StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I found playing through a second time to be easier because I had memorized important routes by then.

Alyeska wrote:I found playing through a second time to be easier because I had memorized important routes by then.

Easier, yes (beat all the mission races first time, HAH!). But I was more impatient with the longer routes, because now I knew what awaited me and damn it, I just wanted it unlocked!

Truth be told, my first time through the game was without the map. I didn't know that feature existed.

Back on the topic of soundtracks, I'd give VC soundtrack the edge, because it captures the mood better for me. I'm thinking it's just because mid-80's Miami and the stuff associated with it are more ingrained in American pop-culture than early-90's LA.

Alyeska wrote:Truth be told, my first time through the game was without the map. I didn't know that feature existed.

I'm struggling to imagine this. Did you never press start? How did you save?

Stark wrote:

Alyeska wrote:Truth be told, my first time through the game was without the map. I didn't know that feature existed.

I'm struggling to imagine this. Did you never press start? How did you save?

I never really paid attention to that option. I just kept loading games, saving games, and driving (lots of driving)

So in saying 'never used the map' you mean 'never bothered looking at it the ten thousand times you pressed start to load/save'. Sorry, sounds retarded to me.

Well fuck you very much. It is one of those things I never once noticed. I am used to being able to call up a map of the game WHILE IN GAME for all the other games I have played and it didn't even occur to me to look for a map function elsewhere. When it comes to the main menu options, you only read the options you use. The games I play most frequently, I could barely tell you half the menu options on some, and maybe a quarter on the rest.

Sorry dude, it's 80% of the menu screen. You say you didn't 'use' it. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Doesn't make sense? Gee, I start a game for the first time, see a button labeled "map" and think "thats strange" and then never pay attention to it in the future because its completely contrary to any other game I've played. Instead of going the simple route they make you exit game into the main menu to use it. Not noticing what you don't use happens all the damned time.

Here I was thinking the map was the default option - pressing start shows you the map. I'm not going to comment on you not 'using' the map because you didn't connect the 'map' with a navigational aid.

Is there some version of GTA:SA where the map is NOT the default function? All the other ports were the same interface, just with different buttons - so how can you never even SEE the map, when you have to go PAST it to get to save/load?

Pressing start might show you the map. I have to press ESCAPE. You see, I have the PC version of the game. Either way, the map should be set to a specific hotkey that can call it up individualy rather then needing to go to the main menu.

Oh I see. But it's still the first thing you see when entering the menu - I thought you were saying you played the game without nagivational aid.

I didn't learn of the map function until after I had completed everything but the final mission.

And as I have repeatedly pointed out it is NOT the first thing I see. When I load up the game I immediately go into saved games to load up the game I am on. Why the hell would I bother reading the menu every single time I play the game?

My problem with SA, storywise, is not with the gangsta characters or setting itself, but the fact that CJ is basically, if not a good guy, then at least an honorable one. Tommy Vercetti I can buy killing a hooker to get his money back: he's a piece of shit who never should have been let out of prison. But the CJ in the cutscenes just isn't a homicidal maniac who runs down pedestrians and throws Molotov cocktails into a crowd for fun like the CJ under my control.

The GTA games had music!?

All I ever listened to were the chat stations.

Here is my selection of music that could've been on the radio in San Andreas - note that I've changed the contents of both K-DST and SF-UR and some of the music selections under "miscellaneous" matches the cheese of Vice City. I wanted music from the late 80s and early 90s with a slightly more broader appeal.

K-DST

Pink Floyd - "Us and Them"
Queen - "Bicycle Race"
White Snake - "Is this Love"
Chris Rea - "Road to Hell"
Tenpole Tudor - "Swords of a Thousand Men"
Bachman-Turner Overdrive - "You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet"
The Stranglers - "Hanging Around"
Motorhead - "Ace of Spades"
Caravan - "Love to Love You (And Tonight Pigs Will Fly)"
Black Sabbath - "Paranoid"
Gerry Rafferty - "Baker Street"
Jim Hendrix - "Highway Chile"
Doors - "Riders of the Storm"
Don McLean - "American Pie"

SF-UR

Ace of Base - "My Mind (Mindless Mix)"
Adamski - "Killer"
Snap! - "Rhythm is a Dancer"
Adeva - "Respect"
Urban Hype - "Trip to Trumpton"
LFO - "LFO"
The Future Sound of London - "Papua New Guinea"
Inner City - "Good Life"
Love Decade - "So Real"
Nomad - "(I Wanna Give You) Devotion"
Techntronic feat. Ya Kid K - "Pump up the Jam"
2 Unlimited - "No Limit"
Rozalla - "Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)"
The Shamen - "Ebeneezer Goode"
Jaydee - "Plastic Dreams"
Alison Limerick - "Where Love Lives"

Miscellaneous Late 80s to Early 90s Music

Pet Shop Boys - "Being Boring"
New Order - "Round and Round"
Deee-Lite - "Groove is in the Heart"
Sub Sub Feat. Melanie Williams - "Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)"
B-52’s - "Love Shack"
Duran Duran - "Ordinary World"
Crash Test Dummies - "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm"
Right Said Fred - "Deeply Dippy"
Go West - "The King of Wishful Thinking"
Kylie Minogue - "Rhythm of Love"
Chesney Hawkes - "One and Only"
Bruce Springsteen - "Streets of Philadelphia"
Divinyls - "I Touch Myself"
ABC - "Love Conquers All"
Bros - "When Will I Be Famous"
Madonna - "Vogue"
Crowded House - "Weather With You"
Talkin Heads - "Road to Nowhere"
Erasure - "I Love to Hate You"
Tasmin Archer - "Sleeping Satellite"

RedImperator wrote:My problem with SA, storywise, is not with the gangsta characters or setting itself, but the fact that CJ is basically, if not a good guy, then at least an honorable one. Tommy Vercetti I can buy killing a hooker to get his money back: he's a piece of shit who never should have been let out of prison. But the CJ in the cutscenes just isn't a homicidal maniac who runs down pedestrians and throws Molotov cocktails into a crowd for fun like the CJ under my control.

