GTA V Announced

[SilverWingedSeraph]

I've played Saint's Row 2 on both 360 and PC, and yeah, the PC Port is fucking awful and buggy, but apparently there's a mod that fixes most of the major problems with it, Gentleman Of The Row or something like that? I never used it, 'cause I didn't know about it when I was playing it on PC, but apparently it fixes almost all the problems with SR2 on the PC?

[weemadando]

The game is good. And it runs like dog's bollocks. If you've got a somewhat passably current generation PC (you should be fine if you could run GTAIV), then Saints will probably run well enough that it wont be a big deal.

Idiom police here.

Bollocks = bad.

Dog's bollocks = good.

[Joviwan]

Oops. Thank you.

[Jade Falcon]

Put me up for a 'meh' here. I'm more looking forward to SR3, GTAIV just took itself too damn seriously and had its head so far up its arse it could wear it as a hat.

In contrast, I don't mind the expansion, the grain filter in Lost and the Dead was a bit much but the expansion wasn't bad and Ballad of Gay Tony wasn't bad either. Saints Row however constantly gets the 'GTA copy' label and in my mind at least Saints Row was far more fun, which is the most important thing. There's no sense having ultra realistic cities if your main cast of characters has all the charm of a German Shephard dog with a head swap operation.

[PREDATOR490]

Recently got GTA IV for a laugh and been playing it a lot but almost all GTA games have me getting bored mid way and getting lost messing around seeing the sights and fighting until I die. Personnally, I want a GTA game that allows you to play as a cop. There is a mod for GTA 4 that achieves this and it was quite fun being on the opposite side of the fence trying to chase fuckers down in sports cars armed with RPGs with your pistol / police car.

[Mr Bean]

The GTA 5 trailer dropped
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/02/gta-5-trailer/

Yep it's still being serious, but it's Las Santos again and we don't know who the main character is yet but it might be interesting since it looks like they are building off the GTA IV engine but with lots more detail, only time will tell if they get the whole "game play" thing down.

[RogueIce]

Well, definately Los Santos, though it looks like it'll include at least some of the countryside from San Andreas (Red County & Mount Chilead at least). So probably not all of SA, though it'll certainly have some nice countryside to take in.

But of course, "pretty graphics and locations" don't make a game by itself, so we'll see. Merit a rental at least to see how it plays. I saw in one of the comments that it looks like the main character's "unwilling return to crime" story will probably be the tough economic times shown. So expect plenty of jabs at the current economic crisis as there were tons of terrorist threat jokes in IV, I'd imagine.

[Zaune]

I saw in one of the comments that it looks like the main character's "unwilling return to crime" story will probably be the tough economic times shown. So expect plenty of jabs at the current economic crisis as there were tons of terrorist threat jokes in IV, I'd imagine.

They couldn't set a GTA game in what is very transparently contemporary LA* and not make some sort of reference to the state of the economy, not right now; escapism only excuses so much.

And is it just me, or does the narrator of the trailer sound a lot like the voice actor in the lead role for Max Payne 3?

* Can they get sued for trademark infringement or something if they use real US city names? The London 1969 expansion pack for the original GTA didn't bother disguising its location, and neither did the Getaway series or Gangs of London.

[RogueIce]

I saw in one of the comments that it looks like the main character's "unwilling return to crime" story will probably be the tough economic times shown. So expect plenty of jabs at the current economic crisis as there were tons of terrorist threat jokes in IV, I'd imagine.

They couldn't set a GTA game in what is very transparently contemporary LA* and not make some sort of reference to the state of the economy, not right now; escapism only excuses so much.

That is very true. I guess we'll see how nuts they go with it.

* Can they get sued for trademark infringement or something if they use real US city names? The London 1969 expansion pack for the original GTA didn't bother disguising its location, and neither did the Getaway series or Gangs of London.

I don't think so. The True Crime series got away with it, though it seems they sometimes change up things like not having it be the NYPD and stuff. I think Driver: SF had them labeled as "Bay Area Police" instead of the SFPD, for instance.

Anyway, the unique names go back to the original GTA game, before London, so I imagine they still use the names as a reference to that. Why they felt the need back in 1997 to have fictionalized place names I don't know.

[Havok]

They had motorcycle gangs clubs one time. That was cool. The rest... meh... put it to bed.

[Ritterin Sophia]

oh wow. They'd better make GTAV something spectacular. I just saw Saint's 3s newest commercial and the tagline is literally 'out GTAs GTA'

[SilverWingedSeraph]

They had motorcycle gangs clubs one time. That was cool. The rest... meh... put it to bed.

Speaking of putting it to bed, that trailer is so boring I swear I almost dozed off while it was playing. It's just so dull. Guy does exposition talky talk while a bunch of relatively mundane crap happens on screen, nothing very interesting or exciting there at all. Sure, it looks pretty. Hooray. Who was expecting otherwise? But... it certainly doesn't make me interested in the game, especially not after the snorefest of GTA4.

Saints Row: The Third is generally shaping up to be the more interesting looking game.

[DaveJB]

Speaking of putting it to bed, that trailer is so boring I swear I almost dozed off while it was playing. It's just so dull. Guy does exposition talky talk while a bunch of relatively mundane crap happens on screen, nothing very interesting or exciting there at all.

