FTR, I only got about 90 minutes play time in yesterday, and I was already dreaming about the game. Usually takes an entire night for that to happen. Hooked. Hooked, I tell ya!
The minor issue I was referring to was not being able to save anytime you feel like it. For most people, I think that is a very minor annoyance, and something to be expected, since that’s how it was in GTA III, VC, and SA.
I don’t get how someone that would return $400 worth of merchandise over that would ever be fully satisfied with any game.
I guess not. When people call one of my favorite games and one of the highest rated games of all time “simply average” or “a prototype for the tour-simulator” (WTF?), it kinda makes my jaw drop.
You’ve pointed to the ratings it’s gotten a few times. Why do you repeat using a bandwagon fallacy? What do you think ratings prove? Was Myst also a great game, or was it simply over-hyped? How does it look now that we have some perspective?
Further, you haven’t addressed anybody’s valid complaints about gameplay, storyline or even save mechanics. Everything has been handwaved away because you liked it, since likeablility is what you’ve championed. But then when people point to features as getting in the way of them liking the game, you imply that they were dramatically overreacting. So likeability is fine as a metric for you, but others whose tastes run differently are not reacting properly.
Nor have you given any real refutations to all the valid criticisms of the game’s mechanics. Even pointing out that it’s more tour-sim (or an interactive movie, or whatever) than actual game just earns a “WTF”. It seems you’ve even relegated to an analysis of the game’s gamplay to ‘obsessive nitpkcing’, but you haven’t yet answered me when I asked you to define that, so I’m not sure.
It would be nice if you could actually address the issues and explain how there is a deep and complex game in there, if there is. Instead of it just being an ‘experience’ with mediocre gameplay… which for many would make it *a merely okay game. *
It might be an enjoyable experience, but without great gameplay, it’s not a great game.
Being a dedicated fan for a game is fine, but you seem to be doing everything you can to dismiss any and all valid concerns. I just don’t get that.
That’ll learn ya before you go making silly threats in the Game Room.
Jesus, it’s a thread about a video game, not Great Debates. I don’t really care enough to spend a half hour pounding out a ten-paragraph post outlining how I feel about it.
What makes these criticisms “valid?” The fact that you agree with them?
FWIW, everything you’ve said in this thread pretty much sums it up for me.
While it had some annoying issues as well, Saints Row was a much more enjoyable playing experience for me and I look forward to SR2 coming out later this year.
Do you have any actual questions or disagreements with any or all the elaboration I’ve already provided?
I’d have to agree with Guku. The whole turf wars consisted of you crouching on a sidewalk and mowing down lines of rival gang members as they rushed you in a straight line. The driving in SA wasn’t as realistic, and now in IV you can shoot from cars and drop grenades, big improvement. And the cover system in IV, while not perfect, is fairly effective.
And yeah, I’d forgot about the SA dancing button mashing crap. That was Lame with a capital L.
I actually wonder if that hasn’t gone to some of the reason for the reviews of this game.
Everybody heard of/knew/reviewed the first few games. They were a damn event. Hell, ‘hot coffee’ was front page news, IIRC.
That IV improves on a lot of poor concepts makes it stand out more than it would otherwise, I’d wager.
I disagree with your overall assessment of the game. I think the “gaming” experience is much better than you say it is. I think the saving system makes sense, and it makes the game experience better to have to fight to complete the whole mission at once, instead of being able to attack it piece by piece. I think the driving is great. The early cars available and the SUVs are difficult to handle, but as the game goes on you find better cars with great handling. I like the sandbox element – I finished the storyline a week ago, and I’m still spending a couple of hours a night running around Liberty City. Little touches like being able to use the taxis to skip trips across the city makes it much more enjoyable than, say, the interminable driving element in Mass Effect.
That’s my opinion. And it’s neither valid or invalid, it’s just opinion. Which is fine, reasonable people can disagree on things. But your opinions are no more valid or invalid than anyone else’s.
It’s not your opinion, it’s your manner of presenting it. It’s actually painful to read in a games thread. That, and I lost you when you started complaining about Gears of War gameplay.
FinnAgain:
One thing I am scratching my head to understand about your complaints is the disconnect between the grade you give and the words you use to describe the game. If I were to base a grade on you descriptions and writeup of the game I would assume you were giving it a 60 or a 65. Yet, you say 80 or 85, which which says average or good to me.
Now to expand my thoughts on what I like about the game:
When I bought GTA IV I went in expecting to be disappointed. I had loved the previous iterations of the game, but the reviews for this version were so overblown and unbelievably positive I couldn’t imagine it would live up to the hype. For me it definitely has. The city really is alive. Driving around you can get into road rage arguments, scare people, and just get into stupid wrecks. I like that they created an ultraviolent city with punny jokes and other drivers who often carry guns.
