chronovore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chronovore) wrote2008-06-23 04:28 pm
chronovore) wrote2008-06-23 04:28 pm
IV ramblings -cont'd-
I've been playing GTA IV like it's my job, There's a lot to do in GTA IV, and it's a little overwhelming. And the dating/friend thing is frequently distracting, but the biggest sin in that feature is that the activities are not fun. Darts could have been totally fun if they'd dealt with it like Gears of War's grenade throw parabola. Bowling's not intuitive, and there's an easy way to get perfect strikes every time. Pool's pretty good, and the atmosphere of the location's well done; it feels like pool in a dive bar! But it's kind of goofy that the best minigame in the whole thing is just getting drunk and trying to get home while drunk driving and avoiding police, or the only-slightly-easier "get into a taxi while hammered" minigame. That's more fun than bowling or darts, which are real games! What the heck?!
In general the citizenry are neatly fleshed out, and their speech and reactions are really fun to encounter. I've seen guys pulling stuff out of their car trunk, noticed that trash trucks tend to run around between 03:00 and 05:00, they've got street preachers, sax players in the park, joggers, and plenty of peeps picking up 'hos. It's a rich city with a lot going on. However it seems like people don't talk to each other much; there're a lot of one-way conversations with people on their cellphones, and very rarely do people talk with each other. I think GTA's narrative is meticulously enough constructed that I don't doubt that the ubiquitous cellphone I wish I didn't have to see people getting out of their car after hitting me quite so frequently though. Man, previous GTAs the cars would stop; I've actually been killed by an NPC hitting me then stopping with me UNDER their car. Ouch.
The best thing that can be said about the dating in IV is that it's not as broken as it was in San Andreas. Instead of getting the right weight and musclemass, all you have to do is show up in different clothes than last time. The perks from the girls are the closest you get to a "power up" in the game, which is a little lame. I've had times when Carmen's "health boost" has saved my ass, and other times when she says she's doing it but my health doesn't change. Kiki's is pretty useful, as 3-star is hard to outrun sometimes.
The trip-skip in cabs is pretty much the best breakthrough feature in the game. "Drive! Or, don't if you don't want to." It's stunning too, because trip-skip was in the previous games from San Andreas, LCS, and VCS... but it was SO BADLY implemented. I'd die in a mission, and it would respawn me at the hospital with a cab waiting to take me to the mission start again -- WITH NO WEAPONS. In Vice City Stories they allowed you to pay a bribe to get your weapons back from either police or hospital, but no armor. So it was of tremendously limited use. Like showing up to school on exam day with a pencil, but naked.
I'm enjoying GTA IV still, but not in the ways I expected. I hate flag collection stuff like Assassin's Creed has - "Collect 35 Masyaf flags" -- I got to 34, then couldn't find the last one -- and decided I was done with that gameplay in all games forever. However I then went on to collect ALL the hidden treasures in Tomb Raider Legend, and in GTA IV I now have 106 of 200 Flying Rats. So I guess it's really about presentation and/or reward. The flags in AC just seemed lazily implemented. It's not gameplay, it's not really encouraging exploration so much as endless wandering around.
And for the uninterested in my GTA ramblings:
In general the citizenry are neatly fleshed out, and their speech and reactions are really fun to encounter. I've seen guys pulling stuff out of their car trunk, noticed that trash trucks tend to run around between 03:00 and 05:00, they've got street preachers, sax players in the park, joggers, and plenty of peeps picking up 'hos. It's a rich city with a lot going on. However it seems like people don't talk to each other much; there're a lot of one-way conversations with people on their cellphones, and very rarely do people talk with each other. I think GTA's narrative is meticulously enough constructed that I don't doubt that the ubiquitous cellphone I wish I didn't have to see people getting out of their car after hitting me quite so frequently though. Man, previous GTAs the cars would stop; I've actually been killed by an NPC hitting me then stopping with me UNDER their car. Ouch.
The best thing that can be said about the dating in IV is that it's not as broken as it was in San Andreas. Instead of getting the right weight and musclemass, all you have to do is show up in different clothes than last time. The perks from the girls are the closest you get to a "power up" in the game, which is a little lame. I've had times when Carmen's "health boost" has saved my ass, and other times when she says she's doing it but my health doesn't change. Kiki's is pretty useful, as 3-star is hard to outrun sometimes.
The trip-skip in cabs is pretty much the best breakthrough feature in the game. "Drive! Or, don't if you don't want to." It's stunning too, because trip-skip was in the previous games from San Andreas, LCS, and VCS... but it was SO BADLY implemented. I'd die in a mission, and it would respawn me at the hospital with a cab waiting to take me to the mission start again -- WITH NO WEAPONS. In Vice City Stories they allowed you to pay a bribe to get your weapons back from either police or hospital, but no armor. So it was of tremendously limited use. Like showing up to school on exam day with a pencil, but naked.
I'm enjoying GTA IV still, but not in the ways I expected. I hate flag collection stuff like Assassin's Creed has - "Collect 35 Masyaf flags" -- I got to 34, then couldn't find the last one -- and decided I was done with that gameplay in all games forever. However I then went on to collect ALL the hidden treasures in Tomb Raider Legend, and in GTA IV I now have 106 of 200 Flying Rats. So I guess it's really about presentation and/or reward. The flags in AC just seemed lazily implemented. It's not gameplay, it's not really encouraging exploration so much as endless wandering around.
And for the uninterested in my GTA ramblings:
"A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth."
Aesop
no subject
no subject
1) choose the alley's left-most lane
2) take two full steps to the left, then get in ready position
3) on a slow-ish "one, two" count, pull back on "one" and push forward on "two"
4) do not add aftertouch
It takes a few tries, but I got the "Gobble Gobble" Achievement on my 4th game after learning that technique.
I'm up to 137 pigeons as of this morning. What's neat about pigeons is that the designers really stuck them in pigeon-like places, there's a "coo-coo" audio cue to let you know where the damned thing is (like Crackdown's Agility Orb sounds, but shorter range), and you get to SHOOT A FUCKING PIGEON with a rocket launcher, sniper rifle, shotgun, whatever. POOF - nothing but feathers. It's callous and non-PETA-friendly in a way that the flags in Assassin's Creed cannot deliver.