GTA IV Excitement Thread (nee Anticipation)

[CoinReturn]

Mid-game spoiler about a big decision:   Between Playboy X and Dwayne, I decided to kill Playboy X. After chasing down and killing a handful of his thugs, I cornered him in an alley where Niko said to him "X marks the spot!". I then blasted Playboy right in the balls with a shotgun and he flew back against the wall, landing in a heap. I love this game

[Craig]

Mid-game spoiler about a big decision:   Between Playboy X and Dwayne, I decided to kill Playboy X. After chasing down and killing a handful of his thugs, I cornered him in an alley where Niko said to him "X marks the spot!". I then blasted Playboy right in the balls with a shotgun and he flew back against the wall, landing in a heap. I love this game A whole spoilerific reply:   I also opted to kill Playboy, I felt Dwayne was a better guy anyway. If you kill Dwayne you apparently get $25, 000. But by killing Playboy you get a new safehouse, and Dwayne as a friend who, once you get his friendship up, you can call for body guard back-up. In my opinion that's better than 25 grand that you can easily make in missions and such.

[slickwilly13]

For completing the first racing mission he lets you keep a Comet... which is pretty much a Porsche. That thing kills. Do you keep the car forever? It would be cool to have a car garage that respawned special cars, but its your own garage. And not some car lot that you can steal from.

[MinionZombie]

hellsing - thanks for keeping the spoilers down, also aye I'd give it 95% because perfection is impossible, but also because of my key (yet ultimately small) gripes. The movement system is a bugger to get used to, and your life drains way too quickly, same for your armour. Also, the whole 'get out of the red circle' thing with cops can be a right pain in the arse and discourages sprees. Otherwise, it's a superb game. I'm at 43% through, got another couple of achievements too. As for the recently spoiler tagged choice thingy...   I originally blasted Dwayne, but only cos I was closer, but I felt really bad and so I went back to my previous save and blasted Playboy X instead for the pad - as well as the back up when needed too, which was schweet. Much better than 25 g's for sure.

[MikePizzoff]

Do you keep the car forever? It would be cool to have a car garage that respawned special cars, but its your own garage. And not some car lot that you can steal from. The only way you can keep it forever is if you park it in your "reserved parking" out front of your save houses. Although, I'm only just-under-30% through the game, so I don't know if you eventually get a garage or what.

[SymphonicX]

sorry but this game, whilst good, is totally, completely and utterly overhyped. Clunky, **** combat systems yet AGAIN make playing through any kind of mission that requires speed or accuracy unnecessarily and frustratingly challenging. Niko will exit a burning car like he's on holiday, many times getting blown up in the process....chasing people on bikes or in cars just heralds me screaming at the ****ing thing when he gets knocked off, or out of the windscreen, he idly walks to the vehicle like he hasn't a care in the world...often losing the chase through his nonchalance. There's not enough to do, really...most of the activities are boring and you end up doing the same things with different people... they still ****ed up the car thing in terms of you being able to keep cars that you like indefinitely, one of my nice sports cars even disappeared from outside my safehouse. The motion blur is annoying. they actually stole ideas from saints row ie: sat nav and mobile phone elements. You can't even rob the shops that you visit like you can in SR. People ragged on SR for reasons that seem beyond me, I actually had much more fun playing that game than I did this - although they both suffer from the same problem of losing a mission then having to drive all the way through town just to get to the next waypoint, which often takes longer than the mission itself. edit: they toned the game down and made it less morally ambiguous, which is totally to it's detriment. How am I supposed to feel justified in running someone over who I just robbed when Niko is constantly making pussy statements about how he wants to be a good person? Other than that it's obviously a good laugh, but 10/10? **** no. 7/10 at the very best with Saints Row kicking it's arse with at least an 8.5/10. Also, I should add anecdotally, and this isn't really much of a whine, but one thing that totally annoys me is stealing a car for a quick getaway and being bombarded with that ****ing rnb/rap **** music. ****ing hell....I actually would rather crash/get arrested whilst trying to turn off the stereo than listen to that bull****... lol apologies to those who actually like that stuff....hehe as you can tell I'm not having a good time with this atm...

