So how 'bout that GTA IV huh? That perfect 10, "oscar worthy" experience that has been hailed, lauded and pretty much akin to gaming nirvana...
Ah screw it, I can't keep this up.
I'm sorry, but I can't see the brilliance in GTA IV. I really can't. This is not the game of the year. It's not even close.
It's been over six months since the game came out. I've sunk at least a good 20 hours into the game across two files. Why two? Because the recent trophy patch that just came out made it impossible for me to achieve most of the end game trophies, and made me several kinds of furious.
It's replaying the game from the start that made this realization possible - that the end of the game is a huge problem compared to the way it start, which is excellent and fun and original (at least, for a GTA game)
Now, before I go into this, I'll be talking extensively about end game stuff. I won't mention anything story related, but if you're the kind of person that cannot have gameplay elements mentioned, then I'm going to try go around it as much as possible. Don't say I didn't warn you.
First big problem? The mission cutscenes. This sounds rather vague, but let me explain. You're on a mission to try kill another character (plenty of this, but that's irrelevant). You get to the destination, and you get a cutscene of Niko spooking whoever it is you're about to kill, and they run off - forcing a chase.
I cannot express in words how much this makes me furious, but not only is it incredibly stupid, BUT IT HAPPENS EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME.
This could have been allieviated by making the person spawn when you get to the location, and then if you're skilled enough - kill them before you get on the bike/car/whatever. You mess up, you do the chase. Make it a challenge to beat the mission easily, rather than forcing the player to engage in a chase.
Then there's some other stupid parts in some missions by having police officers swarm your location THE SECOND you finish off an objective. How in the bloody hell does that work!?
Lastly - some missions conclude with Niko executing another character. Now, this isn't a problem, but the way it's handled is. The first one you do, you pull the trigger to execut him, and you get a cutscene of Niko shooting the character in the eye. Now why couldn't I do that? It's not that hard to make a headshot...
Next, the random missions. Not so much the idea of them, but how poorly implemented they are. Here's one example of how this happened to me (admist many). I do a particuarly brutal mission. I've been playing for long enough, so I decide to head back to my apartment to save the game, and turn off the PS3. I get to my destination, to which I recieve a phone call.
I accept it, and at the end of the call, I'm in a mission. I have no opportunity to save my game, heal my health (well, that much can be allievated) and forced to play longer than I want to. The sad thing? It's happened to me every time I want to save the game.
Not cool. Not cool in the slighest.
I can understand if the mission trigger was a text message saying that "we're ready when you are", and then you call the person to start the mission. It then gives me time to save the game and pick up the game later. How this doesn't bother anyone is beyond me.
Then there's the new police system. It's good to see that now there's a system for getting away from the cops, and it's clearly defined. 1-2 stars is easy, 3+ stars? Get ready for frustration. It's far too difficult than it needs to be to escape from the cops - there's a HUGE jump from 2 stars to 3 stars and makes it far harder than it needs to be.
The cops just spawn at the most inappropriate moments, and it's just stunning to see that no matter what you do, THE ENTIRE LIBERTY CITY POLICE FORCE IS AFTER YOU. Frustrating as hell, and makes some of the later missions more difficult than they need to be.
One of the cooler additions in the game, the phone, is also poorly utilized. Specifically, there's one instance where you need to use your phones camera to take a picture. That's the ONLY time you use it. Why? Apparently Niko has the worst phone in history as although you take pictures, you cannot save them. AT ALL. It braks the illiusion, and hey, it'd be really cool to send pictures to friends.
Shame though, the phone also lends itself to one of the cooler and more innovative missions in the game.
Why make this? With many websites and publications considering their GOTY awards - and given all the critical wankery upon the game's launch (in particular, IGN), it's hard to not see GTA IV given game of the year over something far more deserving (like Burnout Paradise). Same goes for MGS and LBP.
Though there are plenty of positives (the driving, the soundtrack and the new combat/cover systems), they're outweighed by far too many negatives.
I could be wrong, and not playing the game right, but honestly - with things like this, I find it hard to believe anyone could still consider it for any major awards.
Well thank god that there are good number of people I know that feel similar to me. Phantom, you, Edgecrusher, Foolz and myself. I thought I was some sort of freak for not gushing with hype from all those crazy reviews. Crazy reviews are the order of the day in these crazy times.
I saw a letter on a website from some guy who said that after falling for the hype on numerous occasions, he thought he would give up on the blockbuster games and that is how I feel after notably playing a good number of hyped games and not finding them as good as the reviews say.
The random missions were a pain. You want to save and instead receive a phone call and you cant.
But this GTA was technically a big improvement, controls were better, visuals were wonderful, but it just had no kind of variety, invention or more importantly, humour. And it had a number of frustrating design decisions too. I guess my biggest complaint would be the repitition. You get a mission which is the same thing, go from point A to B, shoot person X.
