GTA: The Mainframe

[Tychu]

After buying the PS2 version of Liberty City Stories (im not paying 250 bux for a handheld) i have to say i dont know what everyone is crying over, its a great game. Excellent timing to hold us over for the real sequel to GTA III

Now i was wondering what other real life paradies besides teh Mainframe= The Matrix that the GTA crew has done over the past years

lol "When 5 teenagers take LSD and discover the truth"

[Joe]

"This week is the Ammu-Nation with free screening of THE DOCUMENTARY RED DAWN"

[Bounty]

Pastel shirts > all

Vice City. Best soundtrack, best humour, and *by far* the best atmosphere.

[Gandalf]

SA wins for gameplay. The amount of customisation available really helps the replayability. The plot sucks though. I would have loved it if it was all about the gang warfare scene, by the time the CIA guy came into it, I lost interest. Even if the story had to be really short, with a ton of side missions, that would have been fine with me.

VC wins for atmosphere. Great humour, good cars, a womderful 1980's feel. It's great to pop into a jogging suit, and do drive buys to the tune of Billie Jean.

Overall I vote for VC.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I have to go with VC for humour and radio too. I'm a real '80s child (okay, I was born in '83 so don't recall it all very well...) and the music appeals, as well as the pop culture references. I was pissing myself halfway through a chase with the cops when the Red Dawn ad came up from Ammu-Nation. Then there was the deoderant ad using the analogy of a squad of G.I.s going into a gook camp. And you can never go wrong with the classics like Lazlow's chats and the Zaibatsu Monstrosity etc.

[Adrian McNair]

I consider Vice City to be the best of the games in the GTA franchise that I have played (I haven't experienced San Andreas yet). From the moment that I started the game I was immediately enthralled by the character and charm of the Eighties atmosphere.

It has quite a few homages to Scarface (It's definitely one of the more obvious Eighties pop cultural references amongst many of the others in the game), with the interiors of the mansion that you "acquire" from Diaz resembling Tony Montana's home and the final showdown with Forelli somewhat parralleling what take place in the film.

Now i was wondering what other real life paradies besides teh Mainframe= The Matrix that the GTA crew has done over the past years

lol "When 5 teenagers take LSD and discover the truth"

The Exploder film starring Jack Howitzer that is promoted on various radio stations in GTA 3 seems to be an amalgamation of the Rambo and Missing in Action films.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

San Andreas has the best missions, the best graphics, the most stuff you can do, and the biggest and most varied and interesting map. GTA:SA for the win.

[Pezzoni]

Feature and size wise: San Andreas.

Gameplay wise: Vice City. By far the best atmosphere - and it also catered to some hilarious radio conversation (generally involving hysteria about 'dirty commie pinkos ).

Both were brilliant however. It also goes without saying that GTA3 was a pioneering game.

[RogueIce]

Yay, first to vote for GTA3!

I really like this game the best. Not just for being the first but I also think it had a good story and the best of the characters. He's a hired gun that goes out and kills for money. No empire building, just doing the city's wetwork. Plus I like the whole betrayal aspect and how by the end of the game it is almost literally you against the city: the cops have no love for you and the vast majority of the underworld also wants your head, with your only allies being some gang in the projects and the Yakuza (the leadership of which is apparently dead, thanks to you).

And I really love GTA3's Rise FM. Plus, Liberty City itself rocks and the atmosphere is great.

[RedImperator]

SA would have had a better story if it hadn't gotten so outlandish towards the end. I would have had a lot more fun building Grove Street up into a criminal empire that rules the entire state, rather than spending half the game as Tenpenny's bitch. Among other problems, I could never quite reconcile gameplay CJ, who once blew away 200 cops in order to max out his pistol skills, and cutscene CJ, who doesn't blow Tenpenny's head off because he'll wind up framed for some IA officer's murder.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I think GTA:SA had better and more varied gameplay, with the most replayability, but I agree that it dropped the ball a little bit on the story. Vice City takes the trophy for soundtrack, story, and characters. One of the things I disliked about the story in GTA:SA was the way that they soft-pedalled CJ as an anti-hero, which I think makes him a weak protagonist, maybe even the weakest of the GTA:III era. That's right... weaker than Claude

Claude in GTA3 is basically an engine of destruction. He doesn't build a criminal empire, he doesn't make friends, he just kills people and blows shit up to get money as fast as he can. By the end of the game he has singlehandedly crippled organized crime in Liberty City--the Yardies are decimated, the Leone family and Yakuza are leaderless, while the Triads, Cartel, and Forelli family are more or less completely annihilated. Claude is an unflinching, monstrous killing machine, and he does it all because he wants his woman (Catalina) back. When it becomes clear she's not coming back, he kills her as well, and then kills Maria because why the fuck not? Claude is a pretty vague character and you have to fill in the blanks for yourself, but I like him

Tommy Vercetti is more fleshed out, but Rockstar doesn't pull any punches. He's a sociopathic mass murderer who is going to take over the biggest cocaine hub in America and fuck anybody who gets in his way.

