Topic: Grand Theft Auto 4

[Quemaqua]

Heh, that ad is an oldie now.  It's funny that it actually looks more like GTA4 than it does the other games, though.  I hadn't noticed it until watching it now.

But yeah, that mission was a pain.  You did it very differently than I did.  There are definitely some tough missions after that one, but I think that's the one that's pissed me off the most so far just because I wasn't sure if I was doing it "right".  I just got through another tough one that, sadly, I lost several times due to babysitting issues, until I learned that it was better to just storm through ahead of my cohorts and take on all the guys myself, which wasn't actually that tough.  So it turned out cool.

The game, at least, has one nice feature that some may not notice up front: when you fail a mission and retry it (retry, not load a save), if you're driving from the start point with a character to another place, any conversation they have will vary.  In other words, if you start a mission, hop in a car, and drive with some dude to another location while having a conversation, then get to the location and die, if you retry the mission you'll find that the conversation in the car will be different from what it was the first time.  I'm pretty sure I heard up to three different conversations when repeating one mission, and after that nobody talked anymore... they just shut up and we listened to the radio instead.  It's a pretty nice touch, and it just goes to show the sheer ridiculous volume of recorded dialogue that's in this game.  It's pretty amazing.

[Ghandi]

The game, at least, has one nice feature that some may not notice up front: when you fail a mission and retry it (retry, not load a save), if you're driving from the start point with a character to another place, any conversation they have will vary.  In other words, if you start a mission, hop in a car, and drive with some dude to another location while having a conversation, then get to the location and die, if you retry the mission you'll find that the conversation in the car will be different from what it was the first time.  I'm pretty sure I heard up to three different conversations when repeating one mission, and after that nobody talked anymore... they just shut up and we listened to the radio instead.  It's a pretty nice touch, and it just goes to show the sheer ridiculous volume of recorded dialogue that's in this game.  It's pretty amazing.

That's awesome. There's nothing worse than repeating a mission over and over and by the 5th time after hearing the same thing all you want to do is yell at the people to shut the fuck up.

* Ghandi goes back to reading about how awesome this game is while not actually playing it.

[iPPi]

I'm no where near as far as you guys are, but I finally opened up the middle section of the city, which is downtown I believe.  I didn't even realized I opened it as I checked it a mission before and still saw the roadblocks, and then I completed the mission

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Blow your Cover

and the next thing I know I'm driving this guy downtown across the bridge.

Anyway, still having a blast.  The small details in the game is what makes it shine.  Trashing a car enough that the engine dies, for example, is something that's happened once or twice... thankfully never when I'm on a mission though.

[Cobra951]

HELP!  I CAN'T STOP PLAYING this damn game!

Yes, driving that guy home, following the route, following, then you realize you're headed over the bridge into downtown.  YES!  Finally!  I'm much less interested in Alderney (NJ).

I'm having a lot more fun with the combat now, even when the cover mechanic doesn't work quite right.  They've done a super job with that overall.

I'm dating a character now with the most useful ability yet.

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Lawchick, a lawyer.  Name is Kiki.  After she got to like me, she told me that she'd take care of problems with the law for me.  So if I call her, even during a mission, she knocks off the wanted level.  Almost feels like cheating.

[Quemaqua]

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Naw, it shouldn't feel like cheating.  You can only do it once a day, and I think it may only work for 3 stars and under (though I could be wrong).

[Cobra951]

Ah.  I was not aware of limitations.  Thanks.

I'm expecting too much out of the game now.  I'm getting annoyed by the rudimentary behavior of the traffic AI.  Sometimes I just want to drive around sedately, keep a nice car from getting banged up, but it's near impossible in the city.  If I get boxed in at a light, someone will ram me, and most of the time it seems to be a cop that does it.  Then he wants to bust me because he wrecked my rear end.  So I have to plow my way out of there.  Nice touch (not).  Then there's all the aimless sudden lane changes, sometimes directly into your fender.  I went on a date to a restaurant, in a helicopter.  Parked it in the street.  Afterwards, I'm trying to climb into it, but cars keep ramming it around.  It was funny and annoying at the same time, seeing this big helicopter get shoved for several yards every which way by multiple cars.  They weren't hitting the brakes from too fast a speed, as in Crackdown.  Oh no.  They were coming around the bend and gunning the gas directly into it.  Eventually, one of those minivan taxis knocked the chopper on its side.  So I went up to it, punched the guy and stole the cab as my date got in the back seat.  The whole time, we were having the casual after-dinner conversation.  Haha!

