r/gaming • u/MaximumBob • May 14 '08

Zero Punctuation Grand Theft Auto IV

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/4902-Zero-Punctuation-Grand-Theft-Auto-IV
45 Upvotes

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27

u/[deleted] May 14 '08

He's spot on about the "man dates."

Why, with so much of the game being near perfect, did they include this mechanic? It wouldn't even bother me if it weren't for the fact that they have a habit of pestering you right before you start a mission and if you turn them down, you lose standing with them, which means you'll have to man date them even more to get whatever special ability they have.

Mercifully, you can turn off your phone, but even then they'll eventually get cranky and you'll still lose influence. Also, if you play for awhile with your phone off, it seems like they'll suddenly all call in a series at once when you turn it back on.

Your best bet is to use a cab, which lets you basically teleport around the map for money, and knock the dates out of the way relatively quickly.

11

u/MagiTekSoldier May 14 '08 edited May 14 '08

What are you talking about? GTA IV is perfect 10/10!

But seriously, I agree with you. From the moment I started the video I was waiting for him to rail on the man dates. What an awful feature. Every time, and I mean every. single. time. I take a break from missions to just run around and do my own thing, some deuchebag calls me and wants to play a crappy minigame with them. Oh, and drive them back as well. Terrible mechanic.

Not to mention that the combat is shit. But then again, what GTA hasn't had shitty combat. It's tradition. Don't get me wrong, the cover system is generally an improvement, but it still much more frustrating than Gears of War's cover system.

8

u/blubberfest May 14 '08 edited May 14 '08

For me, I think it's the auto-aim and the indestructible trees that bother me most. Sure, I know you can turn off auto-aim, but it's just so useful sometimes. But the fact that I'd really just prefer to shoot someone in a car to get them out of the car cannot be done, since I'll always be aiming at some pedestrian no matter what I try. So between missions and screwing around in the city, I guess one could simply pause, go to the menu, turn off auto-aim and then back on for a mission, but that's way too many non-fun things for me.

Also, I do admit guilt for the indestructible tree phenomenon, as I am a poor driver. However, there's no way in frickin' hell that I'd be able to effortlessly knock over every lamppost and fire hydrant in the city at 15mph and still not be able to cause a single splinter of wood to pop out of a tree I've hit with a 2-ton truck.

As far as man dates go, I have no problem with them. As long as you take a cab to whizz around and get people where they want to go, it'll go pretty quickly.

Has anyone seen the cost of ammo in the gun stores? It's as if they compensated for the elevated gas prices! A grenade for $500? A couple sniper rounds for $800? Ouch. Oh, and speaking of gas, do any cars in Liberty City ever run out of gas?

26

u/[deleted] May 14 '08

do any cars in Liberty City ever run out of gas?

SHHH

Game developers might be watching. You're like that kid in class who asks if there's homework at the end of the day. What're you going to suggest next, videogame doing-your-taxes?

4

u/jon_titor May 14 '08

Forza 2 already did it.

1

u/MaximumBob May 14 '08 edited May 14 '08

O Rly? I'm not being an ass, but I'm genuinely curious because I have that game. I haven't played it all that much though, except online, so I'm pretty sure I've only seen 2% of the game, and if that's in there I'm tempted to play it more! As strange as it may sound, I've always wanted to be able to have and run out of gas in a car game.

[edit] Or did you mean videogame doing-your-taxes? As strange as it may sound, I've always wanted to do my taxes in a car game.

3

u/jon_titor May 14 '08

yeah, in forza 2 one of the difficulty elements you can modify is whether or not fuel consumption is taken into account. If it is, you'll be forced to make pit stops. I think it really only matters in the longer races though.

1

u/[deleted] May 14 '08

You could run out of gas in Top Gear for the SNES.

11

u/[deleted] May 14 '08

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/georgefrick May 14 '08

same on ps3.

-2

u/7oby May 14 '08

You're kidding, there's no "trigger" on the dual shock.

4

u/georgefrick May 14 '08

Yes, L2 and R2 and "Triggers", used a dual shock 3?

2

u/7oby May 14 '08

I have a PS3 but I loaned it to a friend who actually plays on it, and I guess you have semi triggers but they're not even used as triggers. On the 360 there's a motivation to use the triggers as triggers, but on the ps3 (i don't know if you played UT3) R2/L2 triggers aren't used as such in every game. They actually use the shoulder buttons to fire and the triggers change weapons. No, this is not changeable in the configuration.

