Grand Theft Auto 4 is set to appear on our boxy electronic workhorses on the 18th of November (21st in Europe, mysteriously). I wonder how many of you will be getting this on PC? Did anyone miss out on the consoles and actually wait for the PC version? I’d find it hard to argue against this being one of the best games this year, and so I’m genuinely glad it’s going to hit the PC – with “newly expanded multiplayer” – this side of Christmas. But it does beg the question: where are we going to find to fit this in around everything else that’s coming out on the PC this year? A tough conundrum, I know…
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Cataclysm: The same could have been said (and probably was) for GTA: SA before it came out – and that was an amazing game (if you didn’t mind the setting) and decent port. If people waited for reviews and then, on the basis of those, said, “Crappy port,” I’d understand. But at this point the bile seems largely a kneejerk reaction, at least to me.
At this rate of decent games coming to the PC, I say I buy GTA4 about… my birthday next year so it been released after a whole year for the console. Might be cheaper as well.
@Thirith
It is my opinion that describing it as “sucking donkey balls” is actually probably more accurate a description of it than calling it a game.
I think I got more “fun” out of that “game” by looking at a blog where somone clearly bored of the “game” had decided to just wander around the gorgeous city and see some sights then go take pictures of the inspirations and references around real life NYC.
The engine gets props from me just because you rarely see the same building twice anywhere. Now that’s an achievement. Giving people the ability to change their clothes then only 3 or 4 shops to buy loads of identical stuff just in different shades of drab colours is not an achievement. It’s rubbish.
Someone better at words than me said somewhere that the difference between US developers and the rest of the world seems to be that US developers think “mature” is grim gritty with tits and fanny and other developers allow stuff such as adults themes that don’t revolve around cock, fanny, shit, blood, cum and piss to enter into games.
Now IIRC and I concede I may be wrong here but wasn’t GTA4 the first of these games Rockstar developed away from Scotland and in the US?
Don’t actually know why I care to be honest. I guess I was just a little shocked at Jim mentioning as GOTY.
I was really looking forward to GTA4, but it looks (based on five minutes on the internet) like it’ll have the version of SecuROM with the limited activations, so now I guess I’ll wait until it’s cheap enough to be like the rental it is.
Between this, FarCry2 and Dead Space PC gaming is getting cheaper for me all the time. Luckily there’s still L4D and Fallout 3 coming up to buy.
You call that honest. I call it hyperbole.
GTA IV? Sacrifice is the game of the year, obviously. It borrows from lots of other games but the ideas are put into one package rather well. I also like how they kept lower system specs in mind.
I can’t wait for it, I love the GTA games and this is the first one I didn’t own a console to play it on. So it will be my first GTA on pc and I look forward to seeing it on widescreen and hi-res :)
Sacrifice didn’t come out this year?
Also, to equate GTA4 with some idea of American ‘mature’ meaning grim with violence etc rather than sophistication seems a bit odd. I’d associate something like that with Gears and the like, whereas GTA4 at least makes an attempt at infusing its characters with moral ambiguity. Fine if you don’t think it succeeds (I think it does succeed, impressively but there’s little objectivity here) but the developers clearly weren’t going for that kind of childish ‘maturity’. Whereas they were in Vice City, and probably GTA3. Maybe to a lesser extent in San Andreas.
The quality and breadth of writing in GTA4 – especially the first half – is up there with The Wire.
Also, one of the most gut-wrenching ends to a game a can remember (and dressed in a Happiness is… T-shirt too).
“I’m sure you don’t really want me to list criticisms of the game as most of them are here already, but a focus on seriousness instead of fun is a general observation that seems to resonate with a lot of people”
Surprised to see that. In my playing on the work PS3, it’s seemed every bit as gloriously silly and OTT as the previous games. In fact, it’s felt like pretty much exactly the same game, just in a new setting with a tweaked driving model. Just like San Andreas felt like the same game in a new setting with a tweaked driving model.
I’ve enjoyed all three of them and am surprised to see people split between them so vociferously. Vice City was my ‘least favourite’ due to the whole Miami gangster setting being a bit tired, but I still absolutely loved it.
GTA4 too serious? C’mon…a game in which a copy shouts “I’m going to shit in your mouth!” while chasing you is not serious.