[slickwilly13]

The only way you can keep it forever is if you park it in your "reserved parking" out front of your save houses. Although, I'm only just-under-30% through the game, so I don't know if you eventually get a garage or what. Damn, I turned the game off after winning the race. The car handles pretty good with practice. I made 2nd place a number of times, before fustratingly winning 1st. The car has awesome take off speed around corners. I have really brushed up on my driving, because of that race. Maybe us members can race each other next week after my finals. I'm challenging everyone. So....yeah. You guys just got called out.

[bassman]

So I think something may be wrong with my 360. It keeps freezing up into a black and white checkered screen when I start a mission. I've tried multiple times and it keeps doing it. Anyone else had that problem?

[Craig]

as you can tell I'm not having a good time with this atm... I myself can overlook GTAIV's flaws because I enjoy playing it so much. Things like control, while I'm sure not perfect, I find absolutely fine, especially since I don't have a better game to compare the controls with. I've also never had a car disappear from outside a safehouse so I dunno what's happening there. As for over-hyped, it was only the series' reputation and reviewers scores that hyped it up a lot (and they obviously enoyed it). The marketing, here in the UK at least, didn't seem to give it any more hype than it deserved. I think Niko is a compassionate man at heart, but all he's really good for is doing other peoples dirty work, and he knows that, so I think his personality fits. Crime does pay after all, and money's the only way to get respect in Liberty City (not to mention the real world). As for radios being on rap stations when you get in a car, it takes only a tap on the d-pad to change it. If you really can't be bothered to do that then maybe you should racially profile the drivers before you steal their car to determine whether you'll be bombarded with rap music when you get in? On it's comparison with Saints Row, I only played Saints Row for a few hours over a couple of afternoons before I'd had enough, it didn't even live up to, let alone surpass the fun I'd had with GTA:SA. All in all with GTAIV, I haven't noticed a flaw I already got over in previous GTA titles, so as a fan of the series, in my opinion it's just another great addition. End counter-rant Anyways, isn't there gonna be like over 10 hours of missions and stuff to be released for 360 in the future? While I haven't finished the game yet I already hope they continue with Niko's saga.

[Mike70]

so i finally got to play this game a few times over the last several days and all i can say is:

[kidgloves]

I now have a Lamborghini

[SymphonicX]

I myself can overlook GTAIV's flaws because I enjoy playing it so much. Things like control, while I'm sure not perfect, I find absolutely fine, especially since I don't have a better game to compare the controls with. I've also never had a car disappear from outside a safehouse so I dunno what's happening there. As for over-hyped, it was only the series' reputation and reviewers scores that hyped it up a lot (and they obviously enoyed it). The marketing, here in the UK at least, didn't seem to give it any more hype than it deserved. I think Niko is a compassionate man at heart, but all he's really good for is doing other peoples dirty work, and he knows that, so I think his personality fits. Crime does pay after all, and money's the only way to get respect in Liberty City (not to mention the real world). As for radios being on rap stations when you get in a car, it takes only a tap on the d-pad to change it. If you really can't be bothered to do that then maybe you should racially profile the drivers before you steal their car to determine whether you'll be bombarded with rap music when you get in? On it's comparison with Saints Row, I only played Saints Row for a few hours over a couple of afternoons before I'd had enough, it didn't even live up to, let alone surpass the fun I'd had with GTA:SA. All in all with GTAIV, I haven't noticed a flaw I already got over in previous GTA titles, so as a fan of the series, in my opinion it's just another great addition. End counter-rant Anyways, isn't there gonna be like over 10 hours of missions and stuff to be released for 360 in the future? While I haven't finished the game yet I already hope they continue with Niko's saga. the way I see it is that since GTA went 3d with GTA3 back in 2001, or whenever it was, all we've had is dire, dire lock on systems...and 7 years after they still haven't even come close to sorting it out. To be honest it's quite pathetic....Vice City was supposed to have some sort of priority system, san andreas was the same, and still even with GTA 4 I find myself locking onto a target halfway down the road rather than the cop right in front of me...it's ridiculous. Saints Row was all free aim, and not once did I feel fleeced by it's controls or aiming system...not once! OK granted it was a very precise aiming system where you could pretty much pull off a headshot with a handgun from 4 blocks away, but that worked - the gun system was awesome. Saints Row, I can't understand why people didn't dig it...it was awesome..you could rob shops, there were a million missions like Chop Shops and assassinations, and mayhem levels where you need to cause as much havok as humanely possible - they were amazing....shooting the train with the rocket launcher was devastating...christ even the drug dealing missions beats the hell out of GTA 4....you had to be the protection of the dealer and would find yourself aiming rocket launchers at the FBI from the side of your car, and nothing was more satisfying than blowing a car apart as it's hurtling up behind you - the driver would even fly out of the car on fire...spectacular... The garage system was awesome too...put a car in your garage and it's there indefinitely...if you blow it up you have to pay to repair it but even if you sink it in the bottom of the ocean, the next time you go to the garage, it'll be there available for repair...go to a mechanic and you could customise it, with all sorts of crazy paints like incandescent colours and whatnot, you could put nitros on it, new rims, change the whole body of the car really...it was much less rigid than GTA. The only thing GTA beats it on is general presentation and humour, the story and script to GTA is by far better, but the biggest selling point to a game is the gameplay, and to be honest, I'm just f**king sick of hiding up against a wall that I didn't want to back up to and being shot by someone who's standing right in front of me...unforgiveable and ruins the whole experience. The missions are way too stressing.

