GTA IV – saving or skipping through to mission start?

The Game Room
1

Sorry for being behind the times game-wise, but I got GTA IV during Steam’s holiday sale. Fun game … sort of. Fun when I’m not forced to spend five to ten minutes getting back to where I was before I screwed the pooch on a mission. It kills playability (for me, at least) when I have to restart a mission by taking a lovely drive all the way across town just to get to where the actual mission starts.

For example, I have to guard Mr. P for a bit while he makes some sort of tribute at a refinery. If things go wrong, the game starts me wayyyyyyy back at the north end of town and I have to drive alllllll the way to the south end just to get back into position and start over. Man is that boring. I know it’s ostensibly a driving game, and I’m sure the art director’ mother is awfully proud of the detail put into the game, but I’m finding it very tedious. And it’s not like it’s one or two missions that have this kind of setup. Every other mission starts with picking up this or that clown before heading out to the real job or starts far enough away from the reset point where it takes several minutes to get back to where the mission actually starts. Ugh.

I’m assuming that this is some sort of disincentive to … to … shit, to playing the game. Am I not “hardcore” enough because I want to replay parts of a mission? Because I want to succeed at a mission? Am I supposed to be so entertained by the pleasant banter in the car that I should listen to it four or five times? Could the game have been just as successful if they dropped the violence a bit and just called it Cabbies’ Happy Fun Ride?

I’m at the point where I have several hundred grand from a job, so taking taxis does cut down on things a bit. Generally I’ll “pay a bit extra” (WTF is up with that? They put an in-game disincentive to make you sit and watch their scenery?) to zip from one place to another. But restarting missions can still make for a bit of work just to get back to the beginning.

Oh, and then there’s the wonderful system of spending five minutes or so heading back to the safehouse just for the privilege of saving.

So … aside from a bit of a rant (please don’t get me started on why a game that’s supposed to be fun makes me jump though hoops just to keep a paranoid, clingy girlfriend happy), is there any way (via an option I missed, a cheat code or a hack) that will let me save at will or skip much of the driving? Hell, a nice noclip that would let me drive a simple straight line would cut out hours and hours of wasted time.

2

Maybe the PC version is different, but on the PS3 there is always a text message that lets you restart the mission if you screw up. It places you whereever it was that the mission starts.

3

It’s the same way on the Xbox 360 version. Certainly the PC version has this feature too… Check your cell phone after you fail/die in a mission!

4

I have the PC version and that feature is included.

5

Yes, but that feature sucks.

All it does is plop down to whereever you started, minus any cash, guns, armor, and ammo you used up. Also, you are without a vehicle and generally faraway from where you actually need to be, resulting in driving across the map again.

So no, that does not answer his question sufficiently.

6

Oops… not the basic mission restart. The way it’s implemented is boring me to tears, so I’m hoping that either I’m doing something wrong or there’s some workaround.
Take Pegorino’s Pride. I’d been annoyed at the game beforehand, but this one pushed me over to posting the question. When you restart the mission (via the text message), where do you start? At the mission part of the mission? No. You start in Jimmy Pegorino’s driveway. Not only do you have to get back in the car, but you actually have to wait for Jimmy to come out and get in the car. Once he’s finally in the car, you then have to drive alllllllllllll the way to the south end of Brooklyn to go back up the stairs to start the actual mission. Everything up until then was just taking a nice drive across the city.

It’s not like there isn’t a cut scene once you arrive at the refinery that’s only a few seconds from the start of shit-fan-hitting. But no, you have to go all the way back and drive drive drive. And it’s not like this is a unique or bad cut. Smackdown makes you walk over to the unlocked police car, then drive uptown to wait for the mission to begin. Babysitting has you drive a boat for over a minute and a half before the first bad guys show up. And in both there are cut scenes shortly before the brouhaha takes place.

Every. Single. Mission.

No, wait. I think the fly with Little Jacob from U.L. Paper starts you right next to the helicopter. But that’s quite the exception.

Again, maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s such an intense game that if they didn’t include the two to three minute cool-down period between action-adventure bits I’d go out and carjack someone for real.

Don’t get me wrong. It is a driving game (when it’s not a pool or bowling simulator). The mission with the bodies in the trunk makes great use of the dynamic. The chase sequences too. But holy hell does driving back and forth across town between restarts make for a dull experience.

So …

Is there any way to get the game to restart a mission closer to the actual mission?

Is there any way to save the game without having to schlep all the way back to a safehouse?

7

Sadly, no. It’s exceedingly stupid, but no. I think the worst is Catch the Wave - start at Honkers, drive with Phil Bell to pick up a truck in north Alderney, drive the truck to freaking Charge Island, and watch Phil charge into the warehouse and promptly get himself killed. Argh!!

The entire save dynamic annoys me, actually. The game autosaves after a friend activity or whatever, but if I reload that save I lose the car I’m in and have been teleported to a safehouse. What? The game’s propensity to throw away the nice, shiny car I’ve procured would probably lead me to uninstall it, except for the game’s other ridiculous propensity to spawn umpteen copies of the quarter million dollar supercar I’m driving along the curb of the most rundown ghetto in town - which lets me keep Bernie’s Infernus at the safehouse, and make copies of it to actually drive.

8

you are describing a significant reason I will never finish this game, a first since the gta franchise went 3d.
the obnoxious phone calls from every person you ever met getting all but hurt because you dont want to play some crappy subgame with them after driving all over hell to get them, get to the place, then get them home.

and ROMAN!!!
I have tried every way I can think of to kill this basterd, if I hear one more “Cousin! its your Cousin Roman” I will drop my game disc in the microwave and set it on high for 10 seconds.

hands down the best of the series as far as graphics and physics goes, and hands down the lamest of the series as far as the story line goes. little Jacob is the only person in the game I have any interest in staying friends with because I cant understand shit that he says and he delivers guns and ammo to me.

dont feel bad if you are having trouble with the main story line, its a really common complaint.