It's damn weird isn't it?

In GTA:VC...Vercetti is a fucking bastard. He swindles, he deals, he's your classic drug lord. Hell there isn't really even the whole "Is there honor amongst thieves?" thought with him. Not only can you see him kill the hooker for the money, you could see him giving her a few kicks for not giving him a good enough blowjob.

With GTA:SA...you can't see CJ doing that. He's not altogether good, but they did a bit too much on him being put into a situation out of his hands that he enters for a entirly noble reason. He fits the more damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

As for song selection, I found some of it eh, but that's more because I'm an 80's child. It fit the mold extraordinarily well, but I did enjoy the talk radio stations more for the truly outlandish shit.

You know, I put many, many hours into GTA:VC, and never saw this oft-reported scene where Vercetti kills the hooker. What mission is that on?

Or are people simply talking about the general "kill passing pedestrians and take their money" action?

Oh, and CJ does kill some rapper and his girlfriend/ho just because his loser buddy asks him to. No real "pressure of circumstance" there.

WyrdNyrd wrote:You know, I put many, many hours into GTA:VC, and never saw this oft-reported scene where Vercetti kills the hooker. What mission is that on?

Or are people simply talking about the general "kill passing pedestrians and take their money" action?

Yeah, pretty much. Pick up a hooker, find an ally, let her do her thing. When she's done and gets out of the car, you get out, kill, her, and make your money back.

WyrdNyrd wrote:Oh, and CJ does kill some rapper and his girlfriend/ho just because his loser buddy asks him to. No real "pressure of circumstance" there.

It ain't nuthin' but a hood thang, yo.

Seriously, when he was in the hood it made sense. He was being a gangbanger. Granted I'm not sure how dumping some record exec into the bay helps your gang, but whatever.

After that though, he pretty much became everyone's bitch. It worked out rather nicely for him in the end, but he was still a bitch.

Speaking of which, I remember the oft-lamented fact that, at the end of the game, he lets Sweet pull him back to reclaim the hood. Why? Because he's gotta represent! And Sweet drags him into a guilt trip of how he had to steal money for Kendl's shoes, bread to eat, and so on.

Yes, because that really matters now that your brother owns half the state. And I'm pretty sure your sister would be more than happy to ditch the bangin' lifestyle. And yet there it is.

Personally, I think it would've worked better had Sweet, y'know, brought up the fact that Smoke, Tenpenny, and/or the Ballas are responsible for his mother's death (I don't know who all was in on that part of it other than the Ballas pulling the trigger)? You know, the whole reason he came back from Liberty City in the first place!

I mean, seriously. After you leave Los Santos it's like everyone totally forgot that had even happened. And it would have been a lot more believable for CJ to go back and fight in the hood after he'd done everything else had Sweet brought up that, instead of the whole "Grove for Life!" thing.

But that's just my two cents.

No, there's nothing in Vice City that entails doing anything to hookers that doesn't get done to everyone else (beating them up or running them over). It's some generic "bad thing they do in this evil game" statement that gets repeated enough that people believe it's in the game. More's the pity, since there's no reason in the world for Tommy not to get horny and pick up a girl for a quickie. This is the sort of guy who happily pimps his would-be girlfriend to a rock band to curry their manager's favor.

The thing that drives me up the wall on San Andreas is the idea that I have to play through so much crap to advance the plot. I wish it were more open-ended than it is, with no missions and no railroading players with the plot. I don't play San Andreas to be a gofer for some CIA dumbass or some dork with an RC shop. I play it to be a gangbanger. I'd love it if you could begin as a low-ranking member of the OGF and work your way up to the top, recruiting people into the gang, buying resources and making connections to get richer. You can go where you want, buy what you like, learn what you want to know, pull off whatever crimes you like or are good at. As long as the gang gets a piece of whatever you're involved with, they're happy. When you become successful enough, you can leave LS and go to other towns to expand the gang's influence. I just want to see how far my willingness to play amoral, violent and greedy will take me.

The upcoming Saint's Row for the 360 sounds like it will fit that description somewhat.

WyrdNyrd wrote:You know, I put many, many hours into GTA:VC, and never saw this oft-reported scene where Vercetti kills the hooker. What mission is that on?

Or are people simply talking about the general "kill passing pedestrians and take their money" action?

That's what everyone is talking about. In both games, the player is allowed to kill a hooker after she's done to get his money back. In VC, I can picture Vercetti doing that. I just can't imagine CJ doing it, so there's a disconnect between the character in the cutscenes and the character the player controls.

Oh, and CJ does kill some rapper and his girlfriend/ho just because his loser buddy asks him to. No real "pressure of circumstance" there.

Yeah, but everybody hates the OG Loc missions anyway.

RedImperator wrote:Yeah, but everybody hates the OG Loc missions anyway.

The greatest failure of the game is that you can kill Tenpenny, Pulaski, Smoke, Ryder, and the entire Ballas gang...but you can't kill OG Loc.

I think there is a point where 'bigger is better' no longer applies, for me anyway. In a game like SA, where the core playability factor is not changed over time, it just gets repetitive reasonably quickly. When I got to a point where I got stuck, rather than try and get round it, I just gave up because I'd had enough, and there were other games out there to play. For me, long games just don't really appeal; I don't go 'Wow 10 discs! Thats 5 gazillion hours of play!' when the next Final Fantasy is released.

Anyone else think that GTA as a MMORPG would be like the best thing ever? Or is this already in the works?