[wizall]

You guys are further along than I am.  I'm moderately stuck at a mission right now (four retries):

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It's the mission where you have to kill Faustian's daugther's bf.  I can't fucking drive motorcycles, at all, let alone shoot from the goddamn things.  I've half a mind to the let the guy go.  God knows I know plenty of girls who've made worse decisions on the boy-front.

[Cobra951]

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You don't have to chase him on a motorcycle, do you?  I'm sure I didn't use one for a mission until much later.

 

You should learn the bikes anyway.  Find a fast one.  Use straight line acceleration to compensate for lousy handling.  Careful on the brakes.  They all skid if you jam the brakes.

[Quemaqua]

I love the bikes like crazy.  It kind of sucks when you ram into something and go flying 40 feet, but that doesn't happen very often once you get decent at it, and the comedy value makes up for the annoyance, heh.

[ScaryTooth]

I was flying down the road on a crotch rocket. Hit a car and went flying in the air, and landed on an old lady killing her. I laughed my ass off.

[Cobra951]

That's really funny.    I haven't messed with civilians a whole lot.  I've run over people who won't react to my horn.  One time Brucie got plowed by a car as he followed me across the street.  Flat and motionless on the pavement.  I thought I was looking at loading my last save, but he just got up and started talking casually again.  That cracked me up.  I like all the different reactions when you pull people out of their cars.  I finally got to see someone hanging on to the door as I sped away.  Most of them don't want to fight.

Last night seemed like one frustration after another.  One too many AI idiocies got me into a bad mood.  In particular, someone turning left across my path right in freaking front of me sent the car careening like a pinball on the sidewalk between the parked cars and the wall.  I'm so sick of that ill-programmed shit.  Where are the Sherman tanks in this game?  Then as I'm still fuming about that, I get into this mission where my hands somehow become lethal weapons, at exactly the wrong time.

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I think it's called "A long way to fall".  I have to intimidate this black guy wearing a jersey with the number 72 on it.  First time, it worked, then I got killed afterwards.  The rest of the mission is urban warfare through a building looking for a thug to kill.  I walked out of an elevator into machine guns, and that cut out all of my armor in a heartbeat.  Couldn't survive after that.  OK, so try again.  2 punches, and Mr 72 is dead.  "Dead people can't talk".  Mission fails.  WHAT?!  Again, same result.  Again, same result.  Fifth time, one punch, wait.  Guy punches me.  Repeat, repeat.  I'm sitting there losing life.  Finally the guy goes down without dying.  I get through the rest, but I was so worked up about failing after all that crap that I was shaking by the time the thug fell from the roof to his death.

I hope I live long enough to see this game played on an emulator, with save states.  Fuck.

[idolminds]

Heh, its fun to mess with trainers in the GTA3 series games on PC. One option sets your car to weigh...whatever the max weight is. You need to couple this with making your car indestructible since going over the littlest bumps will wreck the thing from bottoming out. But once you get it going, nothing stops the car. Other cars just smash and go flying.

[Cobra951]

Honestly, I don't know why I'm being so stubborn about cheating.  It's not like I really care about achievements.  I could have aced that mission by dialing a cheat number on the cell phone which restores all health.  I'm being too pig-headed for my own good.  Frustration is like the polar opposite of fun, and games are supposed to be about fun.  Whatever.  If I cheat now, it will all have been for naught.  I am very tempted at times.

You can spawn some entertaining vehicles with the phone too.    Maybe what I need to do is start a 2nd game just for cheating my ass off, and relieving the stress.

[scottws]

I never cheated in the GTA games.  Honestly, I didn't even know you could.  It's always been one of the games where I don't mind a challenge even if it's sometimes ridiculously hard.

