Garrison64

There's nothing missing. It is what it is. One thing it is not is GTA SA 2. SA fans just don't like that they didn't include everything from that game which to me wasn't necessary to make it a good game anyway. IV is such an improvement over the previous games in the series. I don't expect everyone to agree with that. The long time SA fans just can't get over the fact that they can't parachute, jetpack, or fly planes in this one. It doesn't make it any less of a game because those things arent' there. I see all the improvements in the game where others just see something missing that they enjoyed in a past game. We have different viewpoints and there's just no way everyone will agree on it. To me this game was worth a 10. No game is perfect but there's a point with games where you reach a pinnacle at a certain time where a game goes way beyond anything you expected it to be. To me this game does that. I feel it deserves the best score you can give it because it's just that good overall.

It'll be easy for any previous GTA gamer as it's not much different from the others except for the driving and maybe the new cover system which is easy to use anyway. I found it to be moderately difficult overall but nothing too bad. It wasn't too easy so I had to say easy. There are a few missions that are fairly challenging. SA was harder but not by a lot.

I pretty much got into the story as I started taking people out as friends or on dates. At first I didn't understand what made Niko tick but the story was slowly played out by the dialoge between characters as you drive people around. It was really a good story and for people that just bum rush the missions they are going to miss out on it. As I started to understand Niko more and more it make me want to play him as I thought he really would act. The war had hardened him and make him capable of inhuman acts but inside he wanted something more. He also wanted revenge for the betrayal in his past. As for dating I went out with Mallory a few times because at the start I wanted to see what all would happen but after that the only person I dated in the game was Kate. I wanted to see what would become of them in the story line. As it played out I could see that Roman and Kate were falling in love with each other. If you play it that way there are lines in the story that let you know that. I never saw it as a thing of conquering Kate. I wanted to see if R* would really put in a serious relationship instead of the usually wham bam thankyoumaam relationships the main charactes usually have in the games. Even Packie starts making comments to Niko about seeing something between Niko and his sister. As the game nears its' end I enjoyed the fact they gave you the choice to basically choose whether you would take the money and go with Roman and riches or cut off the past and move forward with Kate. Roman had already proposed and had his future bride in hand so that part was taking care of itself. He would be happy even without the money. Roman even says so over the phone after Niko kills Dimitri. Then Kate actually accepts Niko as a serious relationship and Niko says he will take care of her and that was really exciting to me. So I spend most of the game fostering this relationship between the two being careful about dates and doing them just right, wearing the clothes Kate likes, not doing anything to hurt the relationship. And in the end when she got killed it really made me sad. In the way I played, Niko had done a lot to make his life better. He even let the guy go that he so badly wanted to kill for revenge. That guy was going to suffer more by living than he ever would with a bullet in his head. Besides that, it was time to move on, to let the past go. But Kate's death just put him right back where he started, living in the past, dealing with more pain. I would really hate to be Niko. I felt sorry for him more than ever. I'm sure it seems stupid to some to get so into a game but that's what makes it fun for me. It really was a good story. Too bad so many won't ever experience that part of it. If you don't date or go out with friends on a regular basis a lot of the main story plot goes totally unnoticed. I'm sure that's why I see people saying that the story has no depth. It does, they just missed it in their rush to 100%.

My only complaint is that the cars seem to have springs but no shocks. They bounce and sway too much. This is especially true with any of the taller vehicles. The handling however is way more realistic and more challenging. The triggers allow you to actually throttle up slowly and as someone already said you'll get wheel spin if you just squeeze the trigger all the way down as you slide through a corner. It just takes practice. I do feel quite often that the AI car seems to have handling advantages. When I"m chasing an AI controlled car it seems to take corners and switch directions with ease and can often be nearly impossible to keep up with.

Don't remember them saying that. Do you have a quote from somewhere? It's been this way in all the GTA games. Buildings that are not mission related are typically there just for looks. The exceptions are the ones that are related to character development such as eating establishments, clothing stores, gyms, ect. I don't think there's any way at this point in time they could make a city of that size with real interiors. That would just take forever to program and there would be no real point in it for the most part except it might be fun to explore. Maybe one day on a much more powerful system that will become a reality.

Yes, too bad they don't become brand new after you put them there, I wrecked my infernus No more free car repairs I guess. Off to the Pay-n-Spray then. I know they still fix cars. I tried that out already.

You can also drive by people with their car doors open and rip the door off. I also like the way people will hang on to their car as you drive off with it and get dragged until they can't hang on any more and then tumble around in the road.

Well they did say already that there was extra content coming at least for the Xbox 360. I think I saw somewhere that there will be something for the PS3 as well. I just finished GTA SA a couple of weeks ago for the first time. GTA IV is certainly different and that's how I take it. I didn't have expectations for it to be like GTA SA or Vice City or any of the other GTA games. It looks different, it plays different. They had already announced in the pre-release interviews that it was going to be different so I didn't have any specific expectations except that it looked awesome on the trailers. After playing for a few hours I love GTA IV. I like to let games stand on their own even if they are part of a series. I can see why the die hard GTA fans are disappointed by certain things especially after the hugely expansive SA. That was a huge game with a lot of extra stuff to do. I would have loved it if GTA IV could be that big and still have the vastly improved graphics and all but I doubt they had the time or room on the disk to do all that. Besides it's different. Who wants exactly the same thing over and over. Been there done that you know? It would be really borning if GTA IV was exactly the same as SA except with improved graphics. I'd much prefer new content. However I do agree that they should have kept in some of the side missions like cabs, police, firetruck ect. That stuff was pretty fun to do. Overall though GTA IV is awesome so far. I'm having a lot of fun just walking around exploring the city and getting in fist fights with peds.

