Filed by Richard on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 5:12 pm
So I’m about 25 hours into GTA IV right now. The entirety of the world is right; it’s a great game. No point in wholly dwelling on what’s so great, let’s delve into what’s not-so-great.
Achievements: I can’t figure out why, but Rockstar doesn’t seem to like XBox 360 achievements. Sure you earn achievements, but you can’t even find out what achievements you’ve earned while in the game. The in-game menus tell you in the most minute detail how long you’ve been walking, your favorite restaurant, your favorite weapon, and about 50 million other details. But you have to log off the game, and open up your main Xbox menu to find your achievements.
And I cannot think of another game where I’ve dutifully followed the story, put in 25 hours of time, and only earned 50 POINTS! To give Rockstar the benefit of the doubt, the game has so many different possible tasks that they had to spread it around a bit, but how many games are there where you can be 90% done with the main story line and only have earned 5% of the available points?
Microsoft famously paid Rockstar $50 million bucks to have some exclusive content for the XBox system; they should have also required them to make the achievements a bigger deal.
Despite what so many people have said about this game being completely revolutionary; it’s clearly simply an extremely good, evolutionary step in the GTA franchise. And that’s a good thing. It’s really not that different from all of the GTA III games; just much more detailed, much better written, and much better looking. But the same things that we got used to 8 years ago are still there: buildings and enviroments “appearing” before you as you outrun the computer’s computational power; certain rare cars appearing by the dozens after you find yourself driving one, etc. Much has been made of the independent suspension that cars have now incorporated; it’s definately there, but the driving just feels absolutely identical to the last few games.
The game also features the same satirical take on violent, extreme America; with advertisements, TV shows, stores, etc. featuring extreme versions of right-wing commentators; liberal radio shows, etc. I found these elements as funny and interesting as in previous versions; which is to say I didn’t find them funny at all. Merely stupid.
Oh, and those neverending drives to certain missions? There still there; but thankfully most (but not all) of them can be eliminated by catching a cab–the best new feature of the game).
And back again is the too-low camera angle during driving that doesn’t allow you to see far enough ahead; you find yourself constantly adjusting the camera.
So far there are not any of the wacky missions that typified the last iteration of the game (no rocket packs… yet). And the missions seem pretty fluid, and beatable.
But there are some issues of fighting in halls and inside buildings; the camera bounces around a bit and doesn’t allow you to always see your enemies; and the new cover system, similar to the system in Gears of War, really fails in some hallways as it bounces you from cover point to cover point, when you just want to release cover.
I played all of the previous versions of GTA on a pc, and I miss a favorite feature: the ability to create a radio station of my own MP3 files. Some of the long drive and car chases in this new game could really use AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells.
It’s clear that Rockstar has matured and recognized the inherent value of their IP; and didn’t feel the need to populate the actors with dozens of famous names. In the last two versions, almost every single voice heard was a famous one; I don’t recognize a single voice in this game (though there are a few famous people who play themselves: Ricky Gervais, Katt Williams, Iggy Pop). They also did not bust open the music licensing money chest like they did in the last two versions; Many reviewers have found the music choices sublime and effective; I found them annoying and second-tier. I immediately turn off the radio whenever I get in a car.
Another minor quibble; the phone that you use (it’s your lifeline really), has a screen that’s too dark to read, especially text messages). It helps later when you get a newer, brighter phone, but not by much.
All of these quibbles aside, it’s obviously a truly great game. In terms of pure gaming experience; I think Bioshock is a better game, but this is a pretty good second place. We are definately in the golden age of console gaming…
Spread the Word:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Having just finished the full story of Grand Theft Auto IV, I’m left with clear conclusion that Rockstar does not care a whit about Xbox Achievements. When was the last time you spent 35 hours completing the basic storyline of a game and only earn 135 out of 1000 possible points?
Watched Smokin’ Aces yesterday and it was not what I expected. If you’ll recall, and I concede that there’s no reason you would want to, the commercials for it showed a lot of wacky hitmen trying to kill Jeremy Piven in what looked like pretty much an hour and a half gunfight and maybe 30 minutes of setup. But nope – all of those hyperkinetic scenes begin to dribble out maybe a quarter way through and while there is a sort of ultimate gun fight, it’s punctuated by regular old scenes that are just normally kinetic.