But CJ has all this bullshit like obeying the code of the street and helping out his family. Cutscene CJ behaves absolutely nothing like "me playing the game" CJ. It's jarring and annoying.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

For my playing style, I actually liked CJ better, since I tend to get immersed in the GTA games and not go around on shooting/running over rampages. But yes, he was kind of a pussy in comparison.

[Eleas]

For my playing style, I actually liked CJ better, since I tend to get immersed in the GTA games and not go around on shooting/running over rampages. But yes, he was kind of a pussy in comparison.

I beg to differ. Anyone who would jump out of a fucking plane onto another (without parachute!) in order to eliminate everyone on it deserves my deep and abiding respect.

[weemadando]

Vice City easily for setting, ambience and characters.

GTA:SA easily in the gameplay stakes.

[Alyeska]

The biggest problem with CJ started in the last 1/3 of the game. CJ could have killed Tenpenny easily in Los Venturas. Torino was protecting Sweet at that point. Whats worse is when CJ gets back to Los Santos and Sweet is out, Sweet is a fucking asshole. CJ has sacraficed everything for the family and expanded his horizons.

[Dennis Toy]

GTA: SA is the best when it comes to grameplay, story and characters. To those who say CJ was not a great protagonist needs to get his head examined. CJ was well fleshed out as a person who respected his families, his homies, friends and associates. He wasn't a hard-core gangsta but someone who had too much trouble in his life. For example, his mother died, his families were torn apart, the streets he grew up in was self-destructing and he had to find a way to bring them back.

I like GTA: SA for the fact its bigger than VC and it has more to do.

[Dennis Toy]

The biggest problem with CJ started in the last 1/3 of the game. CJ could have killed Tenpenny easily in Los Venturas. Torino was protecting Sweet at that point. Whats worse is when CJ gets back to Los Santos and Sweet is out, Sweet is a fucking asshole. CJ has sacraficed everything for the family and expanded his horizons.

no he couldn't. If he killed him then, he would have had another police murder charge on his hand. You see Tenpenny and his associates had placed the blame for 2 cop murders that he didnt do on him.

[weemadando]

I would have LOVED a "Fuck you Sweet." option.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

My review:

Claude is not a well-defined character, but he is. He's a silent, unflinching psycho. No apparent aspirations to power or anything, just unstoppable killing for money. He's like a force of nature. He's just out for blood and money, and nothing can stop him.

Tony Vercetti: My favourite character. The game makes it clear that yes, this man is a mass-murdering monster who's out to build a true criminal empire from the ground up, and destroying everything that gets in his way. Total badass.

CJ: Retarded 'honourable' gangsta shit whose behaviour in cinematics is impossible to reconcile with his character. Goddamnit, I actually staged a 1-man assault on a secret military airbase and raided every police station in the state, killing over 100 cops and soldiers, and I still act like everyone's bitch? No.

As for humour, Vice City wins, with San Andreas coming in a close second. Both have hilarious Radio stations, but between Maurice Chavez and the Vietnam-assault deodorant, Vice City wins.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

To those who say CJ was not a great protagonist needs to get his head examined. CJ was well fleshed out as a person who respected his families, his homies, friends and associates. He wasn't a hard-core gangsta but someone who had too much trouble in his life. For example, his mother died, his families were torn apart, the streets he grew up in was self-destructing and he had to find a way to bring them back.

And the gameplay itself contradicts all of that; that's what peoples' complaints are actually focusing on. All of the character-building and moral obligations of CJ presented in the cutscenes are thrown out the window and ignored each time it switches back to the gameplay, where CJ becomes a killing machine just like Tony and Claude.

Basically, the gameplay doesn't support the story progression and character development of the cutscenes.

[Eleas]

Basically, the gameplay doesn't support the story progression and character development of the cutscenes.

Actually, that depends a mite on how you play it. My CJ was fairly close to the character himself, even though I'd say I was less of a pussy. Mainly, I'd wager the problem is that of having so much freedom to act that you're hard to define as any one character.

As for his being a "macho bullshit gangsta," that's really mostly the point. He's a pastiche of all those early nineties ghetto movies. And I, personally, thought it worked pretty damned well.

