GTA V Announced

[Flagg]

Destructoid

Take a deep breath everyone. Rockstar Games has updated their website with a splash screen showing the logo of a Grand Theft Auto V. No word on release of the actual game, but they did have a street date of November 2nd for the first trailer which is almost as good as having actual news about a game.

Helpful of them to clarify that Roman numeral in the logo. Wouldn't want confusion. Lead them to thinking that since dinosaurs are the new zombies, maybe it's Grand Theft Auto Velociraptor. Or perhaps folks might suspect it's centered around the adventures of a crotchety old police detective in Greenwich village, because I would totally play Grand Theft Auto Vigoda.

Thank God Rockstar is aware of the intellectual capacity of the audience that it sells complex, adult-oriented entertainment to.

And just the icing on the cake.

GamePolitics

GTA V Announcement Timed with Thompson’s Three-Year Disbarment Anniversary

A friend of mine (a developer who will remain nameless) said that the Grand Theft Auto V announcement was oddly timed. I didn't understand what he meant at first until our readers and Twitter began mentioning that today's date coincides with the official start date of former Florida attorney Jack Thompson's disbarment date. On September 25, 2008, the Florida Supreme Court’s disbarment order for Thompson was signed. It went into effect 30 days later, on October 25, 2008.

Rockstar will show off the first trailer for the game on November 2. Thanks to Andrew Eisen and everyone else in the Shout Box and on Twitter who connected the dots.

I don't want to make Thompson come out of hiding to send me a painfully long email filled with insults, so I’ll simply wish him the best in whatever it is he does these days to keep himself occupied. Best of luck in all your endeavors, Jack.

[Stark]

Does the announcement let us know if they plan on making a good game this time? Or more boring as shit self indulgent crap with 'mash A to investigate' excitement?

Because y'know, Saints is beating them to market again.

[Thanas]

Hooray for another sucky PC port, I guess.

[Flagg]

Fuck you, I liked GTA 4. Would be cool if they did the LA Noire facial shit.

[Agent Fisher]

For me, the best part of GTAIV is the LCPDFR mod and all the stuff people make for it. So I'm looking forward to GTA V to see what the same mod teams will come up with.

[Stark]

Fuck you, I liked GTA 4. Would be cool if they did the LA Noire facial shit.

Yeah, for all that conversation in GTA 4. Please note, caring about the serious story about serious people is why Rockstar games all suck.

[Flagg]

Fuck you, I liked GTA 4. Would be cool if they did the LA Noire facial shit.

Yeah, for all that conversation in GTA 4. Please note, caring about the serious story about serious people is why Rockstar games all suck.

Why must you be the screen door on my submarine?

[Enigma]

PCMag

Rockstar Games on Tuesday officially announced Grand Theft Auto V via its Web site. It didn’t divulge anything about the game—it simply listed the logo along with the promise of a trailer that will be released on November 2.

There are virtually no details available about the game. The setting and release date are are purely speculation at this point. The Guardian noted that because platforms for the game haven’t been divulged, GTA V might not drop until the next-generation Xbox and PlayStation are released. However, GTA V has likely been in development for at least two years, which means the stars could align for a 2012 launch, the Guardian said.

One thing is certain: gamers seem to be excited for the next iteration of the game. “GTA V” and “Grand Theft Auto V” are currently two of the top tends for Twitter worldwide.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has sold more than 114 million units total since it debuted in 1997. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, the most recent installment of the series, has itself sold 22 million units since its 2008 release.

Released in 2001, Grand Theft Auto III is widely believed to be the breakthrough title for the franchise. Set in the New York-inspired Liberty City, GTA III gave players a detailed realm to drive through, running down other cars and sniping pedestrians in their path in an open-world format. Wired pointed out that while Grand Theft Auto III was not the first open-world game, it was “certainly the most influential, inspiring countless others over the decade.”

Rockstar celebrated the tenth anniversary of Grand Theft Auto III earlier this month with the release of a version compatible with iOS devices.

Are you excited about Grand Theft Auto V? What are you hoping to see in the game? Let us know in the comments section.

So the game might not be launched until the next gen consoles are released but the game might be launched next year? That'll mean it could be out be next December.

[Stark]

A lot of people (based on not much) ar saying xyz game won't be out until the next consoles come out. Since they're not even talking about new consoles, that seems a bit unlikely.

[Flagg]

They are probably talking about the Nintendo Gimmick 2, err Wii U.

[Stark]

No, I don't think anyone cares about that.

[Zaune]

Isn't this franchise getting a little bit stale now? There's got to be a limit to how much of a new spin they can put on the basic formula by now, especially now the Saints Row series has started competing in the same genre.

[Thanas]

The basic GTAIV story is pretty good, though. The Expansions are just bad.

[Mr Bean]

Isn't this franchise getting a little bit stale now? There's got to be a limit to how much of a new spin they can put on the basic formula by now, especially now the Saints Row series has started competing in the same genre.

Not really, by their very nature Giant Sandbox games don't get stale since all you need is Sand and toys. You don't need new sand every generation you just need new toys. Thus each generation you can get your innovation quota by simply adding more toys. The three big things they could do for GTA 5 of which they could re-do GTA IV and add one new toy and still win every single game of the year out there.

