Zero Punctuation: Grand Theft Biggleswade

Peptuck · Post by **Peptuck** » 2008-05-14 01:57pm

GTAIV is, in his own words, "FACKEEN ORESUM".

Though as usual, Yahtzee doesn't mince words about what pisses him off.

chitoryu12 · Post by **chitoryu12** » 2008-05-14 02:27pm

His TV must be terrible. I have had almost zero trouble spotting enemies just playing while sitting on the floor. And someone needs to tell him that you can cancel a date or friend activity before picking the person up.

Either that, or he has some weird obsession with being friendly to a mass of fictional pixels. Hell, I rarely ever need the friends' benefits.

And what the fuck was he saying about the graphics? If brown, gray, and black are the only colors he's seeing, he must be spending all of his time on Mohawk Street in Broker.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-05-14 02:29pm

His experiences mirror mine. The graphics are trying too hard to be gritty, car handling sucks and the police are morons.

His credits now say something like "trying to piss off every kind of fanboy". QED, it would seem.

I have had almost zero trouble spotting enemies just playing while sitting on the floor.

I had trouble spotting cars. Granted, I wasn't playing on a six-foot jumbotron, but if your game doesn't work at a common resolution there's something really broken.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2008-05-14 04:01pm

I agreed with most of that. I didn't have too much trouble spotting the enemies, but most of the health/armour/weapon pickups are near-impossible to find without a guide.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2008-05-14 04:07pm

Question about the game itself: Will there be a PC version?

Post by **RogueIce** » 2008-05-14 04:33pm

Zixinus wrote:Question about the game itself: Will there be a PC version?

I heard June.

On an unrelated note, I rather liked that Instinct vs iPhone ad at the end.

So anyway, the review. Yeah I can see some of the complaints, and he is rather funny. Like the common street lights vs trees thing. And while some people will love all the elements of the game, others won't. Which is cool because you can pretty easily avoid most of them. That's one of the nicer things, those optional elements you can by and large ignore or use at your pleasure. Better than the damn "eat or die" of San Andreas. Christ it pissed me off to randomly lose my muscle mass because I hadn't stopped by Burger Shot for a few hours.

Not sure what TV he was running, but I will admit there is a difference between when I played it on an HDTV and when we had to use my friend's crappy little TV. Though it didn't render anything unplayable in my view.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2008-05-14 05:50pm

First off I never had the issue of being angry at having to eat in San Andreas
Why? Food make heath bar go up
Yay! Food good! Mmm food, make bullet wounds go away

But yes, it's good to see that he fell prey to the same issues most people were having, annoying people who annoy you.

Post by **RogueIce** » 2008-05-14 05:55pm

Mr Bean wrote:First off I never had the issue of being angry at having to eat in San Andreas
Why? Food make heath bar go up
Yay! Food good! Mmm food, make bullet wounds go away

I wouldn't have cared either, except if you didn't eat you'd eventually start to lose health. Which is kinda lame.

I enjoy running around causing mayhem, but when I get an annoying "You're starving. If you don't eat soon you'll die" message and start losing my muscle, it got annoying.

Peptuck · Post by **Peptuck** » 2008-05-14 06:03pm

RogueIce wrote:
Mr Bean wrote:First off I never had the issue of being angry at having to eat in San Andreas
Why? Food make heath bar go up
Yay! Food good! Mmm food, make bullet wounds go away
I wouldn't have cared either, except if you didn't eat you'd eventually start to lose health. Which is kinda lame.

I enjoy running around causing mayhem, but when I get an annoying "You're starving. If you don't eat soon you'll die" message and start losing my muscle, it got annoying.

That never really bugged me, but that's because I was always saving in safehouses or getting sent to the hospital.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2008-05-14 09:12pm

Complaints about invincible wood and friends constantly haranging you are valid. I thought the story picked up once you started working for Mikael, though.

chitoryu12 · Post by **chitoryu12** » 2008-05-14 11:15pm

Aside from just canceling activities for no negative consequences, there's an option in your phone to set it on silent. While it tells you that the storyline may not continue (due to you not getting certain important calls), I've run all the way through the Alderny missions with my phone on silent all the way up to the end of the game. The only thing it shuts off is friends and dates.

Resinence · Post by **Resinence** » 2008-05-14 11:29pm

chitoryu12 wrote:Aside from just canceling activities for no negative consequences, there's an option in your phone to set it on silent. While it tells you that the storyline may not continue (due to you not getting certain important calls), I've run all the way through the Alderny missions with my phone on silent all the way up to the end of the game. The only thing it shuts off is friends and dates.