[Cobra951]

My hangup is more with repetition of preliminaries than with the mission proper.  I like the combat more now than ever.  In IV, you can choose to redo a mission, but you'll be minus the body armor and ammo you expended the previous time.  Having to go find those more than negates the time saved by skipping the trip over to the mission start point.  Better to load the previous save, and be fully outfitted.  A checkpoint system would be perfect, but Rockstar have hung on to this punishing save system since at least 3 games ago.  One improvement is autosave after any significant accomplishment, like a completed mission or outing with an NPC.  That does help a bit.

[Ghandi]

Here's a slideshow showing the similarities of Liberty City to New York City. Cool stuff.

[Quemaqua]

That's actually pretty cool.  I didn't realize quite how much was in there.

[Cobra951]

I'm wondering what that polygonal glass building is.  I don't remember ever seeing the real one.

Ever try to wreck a Turismo?  It's impossible!  The engine is behind you, and I guess the game doesn't care how much you deform the front end.  I was bashing everything in sight, full speed, head on.  I had 2 wheels at funny angles and a bit of smoke, but it just kept going.  Also, cops only care if you hit them directly.  You can pile other cars into them all you want.  Sheer mayhem all around, and they just sit there and take it.

Plow together a big pile of cars you wrecked, and then toss a grenade into the heap.  Ooh!  Nice fireworks.  You'll have to bolt out of there afterwards, though.

Edit: ZP GTA IV review.  Not too funny this time, because he actually likes it.  His negatives I generally agree with.  In particular, the social outing crap gets very tedious if you're in this for the long haul.

[MysterD]

Edit: ZP GTA IV review.  Not too funny this time, because he actually likes it.  His negatives I generally agree with.  In particular, the social outing crap gets very tedious if you're in this for the long haul.

LOL @ the remark of Niko looking like he was one of the characters in Half-Life 2.

[Quemaqua]

Well done with exception of the PS3 control bashing.  I still like the PS3 controls better (and all the sixaxis stuff is completely optional... it's even turned off by default), plus the streaming is supposed to be superior thanks to the install to the hard drive.  And the multiplayer is free, though he didn't even mention the multiplayer, which seems like an odd oversight.  I can think of any number of things he could have bitched about there (though I do enjoy it immensely, there are some areas it could use some work).

[Cobra951]

Jesus, 3-Leaf Clover . . .

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The bank job.  Insanity.  Does it get even tougher than this?  I hope not.  I finally got through it with this tiny sliver of life flashing red.  Must have gone through it 7 times at least.  On the 2nd attempt, I got to the subway, thinking I'm clear, and these cops shoot me dead from around the bend.  Argh!  I didn't get there again until the final attempt.  Then, after escaping the subway and losing the wanted level on the road, I hit this low wall that divides a street downtown and the SUV flips over.  NOOO!  Keep flipping!  YES!  It went all the way around the barrel roll and righted itself.  I about had a heart attack.  That was some price to pay for unlocking the last island.

I figured the comment about the PS3 version would get your dander up.  I'm curious to see it in action on the PS3.  The HDD install has to help.  During the very long time I've spent on the game, it has frozen for several seconds twice, both times in the same dense area downtown, as I was making a turn.  I haven't had any other major hitches like that, and no more session-ending lockups after the one I mentioned before (where it never came back from a loading screen).  It's very well behaved, but details do take a second or 2 to fill in sometimes.

[scottws]

Well done with exception of the PS3 control bashing.  I still like the PS3 controls better (and all the sixaxis stuff is completely optional... it's even turned off by default), plus the streaming is supposed to be superior thanks to the install to the hard drive.  And the multiplayer is free, though he didn't even mention the multiplayer, which seems like an odd oversight.  I can think of any number of things he could have bitched about there (though I do enjoy it immensely, there are some areas it could use some work).

I watched a bunch of Yahtzee reviews I never bothered watching before and in the Medal of Honor: Airborne one he says that he doesn't play multiplayer.

So sixaxis... it sucks?  It seems like everyone hates it.

[Quemaqua]

It doesn't really suck, there's just not much point in using it with most things.  They haven't done anything meaningful with it.  But it actually works fairly well.  It just really isn't something a lot of devs need or want to use, so when they do it's generally something simple like how you "yank out" the collectable souls from the enemies in Folklore.

[K-man]

Finished it the other night.  What a helluva game.  Probably cracks my top ten.

