. Haven't tried any others yet, but I imagine you get the parachute at each one.

[MinionZombie]

You have a mission that starts on the Empire State Building. After that mission there are parachute challenges that pop up around the city. Haven't tried any others yet, but I imagine you get the parachute at each one. Was just wondering in general, if you're out and about not in a mission, if you decided to do a spot of non-side-mission base jumping off any old building, would you have a parachute always, or maybe not... Hmmm...not sure. Still playing Ghostbusters, so haven't had a chance to get into BoGT, and of course won't until I've finished GB and MW2.

[ProfessorChaos]

went to my local "mom and pop" store to see if they were by any chance one of those stores selling MW2 early (they weren't), and i also had a handful of old dvd's i wanted to get rid of (they buy/trade/sell there). ended up finding a slightly used copy of episodes from LC for only 30 bucks, so with my trade in, i got the disc for only 4 bucks. and that also frees up almost 2 gb of memory on my HDD from when i'd purchased the digital copy of lost and the damned. anyway, just scratching the surface of TBOGT. i have a paper to write for tomorrow, a quiz, and two exams coming up this week. plus MW2 dropping on tuesday. busy week, gonna have to take care of real world commitments before i get myself to hooked on mw2 or this new gta storyline...

[MinionZombie]

Always the way, whenever you wanna sit down and really get into something, you suddenly get busy. Either that or everything comes along at once, and you get a right old log jam of gaming. I've got Point Lookout (Fallout 3 DLC) still to finish, I bashed out Lost & Damned, I've got one more level to do on Ghostbusters to get that completed for MW2 arriving on Tuesday, then after that it's Gay Tony, and then after all that, hooking back round again to finish of Point Lookout. In terms of videogaming, it's all pressure! I really wish they'd spread these releases out, it's fucking retarded to cram them all together. Likewise February next year is going to be a busy month, what with BioShock 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction ... and possibly Dead Rising 2, not sure when that comes out, and then around about that time or a bit after, it's Alan Wake (I think).

[MinionZombie]

I've just started on Ballad of Gay Tony, and I'm liking it. I can read the on-screen text once again, which is nice (it was either too small, or too 'grubby, down and dirty' on L&D), and the sense of fun and flair is already in the air and I've only done the first mission. I've drunk shots at Maisonette9 until I passed out and woke up in the middle of Algonquin (I saw a video of someone else doing the same, but waking up inside the Statue of Happiness ), then did a bit of dancing - which was thankfully fairly easy, and resulted in me shagging her in the bathroom ... and then, brilliantly, got to "Booty Call" her afterwards. I also watched a bunch of in-game telly, and I have to say I loved Princess Robot Bubblegum. As for the first mission (shooting your way out of that chinese restaurant), it wasn't amazing, but it was well structured with proper cover provided at all times ... unlike some of the early missions in L&D which were, annoyingly, rather sloppy on the gun-fight front. So yeah, I'm digging it - it's also nice to have snazzy cars back again, as they were so sparse in L&D (if at all), and often hard to find in GTA IV itself. I think I'm going to enjoy this shift in GTA protagonist lifestyle ... hell, it's just fun to waltz funkily around the club - ooh, I did a champagne drinking contest at Maisonette9 as well. Wasn't entirely sure what to do, but I won anyway.

[ProfessorChaos]

yeah, the ballad of gay tony seems like a good time so far...but it's gonna be hard to put down MW2 anytime soon. like you, i decided to do some dancing, banged the chick in the bathroom, then went out and did loads of shots to celebrate...and also ended up throwing up the middle of the club, blacking out, and waking up in a dumpster in star junction. i also did the cage fighting mission and fooled around with that long enough to get an achievement. really looking forward to taking the "tank" for a spin and getting to the skydiving missions later on... ...but as i said, right now, MW2 isn't leaving my system's disc tray for at least a couple of weeks (currently working through campaign on veteran, collecting enemy intel as a i go along, and hooked on the multiplayer like a crack-baby)

