GTA 4 Vs GTA fan - How Rockstar ruined GTA
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One of Rockstar's biggest fans lets rip about the flaws in GTA 4.
GTA 4 has been met by near unanimous praise by critics, including ourselves, but all isn't well in the hardcore GTA fan camp. Disgruntled reader John from Croydon contacted VideoGamer.com with his complaints earlier this week, after spending time with what he expected to be a game he'd be playing for years. Having put thousands of hours into the GTA series over the years, including playing through GTA 3 twice, Vice City six times and San Andreas three times, he's more than qualified to offer his opinion on what many are already claiming is the game of the year. Read on as a GTA fan goes head to head with GTA 4 and reveals what a growing number of GTA fans think of Rockstar's latest game.
John Vs GTA 4's Driving
It's all related to realism or their attempt at it. All the fun of the old GTAs has been severely reduced because you cant do stuff any more. The driving; you used to be able to fling the cars around at almost max speed - it was really fun. Now they are forcing you to drive slow at corners or you skid off. When you roll out of a car, you take tons of damage - it used to be much less. The driving isn't even realistic, ask anyone who drives. Someone on a forum joked that their Vauxhall Corsa can take corners faster than any car in GTA 4, and he's right.
You can't do crazy stuff any more and survive. The windscreen thing, flying out of it, that's just so lame. If you have a head on crash, you want to continue, because you've already been slowed down, not go flying for miles, lose tonnes of health and have to run back to the car.
It's not just me. A guy on a forum summed it up pretty well:
"I can drive in GTA, I can outrun 4 star wanted level w/o breaking a sweat (or crashing for that matter), but that doesn't change the fact, that I find the - so called realistic- driving boring. If I wanted realistic, I would set up a racing wheel and knock around with Forza, Sega rally et al. I miss the arcadey controls of previous iterations."
John Vs GTA 4's Cops
The cops are harsh. They usually crack down on you for the tiniest things you do wrong: pointing a gun at a pedestrian, firing one bullet into a wall, etc. It might be realistic, but it's not fun. You will have cops on you straight away. While my brother was playing he walked on the stage in the strip club and the bouncers came after him and beat him up. Again, it's realistic, but it limits what you can do - It's a game not a life sim.
The cops are on you really quickly, and you have to forget whatever you were trying to do, and just get out of the radius. It's not even realistic, no cops turn up that quickly. In GTA 4 there are usually 2-3 cars within 10 seconds. They kill you so quickly via headshots and stuff, and they kill you inside the car. You used to be quite safe in the car until it got too damaged and caught on fire, but now they can shoot through the windows
John Vs GTA 4's game world
Despite having so much stuff, the world seems really empty, there's nothing to do - no hidden weapons or hidden side missions that I could find. The city is just really detailed, with things that snag your car as you try to explore and makes it really tedious.
John Vs GTA 4's Combat
The hand to hand is lame. Niko is a wimp. You can't really beat two people up at once as you're likely to die if you do. The game doesn't make you feel powerful any more. The gun combat, the lock-on sucks, always targeting the wrong thing - prioritisation is rubbish. It will target things behind a wall instead of the cop right in your face. And cops seem to take too much damage. I shotgunned a few right in the face 2-3 times from almost point blank and they were fine, kept getting up.
User Comments
Planetpiss
It's a good game but they could have focused more on things like customizing your character and accessibility of the environment. I could really care less that the NPCs are going about their daily fictitious lives that has no effect on gameplay. Put those same NPCs in an apartment building or shopping mall that I can use as shields in a shoot out?sweet as.
I understand that it was the first gen on a new console but isn't 360 supposed to be bigger, faster,stronger etc? I'm running around with half a million dollars in my pocket and all I can buy are crap clothes and guns?
I think rockstar is taking the realism thing in the wrong direction, it works great for sports games like madden and other EA titles but in terms of the GTA series just make it look good dont tell me what I can and cannot do while I'm controlling a guy whose job it is to murder and steal.
NarutoFan5969
mrrattlesnake
Killing people should almost make you sick... just kidding... but seriously.....sick
DireWolf84
mr_keep_it_100@ Niko Bellic
mr_keep_it_100@ Chris
Amarganth@ Hunter1984
Point is, GTA 4 is not realistic. The only game similar to GTA which is a better version of the style and is totally realistic is Mafia. Now that's a game which has got everything going for it, it's not realistic...it's REAL, hell...they thought of everything, even the car running out of gas. Everything is realistic, from driving the cars, and the police, to the usage of guns, etc.
GTA never had a story worth even knowing of, they should implement a "skip the stupid scene" button...it's not Final Fantasy, or Metal Gear Solid, or Silent Hill. GTA never had great graphics, GTA 4 is no exception, it literally sucks. I wanted to say it's not Crysis...but damn, even Super Mario Galaxy has better graphs... But...it worked, cause GTA never tried to be all of those things, GTA was just fun... Whenever you would get tired of those hard realistic games, whenever you'd get enough of complex worlds, story and gameplay...GTA was a game to have some simple and mindless fun, but not anymore. It's frustrating to say the least, it isn't fun anymore...at all, not fun as a "complex" game it tries to be but fails epically, not fun as a dumb but jolly game it once was.