Evading the cops is fun/difficult but it is also tied into the reality of the game much better than it ever was in previous versions. (Driving outside of ranges instead of picking up “bribes”) Same with the vigilante missions. Those are two things that I can do without even worrying about missions.
I am of two minds about the fact that you are unable to save while you are in a mission. On the one hand, it would be really nice to be able to save at the last possible minute so I don’t have to work my way up to that point. On the other hand, I have an odd way of playing that if I fail a mission I cannot save the game, and just play around a little bit until I die and reaload my last game. This makes it so the game takes a lot longer to finish, which makes it so I have fun with everything for even longer.
As far as I am concerned the GTA series popularized sandbox gameplay elements and still does them best. Driving around the city is fun and doesn’t feel like things would be ten times better with a mission.
You guys DO know that you can save anytime by heading back to a safehouse and sleeping, right?
Right?
Also, I had a lot of fun with the cell phone. One of the game’s antagonists periodically calls you up after some missions, mostly just to taunt you. Naturally, since the guy is a jerk, I refuse to answer when he calls. So the game says, wait, you haven’t had this event handled yet. So I keep getting calls from the guy, like some sort of needy codependent emokid. Hilarity ensues, until one time the phone rings while I’m on foot. And since the A button is the button used to run, as well as the button used to answer the phone, I accidentally picked it up, and inadvertently ruined my own fun.
As far as the game as a whole, I’d say it’s okayish. The characters aren’t really likeable–though they feel somewhat, shall we say, authentic and human?–the graphics leave something to be desired (the draw distance becomes painfully clear when you take pretty much any vehicle to its top speed), the firing targeting system is wonky at best and dangerously counterintuitive at worst, the driving is all right (if fairly contrary to actual physics, when it comes to turning at high speeds), the dating sims are inoffensive if you’re the kind of person who wants a dating sim in a GTA game, the audio content (meaning, largely, TVs and the radio) gets old FAST, and the city exploration element is fun, if terribly inferior to GTA3. That said, I still play it every couple days, am near the end of the plot, and still occasionally take time out to get that superbike at the airport and then find the nearest ramp with which to drive myself into the most convenient wall or handrail (BIKES ARE SO MUCH FUN).
You can’t do that during a mission though right? Actually on a lot of missions it really wouldn’t be practical anyway.
I have repeatedly said that the game was average.
No, some issues are not matters of opinion at all. The aiming system is clumsy and nowhere near as responsive as many other shooting games on the xbox, for instance. For years now, the ability to save anywhere has been standard even on many console games. That GTA IV doesn’t even provide the option to have a checkpoint vs. save anywhere system, especially when many missions can be failed all too easily, do speak to an annoyance factor that should’ve been eliminated.
That many people have and will find the save system frustrating isn’t a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of fact. That the combat system is clunky and nowhere near as smooth as many other combat games is, likewise, a fact.
There are certain issues that are up for interpretation, others that really aren’t.
My text is in yur brayn, killing yur synapzes.
Well, yeah, that’s true. Saving during a mission, while it would be handy, is also frequently pretty silly in the context of such a thing. Yeah, I know you got a gun to your cheek or whatever, man, but let me just take an hour or two to write something down, I’ll be right with you.
Really, I’m personally okay with not having the ability to save mid-mission, since if you screw up you automatically get a chance to start from the beginning of the mission immediately. Mind you, it’s still a pain that you have to usually do the driving on the start of the mission instead of being able to taxi-like skip it, but it’s better than some things in the previous games.
And by previous games, I mean GTA3, because that’s the only other one in the series I’ve played.
Yup! You sure have! But, in rereading a few things that you said I now realize that it’s a matter of semantics and could be read in a couple of ways, so, I have now stopped scratching my head. And see that you have been consistent.
Yeah, but I don’t find it clunky at all. And, I didn’t notice any of the major reviewers citing the combat controls as a major defect. I am not saying these controls are the best of any game out there. I just thought combat was fine, and I thought the ability to duck behind pretty much anything was a cool game aspect. I wouldn’t say that was a fact, though. More of an opinion.
I do agree about the save aspects. It is a flaw. And, a flaw that would be pretty easy to fix.I guess it is a design choice. I wonder why they made that decision. I find it to be a small flaw - but I wonder how the designers could see it as a positive.
No, the aiming system isn’t clumsy at all. I had no trouble using it.
I disagree. A save anywhere system would have made the game too easy, and it’s unnecessary becasue most of the missions were very short.
Citing a bunch of opinions is still just a bunch of opinions. It’s a fact that I enjoy the game, it’s a fact that it got very high ratings. Does that mean my opinion is valid and yours is invalid?
What games are better?