[MinionZombie]

Interestingly, with MW1, I finished the game and then immediately re-played the whole thing. Not so with MW2 ... but the difference this time is I didn't have two other games to play/finish after MW in 2007. I do in 2009. Also, I think it's best with MW2 to be blown away in one play through, let it settle, then return to it at a later date sometime soon and have the same feeling all over again. Kinda like I did with Gears of War 2. Star Junction, that's the name I was looking for! ... I've done a mission involving cage fighting, and finally I understand the hand-to-hand combat of GTA IV a bit better now, but it's not perfect. Then again, when you've got an auto shotgun and an auto SMG thingy, who needs fists?

[ProfessorChaos]

yeah, that cage fighting bit is pretty frustrating at times. there's just something about the responsiveness of gta4's characters...they're really sluggish and slow. when i was fighting all those bear-like fuckers in the cage fighting, i'd be trying to block, and my dude would just stand there and get hit like four times in a row. and then i'd finally take the dude down, only to have another asshole come in with a knife or ball bat. if you pull off a successful dodge/counter, though, you can take that bat or knife and easily fuck up the next challenger. i'd have to say that in terms of plot and overall story, gta4 pwns mw2 all day, mainly for the realism and well-developed characters and believable storyline that is easy to follow and actually makes sense... but right now, i'm pretty hooked on getting finished with mw2's campaign (shitty plot holes/inconsistencies and all).

[MinionZombie]

Well they're totally different games too. GTA IV is a rambling epic with numerous characters, whereas MW2 is like a season of 24, in fact that's what I kept thinking throughout, it feels like the plot to a season of 24 ... and I love 24, despite some plot elements making fuck all sense. ... I met a chick called Daisy in Maisonette9 today - one of the little side missions you can get - and man, that's some funny shit. She's foul-mouthed British bird in a tizzy over a sex tape. Also, naturally, I got into a couple more dances and was so spiffing that I got into a couple of group dances - one in Hercules (where I even had a dance-off with some butch gay dude - it is a gay bar after all), and one in Maisonette9. I didn't get to dance to "Pjanoo" (as heard in the reveal trailer for TBoGT) yet though, which I really wanna do, hehe. Then, indeed, another champage drinking contest (two) and then shots only to wake up on that little island in the middle of Middle Park lake. ... And I squeezed a mission or two in between all the frolicking. This is definitely the better half of Episodes From Liberty City - for deffo. I just hope it continues like this. I'm loving the new cars too - the Buffalo is like a kick ass four-door Mustang-ish sort of car, and it rocks. Also, the car that's similar to the Sabre GT kicks ass too ... as does this F-something-something-something, which is like an Aston Martin, Ferrari, and Maserati all rolled into one.

[MinionZombie]

I'm really enjoying this game, much more than L&D. I did another mission, which involved the sticky bombs - which are awesome by the way - going on a rampage blowing up a crane, train, and plane was just awesome fun. Then, of course, back to the clubs for another dance (and another new booty call chick to fuck after JoJo got tired of me), and yes, more awesome dance skills from moi - I was ONE BUTTON PUSH away from getting one spot on too. The LAST button push I fucked up ... still though. I was playing some golf too (which was related to another fun mission), and got the achievement for hitting four golf flags. It's also fun to see recent club events (relating to your club management gameplay) talked about on the celeb blog on the internet, hehe. Club management mode continues to be fun, the little asides with that lady in the managers office, and the special request missions (e.g. pick up some take away, hose down the paparazzi with a stolen fire truck, escort a British prince to get his dick wet, etc). Rather fun. I wonder if you get to manage the other clubs - Hercules for example, and no doubt there'll be a chance to take over Bahama Mamas, I would have thought ... but DON'T spoil anything for me, okay chaps? ... So yeah, having boat loads of fun with this game!