Archive for category Grand Theft Auto 4
GTA 4: Lost and the Damned Impressions
Posted by Darrin in Grand Theft Auto 4, Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City on May 3rd, 2010
Pros
- Story. I didn’t think that they could make motorcycle culture interesting, but they definitely did. The characters and dialog are far better than most movies or TV series. The out of control gang leader, the corrupt congressman, the junkie girl, and of course the conflicted protagonist were all great characters. Every single second of cut scene with them was completely entertaining to watch.
- Core Engine And Liberty City. The regular GTA 4 core engine and city is still quite amazing.
- “Magic moments”. While playing standard mission types, players will experience unscripted jump out of your seat spectacular crashes, kills, and explosions. Also, the game is filled with NPC reactions and chatter that is absolutely priceless. This hasn’t changed since standard GTA4, but it’s a big draw to the experience.
- Liberty City Extra Content. New soundtrack + new radio content + new TV content + new weapons + new motorcycles. Much is recycled from GTA4, but there is plenty of new stuff, and it is all awesome. For example, “Martin Serious” is a hilarious parody of Howard Stern.
- The Finale. The action was spectacular, and the dialog was among the best in any game.
Cons
- Short. 22 main story missions and that includes a few very simple missions. It took me about five hours to complete at my normal relaxed play speed (and I normally take much longer than the standard play times suggest). Other previews led me to believe that this was going to be a giant DLC pack, the size of Liberty City Stories; it’s not close. I’d guess Liberty City Stories had almost triple the content and took me about 14 hours to complete.
- Hard to find all the Great Content. There is no motivation to explore or experience the city beyond hitting checkpoints and clearing missions. This is really disappointing, because I know there are so many hidden gems to find throughout the game, but it can be a real chore to find them.
- Standard Mission Types. All of the missions are basically one of the following: On-foot shoot outs, racing, or chase & kill. At their low point these can all feel predictable and generic, especially the on-foot shoot outs. On the up side, I always felt interested at unveiling more of the story, the action is littered with unscripted “magic moments” mentioned above, and the Liberty City environment is so rich and varied, that it’s great to have structured missions to give you a reason to experience more of it.
GTA 4 DLC: Episodes From Liberty City on PS3 March 30
Posted by Darrin in Grand Theft Auto 4 on January 28th, 2010
It’s completely official from Rockstar Games. We rumored this one again and again and it’s finally almost here.
Lately, I’ve been putting GTA 4 on in the background for the in-game radio or TV stations while I study. That stuff is absolutely hilarious, and if you skipped by it while playing the game, I would suggest taking another look.
Wow, so many great games coming up.
Rumor: New GTA or DLC leaked by voice actor?
Posted by Nico in Grand Theft Auto 4, PS3 on January 21st, 2010
Looking through my Facebook status updates something very interesting caught my eye. Mario D’leon the voice behind Luis Lopez from the Ballad of Gay Tony let slip of a possible new piece of downloadable content for GTA IV, maybe for the PS3 this time around. As Microsoft only announced two episodes for GTA maybe this is the PS3′s turn. Or maybe its that reference to a new GTA in a new location which was in the instruction booklet from the Episodes of Liberty City. Or maybe it’s just a typo, only time will tell! Oh and you heard it here first folks!
What do you guys think? Post your comments below!
Rumor: GTA IV Episodes coming to PS3
Posted by Darrin in Grand Theft Auto 4 on December 30th, 2009
This was hinted at recently and now here is another related rumor coming in:
“We are proud to announce that both episodes experiencies -and a new one- will be available for the PS3. We cannot wait people to play it” commented Dan Houser during a press conference.
Personally, the GTA series is my favorite and this is my #1 most wanted 360 title, so I couldn’t be happier. The only 2010 release that I’m more excited for is Rockstar’s western GTA game, Red Dead Redemption.
(source)
UPDATE: Changed this post from official confirmation to rumor. I think I got a little over excited on this one. Luckily, we have some readers who were more diligent in fact checking than i. psxextreme ran this story as an official announcement, and later updated their story to indicate this as merely a rumor (the text indicates that it was always a rumor, but it was not). Anyway, I updated this post to rumor status. I think this will happen, but we will have to wait and see for official confirmation.
Has Grand Theft Auto Peaked?
Posted by Darrin in Grand Theft Auto 4 on December 9th, 2009
Broadpoint AmTech analyst Ben Schachter says:
“Has the Grand Theft Auto franchise peaked? Given the strength of GTA IV in 2008, the question may seem misplaced, but our concern is that the very highly rated new GTA content for Xbox as well as PSP and DS did not perform up to expectations in 2009,”
“Now, we very clearly understand that these do not represent ‘true’ new GTA titles. However, the fact is that these were compelling titles, attractively priced, and reasonably well-promoted, yet they fell relatively flat.”
Take Two just lowered it’s Q4 ’09 revenues from $350-$375 million to $325-$350 million, which is the second time they lowered revenue projections this year, are expecting an overall yearly loss, and blamed this on, among other things, weak demand for “several of its key holiday releases”, of which we can presume GTA is a large piece.
Beyond that, there is a noticeable lack of gamer interest around the 360/PSP/DS GTA releases despite very high review scores and very heavy promotion.
When I was playing PSP Chinatown Wars, part of me was admiring how good the dialog was, how unique and attractive the graphics were, and how polished everything was. But at the same time, (IMO) the game was a real bore to play. All the missions and mini-games felt like real chores… Thinking back to the magic I felt when playing GTA 3/VC/SA (and even GTA 4), I don’t think anything had broken since then, but rather that the “newness” and uniqueness had worn off.
On the other hand, I don’t underestimate Rockstar’s ability to innovate. From the previews of Red Dead Redemption, where the player can explore an authentic and stylishly recreated time period, this is my most anticipated title of 2010.
And of course, we haven’t seen much from Rockstar North’s “The Agent”, but that seems a safe bet in terms of quality, innovation, and ultimately gamer interest.
Bottom line, Rockstar’s premium development teams are no where near peaking, but their ability to spin off golden franchise formulas is definitely limited.
Take Two still projects to lose money in 2010 even with premium releases like Red Dead, Bioshock 2, Mafia 2, and Max Payne 3, which is a whole other problem; they probably need to fix or cut some of their under performing projects.
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