After a few missions I’m convinced I’m never going to get used to the braking or the handling of the cars. After I carjacked some dude for his muscle car, I found out quickly that the damned thing was a deathtrap. Attempting to corner at anything over the equivalent of 35 MPH leads to uncontrollable 360s, fishtailing without getting anywhere, or hitting everything on sidewalk on the far side of the turn, leading up to the inevitable engine compartment fire/explosion.
I’m not sure how friend activities effect the completion rate, but you can always call friends up yourself to do those activities.
AFAIK, you’ll have to wait until you open up the second island and go to the clothing stores there. I wasn’t too crazy about my ugly clothes from the Russian Shop either.
I found a suit at a store in Manhattan, think it’s called Algonquin in the game. Where the Empire State building and Times Square are. The name choice is interesting because Algonquin is a Native American tribe that lived on the East coast USA.
Algonquin is a really nice looking area, day or night.
I also have a little trouble with efficient braking. I normally slow down a bit and tap the handbrake, it works well most of the time. I hold the controller in an awkward way, so as to make it difficult to hold L2 and R2 at the same time. It’s not a game breaker, I’ve made it through a few difficult chase missions despite it all. I actually like the controls.
I’ve also gotten used to the graphics, though the PC version will undoubtedly be a great improvement. Since my initial disappointment I’ve been completely hooked on the game. Even the storyline is interesting IMO, though I agree the missions are a little repetitive.
I would definitely recommend getting friendly with Jacob. You will pay $100 for 50 SMG ammo from a shop, only $20 from Jacob. He also sells armour for $300.
According the the official guide book your friends do not contribute to your 100% completion rating. Not sure about your dates.
My questions:
Do you gain any in-game reward for completing the sub-mission (procedural) chains, other than the money? The guide book doesn’t mention any.
Is there any benefit to actually getting a girlfriend?
Supposedly some of the girlfriends can bring you missions, but I have only been on a couple dates. Too busy with everything else, sorta like real life!
As far as the “Don’t mash the gas pedal” advice, I agree and would add “unless you’re on a straight stretch of road.” That same advice applies with big horsepower in real life, except in real life your gas pedal control is a lot more precise.
I’ve already completed all of the Playboy missions, and I just completed yet another thrill-ride. I had to follow a helicopter, shoot a dozen baddies, steal a helicopter, and evade the cops, which was quite easy in my cushy helicopter. Huzzah.
I guess I’m just frustrated with killing 30 dudes in a huge shootout in which they all know my location. I don’t mind killing people, that’s kind of the game’s MO. Just spice it up a bit. Examples from other GTAs that were more interesting: tracking down and killing defenseless jury members, manning the gun on a helicopter, flying little RC choppers that dropped bombs at strategic points in order to demolish a building.
Oh well, I’ll just cross my fingers that it will turn around soon. There was recently a big plot twist that may open me to non-drug-dealing contacts.
I’m talking about when Niko finds out Michelle is a snitch
The worst thing about the cornering of the cars is that it’s counter-intuitive. Normally when you brake, you shift the weight of the car to the front wheels, which gives them greater traction, preventing understeer. It’s basic, and it’s how slowing down with normal brakes gets you around corners.
But in GTA IV, it seems to be the opposite. If you’re driving along, you can get some bite on the front wheels, yet if you mash the normal brakes, you go in a straight line. Such a big detail like driving would have to be intentional, for sure, but really, why make the driving so weird?
This seems to be a big complaint really. All of us drive, and know what it’s like to drive IRL. A lot of us have played very realistic driving simulators Gran Turismo. What GTA IV gives you isn’t similar to either. It’s counter intuitive in some weird way…
Anyway though the driving is manageable, so it’s not a dealbreaker for me. I just did the bank robbery recently. Did anyone else here not notice that it is almost exactly like the big bank robbery in Heat? Most of it anyway.
Also, what the hell do I have to do to get Little Jacob to sell me arms? Is it too late? I have been wining and dining that asshole to no end to try to get him to like me enough to sell me some arms to no avail. I’ve gotten the friendship percent above 90 and I forgot what the respect was, but still I got nothing from him…Is it the “respect” area I should worry about? I tended to not really deal with him in the beginning. The reason why I’m concerned about this is that I’ve recently gotten what looks to be an M16, and I can’t find ammo for it in the shops.
Is the way Little Jacob talks a realistic…I can’t even say accent…language? Very interesting but I’m glad I have subtitles on.
By the way, for anyone that doesn’t have subtitles turned on, Roman and Niko say a lot of things to each other in their native language, which is why I was having trouble following the dialog at first.
That’s strange. I only took him out maybe two or three times before he was selling me guns. Friendship for him is at 82% currently and respect is at 90%. Did you complete all of his missions? I guess you have if you got to the bank robbery because I’m not there yet. Hmm.
From my experiences, though, if you can’t buy it in the ammo shop, Jacob isn’t going to have it.
I agree that the driving takes some getting used to, but it’s not that big of an adjustment for me. I think the driving learning curve is similar to other racing games (think going from Need For Speed to Forza Motorsport) but here you have a bunch of other things happening in between your driving time. Since the game only really forces you to push the driving limits during missions (and even then it’s not every mission) you get very little “wheel” time under pressure, and you are going to make mistakes.
I set my phone to sleep mode (available under Options in the phone menu) which turns off all mission-related communication. You are then free to tool around Liberty City as long as you want, with no annoying distractions. I grabbed every car I saw and drove it around as fast as I could. It helped a lot - I’ve evaded 2-star wanted levels in SUVs with no problem.
As someone else said - the beauty of this game is in the details. I grabbed a sports car (whatever the game calls a Mercedes SL) and was trying to leave an intersection. I backed up a bit and then hit the gas, but ended up having both the brake and the gas on at the same time. I got a very short burnout. I tried it again, this time on purpose and was soon producing clouds of smoke and leaving concentric circles of rubber on the pavement - until first one and then the other rear tire blew out. I was left skidding around like an idiot on my rear rims. Random moments like that are worth more to me than any scripted sequence.
Yeah, sometimes following Rastafarians when they speak can be a little odd. It was virtually impossible to follow Little Jacob’s friend, the one that jumps you because he doens’t know you early-ish in the game.
That would be Badman, who is almost incomprehensible without Little Jacob acting as an interpreter.
As for the driving, I would second the suggestion to spend more time at the wheel.
I only have it slide out of control now if I apply to much throttle on a wet road-surface.
The most important thing is to learn how to use the gas and breaks.
Most of the times you will be applying the brakes to hard causing your wheels to lock, just like in real life.
I couldn’t figure out what the hell Badman was saying even with subtitles turned on. Good thing Jacob was there to help me out (and without subtitles, I might have needed three or four more people to progressively decrypt him, too). I’m kind of getting into the way he talks – he called me youth, fire, and youth fire last night. I like that. Yes, I’ll start calling people Fire. That will be…charming.
I did all of LJ’s delivery missions (which are a PITA because they’re timed.), and we went out to do something twice, and he offered to be my weapons dealer after the second time.