[CoinReturn]

Just turn auto-aim off man, and it's just like Saint's Row. The shooting is handled much like a first person shooter, and you won't find yourself locking on to pedestrians when you're trying to shoot cops. I'm baffled at how anyone could prefer Saint's Row over GTAIV, honestly.

[ProfessorChaos]

ditto. the one time i played it, i just found myself wishing gta4 would hurry up and come out. oh well, different strokes for different folks.

[MinionZombie]

So I think something may be wrong with my 360. It keeps freezing up into a black and white checkered screen when I start a mission. I've tried multiple times and it keeps doing it. Anyone else had that problem? That's a total new one on me, have you tried other games recently? A different TV, a different AV cable? Otherwise, give it a Googling, I diagnosed mine had a busted AV port on the motherboard from Googling up the symptoms, no doubt at least a few other people have had the same issue. ... As for GTA IV, just been bashing about on it, oh man I just did a great mission ... but as I'll go into a lot of detail, I'll spoiler tag it. The one I'm on about is the bank job (just so you know if you've gotten there or not).   First of all, if you loved the movie Heat, you'll love this mission. You're all decked out in suits with balaclavas on, you raid the bank and then bust out onto the street which is crawling with cops and various cop cars. You've got those M4's (or whatever they are) that they had in Heat. You start shooting the place up, thin out the cops and then have to go running through Chinatown to get to the subway, then run along the tracks, come up, where you have to steal a 4 door car (a smidge problematic essentially) ... I ended up trying to jack two taxis, both of which hit me ... thanks ... so I've got 2/3's health left and no armour at this point. I jack the taxi - one of those van ones too, lol - and then barge it. I manage to get out of the red circle pretty easily and as no coppers are near, I pull over into a parking lot to wait it out for the 10 seconds until you're free ... ... however, I pulled into the parking lot of a police station! The cops notice me and NOOSE starting firing upon the van, I barge it across the bridge to Broker, realise I have to lose my wanted rating before I can end the mission, so I drive off and end up on the cusp of the red circle, slide down an embankment towards a freeway, but deliberately hang myself up on a tree just outside the circle and woot - no more wanted level. End the mission and boom, two achievements totaling 70gp, ho yeah. Really had my adrenaline going, felt like a playable version of Heat's most famous scene ... ah dude, great mission. Luckily I got through in one go, but during the subway I was on red flashing smidge of health, so it was almost game over for Niko there ... until he'd get kicked out of a hospital that is. Boom - 250 g's, noiiice. Bloody great mish that.