Can I ask you something? Why do you feel the need to rationalize away the valid complaints people have of GTA4, when they are such small issues?

Friends are annoying, turning your phone to silent prevents you from receiving story based calls. Thats a valid complaint, but it doesn't make GTA4 a bad game, and I don't see why you see the need to defend it?

Aquatain · Post by **Aquatain** » 2008-05-15 08:30am

Resinence wrote:
chitoryu12 wrote:Aside from just canceling activities for no negative consequences, there's an option in your phone to set it on silent. While it tells you that the storyline may not continue (due to you not getting certain important calls), I've run all the way through the Alderny missions with my phone on silent all the way up to the end of the game. The only thing it shuts off is friends and dates.
Can I ask you something? Why do you feel the need to rationalize away the valid complaints people have of GTA4, when they are such small issues?

Friends are annoying, turning your phone to silent prevents you from receiving story based calls. Thats a valid complaint, but it doesn't make GTA4 a bad game, and I don't see why you see the need to defend it?

Stockholm syndrome...

chitoryu12 · Post by **chitoryu12** » 2008-05-15 04:23pm

Resinence wrote:
chitoryu12 wrote:Aside from just canceling activities for no negative consequences, there's an option in your phone to set it on silent. While it tells you that the storyline may not continue (due to you not getting certain important calls), I've run all the way through the Alderny missions with my phone on silent all the way up to the end of the game. The only thing it shuts off is friends and dates.
Can I ask you something? Why do you feel the need to rationalize away the valid complaints people have of GTA4, when they are such small issues?

Friends are annoying, turning your phone to silent prevents you from receiving story based calls. Thats a valid complaint, but it doesn't make GTA4 a bad game, and I don't see why you see the need to defend it?

I was defending it because people are complaining about something without even knowing that the developers have included an option to turn off the problem.

And no, it does not stop story-based calls. I put my phone on silent around the time I unlocked Alderney, and so far I'm on the final mission without ever turning the silent off. The only thing it does for story calls is make your phone pop up in the corner with no ring, so you'll only miss the call if you're not even looking at the TV.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-05-15 05:14pm

It's true, those trees are nigh invincible, and it ruins my shit. But it's hilarious seeing Niko fly through the windscreen. Last time I did that, my car bounced off a nearby cyclist and ran me over. Twice.

And a GTA: Biggslewade would be hi-larious. Though I think Manchester would be an awesome place (fuck London).

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2008-05-15 05:27pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Though I think Manchester would be an awesome place (fuck London).

It's far too samey (yes, I've spent a fair bit of time there). It would be ok as one city in a multi-city game, the M60 would make the layout rather like Las Venturas in GTA:San Andreas.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2008-05-15 05:30pm

I bet that the PC version will solve the "trees are made out of reinforced bullshitanium" problem via mods.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2008-05-15 05:34pm

Zixinus wrote:I bet that the PC version will solve the "trees are made out of reinforced bullshitanium" problem via mods.

The likely explanation for the adamantium trees is not that Rockstar hate you, but that they had no good way to animate the foliage crumpling against the ground (the trees in GTA4 already look kinda sucky compared to say Oblivion, because there's so much else going on that needs resources). Modding the trees to be detachable is probably feasible but be prepared for it to look horrible, either because they're still completely rigid or because they explode into a cloud of twigs and splinters at the slightest tap. I imagine R* will solve the problem in a follow-up game, when they've had time to optimise the hell out of the engine.

RazorOutlaw · Post by **RazorOutlaw** » 2008-05-15 07:22pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:It's true, those trees are nigh invincible, and it ruins my shit. But it's hilarious seeing Niko fly through the windscreen. Last time I did that, my car bounced off a nearby cyclist and ran me over. Twice.

I thought it was merely fun to see him getting ejected from the car and smacking into a wall face-first, as that happened to me the first time I drove too fast. But it was actually laugh-out-loud funny the first time he was ejected from a vehicle and started to scream.

It was so...slapstick. I suppose I could have let his crumpled body sit on the street for extra effect but I was trying to get away from the police at the time.

Jade Falcon · Post by **Jade Falcon** » 2008-05-16 11:19am

I'd love to see a GTA Glasgow myself, having to resist running over some neds would be hard.

The one major complaint I have is I can't read the damned phone very well. Someone said there's a way of adjusting it, but I can't find the option.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2008-05-16 11:20am

Jade Falcon wrote:I'd love to see a GTA Glasgow myself, having to resist running over some neds would be hard.

The one major complaint I have is I can't read the damned phone very well. Someone said there's a way of adjusting it, but I can't find the option.

I think you can increase the size of the text on the phone by going into it's options.