[MysterD]

DJ Red Lantern (who is on The Beat's Radio Station 102.7 in GTA4) is planning to release a rap/R&B/reggae compilation that are inspired by GTA4.

"Liberty City Invasion: Music From and Inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV" is due out May 20th.

Some of the artists include:
--The Clipse
--Busta Rhymes
--Styles P (formerly of The LOX and Ruff Ryders)
--Helltah Skeltah (Sean Price aka Ruck and Rock)
--Buckshot
--Wyclef Jean (formerly of The Fugees)
--Juelz Santana.

GTAIV album announced
DJ Green Lantern to release 16-track compilation of tunes from and inspired by the game, coming May 20.
By Emma Boyes, GameSpot UK
Posted May 16, 2008 4:18 am PT

Of the many neat little touches to Rockstar's action adventure Grand Theft Auto IV, the mind-boggling array of different radio stations to choose from while driving around Liberty City proved to be a big favourite with fans.

The stations have some 200 songs on rotation, spanning a wide range of genres, and include The Beat 102.7 (hip hop), Electrochoc (dance/electronica), Jazz Nation Radio 108.5 (jazz), and Vladivostok FM (Eastern European).

DJ Green Lantern, also known as The Evil Genius, who presents The Beat radio station, has announced a soundtrack album that includes eight tracks pulled from his in-game setlist, and eight more exclusive songs inspired by GTAIV. It will be different from The Music Of Grand Theft Auto IV which was included with the Special Edition.

The album--Liberty City Invasion: Music From and Inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV--will span hip-hop, reggae, and R&B, with featured performers including Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, and Fabolous. It will be available to download from "all major digital retailers" on May 20, with a retail release is planned soon after.

The full tracklisting is as follows:

Styles P--"What's the Problem"
Busta Rhymes--"Where's My Money"
Wyclef, Uncle Murda & Mavado--"Informer"
Joell Ortiz & Dante Hawkins--"Alone"
Jim Jones & Juelz Santana--"Bustin' Shots"
Maino--"Get Away Driver"
Uncle Murda--"Anybody Can Get It"
Fabolous & Fat Joe--"I'm So Fly"
Qadir--"Nickname"
38 Special, Fever & Dwayne--"Streets Raised Me"
Clipse feat. Re-Up Gang--"9mm"
Heltah Skeltah feat. Buckshot--"Can't Trust Em"
Red Cafe--"Stick'm"
Immortal Technique--"Parole"
Tru Life--"Wet Em Up"
Johnny Polygon--"Price On Your Head"

[Cobra951]

D, you don't have this game.  Quit spamming the thread. 

The music CD that came with the limited edition is sort of a joke, isn't it?  I'm glad I didn't pay for it.  There are like 7 tracks I like, and fortunately one of them is 12 minutes long.  They're not a very good representation of all the music in the game.  The album is way too rap-heavy.  I wish they'd release a complete compilation of the radio stations.

[sirean_syan]

I felt like Three Leaf Clover was probably the hardest mission for me. There are bigger fights later, but by then you've generally got more or better cover or just more used to gunfights. There are a couple of hard chase sequences, but those are pretty few in the general scheme of things.

I finished the second ending today as well. Good stuff.

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Although I'd have a hard time picking which is really the "good" ending, though.

It's cool they kept things from getting overblown like Vice City or San Andreas, but at the same time it feels strange to play a game that long and not come out saving the world or be the king of it. I can't fault the game for it and I like how things turned out, I guess I've just been conditioned to expect such things after so many games where length tends to result in a general hugeness in the end. It's nice to see a game buck that trend and keep a level head in that respect.

[K-man]

I think overall it's a pretty good satire (and criticism) of the American dream.

[Quemaqua]

I burned myself out on it, I guess.  I got pissed off at a mission, and after I finally beat it (stupid AI kept getting itself killed) I just put it down and haven't picked it back up.  The urge still comes on me periodically, and I know that I'm going back to it before long just because I'm not playing or looking forward to any other action games right now.  Plus there's a bunch of stuff I haven't explored yet, and GTA4 finally succeeded in creating a city that's actually interesting to explore just intrinsically, a thing all the other games mostly failed at after you'd played them for a while.