The big problem with the opponents of the game is that they take everything out of context of the game world and try to compare it to the real world. Sorry but that just doesn't fly. In the GTA gameworld the cops are every bit as bad and over the top as the bad guys. How many times do you see a cop in the game go over and jerk someone out of their car and shoot them dead on the spot? I see it a lot. It often happens just because the person bumped their car into the cop's car. If that kind of crap was happening in the real world you'd see a lot of people shooting cops. There's really nothing realistic about the cop/badguy interaction in the game except that when you do certain bad things it triggers the police to come get you. But you can run a red light or go way over the speed limit in the game and all the cops totally ignore you. The conservative fanatics get all worked up over it but there's nothing real about how the gameworld of GTA works. It looks realistic but it doesn't behave realistically. And that's because it's just a game. A game for adults that of course will end up in kid's hands just like their Dad's Playboy collection. That happens because some parents just don't give a crap about what their kids are exposed to. Blame it on the parents if the kids get hold of it not Rockstar for making an adult oriented game. It does have the rating on it plain as day so if the kids are getting it that's their parent's fault.

The guns are fun and all but I'm finding fist fights to be very fun in this version. I still haven't managed to consistently pull off the dodge thing though. Occasionally it will happen but usually it just tossed up a block. But the punching and kicking are a lot more gratifying than before. I also like the way people will fall and get back up and stumble around or try to get away sometimes hunched over like they are hurting. It's pretty incredible how they react.

It's different but then the whole game is a bit different as well. I just see it as a bit of gaming evolution and there are always differences when that happens. New system, new capabilities, different programming to take all the new physics ect into account. It can't be easy to do what they've done here. There is so much in the game to be praised from a gamer's viewpoint. I'm willing to learn to deal with the few things that may not please me personally. About the only thing I would love to see changed, and hopefully they will in a PC version, would be an increase in "clear" view distance. I think they've done a great thing with the painted look of the background as it blends into clarity much better than the old way where everything just sort of popped into view and anything beyond was a fog. But I wish the focused area extended out a few blocks at least. It's ok when I'm just walking around. I hardly notice then. But when driving I'm trying to look down the road ahead and it's like driving with blurred vision. But the game over all is just amazing. I would absolutely give it a 10 just due to the incredible atmosphere of the city and all the little things they put in. I've spent a lot of time just walking around looking at things not really doing anything in particular and what I see everywhere I go just blows me away. So many small things that could easily be overlooked in a mad rush to complete missions. This game will definitely take me a very long time to complete.

I don't think the specs would be so high. You gotta remember that the Xbox 360 has been out for quite a while now. Any medium to top end computer can do what it can do and/or more. 6 months from now even more people will have upgraded or purchased newer computers. The graphics are so good in this game all they really need to do to make it great is increase the draw distance so the fuzziness is much further out and it would be perfect. I would really be curious to see how it would run on my system. I can run Crysis and any other modern game at full rez with no problems. I even have all Crysis settings on High. If this game takes more power than that to run then it truely is a marval that they got it to run so well on the Xbox 360.

I'm playing on the XBox 360 and was wondering how you pull off a dodge. I know you press A to do it but all I seem to be able to do is block. What's the trick to dodging?

After finally getting some time in playing I really hope they do a PC version so we can see it with a greater draw distance. The "painting" look of the back ground happens way to close to the player on the consoles. Everything goes fuzzy so close that it sometimes messes with my head when driving. It reminds me of how it looked when you were driving a really fast car in GTA SA except it is there even when you are moving slow. Up close the graphics are fantastic though. THe detail is amazing. The look of the city is exceptionally good. It really does feel like a real place. I just wish that fuzzy look could be moved further out. Like say a mile or so away it would start. I think that will be possible on the PC especially on the hardware that will be available in 6 months which is usually how long it is before the PC version arrives. Who knows though. I'm hoping they will.

In order to play Crysis you had to have a godlike computer, Assassins Creed had nice graphics...but if you didn't mind doing the same missions over and over again then it is the game for you, FarCry is one of my favorite game series so we'll see how that turns out. Currently, GTA 4 has amazing graphics for a consoul game and one that is completely open ended without any loading screens besides during cutscenes. Crysis isn't as bad as people say. My system is far from godlike and has a 8800GT OC BFG video card but runs Crysis at the max res with all options on high. It stutters a bit on some heavy action scenes but for the most part runs fine. If I dropped the rez or some graphic options a bit it would run smooth all the way through. The only time Crysis requires a really top end system is if you are trying to max out everything and put the graphic options on Very High with AA maxed out.