1. Branching Storylines/Multiple endings
Encouraging re-play by opening up multiple contacts working at cross purposes. You can divide your quests into three groups standard (The ones that might impact the city but not the over-all story much if at all) the as time goes by quests (Which are standard no matter which path your taking) and the branching stuff which will be your big missions and you can cheat in a few and re-do the same mission twice but swap enemy skins if your lazy or if your a bit more inventive you swap goals, IE if I'm working for say the Triad against the mob I have to defend a warehouse from mob attackers then capture a Mob Don as leverage to get them to back down. While if working for Mob against the Triad I have to blow up that same Warehouse and get the Don to safety when reinforcements show up. The same mission set using the same enemies just a simple tweak to the objectives both have a kill all followed by a car chase (or rather car escape for one) but that's the simple mirroring with tweaks mission that will win you editor praise.

2. Actually make the combat decent and the AI intelligent and the car chases real chases.



3. Just more stuff
Return to GTA 3 style with more RPG elements, more open stories, more side-quests and the same sort of moving on up where the longer you play the more stuff you acquire. Fill in the gaps with more content in other words.

[Stark]

The basic GTAIV story is pretty good, though. The Expansions are just bad.

If only Rockstar could make gunplay not fucking horrible, they might catch up to Saints Row.

[Vympel]

Chances of there being no more Do-It-Again-Stupid "gameplay" in GTA5?

It’s designed to foil you until you can beat it not with skill, but with foreknowledge. The distracting messages that appear are only there to goad you into doing things that will cause you to fail the mission. (Following him too close and trying to shoot him.) The game pretends to be an open sandbox world, but it’s constantly changing the rules on you in the background and cheating to make sure you do a mission the one “correct” way the designer intended. This is not a freeform game. This is a guessing game, and if you guess wrong the penalty is that the game pisses away a few more minutes of your time.

[weemadando]

Chances of there being no more Do-It-Again-Stupid "gameplay" in GTA5?

It’s designed to foil you until you can beat it not with skill, but with foreknowledge. The distracting messages that appear are only there to goad you into doing things that will cause you to fail the mission. (Following him too close and trying to shoot him.) The game pretends to be an open sandbox world, but it’s constantly changing the rules on you in the background and cheating to make sure you do a mission the one “correct” way the designer intended. This is not a freeform game. This is a guessing game, and if you guess wrong the penalty is that the game pisses away a few more minutes of your time.

YUP

[Gunhead]

The basic GTAIV story is pretty good, though. The Expansions are just bad.

If only Rockstar could make gunplay not fucking horrible, they might catch up to Saints Row.

Only thing I felt was wrong about the shooting in GTAIV was the insane accuracy of the guns and SR had regenerating health which I thought was far better to GTAIV's "Drive to get health and then drive to get more armor" time waster. But all and all the gunplay in both was pretty similar. Well that is from memory, it's been a while I've played either. Hmm... one thing that's somewhat indirectly related is the ass way GTAIV holds out on the best hardware.

-Gunhead

[Thanas]

yeah, that biker mission was so frustrating in GTA IV and unfair. I pumped all my SMG ammo into the guy (over 300 rounds) and he survived with no problem. I even stopped playing and went online thinking it must be a bug that made the mission unsolvable. Oh wait, the designers jut want you to have another cutscene aka thanks for doing what we told you before sucker, now do this.



EDIT: Hmmm, this makes me want to play some saints row. Is it as good as the hype says and how good does it run under Windows?

[Gunhead]

Only ever played SR2 and it runs fine under windows as I recall, it's ages since I played it. Good as the hype... no, I don't think so. SR2 was a fun ride as long as it lasted. Never really went back to it after I finished the main campaign.

-Gunhead

[Tolya]

Are you kidding me? SR2's PC port is as worse as it gets.

Anyways, if they concentrate around making GTA V fun to play, not some lengthy quest for you-don't-know-and-don't-care shit with tons of useless minigames and bar hopping, then I will want to play it.

I wish they did a game like Vice City...

[Joviwan]

EDIT: Hmmm, this makes me want to play some saints row. Is it as good as the hype says and how good does it run under Windows?

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.

The two biggest problems with the PC port are: on Win7, there's a chance that everything in the game plays at 1.5x speed for some reason. There's fixes and stuff around, but I haven't encountered the issue myself. I can try looking it up if you've got Win7. The other problem is that driving is a lot like tron light-cycles, so be prepared to hate your keyboard or get a controller.

[Dave]

I just picked up SR2 on Steam last week. It was fun, but I experienced a couple of random crashes in the middle of the game that ended up with me losing maybe 30 min worth of play time each time. That, and some dumb graphics glitches during the cutscenes (if anything was supposed to be held in the hand of a character half of the time it was displaced by about a foot).

I enjoyed it and I think it's worth the $10 I got it for, but I was a mood to just screw around and SR2 delivered.

[Losonti Tokash]

The PC port of SR2 was contracted out to someone else, but since it was awful, Volition is doing the PC version of SR3 themselves. I play on 360 so no clue how bad the PC version is, but there you go. Anyway, I'm loving the articles on this game so far. "We don't know a damn thing other than it is like the tenth GTA game and we'll probably get a useless teaser in a week. YAYYYYY"

-Gunhead

[Kane Starkiller]

I loved GTA Vice City but since then the games seemed to take themselves too seriously.

Also being a Croatian listening to Niko and his pals try to speak Serbo-Croatian was just embarrassing.