GTA IV

[JaoSming]

Been a sick bastard lately and after I die I throw 1 grenade inside the hospital, then hold it hostage. Shoot anyone that tries to get out and then stand off with the cops as they come in through the door.

[Matthew]

Do people still play this game? I'm on 62% completion and played it for 34 hours but this game is yet to get boring to me.

I never get bored playing any GTA game.

Where are you upto in the game Jeff?

[[Q]]

Do people still play this game? I'm on 62% completion and played it for 34 hours but this game is yet to get boring to me.

I've finished the story already and the only thing I really work on now is stealing cars for Stevie getting laid by Carmen (the girlfriend you meet on the internet) and keeping any cool cars that i find along the way at my safehouses. I get tired of playing a little faster than before, but it still holds my interest for at least an hour still. I might start cruising around for the "random people" missions. I've done 3 while going through the story mode. I heard about killing people in the police computer so I might try that soon too

[Matthew]

You're playing on the ps3 right? The one good thing about sandbox games is the achievements on the xbox, they offer lots of incentive (well as much incentive as you can get in a video game) to complete certain tasks. What car have you found to be the fastest?

[jonthefon]

When are those new "GTA IV expansion packs" being released for X360?

[Dan's Brain]

What car have you found to be the fastest?

I'm a fan of the Infernus - the one you get from Bernie. I've been winning the races by a long, long way. It's damn fast, and it also handles a lot better than you would expect it to.

[kevC]

I just beat the game. I'm only on 62% completion though. I still have to do all the extra shit and all of the Brucie racing missions (I like to save them till the end. Also I suck at it). I've only killed like 4 pigeons also.

[Lamrock]

Just made it into Alderney. Lots of people have been telling me that Three Leaf Clover is the hardest mission in the game, but I beat it first try. It was one of the funnest in the game though. And I got about 50 times the usual money reward for beating it. (no idea what purpose it will serve other than going towards the money achievement though)

Still enjoying this game more than two weeks into it. The beauty of playing it slow.

[Jeffx]

Where are you upto in the game Jeff?

I'm only up to the Vlad missions. Because of my father's illness, I haven't done much gaming.

[ixcuincle]

When are those new "GTA IV expansion packs" being released for X360?

August 2008.

[[Q]]

You're playing on the ps3 right? The one good thing about sandbox games is the achievements on the xbox, they offer lots of incentive (well as much incentive as you can get in a video game) to complete certain tasks. What car have you found to be the fastest?

yeah that's the problem with the ps3 is that there are no "acheivements" for you. so there's no real incentive to complete the game unless it's under your own will power.

I would also agree that the Infernus (I found it parked in a random parking lot by Bernie's house) is the fastest although i stole a Super GT (An Aston Martin type car) from one of the bad guys on the Bernie missions and it's almost as fast as the Infernus.

[BZ]

I've found that the Comet (Porsche 911) was just as fast, if not faster, than the Infernus. Handled alot more nicely than the Infernus too imo.

However, the best car for me to drive imo was the Futo. Awesome.

[Matthew]

Where are you upto in the game Jeff?

I'm only up to the Vlad missions. Because of my father's illness, I haven't done much gaming.

Sorry to hear that man.

yeah that's the problem with the ps3 is that there are no "acheivements" for you. so there's no real incentive to complete the game unless it's under your own will power.

I think finishing the game will always be a good enough incentive. What I was referring to was the side missions in the game (100%, killing the pigeons, complete the game under 30 hours, build a bankroll over $500,000 etc) where the achievements are motivating to people to complete these tasks.

[Andreas Dahl]

I'm a fan of the Infernus as well. The Comet has great speed, but it's handling gets really skrewy at high speeds. Then there's the Turismo which does have great handling, but it's speed seems to lack somewhat. While the Infernus kind of combines the two with great speed and handling..


Has anyone here finished 100% yet?

[[Q]]

you know i'm a fan of the Sultans as well. They're kind of like hybrids of the Impreza & Lancer and they have excellent acceleration and handling which is great for turning corners to get away from the cops but they lack in top speed.

[Fitzy]

i played gta4 for the first time on saturday night, borrowed a ps3 off a mate of mine, and i have a few points to make:

- the gameplay is amazing, but somehow not as good as i imagined
- i love the realisticness (is that a word) with the car crashes, funniest thing ever is when you hit something head on and send niko through the windscreen
- i was under the impression that you could enter most of the buildings, which isnt the case
- the cell phone has to be the best feature ive seen in a game for a while
- i found fighting both good and bad. the fighting itself is awesome, but niko can be slow to react when your tapping the button like mad

that should do for now. its an amazing game, but not worth upgrading to a ps3/360 just yet

[Heiks]

A little package arrived in post today. In the middle of the exam session, that's not good. And there went 3 hours. Controls take time to get used to, I've been playing GTA on PC until now, but it still felt good. IMO, driving is great, had a bit of trouble with the camera at some spots, come to think of it, SA had the same issue. Had even more trouble with the camera on foot, but I guess it just takes time to get the hang of it. I was a bit disappointed with the looks on 720p on our 40-inch LCD, I'll try to force it to 1080p, hope it'll look a bit smoother.

The city, the traffic, the people, the entire environment is great, can't wait to get some free time to play it. Basically, I'll try to keep the PS turned off for the next 10 days for my own good.