Me needs a new pc first, mine is from 2004/5, once I get it though my ‘List’ will be as long, as well, round about 4years worth of gaming…gtaIV will be up high, but fo3 – if its any good, will surely beat the shit out of it, gamehour wise.
I certainly need a break from TF2…
They improved the overall gameplay but lost ALL of the delicious humour of the previous titles. But then I prefer the stupidity of Crackdown, which scored almost universally lower across the board, so clearly I know nothing.
GTA on the PC is much better than any conosle I have tried it on, for sure.
Out of curiosity, why are people still calling the 360, PS3 and Wii next-gen consoles? People, they’re current-generation. They’ve all been in the wild for a long time now.
*meaning console, of course
I don’t own any of the current generation consoles and I’m a fan of the series, so I most likely will be getting it. Not sure about the more serious approach of the game, but I’ll try it myself.
@Fumarole
Because “next” sounds loads cooler than “current”.
Vice City is still my favorite of the series. Rockstar did a fantastic job of capturing a time and place; looking back on the 1980s through a lens of nostalgia and pop culture, I picture something totally like Vice City.
San Andreas is a fine game, but at times it feels overwrought, a bit too serious for its own good. The eating and workout requirements are completely unnecessary, too.
In a way, the VC to SA comparison reminds me of the HL1 to HL2 discussion of a few weeks back. When pressed, I would probably concede that both SA and HL2 are the better games, based on presentation, design, graphics, etc., but I enjoyed VC and HL1 immensely more.
My favourite part of the GTA4 storyline was when Niko moped about wanting to reform and live a straight life, immediately after I had mowed down a dozen civilians with a semi and sniped a handful of cops from a rooftop.
It’s nice that they wanted to go down a more mature road for the story, but it was completely and utterly disingenuous with the GTA gameplay. This, combined with the many gameplay annoyances that have already been mentioned, wrecked the game for me.
Living in NYC, I am interested in seeing it represented in GTA4. Also I like Ruskies so Niko is alright in my book. I didn’t particularly care for San Andreas, being a young inner city minority living (somewhat) around gangs, it should be my kind of ‘thing’. Sometimes I play games for escapism, and escapism that ain’t.
I did like GTA3, and while I have Vice City, I have yet to give it a good try.
I’ll definitely be buying this at some point, though probably not until 2009 and I’m bored of this years games.
Specifically waited for this to hit the PC. Hoping I’ll be able to empathise with the lead character – this was the only area I felt let down San Andreas.
@skillian: yeah the timestamp thing threw me off too. Either way, in regards to the people on here who did criticise the game, most of them that did say the game wasn’t their cup of tea usually put it down to subjective experience; meanwhile, the argument you outlined about the game being too serious in relation to it’s chirpy predecessors is again not exactly objective. Granted the moral overtones sometimes sit awkwardly next to the kill crazy gameplay, but that’s what you get when you give players freedom to do as they wish.
Agreed that console players can be just as childish when it comes to things like release dates, exclusivity etc. but in my experience console gamers are less likely to write off a game because it appeared on PC first or because they think it’s overhyped. Of course, you could argue that they’re less likely to do so because they’re not as well informed as PC players or more willing to buy into hype, but then that would kind of go some way to proving how PC gamers are elitist anyway.
I think a natural ‘next step’ for the GTA series is to offer some proper choice for the player. Not to the degree of an RPG, but at least give people the OPTION of making a more moral choice.
The crazy-criminal gameplay is great fun, but it also feels a little uncomfortable for me. It’s the main reason I lost interest in the Vice City storyline – I just didn’t enjoy being a mobster with no conscience.
I’m not saying I want to remove the OTT criminal element, because it IS great fun, and clearly loads of people love the escapism. But if they gave people different story routes they could take, it would help to support the different styles of gameplay. ie, people who go on crazy rampages would have a story that suits it, and people who actually try to drive carefully would as well.
The story has always been an odd inclusion in the GTA games, precisely because they’re so linear. You can’t be anything other than the extreme criminal they depict. That seems completely at odds with the freeform ‘do what YOU want to do’ nature of the actual gameplay.
You don’t have to kill bystanders in GTA4 though, you don’t have to kill anyone outside of the missions. Any bystanders killed are surely down to the player’s choice? In which case its a bit off blaming the game for allowing that kind of thing.