[MysterD]

The two actors that played Nico (Michael Hollick) and Roman (Jason Zumwalt) are complaining that the Actor's Union just doesn't cover video games for royalties and whatnot, while pretty much doing radio and TV stuff actually does.

GTA4 Voice Actors Complain of Union Follies
Niko, Roman wish they were seeing some extra scratch.
By Steve Watts, 05/21/2008

Grand Theft Auto IV is making obscene gobs of cash for Rockstar Games and Take-Two, but some of the people invested in bringing the project to life feel a little left out of the cash flow. The New York Times reports that Michael Hollick, who voiced Niko Bellic, isn't quite rolling in the dough like his videogame counterpart.

And while Niko would just take the money through a series of murders and thefts, Hollick is a bit more polite, casually commenting on the sometimes-unfortunate circumstances of showbiz. Rockstar paid him a total of about $100,000 for 15 months of voice and motion-capture work, with no royalties or residuals based on the success of the game. As it turns out, the Screen Actors Guild contract doesn't make provisions for electronic media, including videogames. Negotiations are coming this summer to determine how the guild will deal with electronic media in the future, but of course any contract revisions won't be applied retroactively, so Hollick's GTA4 pay won't be increased.

"Obviously, I'm incredibly thankful to Rockstar for the opportunity to be in this game when I was just a nobody, an unknown quantity," said Hollick. "But it's tough, when you see Grand Theft Auto IV out there as the biggest thing going right now, when they're making hundreds of millions of dollars, and we don't see any of it." But he goes on: "I don't blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games. Yes, the technology is important, but it's the human performances within them that people really connect to, and I hope actors will get more respect for the work they do within those technologies."

Even in promotion for the title, Hollick sees chinks in the union agreements. "The first GTA4 trailer generated something like 40 million hits online, and that's my voice all over it, and I get nothing. If that were a radio spot, I would have," he said. "Same thing for the TV ads. I recorded those lines for the game, but now they're all over television. It's another gray area."

But Hollick isn't the only one who feels the system is out of whack. Last week, Jason Zumwalt, voice of Niko's cousin Roman, came out with a more humorous take on the subject, claiming his lack of residuals is forcing him to rent himself out.

Though it's probably too late for the actors of Grand Theft Auto IV to receive extra compensation, these efforts may raise public awareness before the upcoming union negotiations. The recent Hollywood writer negotiations that resulted in a massive strike had electronic media at the root as well, so we're seeing unions slowly adapt to the changing face of the media. We'll see what happens in the SAG negotiations later this year.

[Cobra951]

Joystiq makes a good point about that.  If the voice actors get residuals, then should whoever did the animation for the character, and if motion capture was involved, so should the actor that did that.  Once you have enough fingers in the pie, there isn't enough to cover what has to be covered.

[idolminds]

$100,000 is like, a lot of money as it is. How much do you think some random Rockstar programmer made? Or one of the environment artists that spent months building entire areas of the city? I'm sure they are paid well enough, but they probably won't be getting such kickbacks. "The area of the city I built was shown in the TV spot, I want a cut!" probably isn't going to fly.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, that's a hard point to argue.  Though in the case of this guy, apparently he also did the motion capture (if I read that right).  It seems like a lot compared to somebody like me who makes well under $40k a year, but for actors anyone, involved in fairly decent work is going to be making some pretty decent cash.  Even people you see involved in really shitty, lame TV are living in really big fucking houses if they aren't extras, you know?  Not saying I think that's fair, as frankly I think a lot of these people don't deserve a fifteenth of the money they get, but in context, what this guy is saying is somewhat accurate.  The programmer would be more like the set design guy for a movie in this version of the equation.

[idolminds]

Except no one buys a videogame because of the voice actor. They buy it for whatever the programmer is making the game do.

It'll be kind of funny if this stuff all changes. Lots of game still have no voice acting, with everything in text. VA fees too high? Screw it.

Though it won't ever get that far. As a young VA that wants to get their name out there, what better place than something like GTA? Big name stars wont take $100,000 with no royalties for what is sure to be a huge blockbuster, but some no-name will jump at that gig.