It's a teaser trailer; it's just designed to let us know that the game exists, and that they're returning to the San Andreas setting. My guess is that the game isn't far enough in development for them to be able to show us any meaningful gameplay footage.

Saints Row: The Third is generally shaping up to be the more interesting looking game.

You're comparing a game weeks from release with one that we know virtually nothing about other than the title, the setting, and a few vague details about the storyline. Of course Saints Row: The Third is going to look more interesting!

[weemadando]

Speculation has been that we see both Tommy Vercetti and CJ in the trailer and that Tommy Vercetti is doing the v/o. Which supports industry rumours about them going episodic within the one title (multiple protagonists) to avoid having stupid situations where one character goes wildly off course and out of character just so they can fit in a sequence that they wanted to JAM DOWN YOUR FUCKING THROAT AND NEVER LET YOU DEVIATE FROM.

FUCK YOU ROCKSTAR.

That said, I have been playing LDPD:First Responders mod for GTA IV/EFLC. It's a clunky mess of PC scripting overlays, but that is a game that has a lot of potential to be fun.

"PULL THE FUCK OVER MA'AM!"
Car pulls over, I roll my unmarked car in behind it.
Woman gets out of car and adopts an 'aggressive' stance, but is CLEARLY unarmed.
My partner does a fucking Mozambique drill on her with a M4.

HE DOES THIS ALL THE TIME.

Like frisking a dude on the street. He'll suddenly decide that he doesn't like this situation and when I step back, the guy I was frisking gets two in the back of the head.

Too bad he wasn't as quick on the trigger when we responded to a shots fired call. We roll up the block where the call came from and hear a shot from an alley, so we get out and suddenly about 20 gang bangers with Glocks, MAC-10s and shotguns roll out of the alley. My partner is lit the fuck up in the middle of the street by them while I sprint for cover and hunker down behind a parked car madly screaming for back-up over the radio. Units start pouring in from everywhere and eventually NOOSE and air support show up and by this time more gang bangers rolling past the scene in cars have gotten involved and it's pretty much fucking Mogadishu in Broker. By the time it ends we've got bodies all up and down the street which everyone is madly running around trying to revive, I'm doing CPR on my partner (just because I can), while screaming "TWO DAYS TO RETIREMENT" (out of game, it just felt appropriate).

I'm serious when I say that if they could tidy all that up, put in in a DLC pack for a NON BUSTED ARSE version of the game and release it, I'd fucking love to play more.

[FedRebel]

Speculation has been that we see both Tommy Vercetti and CJ in the trailer and that Tommy Vercetti is doing the v/o. Which supports industry rumours about them going episodic within the one title (multiple protagonists) to avoid having stupid situations where one character goes wildly off course and out of character just so they can fit in a sequence that they wanted to JAM DOWN YOUR FUCKING THROAT AND NEVER LET YOU DEVIATE FROM.

FUCK YOU ROCKSTAR.

The handling of story missions has definately been a weak point for Rockstar, GTA campaigns are increasingly more "fixed ciniematic" (deliberate railroads for exactly specific sequences) which defeats the purpose of a sandbox world.

What's the point of having a massive detailed map and countless resources if I can't use them how I see fit (like in Saint's or Just Cause.)

Whomever the authors the story missions are, they're not writing a sandbox campaign.

The author of this mission isn’t designing a game, he’s writing a movie scene, and I’m acting as a stuntman who isn’t allowed to read the script.

This sums it up.

[Stark]

It's always been that way, right back to GTA3, but as they've had bigger pretentions as storytellers it has become worse. San Andreas was a bit strange with the separation between player mass-murderer CJ and cutscene drippy whiner CJ, but RDR and LAN are far more movies or 'adventures' than sandbox anything.

GTA4 had some disgustingly horrible scripted sequences where they were too stupid to turn the ambient vehicles/people off, so I'd expect this to continue.

[weemadando]

GTA3 and I believe Vice City didn't reset the world state when you entered a mission, or mix mission. So options like blocking a side street with a try k to cut off an escape route or shooting out the tires on the enemy's car before the get in during a cutscene.

San Andreas started changing all that and IV killed it entirely.

[Stark]

Remember the guys in 4 that were immune to physics, so motorbikes would knock garbage trucks off the road? :V

[Starglider]

I didn't feel straightjacketed (or annoyed by minor characters) in RDR the way I did in GTA4, but I think that's because the world design in RDR just has less scope and motivation for off-plot screwing around in the first place. I didn't think I was going to like RDR, but I got it on budget and it was actually a lot of fun, the world was immersive partly because the plot silliness and plot/gameplay disconnect wasn't so bad.

[Commander 598]

I tried playing SR2 but I just couldn't get into it. I don't know if it was the setting feeling too artificial after GTA's copying of existing cities or because the PC port's driving is such that you would be better off running on foot.

[Zaune]

Speculation has been that we see both Tommy Vercetti and CJ in the trailer and that Tommy Vercetti is doing the v/o.

Regardless of the other issues you bring up (which I can't really comment on because I haven't played any GTA game after Vice City), that sounds like it could be truly awesome if they bring in a decent script team.