@terror
Doh, you’re right, i guess i got my dates mixed up given we went through a dry patch again this summer and i was relating GTA4 with the other games released before it.
I’ll probably pick it up in January when I’m over some of the better games. I want to play it, but I feel no need to pick it up at launch, seeing as it’s already 6 months late.
I’ll definitely get it. I am not the biggest fan of the series, and haven’t finished a single one, but funnily enough, all of the negative comments (and there has been quite a backlash) have almost convinced me it might be the first GTA I’ll properly love.
It looks to me like they focused on the main game elements this time (driving and shooting), and I always thought they were lacking in the earlier games, and all the minigames and silly stuff never really made up for it.
I don’t know, I don’t think it comes anywhere near living up to the hype. And I was one of those people who waited outside GameStop at midnight to buy it on the Xbox 360. It’s a decent game with great characters, but I still haven’t finished it, and that’s a pretty bad sign. I think one of the main problems is that any freedom the game has disappears once you start a mission. For example, some missions start out with you chasing a guy in a car and end with a shootout at the guy’s hideout. But if you decide you want to kill him by blowing up his car with an RPG before he makes it to his hideout you’ll find that his car is indestructible. Once you get to the shootout you’ll also find that there are no opportunities for interesting gameplay. All the missions are played strictly by the book; it’s a linear game with an open world attached to it. And while the character driven cutscenes before and after the missions are really interesting, the mission gameplay is formulaic, repetitive, and lacks both the creative combat elements of Far Cry 2 or BioShock and the spectacular setpieces of Half-Life or Call of Duty. Plus, the shooting mechanics were very sub-par, although the the driving was excellent. And all of that was very disappointing.
P.S. : The ‘friends’ in the game were probably the most annoying thing in the history of video gaming. NO ROMAN I DO NOT WANT TO GO BOWLING PLEASE STOP CALLING ME!
I will probably grab this. Haven’t played it on console, but have followed the series on PC and really enjoyed it. I didn’t play GTA 3 (somehow it flew under the radar), but I loved Vice City and San Andreas. If this latest instalment is anything like those games then I’m sure I’ll get more than enough fun out of GTAIV to warrant shelling out the required cash.
Well, my criticism sounds extremely harsh when I read it over again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good game it’s worth getting. It’s just extremely overrated.
I don’t have a PS3 or 360 so I’ll likely get this.
Primary reason it’s superior by default, Mods.
Nothing was more awesome than downloading the Back to the future car for GTA Vice City and the same will apply here.
Haven’t had a chance to get a next-gen console, but I’m a GTA fanatic, especially with regards to San Andreas (easily my #1 game of all time, and I’ve played many). My expectations are high, but I don’t expect it to top SA because I don’t really like the direction they took on this one. Luckily, aside from seeing the few trailers, I’ve managed to dodge most of the hype, and I know little about it despite it’s pervasiveness on this years scene. Maybe I’ll yet be surprised.
I played GTA4 for a few hours, and watched a friend play a bunch of later missions. The plot, script and characters were interesting and deep, for a game, the little details were wonderful, and as a technical achievement it’s simply astonishingly impressive. But I simply didn’t have much fun playing it. It offered nothing new in that regard, and felt less fun than a couple of the previous games.
Compared to the hours I spent on Saints Row last year, which is a far less technically sound game (indeed, it’s pretty buggy and there are a lot of video issues. Although it’s worth nothing that many of GTA4’s minor design improvements were lifted directly from Saints Row) and has probably less than half the content, it just doesn’t stand up as a worthwhile purchase, especially given the many positive things I’ve read about Saints Row 2. It isn’t a bad game by any means – indeed, it’s good, but I’ve played it a dozen times before, and had more fun doing so.
Yes, i’ve been waiting all along for the PC version, a shame it took them so long to make it, anyway im sure it will be a much better game than the console version, less buggy, moddable.
Bully has apparently had a stealth-release, with a big obvious ad on the back of PCG. The website says it was released on the 24th. But….where the hell is it? Not a single shop has had it in.
This probably means they will appear this thursday or friday. Retailers sometimes refuse to take deliveries on any other days. Perhaps the dispatch was left too late because of piracy fears.
waited for the proper PC version :)
It’s coming to Steam December 2nd.
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