[Alyeska]

The biggest problem with CJ started in the last 1/3 of the game. CJ could have killed Tenpenny easily in Los Venturas. Torino was protecting Sweet at that point. Whats worse is when CJ gets back to Los Santos and Sweet is out, Sweet is a fucking asshole. CJ has sacraficed everything for the family and expanded his horizons.

no he couldn't. If he killed him then, he would have had another police murder charge on his hand. You see Tenpenny and his associates had placed the blame for 2 cop murders that he didnt do on him.

Wrong. At this point Torino was protecting CJ and Sweet. At this point CJ could easily have told them to go fuck themselves and killed them. The fact that CJ kills both of them as it is stands as proof of my assertation.

[Dominus Atheos]

Where the fuck did it say his name is Claude?

[RogueIce]

The biggest problem with CJ started in the last 1/3 of the game. CJ could have killed Tenpenny easily in Los Venturas. Torino was protecting Sweet at that point. Whats worse is when CJ gets back to Los Santos and Sweet is out, Sweet is a fucking asshole. CJ has sacraficed everything for the family and expanded his horizons.

no he couldn't. If he killed him then, he would have had another police murder charge on his hand. You see Tenpenny and his associates had placed the blame for 2 cop murders that he didnt do on him.

Wrong. At this point Torino was protecting CJ and Sweet. At this point CJ could easily have told them to go fuck themselves and killed them. The fact that CJ kills both of them as it is stands as proof of my assertation.

That and he'd already blown away a bunch of SWAT officers and even shot down a police helicopter, as well as numerous patrol cops in the chase afterward. Which you had to do in "Reuniting the Families" so that, even if you did play the game such that he would resemble his cutscene self, CJ's killed far more cops then the four he would be blamed for by taking out Tenpenny and Pulaski (and their holding Hernandez and Pendlebury's murder over him).

Plus blowing away all the cops during the chase for "End of the Line" as well.

And while technically he didn't kill Tenpenny (so far as anyone could prove in a court of law), unless he hid Pulaski's body somewhere it'd be hard to cover up a LSPD anti-gang cop's death in the middle of the desert (of course since Pulaski only "disappeared" so far as the authorities knew, maybe he did).

Regardless, while in the eventual flow of the story he never really did kill Tenpenny and his crew (again, so far as could be proven, and given the trouble Tenpenny caused I doubt the LSPD was going to push the issue) he had more than enough police blood on his hands that killing Tenpenny and Pulaski outright in Las Venturas really wouldn't have mattered, especially as Sweet was under Toreno's protection at the time.

[RogueIce]

Where the fuck did it say his name is Claude?

Catalina mentions it during one of her phone calls to CJ in the late stages of SA.

That and it's been pointed out the guy who plays the character in the GTA2 movies looks a lot like the guy from GTA3, and he was credited as Claude Speed. Whether that was the initial intention or not I don't know, but it seems Rockstar decided to retcon it into being so (although we don't know for sure that his last name is actually Speed).

Claude in GTA3 is basically an engine of destruction. He doesn't build a criminal empire, he doesn't make friends, he just kills people and blows shit up to get money as fast as he can. By the end of the game he has singlehandedly crippled organized crime in Liberty City--the Yardies are decimated, the Leone family and Yakuza are leaderless, while the Triads, Cartel, and Forelli family are more or less completely annihilated. Claude is an unflinching, monstrous killing machine, and he does it all because he wants his woman (Catalina) back. When it becomes clear she's not coming back, he kills her as well, and then kills Maria because why the fuck not? Claude is a pretty vague character and you have to fill in the blanks for yourself, but I like him

I guess it's only a minor nitpick, but I don't think Claude ever really wanted to get Catalina back in the sense that I'm understanding you (back as his girlfriend/partner?). After all, she did shoot him and leave him for dead, and didn't exactly try to break him out (indeed the Colombians left him and 8 Ball to be blown up on the Callahan Bridge, but I don't know if it was intentional or just incidental). And she would later take a slightly more direct approach to trying to kill him through the Yardie's assassination attempt.

If Claude had any initial motivation regarding Catalina, I'd say it would be to kill her. Though whether it was out of a sense of revenge or simply necessity given the conditions she set in The Exchange is up to you, I guess.

As for killing Maria, while it does add quite a bit to his bad assitude and all, I would wonder why he went to all the trouble to try and rescue her (such as ponying up 500 grand in ransom) and then fighting his way through the Dam with the purpose of keeping her alive (or else you fail the mission) if he would later kill her just for being annoying.

Again, I guess it's a matter of interpretation and I doubt Rockstar is going to make some canon statement of it in a future game, but one theory I read is that he fired that gunshot just to get her to shut up. Which, given all the trouble he went through to get her out alive makes more sense to me personally.

Though like I said, it is open to interpretation.