[Quemaqua]

Keep in mind that voice acting generally doesn't make a lot of cabbage for the amount of work one does, either.  If you're good you can make money, sure, but it's a fairly difficult business to break into, at least from what I know about it.  And not every game is GTA or will afford you that kind of income.  Generally speaking unless you're big-name talent, you don't make a lot of scratch.  That's why you see these people doing work *everywhere*, because they want all the jobs they can get.  I think they're definitely making more now than they were, but to my knowledge things have only started improving more recently.

And while it's true that people don't buy games for the actors, the actors can also heavily influence how convincingly a story comes out, which may help convince someone to buy a game, at least to a degree.  Good acting is always something we enjoy, even if it isn't something we actively look for, because it's always preferable to bad acting.  But there are times when it's influenced me, and times when I can see it doing so in the future.  For instance, if there was ever a sequel to Final Fantasy XII, I'd be very disappointed if the original cast didn't come back for that (though most of the time you do get entire casts back in the world of games because, as mentioned, voice actors want all the jobs they can get).  I thought those people did a job and a half on most of those performances.

[scottws]

Got my 360 back yesterday and played another hour or so.  Many the early missions are mind-numbingly boring, aren't they?

I did find a Coquette and had some fun with that though.

[MysterD]

Except no one buys a videogame because of the voice actor. They buy it for whatever the programmer is making the game do.

But, if it's an excellent well-known voice-actor, it can help seal the deal even more so.

There's been some good games that would've been even better if the voice-acting wasn't so poor or all over the place. Especially if the lead character and/or arch nemesis in the game isn't well voice-acted, it really isn't going to help matters.

It'll be kind of funny if this stuff all changes. Lots of game still have no voice acting, with everything in text. VA fees too high? Screw it.

I think you can get away w/ no voice-acting OVER using a poor voice-actor, in some instances -- especially in a HUGE-sized game. In a huge-sized game like a RPG like say the NWN series proved. NWN proved you can have all of the main quests very well voice-acted using unique actors for main-quest NPC's, but have no voice-acting for the side quests -- then, nobody will really complain. I think it would've helped Gothic 2, to have followed *that* philosophy as too many of the main characters have the same voice-actors as other main characters and side characters in the game.

Though it won't ever get that far. As a young VA that wants to get their name out there, what better place than something like GTA? Big name stars wont take $100,000 with no royalties for what is sure to be a huge blockbuster, but some no-name will jump at that gig.

I think w/ so much emphasis on Roman and Nico in the game; from their voice-acting and motion-capture -- which you will notice from the commercials, trailers, and any other ads for the game -- yeah, their likeness will probably grow on you. So, in a sense, even if they ain't well known now, everybody's now gonna know who these two voice-actors are; these are basically the two faces (and voices) of the game, anyways.

I'm sure now, given how good GTA4 turned out to gamers and critics, these two guys will probably be highly in demand for doing voice-acting in games. And probably get paid a good amount of money for whatever the hell they do next, too.

[Cobra951]

Got my 360 back yesterday and played another hour or so.  Many the early missions are mind-numbingly boring, aren't they?

I did find a Coquette and had some fun with that though.

Once you find it, the Turismo is the easiest supercar in the game to get.  It's also the best all-rounder, imho.  The Coquette is also a well-behaved fun machine.  Neither of these is the quickest or the fastest.  I'll leave you to discover those on your own.  Once you get a new rare car, save it.  (Park it in a saving spot, then save the game in the corresponding safe house.)  Then drive it around near the safe house until copies start to spawn.  Park it in the safe spot again, and run over to one of the duplicates.  Use that instead of the original.

Missions range from quick and easy to hard as nails.  Some will get your adrenaline going.  Once you learn the combat and start to pick up good weapons, the fun factor ratchets up.

[Quemaqua]

I finally unlocked the last island this morning.  Depending on how far I actually am, I don't know if I'll finish the game or not.  I want to, but the story's taken a pretty big turn for the uninteresting at this point and there isn't much urgency like there was initially.  That's a bit of a letdown.  I want to see what happens to Niko, but things haven't really seemed to be about Niko for a while now.  So we'll see, I guess.

[ScaryTooth]

I just unlocked the 3rd island myself. But I haven't played these last two days. Been doing outdoorsy stuff. Probably going to pick it back up tomorrow after work. I'm still really interested in the story. I really want to finish this one. It's just been really good so far.