Substitute shoot person X for steal car Y. It's the same damn thing virtually.
I should say I don't think it's a bad game at all, technically its very competent, but I feel the same as Bugs in that I find some of these blockbuster games fairly uninventive and even boring at times.
But GG games should be technically fun. If it is not, than it not good, as far as I am concerned. I played the game a little, it was alright.
I think Dvader hit the nail on the head a few months back when he made a blog about how games had improved so much in production value and were generally a better quality. These days virtually every game is expected to look good in high def, where in the old days there were very few that acheived a high level of visual polish. Developers are more experienced and there is more of a history to imitate so gameplay is becoming more standardised, like FPS controlling the same and people taking bits and pieces from different games.
So using all this, borrowing concepts and improving the production values is leading to better games, but sometimes I just feel like they are missing the fun.
It is a huge improvement GG. Taxi's are the order of the day, and in general, there is fun to be have. And on a technical level, it's great. There's just too much damned frustration where there shouldn't be.
Great points lads.
GTA is a perfect case study for the type of games this generation has brought out. It is a very well made game (sure it has issues but its a massive game). It improves the controls, handling, shooting, IMO driving mechanics of GTA. It takes all those improvements and puts you into the most engrossing city in any GTA game. Yes it fails where it probably needs to be at its best, the actual design of the missions and lack of quality side missions.
It was a step back from SA, hell from VC. But the way I look at it, GTAIV is the GTA3 of this gen, its starting anew and as the sequels come I am sure the variety and awesome levels will come with it. Lets not forget the online which is overlooked all the time. Yes its nearly broken to get on, but it was a big leap for the franchise and it will be perfected as time goes on.
Overall GTAIV is an incredible game, one of my favorites of the year. Yet it did not live up to the hype and it fell into that category of games that are trying to be perfect in its production values but lacking a soul or are borrowing the soul of its last gen predessor.
So the question becomes how tolerant are you of games like I described above. I enjoy quality games, even if its the same stuff I played before if its done well, if its fun throughout I will enjoy it. Zelda TP is the best example of this, that game was basically old Zelda games glued together but it was the perfect package. So yeah I am the type of guy to take quality over innovation if I had to choose one, obviously the best is when the two mix, which is why I believe Little Big Planet is the game this generation desperately needed.
Dvader I agree, they improve the controls, maybe the handling of the vehicles is a little too heavy though and its just not as fun as it was in VC et all pulling handbrake turns and driving around at super speeds. But even though they improved control functionality, it still isn't anywhere close (apart from vehicles) to the control in other games. It's a jack of all trades control and that was okay in past games which had humour and character to paste over the mundane nature of it all. Here, there just isn't that rousing entertainment of past games for my money.
I agree with you on the missions. Really at the planning stages they should start with the crazy missions and then design the city around that rather than vise versa. It's the repitition that kills the game for me, it probably doesn't help that I came off Bully earlier in the year which was just hilarious from start to end.
I'm not online on 360 so I can't comment on that. But I disagree with the GTA 3 comparison, in that as Edge thinks, GTA 3 was still fun, whilst this new game is perhaps just too serious at times and too repetitive at other times.
Whenever I criticise a game it always sounds like I hate it and I'm trying to tear it a new asshole, but I dont think that. It's a really solid, well made game. I would give it 8/10 because personally I rate games by the fun I have.
I absolutely agree with you when you say "it fell into that category of games that are trying to be perfect in its production values but lacking a soul or are borrowing the soul of its last gen predessor."
I see so many games like that, maybe its because more is expected on the production side, maybe the teams are bigger and bigger and its harder to get a more individual voice across like Kojima or the crazy antics of Suda 51. It must be a monumental task making a huge game, so must much be dedicated to getting the tech and art together that I sometimes wonder how the gameplay is worked on.
I remember reading how retro made the metroid prime games. They build the levels in wireframes and gameplay tested everything before an artist even touched it. With nintendo they build gameplay tech demos like mario bounding about in 3-D before a game is even considered and titles can come about years after concepts.
With Twilight Princess I can't really draw a comparison with GTA. You see GTA is the same game, in a different city. I mean that literally the game of GTA is having a city with traffic and the only thing apart from the scenary which changes is the missions. And in the past the actual responsiveness of controls hampered it. It has a story to provide a motivating factor but all of it is a basic excuse to repackage a concept of an open city in which you drive about and kill people. Once you get over the amazing open scope of a full city there really isn't much to do. You have a drink, watch a cutscene, play bowling, poorly, don't enjoy it. Buy a hotdog which amounts to pressing A and watching an animation.
As an adventure game Twilight Princess had a lot more changes and deviation then GTA has even acheived between games. And I'm not knocking GTA for that, I own 4 of them and really enjoyed them for the most part.