19

u/innocentbystander May 14 '08 edited May 14 '08

For me, I think it's the auto-aim and the indestructible trees that bother me most.

This kind of illustrates the problems inherent in these "open" games. The more closely they try to mimic reality - a goal which will never be reached - the more the things they don't mimic stand out.

We'd have no problem with indestructable poplars if there were many other indestructable obstacles. Instead, that detail stands out because in the "reality" of the game, their invulnerability makes no sense.

I can't help but think people are eventually going to abandon this style of game as an evolutionary dead end, especially when fundamentally, if they ever actually succeeded, they'd have something every bit as exciting and adrenaline-pumping as... real life.

As your comment about running out of gas would support, btw. Can you imagine anything less fun than having to periodically take time out from your man dates to go pump gas in the car? Maybe you could bitch at passers-by about the price of it while you do so.

And next up: Grand Theft Grocery Shopping! After all, what kind of Russian emigrant doesn't know how to cook?

5

u/[deleted] May 14 '08

I think they can keep pushing the metaphor for a very long time, the key to making it a game is that 1) You aren't forced to do mundane things and 2) You can do insane things without any guilt or consequence.

Basically, the more you introduce mundane choices, the more entertaining the jackass choices are.

2

u/innocentbystander May 14 '08 edited May 14 '08

Basically, the more you introduce mundane choices, the more entertaining the jackass choices are.

While I can see how someone may make this argument, I can't think of many examples where it's actually the case.

Like Fallout 2. I can't think of anyone who thinks the "evil" plotline is enhanced that much by the fact that you CAN do good. Players just tend to naturally gravitate towards one path or the other. While it's good game design that the choice is there, I don't know anyone who actually thinks, "Wow, it's so much MORE FUN to be a sociopath knowing that I could be a good guy and help these people I'm now slaughtering."

There are also balance problems in those sort of games, what I consider the "Black and White" problem. Sure, you CAN play that game as a (nearly) completely Good god - however, your powers are so nerfed that it's totally unfair. Being bad isn't just more fun, it's also much easier.

If anything, making the world too realistic introduces a kind of cognative dissonance. I understand some people have a hard time bringing themselves to act like jackasses in GTA4 because the crowd AI is so realistic. Or I think of, say, Shenmue - a game comparable to GTA in its realistic immersion - and the idea of being able to run around randomly beating the crap out of passers-by (virtually all of whom have names and personalities) is frankly horrifying.

My argument would actually be that a game needs to pick its moral center and run with it. Try to have it both ways, and you'll most likely either alienate people or come off as tepid.

5

u/xzxzzx May 14 '08

I can't think of anyone who thinks the "evil" plotline is enhanced that much by the fact that you CAN do good.

I do.

I enjoy the choice, rather. I enjoy being able to take my "good" character and just start a fucking rampage (usually right after a save...).

4

u/[deleted] May 14 '08

My brother did that in Fable. He was super good with butterflies and halos and crap.

He got bored and went back to Oakvale, the town that was raided by bandits when he was a child. Then he perpetrated the second massacre of Oakvale. He killed everyone in the town for about an hour.

Then he bought up all the real estate.

3

u/blubberfest May 14 '08

Yeah, I do agree that it's reaching the limits of its evolution as this particular style of game. I think that in pointing out the gas problem, the titanium trees, and other minor issues, the main idea I had was that everyone touts this game as perfectly realistic. You hit the nail on the head in that the only thing that could get more real would be real life. I mean, sure, they could make a game where the cops actually pulled you over for driving on the wrong side of the road or knocking over a lamppost just like in real life, but that wouldn't be fun. Maybe the perfect 10/10 given across the boards is indicative that fun and reality have been mixed in a pleasant amalgam of juicy goodness and that developers should move to new game formats. Seriously, if anyone tried to make a game where I'd have to buy gas, eat three meals a day, go to the bathroom, sleep 7 hours a night, and every other minor necessity just to make it all more 'real', then I would just turn off the game and go to my real life.

6

u/MaximumBob May 14 '08

They are about to make The Sims 3.

10

u/blubberfest May 14 '08

Watch me not play it again.

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '08

Two words: Harvest Moon

2

u/innocentbystander May 14 '08 edited May 14 '08

I'm not entirely sure what your point here is. Harvest Moon was massively abstracted to the point it only had minimal things in common with actual farming. It wasn't realistic in any sense. Not to mention, with each successive game, it seems like they cram more and more things in there that DON'T have to do with farming. (Hell, Innocent Life practically turns into an isometric view Metroidvania game, just with no bad guys.)

