[ghost5]

As normal this thread will contain spoilers....



What do you think of GTA IV?

Has it lived up to all the hype?

[ghost5]

I've been playing GTA IV for 6 hours now. The only reason I stopped is because my eyes are hurting

Does this game live up to all the hype for me? Yes defiantly

Everything about it oozes with quality. The graphics, the gameplay the multi player.

The only multiplayer game I have played is the free roam. It is brilliant. Getting a car then 3 random people jumping in with you, driving towards the police blockade with all guns firing! Ace!!!

Instead of going on about what is so good I'm going to highlight the few problems I have come across.

There are a few bugs in the game. In one of the early missions you kill some drug dealers for a friend. Your friend is then meant to follow you. If you turn left out of the alley he will not follow, for no apparent reason. Instead you have to go straight on.
I crashed my car in-between a wall and another car when I was meant to be picking someone up. My car froze where it was and I could not drive forward, back or get out. The person I was picking up could not get in. It stayed like this for about 30 seconds then suddenly it started moving again, and all was fine.
I also saw a full queue of traffic of around 8 cars moving down the runway at the airport on multi player.

When you are outside at night or are inside a house I found it far too dark. So much so that I could not see what I was doing. I do not think this is my TV as other games are fine. I turned up the brightness and contrast in the game settings though and all is fine.



These problems though do not mark a fantastic game which I give 9/10

Every other good thing that you have heard about this game is true - brilliant


edit:

I played multi player for a couple of hours after writing this. It is the most fun I've ever had with a game. If I could change my score now I'd give it 11/10! It more than makes up for any negative things about the game

[Moogle]

I closed the other thread as the poll was not made public. All review polls need to be public from now on please. I've created this new one. Anyone who voted in the other one needs to vote again in this one for their vote to count. Thanks.

[Pulsar]

Just a quick one. Got the game yesterday and have played for about an hour. After reading a few previews and reviews I had high expectations and I'm sad to say that on a technical level the game dissapoints. I will qualify this by saying I'm very fussy about frame rates and this is where GTA4 dissapoints me the most. Along with a choppy frame rate the game doesn't look as good as screenshots had me expecting and I've already seen a fair amount of clipping.

Gameplay, probably too early to tell so I'll leave this alone, voice acting is great though.

So, for me as it currently stands - £45 not well spent.

Cheers

Rob

[frank20]

I agree - frame rates are the most important thing to look out for in a game - I noticed one instance where I had loads of coppers after me where the frame rate dropped slightly - had to be a 2/10 I'm afraid.

[chui]

I am going to cancel my pre-order now if the frame rates are that bad. I am going to get GRAW2 instead, much better FPS IMHO...

GTA4 R.I.P

[Emulous]

All i can say is thanks a lot Pulsar youve saved me £40 there. I have cancelled my copy too, Rockstar can take there choppy framerates and stick 'em where the sun dont shine.

Now, anybody know where I can preorder GTA5?

i voted worthless as the damm postie hasnt delivered it yet...grrr...however i reserve the right to change my opinion once i have played it

[Pulsar]

Originally Posted by frank20

I agree - frame rates are the most important thing to look out for in a game - I noticed one instance where I had loads of coppers after me where the frame rate dropped slightly - had to be a 2/10 I'm afraid.

nah, I'd go 3/10.

[Hubba-EX]

Originally Posted by dazzarooney

i voted worthless as the damm postie hasnt delivered it yet...grrr...however i reserve the right to change my opinion once i have played it

***! Couldnt you just wait to score it after you played it.

[Jack-Deth]

Originally Posted by batblade2001

***! Couldnt you just wait to score it after you played it.

Agreed. What's the point of "reviewing" a game that you have not played, because it did not get delivered. V poor form. Plus the vote cannot be changed now anyway.

[Jonstone]

Originally Posted by Emulous

All i can say is thanks a lot Pulsar youve saved me £40 there. I have cancelled my copy too, Rockstar can take there choppy framerates and stick 'em where the sun dont shine.