[Andrew]

- i found fighting both good and bad. the fighting itself is awesome, but niko can be slow to react when your tapping the button like mad

I found that too, button mashing isn't as effective as it once was which I guess isn't a bad thing. Still, with the ability to knock people through windows it allows you to be creative with hand-to-hand combat in certain locations.

[Patr1ck]

I like jacking a car with a passenger and driving towards the ocean and diving out before the car goes overboard.

[[Q]]

I was a bit disappointed with the looks on 720p on our 40-inch LCD, I'll try to force it to 1080p, hope it'll look a bit smoother.

if your tv isn't capable of displaying better than 720p, then there's no way to "force" it to do it. for example my tv is capable of 720p and 1080i, but not 1080p. there is no way for me to play games in 1080p unless i get a new tv.

[Lamrock]

I like jacking a car with a passenger and driving towards the ocean and diving out before the car goes overboard.

Thats not as fun as jacking a car with a passenger, wrecking the car, then jump out right as the car is about to explode in a major intersection.

Right now I'm at 55% in the game, with 68/90 of the story missions done. Just got the half-millionaire achievement. One thing I miss from SA is the stuff you can do with your money. I want to buy safehouses!

[Heiks]

I was a bit disappointed with the looks on 720p on our 40-inch LCD, I'll try to force it to 1080p, hope it'll look a bit smoother.

if your tv isn't capable of displaying better than 720p, then there's no way to "force" it to do it. for example my tv is capable of 720p and 1080i, but not 1080p. there is no way for me to play games in 1080p unless i get a new tv.

Sorry for not being clear, my TV is full HD and does support 1080p. I was refering to the issue, that some PS3 games that should run on 1080p aswell (says so on the box) actually run on 720p if you have all 720p, 1080i and 1080p enabled under the console's display options. To run those games (In my case NBA 2k8 and GTA IV) on 1080p I had to disable 720p and 1080i witch leaves 480p (checked by default, can't change that) and 1080p. Then those games run on 1080p. Yay.

Now, what sucks, is that now all games that are supposed to run only on 720p or lower are running on 480p and look just awful. At least that was the case for me with Burnout Paradise's demo. So basically PS3 owners, who have HD and full HD games and switch between different games most of the time have to go through the display options every single time to see full HD games in full HD and HD games in HD. Sucks balls, doesn't it?

Eventually, GTA and 2k8 do look a bit better on 1080p, but if I played some of those 720p games at the same time I'd still rather play those two on 720p too instead of going back and forth in the display options. Loading times in GTA seemed to be longer on 1080p as well. So all the hustle might not be worth it. Good thing for me is that I have only three games and I haven't touched Oblivion for a long-long time.

[Cool2Fool]

I was a bit disappointed with the looks on 720p on our 40-inch LCD, I'll try to force it to 1080p, hope it'll look a bit smoother.

if your tv isn't capable of displaying better than 720p, then there's no way to "force" it to do it. for example my tv is capable of 720p and 1080i, but not 1080p. there is no way for me to play games in 1080p unless i get a new tv.

Sorry for not being clear, my TV is full HD and does support 1080p. I was refering to the issue, that some PS3 games that should run on 1080p aswell (says so on the box) actually run on 720p if you have all 720p, 1080i and 1080p enabled under the console's display options. To run those games (In my case NBA 2k8 and GTA IV) on 1080p I had to disable 720p and 1080i witch leaves 480p (checked by default, can't change that) and 1080p. Then those games run on 1080p. Yay.

Now, what sucks, is that now all games that are supposed to run only on 720p or lower are running on 480p and look just awful. At least that was the case for me with Burnout Paradise's demo. So basically PS3 owners, who have HD and full HD games and switch between different games most of the time have to go through the display options every single time to see full HD games in full HD and HD games in HD. Sucks balls, doesn't it?

Eventually, GTA and 2k8 do look a bit better on 1080p, but if I played some of those 720p games at the same time I'd still rather play those two on 720p too instead of going back and forth in the display options. Loading times in GTA seemed to be longer on 1080p as well. So all the hustle might not be worth it. Good thing for me is that I have only three games and I haven't touched Oblivion for a long-long time.

INo offense but I find that really dumb... How long does it take for your ps3 to switch the video display output or your just lazy than a pig?
1080p on a TV that is less than 42" is not really big of a difference...What's the point of having more lines when your TV size is only capable of showing 720p but support 1080p. I find it really fun to switch different resolution not sucky...

[Jing]

Finally picked up PS3 and a copy of GTA IV. Its pretty much all that it's built up to be. The world really is alive and people do their own business. Driving is still a bit hard and I am still getting used to it, but I am slowly getting better. Its annoying me a little bit that when you fight one person, 3 or 4 people come up to you and start beating you up, even if you didn't initiate the fight. Also the cops are ruthless, they caught up to me once and like 5 of them lit me up from close range, and continued to shoot after Niko was wasted. Wish I had a higher quality/flatscreen tv, but even on my normal tv the graphics and everything are pretty fluid. I am going to try to balance my play and not do like 10 hours a day. Played a hour or so today and just got used to some of the controls.

[[Q]]

it might be your tv's settings then. I've played games that support 1080p/i (like the Sony games such as Resistance & Motorstorm) and then played games that support 720p like NBA2k7 without needing to change any video settings on my ps3 or my tv. it automatically sets itself.