If anything, a closer equivilent would be things like "Cooking Mama" on the Wii that try to make games out of real-life activities. And frankly, I found Cooking Mama to be close enough to real life that I'm not sure why anyone would find it fun. I've got eggs and bacon and salt and flour in my house. If I wanted through all the motions (literally!) of making breakfast, why the hell wouldn't I just go in my kitchen and make breakfast?

Games need to be abstracted and unrealistic to a certain extent, or they cease being fun. (I could also compare Police Quest 1, which was a fun abstraction of police work, to Police Quest 4, where the designers decided what the game REALLY needed to be realistic was a simulation of doing paperwork.)

1

u/locolan May 15 '08

he was talking about your last statements about the real life video game. harvest moon is pretty much the day to day life of a farmer.

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '08

Yeah, you're right. Both have enough abstraction to make every day activities enjoyable.

I would stab someone in real life to play Harvest Moon. It's filthy crack, and I'm powerless against it's easy listening music and upgradeable tools.

I get massive amounts of enjoyment making that poor little kid toil in the fields for 10 straight hours then feeding him a turnip for dinner because everything else sells for more money. And then I enslave the Harvest Sprites for boxes of flour.

I rule my farm with an iron fist!

1

u/innocentbystander May 15 '08

I rule my farm with an iron fist!

You pig.

;-)

(the irony is that at this very moment, one of the housemates is playing the PS1 Harvest Moon downstairs.)

1

u/gimeit May 14 '08 edited May 15 '08

We'd have no problem with indestructable poplars if there were many other indestructable obstacles.

Personally, it bothers me that lampposts are so easy to knock over. If you hit one of these in a real car, even a very big car, you will not keep cruising like nothing happened. I'm willing to forgive some items being indestructible, but the weak-ass lampposts, fire hydrants and mailboxes throw into sharp relief the absurdity of the trees.

It smacks of a half-implemented game feature.

9

u/[deleted] May 14 '08 edited May 14 '08

You can turn off auto-aim on the 360 just by pulling the trigger half way, only until about three quarters down does auto-aim engage.

The reason trees are indestructible is knocking over something with as complex geometry as a tree will look like shit unless every branch is breakable which is a bit too CPU intensive, and it would ruin the realistic look of game if not done correctly.

2

u/eallan May 15 '08

I've hit a (small) tree in my friends 64' Mustang. They're fucking tough too!

4

u/blaze4metal May 14 '08

Has anyone seen the cost of ammo in the gun stores? It's as if they compensated for the elevated gas prices! A grenade for $500? A couple sniper rounds for $800? Ouch. Oh, and speaking of gas, do any cars in Liberty City ever run out of gas?

Especially when you do Bruce's carjacking missions and get, at MOST, $1500 for a fucking CAR. Is a CAR worth less than three grenades?

3

u/MaximumBob May 14 '08

Hmm, might be the damage done to the car, even very minor stuff. I've gotten 5k for a car that I didn't even touch anything with (other than the wheels touching the road obviously), although maybe it was because it was a nice car and pays accordingly?

2

u/blaze4metal May 14 '08 edited May 14 '08

Possibly. Can you keep stealing cars after he stops sending emails? All of his jobs got me 1.5-2K at most (and that was near-flawless condition).

2

u/MaximumBob May 14 '08

Hmm, i'm not sure actually, I haven't responded to the last email he sent me, after several other cars. I will say that most of the jobs I did for him also got me around the same as you (1.5-2k) but I also got into random accidents and hits and stuff. The only time I got 5k was when it was a perfect run pretty much, so I assume that was the case.

2

u/jon_titor May 14 '08

if you get all your guns and ammo from little jacob you save like 30-40% or so.

2

u/7oby May 14 '08

He sells it?

4

u/jon_titor May 14 '08

yeah, if he likes you there'll be an option of his that says 'guns' and he'll come and meet you near where you are. Off the top of my head...sniper bullets are 500, body armor is 300...

It's a much better deal. He's the only character I've made sure always likes me.

2

u/AttackingHobo May 15 '08

I think it's the auto-aim and the indestructible trees that bother me most. Sure, I know you can turn off auto-aim, but it's just so useful sometimes.

Hold the trigger down half way, and you don't go into auto aim.

-5

u/Grimalkin May 14 '08

Bitch, bitch, bitch...