Now, anybody know where I can preorder GTA5?

Don't discount it completely.

I would agree the graphics are not the greatest, although certainly on a par with games of similar scope, but once you get into the game you tend to forget the visuals to an extent.

I would still say it is well worth buying, but I will leave my vote for a couple of days until I have v=had time to really get into it

[Pulsar]

Alright.

I've been playing the game quite a bit over the last few days and my opinion on the visuals still hasn't changed, but I will say that everyone owes it to themselves to give this game a go. It has so much depth, but more importantly playability that I doubt any true gamer will be disapointed.

Go and grab it when you can.

Rob

[BradleyLove]

I don't get how people can rate a game after 1 day?

Same thing happend with Halo 3 for example. Loads of 10's across the board (and a fair few spoiler votes of 1) then some weeks later you find people saying "actually, it's not that good after all".

The hype for this game has been immense, especially with magazines/websites handing out 10's like they were going out of fashion. It seems to be spreading here.

I don't think anyone can truly judge a game til after at least a weeks worth of play.

Therefore I would humbly request that people wait to give their opinion. Play it properly, give the game a good going over. A lot of games seem like the "best thing ever" after 1 day's play. See 3, Halo for an example.

All I'm seeing right now is people's first impression, hence the polarisation of ratings.

[Widge]

lock this for a month and THEN let people get into it!

[SparkShot]

Lots of knee jerk reaction voting as always during the first few days of a games release.

After 2 hours play i would give this game an 8 so far, as i find the games judders alot when looking around sometimes, and some of the camera angles when driving (epecially when reversing) are a bit annoying.

Great storyline though and the gps map makes it alot easier to get around.

I'll make a proper vote for a couple of weeks though as i need to put alot more hours in.

[Jeff]

The game seems quite good but I'm shocked how bad the graphics are, it doesn't look HD at all.

[bazfoster]

Originally Posted by Spank-A-Thon

I don't get how people can rate a game after 1 day?

Same thing happend with Halo 3 for example. Loads of 10's across the board (and a fair few spoiler votes of 1) then some weeks later you find people saying "actually, it's not that good after all".

The hype for this game has been immense, especially with magazines/websites handing out 10's like they were going out of fashion. It seems to be spreading here.

I don't think anyone can truly judge a game til after at least a weeks worth of play.

Therefore I would humbly request that people wait to give their opinion. Play it properly, give the game a good going over. A lot of games seem like the "best thing ever" after 1 day's play. See 3, Halo for an example.

All I'm seeing right now is people's first impression, hence the polarisation of ratings.

Exactly! I reckon Longevity is a massive part of how good a game is...and to make judgement after 1 day is just daft. How many of the voters have played online I wonder?

[monkeybayou]

Why not vote after 1 day- that may be all some people ever play of one game. Yes it can't be a score of the overall experience available (in this case 25hrs +, which you could fit into a day + 1hr), but it can be a person's entire experience of that particular title. Are you not allowed to form an opinion of a 25hr + game if you play for shorter periods?

Maybe it's just proof that people need shorter games?

[bazfoster]

Originally Posted by monkeybayou

Why not vote after 1 day- that may be all some people ever play of one game. Yes it can't be a score of the overall experience available (in this case 25hrs +, which you could fit into a day + 1hr), but it can be a person's entire experience of that particular title. Are you not allowed to form an opinion of a 25hr + game if you play for shorter periods?

Maybe it's just proof that people need shorter games?

Thats the 2nd post i've read in 2 days from you, that i'm struggling to understand?

[Usama]

Voted for 10. At first it does not seem that good but once you have played it for a few days and got youst to the new gameplay, it's awesome!!

[catisfit]

I only got this yesterday so I'm not scoring it yet, but giving my first impressions:

Intro
You have to wait an age before you can do anything, there's all this unnecessary boat business at the start which is little more than a credit reel, just like Half-Life. In fact, it's a little bit too much like Half-Life...