Finish it off with the horrible port to the pc that I'd say is even worse than the game Deer Hunter you got yourself a perfect money game, so dumb yet popular that all those dumb kids will buy it so they aren't branded as uncool for nothing having GTA 4. Well, I burned my copy.
Hunter1984
GOODBYE GRAND THEFT AUTO, i love you so much, go get more realistic, stupid Rockstar, and let millions of fans like you all enjoy th e future which sucks and leaves us to believe everything will change!!!
Now I am leaving this account and this site forever, delete this comment, so whatever you want, but firstly let some people read it. Thank you. And Goodbye. Forever.
Lost
Ok why are you complaining about BMXs your in amajor city you idiot just drive a sanchez and get over it. The aiming does suck a little but if your using an AK47 does it matter. The cops are fun being chased bye. My brother an I have spent hours just running from the cops. I think you need to put on som big boy pants and grow a pair you idiot
victorkpm
but i liked GTA San Adreas more.
There are lots os different locations, different kinds of vehicles.
lots os minigames...
My first deception at the beggining of the game was that i was unable to ride the rollercoaster oe to play the minigolf near the first house...
No more bikes, the police is very boring, every time you rob a car, you have to scape the police... actually i always use the comet car cheat, because otherwise game becomes boring if i have to scape the cops everytime.
The map is sub used. Very big but they didnt used them properly. There are many locations that they can put lots of minigames, or oher stuff.
San andreas have many details that are playable, as marathon, haircuts, more clothes, motocross minigames, yo can dive and search for seashells...
no more planes too
I hope Rockstar in the next game mis the pros of both games, graphics of IV and gameplay of sanandreas.
steezer
Realism is good in a game. I'm always looking for extra realism. That much they got right. But why take away all the customising options, character development, ability to buy houses, etc? That's a step backwards and nobody will be able to concince me it's not.
But for me, the REAL complaints I have are these: Graphical glitches (the z-fighting problem on ati cards- this game has been out for what? Well over a year and this to my knowledge hasnt been addressed even once - unforgivable). You HAVE to have a windows Live account in order to save your game. WTF is that about? I just want to play a game on my PC, I dont want to have to sign up for this, that and the third just to play it. Bad. Bad meaning BAD.
The guy has some legitimate complaints, but for me, the real bad things about this game were unmentioned. And what makes his opinion so more valid than the rest of ours anyway? I notice nobody else is being asked for their opinion so that a big whiney article can be written.
In closing....there are some really good things about the game but they are far, far overshadowed by the negatives and you need state of the art gear just to get some kind of satisfying experience out of it. This game was never worth a 10 on any format, no game ever is. Perfection is unattainable. There are always things to improve on. 10/10 for this game is just a blatant fanboy rating.
devilking1994
Duckish
You know john, i'm glad rockstar didn't catter this one to people like you. People like you keep the gaming industry in general from evolving because you're all gimmick and convention whores, publishers love people like you..
So you overplayed every GTA release...good for you, how bout reading a book for a change or comming up with a videogame idea of your own...oh wait...you can't, you're a consummer, you want to be spoonfed "fun" .
I'm glad rockstar smartened up a bit and tried something deeper. And i'm glad this GTA gets praised for immersion and story. Videogames should long have evolved into a respectable interactive medium, the time of dumb casual "fun" should have ended with pinball arcades.... And that's where you belong johny boy...in the past.. Maybe a century from now they'll discover your dusty remains in the same dusty basement you're talking out of now and you will be the past, but i can't wait that long, videogame evolution is way overdue.
Thank you also, i was searching to coin a term for people like you....and it so happened i came across your article. So this rant is not even adressed to you, it's adressed to "Johns" all over the world.
P.S. Why is this kid even wasting this site's bandwith with his so called review?? What he's too good for message boards or is this site runing out of article material?
xG4M3
Iamme123
the games coming out have both and gameplay.
if i wanted it for the storyline i would probably go buy a book this is worse then san andreas.
it wouldn't of been hard for them to add a larger selection of clothes.
to buy property so u had a safeouse in other areas if u could afford.
the majority of vehicles is cars and the driving is stupid its not realistic its anoying and no you dont want realistic you want to reinact these epic car chases in films and shows not slow down stupidly at each corner its boring!
the great graphics doesnt justify the lack of gameplay they put into this games are always coming out with better graphics but they have gameplay to go with it this is a downgraded game with little effort put into it!
they made nice graphics and gave it the GTA name and people buy it no effort and the name sells its wrong...
GTA has always added more as it went on not taken away if they release another with this lack of effort and thought they're going to loose custom...