9

Glad to know that this is a common complaint. I wanted to just fail the helicopter mission when I screwed the pooch on the landing after shooting the other helicopter down (after 4 or so replays). Can you tell I suck at the helicopter? I went back to complete the mission, but between the passive aggressive ex-con dope dealer, the nagging girlfriends, and all the boring driving (gets tedious after awhile), it may be awhile before I return. Ah well, it was dirt cheap on Steam, so no big loss.

Also, I’m upset that neither my home town nor my midtown or downtown offices made it into the game. Schmucks. :cool:

10

It didn’t grate me much. The times where I was dropped off with nothing, I just called up Little Jacob, got my stuff back, and went back to work.

11

The loss of items isn’t so vexing, especially once you’ve made it past the Liberty Bank job. That kind of kills any incentive to work for cash — the chunk you get so dwarfs all other jobs and the nominal cost of cabs, suits, and “entertainment” makes it hard to spend it down. I guess getting arrested and having to re-arm yourself would do it, but I tend to get shot by the cops much more often than arrested.

The loss of cars is not so bad given the amount of fun the different classes are to drive. Plus, I haven’t picked up my gift from Bernie yet, so the high-end cars are still everywhere. :cool:

It’s the fucking tedium.

On the one hand, I love the game. Racing around the city can be an adrenaline rush: trying to shake the cops with a four-star wanted level long enough to duck into a Pay-n-Spray. Though some of the chase sequences are a bit annoying (I’m looking at you Vespa-through-Central-Park!), most are pretty intense. And the detail is amazing. Definitely scaled down (e.g., Columbia was just a couple blocks), but there were several places where I knew where I was just because of the scenery. Not just Times Square, but small pockets here and there. They had one of my old apartments!

But oh, the fucking tedium.

The combat system is great, too. I’m a FPS fan at heart (e.g., I tended not to use Fallout’s V.A.T.S. very much). GTA’s third-person aspect took a bit of getting used to, but it was executed (heh) really well. Though there are a couple glitches (don’t hide behind a lot of foliage), the crouch/hide mechanics have a lot going for them. There are a lot of hairy situations to get out of, a lot of places where good tactics are essential. It can be really exciting.

But man oh man, the fucking tedium!

For the first quarter of the game (I’m only 1/2 way through, so please be careful with spoilers), I really appreciated just driving around and looking at the sights. But to crap out in the middle of a mission, have to start out way across town, and get stuck in traffic on the bridge?! I know you can plow your way through, but it’s still an unbelievably boring slowdown just to get back to the action.

The. Fucking. Tedium.

It means some of the best missions are the ones I just want over with so I don’t have to meander from point A to B.

Take that Bank Job (please). That *would have *been great to go through several times. I love doing that with games. Can I survive with just the pistol? How many headshots can I rack up? Now that I have an idea of how it unfolds, can I make it through with no damage? What if I just run out screaming at the cops and try and take a car? Can I make it through and leave no survivors? Replayability.

But no.

Fuck that shit, I am not going to go through FIVE FUCKING MINUTES of gathering up a car to drive those yappy fucking brothers all the way across town every single time I go through the mission.
And they’re all like that.

The tedium.

And while I’m at it, can someone tell me if there’s a YouTube clip of the board meeting at RSG where some yutzes piped up with:

12

You don’t HAVE to go through all the friend/girlfriend bullshit anyways. Just ignore it.

13

Well, yeah, but what fun is that? :stuck_out_tongue:
My beef with the friend shit is how poorly it was implemented. There’s really only three games and a few pop in-and-out places. For that there is a lot of —you guessed it— driving. And whining – that’s what I mean about implementation. For the reward of dropping wanted levels, you have to date someone that even Niko thinks is over-the-top psycho. Not fun-psycho, either, but work-psycho.

Meh … but I can live with it, it being a relatively small distraction.

The real reason for posting wasn’t to vent, but to find out if there was some way to cut out some of the pre-mission bullshit the game puts you through, so I can run through the bank job or helicopter-fun or whatever over and over and over again without a five minute delay between rounds.

14

Play Saints Row 2. It is what GTA IV should have been.

15

I would just like to point out that the best thing about the PC version is the clip editor. I’m having a blast editing all my funky crashes and psychopathic cop-killing into little movies. I’m trying to flesh out a actual story line. I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to go, but I’m pretty sure there will be a prostitute in there somewhere.

16

Sounds awesome.

I do have to ask, though … will you include long takes of you driving around the city?

17

I might, rabbit, I might. It’s not always that easy to find a prostitute, you know. It’s even harder in the game.

18

<Goes to garage. Checks trunk. Comes back slowly. Nope… no trouble here.>

19

Hail a fuckin cab already guys! There are some missions where it can’t be done, but not *that *many. And set your phone to Do Not Disturb, too.

20

Quoted for truth.
I’d been playing GTA4 since it first came out (ps3) and while the graphics, driving mechanic and combat systems were excellently pulled off, there really isn’t anything to do with them. Its a game that’s all dressed up with no where to go. (there are only 5 clothing stores in all of liberty city? only three gun shops? ) And when you’re all done there isn’t all the much to do. (I will say that playing online is a TON of fun)

Based on some recommendations, I picked up Saints Row 2 and played for a few minutes and feel in love with it. Pretty much everything you think would have been a good idea for GTA4 is in SR2.