Voices
Niko's voice is funny. Not Eastern European at all, it varies between sounding perfectly American in some barks and sounding like Allo Allo in the rest

First Mission
Driving to the apartment was jerky to the point of unplayable. It's got a bit better now so I can only assume that this 'mission' was particularly bad. Not great as a first impression though.

Apartment
Stevie Nicks Edge of Seventeen is on the radio. Awesome My feelings, which have been thoroughly negative up to this point, start to turn...

The Phone
Seems to be a 3D model instead of a HUD device, and is quite difficult to read, meaning I have to shift from my 'gaming slouch' to be able to read it properly.

The Graphics
Nothing special. This wouldn't be a problem at all if it was silky smooth, but it has a ropey framerate too. Burnout Paradise is 720p at 60fps, which makes GTA4's 640p at 30fps pretty laughable - even if it was rock solid at 30fps it would only be managing 40% of the pixels-per-second of Burnout Paradise. There's more going on in Liberty City but not 2.5x more.

The First Few Missions
Typical GTA early missions. Pick up this person. Shoot this guy.

The Radio


Dating
Nice addition. The random barks at the bowling alley were horrific, but in a 'first date' kinda way so it fit in well.

Multiplayer
My first few matches turned into an absolute jerkfest - and I don't mean I was in a room full of Americans Unplayable at times. I don't know if this was because of the PSN being overloaded, the game host having a poor connection or just the result of a less than optimal first stab at proper multiplayer. It doesn't seem possible to jump into a game your friends are already playing without an invite. Fun when it worked though.

If I was rating it on these first impressions, it would get something like a 5. As I get in to the story and the multiplayer more and get more used to the game, I expect the score will change, but how much I don't know. I will say that every single review which gave this a graphics score of 9 or 10 should hang it's head in shame.

[Dan81]

I know I will be told to shut up as I haven't actually played this yet but Ill say it anyway......

How can anyone give this 1/10 or 2/10......?

I mean even a free dvd game that comes in the newspaper might be worthy of a 3/10 if it entertains for a couple of hours. So to take into consideration everything gone into producing this and weighing up the final product as a whole and then to give it below say 4 just for framerate or 'graphics did not meet expectations' or 'didnt arrive on time'........is ridiculous. Even if there are flaws, it doesn't write off everything else.

rant over

[=adrian=]

Should I vote after more than 20 hours of the playtime in the singleplayer? No! It's not enough. This game is so vast. So far, I love it! I'll vote in next few days though.

[RedIndian]

Great game ! Can't remember the last time I was so addicted to playing a game. I have been up until 6am on one night, 4 am on another night and 7am on different night as I couldn't bring myself to switch of the PS3 and go to bed. Just could not put it down.

I guess I do not notice any frame rate issues or judder that other people have mentioned as I am way too into this to care about those things.

Weldone and thank you R* for making me want to switch on the PS3 as often as I possibly can.

[beowulf]

i gave it 7 , can i revise that to a 6 ?

this is NO gta vice city

i wish it was !!!

[SparkShot]

9 for me. More addictive than some of the substances you see in the game.

Love the whole look and sound of the game.

Much better than the last gta game i played (vice City which i sold after a couple of weeks).

Marked down 1 due to framerate can really distracting sometimes and online mode not being very reliable.

[m4rkie23]

15 hours playtime, 30% complete, few hours on multiplayer....LOVING it!!!

there are changes that could be made but as a £40 game, this is fantastic!!

[Anotherlimey]

Originally Posted by dazzarooney

i voted worthless as the damm postie hasnt delivered it yet...grrr...however i reserve the right to change my opinion once i have played it

Atleast you owned up to it i guess

[=adrian=]

For me, it has to be 10/10, just because this game is so addictive. There are few issues with multiplayer, but this game was never about multiplayer for me. Singleplayer is very, very good. I'm not dissapointed and that's why it's 10 out of 10. It's hard to live up to the hype these days and this game made it IMO