When I started the game up, I was extremely underwhelmed by the graphics. The colors are washed out and the characters look fuzzy. IT IS MANDATORY that you turn up the contrast and saturation to be able to see in the game.
The basic element of GTA, the driving, has been totally redone.......and ruined. Yes the cars do handle as bad as everyone says they do. No longer is it a joy to drive to the mission areas, weave through traffic and cause havoc. I'm all for realism. I'm a huge fan of Gran Turismo and enjoyed the realistic, slower pace of Killzone 2 as opposed to the unrealistic Call of Duty and Midnight Club games. The cars have a good sense of weight, but turning corners is GOD-awful. You have to go very slow around ANY corner. This ruined the game entirely. It took down a star for me. Surprisingly, it gets even worse once you're on a motorcycle. Not everything about the cars is bad though. The super realistic damage system amazed me. If you do prefer to drive slow like the other cars, then the driving is PERFECT. Once you speed up, it gets real ugly.
As for stealing cars, it is MUCH harder this time around. There are cops EVERYWHERE. I only steal parked cars in secluded areas because the wanted system is NOT FUN. I don't want to have to drive 5 miles away from my destination to lose the cops. Matter of fact, I don't really want to drive at all because the mechanics are broken.(I've tried whistling a cab 5 times and ended up stealing the cab and getting busted by the cops on accident.)
As for the shooting, there's really nothing wrong with it besides the fact that I don't FEEL like I'm killing someone. With a pistol there is no vibration when pulling the trigger, so it feels very unresponsive. Basically there is no satisfaction from killing someone. The animations are top notch though, so it kinda subsides the empty feeling.
As for the city, yes, it is more realistic with the little touches like trash cans and bags that will topple over if you run into them (on foot or in car), and people on the side of the roads fixing their cars. Most websites claim that the city is ultra realistic and full of life and blah blah blah. Well, that's all BS. It feels like a polished San Andreas. One major flaw with the entire city is that if you re driving slow, or cut someone off, drivers will yell at you EVERY TIME WITH OUT FAIL. It gets really annoying and it makes you feel like EVERYONE in Liberty City is an a-hole. There is also random instances where even if you have the color saturation at max, the colors will fade out. It's not a glitch. I believe that is is their failed attempt at fog. IT'S ALREADY HARD ENOUGH TO DRIVE!
As for the story/characters, I'm torn. I'm maybe 10 percent done, but The ONLY characters I like are Niko (of course) and Little Jacob (although you really need subtitles). All the other characters so far are of the Diaz caliber if you played Vice City. They tell you they don't like someone, then you go kill them. Yawn.
As for the music, I try to keep the radio off. I'm a hip hop fan (Sha Stimuli, Talib Kweli, Common, Shad). If you listen to any of them, you'll HATE the hip hop from the game. Lackadaisical job at selecting music that creates an atmosphere for the game.
Overall the game feels like a test run. There was a lot of potential that was not realized, and the innovation is not there. The music, the characters, and the story are like an old friend who plays too damn much. You get tired of it, and annoyed after awhile. GTA might be getting Tony Hawk syndrome. Remember the days when Tony Hawk was one of the top console games? Then it turned into a joke after reusing the same formula OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Then it went in the wrong direction by doing stupid thing like adding a lawn mower as a vehicle to do tricks on, and the dreadful "Ride"......you know the story. I strongly believe that GTA 5 will be a masterpiece. The idiots who gave this a ten and Uncharted a 9 are insane. INSANE. Rent it. You won't beat it in a few days anyway so just rent it and see if you like it. I am not biased or spoiled because 2 days before this, I was using an Emerson tube TV and a PS2 as my main gaming station. All of a sudden m mom got me a PS3 and a Samsung HDTV with her tax return as my graduation gift. So I was going into this not knowing the sheer power of next-gen game. This game did not meet my basc expectations of going left-field in terms of story. The city is BORING. The 2 main problems are that the driving is awful and the city is a snooze-fest. What do you do most in a GTA game? Drive around a city!Get more detail about Grand Theft Auto IV.
No comments:
Post a Comment