Grand Theft Auto IV Spoilers

[Waffuru]

I walked into walmart on the way home form work and picked it up. I was cool they just had a big box of them at the register.

Yes.

[Sage]

I'm getting mine tomorrow. And it'll just sit there, waiting. Until Friday. Waiting.

Stupid saga. I should just ditch it and play GTA. <.<

[Orion]

If the brotherhood starts bearing similarities to Niko's crew, we'll know why.

[Super Buu]

Little Jacob is officially my favourite GTA character ever.

So, real impressions. I haven't gotten all that far, but I don't think it's quite as revolutionary as the hype claims. To me it seems pretty standard fare GTA. But all of the additions (such as the mobile phone) are welcome. It's made me laugh a lot more than its predecessors; trying to drive home while drunk should be a game in itself. And the missions have been mostly fun and varied, with frustrations stemming mainly from my own idiocy/ineptitude than any fault of the game itself.

[Rem-13]

Now that I've figured out how to drive for ten seconds without totaling my car the fun level has increased.

[Jack]

The driving is a bitch. And they always provide you with the crappiest car for the first few missions.

[Jack]

They have like 14 radio stations this time. Right on. I'll have to actually play through and listen before I can compare to Vice City though; I haven't heard of half of these people.

[Kaden]

The driving is a bitch. And they always provide you with the crappiest car for the first few missions.

I actually had no problems with the driving at all. I mean, obviously there's a learning curve, but I didn't have any problems with it.

Maybe that's just me.

Anyway, I'm about three hours into it now. Definitely liking most of the game. I'm not about to call it my GOTY or anything, but very entertaining.

[Waffuru]

I've actually found it easier to drive than in previous games.. though I have noticed there is a lot more variation in the cars. There are some cars I just can't drive for whatever reason and always flip them within 10 seconds of stealing them.

My favorite radio station is the Tuff Gong radio.

[Waffuru]

I just unlocked the second island and it's way cooler than the first one.

[Saz]

I've played all three of the GTA games, starting from Liberty city. And I've never unlocked the second island. Not on one game.

[Belle Hibiki]

I know how you feel. I almost feel as if I HAVE to buy it, just because of the hype, it's the same as when Halo 3 came out. In the end I didn't even really like Halo 3, hopefully it'll be different with GTA 4.

Anyway I ordered it on Amazon, it won't even be dispatched until the 2nd of May, I expect it'll get here on the 4th, so I guess I'll have to be a little bit more patient. I sure as hell wasn't gonna pay an extra £7 for it to come one day earlier...

... Me. But then, I try to avoid ordering anything online anyway. Package tracking is probably the worst invention ever to spawn out of the mouth of Hades, the postage office.

I can't stop checking it. Even days before it could ever possible arrive, I constantly refresh my order status. Has it shipped yet? Is it in transit? What station is it at? Is it on a plane? Is it being trasferred from plane to plane? The machinations of the route have become an almost neurotic second nature to my senses.

All this is just a long-winded way of saying that I would rather go to the store and grasp the visceral immediacy of clutching a real copy - a God's honest copy - of the game in my grubby hands, rather than some assumed, almost metaphysical game that may never in fact make it to my doorstep.

[Jack]

I've played all three of the GTA games, starting from Liberty city. And I've never unlocked the second island. Not on one game.

Dude, wtf? That's so unacceptable.

[Saz]

I know. I usually just get bored of the missions and end up riding around randomly riding off edges and killing civilians. I won't do that with this game though, achievements will keep me from procrastinating.

[Jack]

You should totally replay the other ones first man. Seriously, you are missing out BIG TIME. Especially San Fiero.

[Rem-13]

Apparently my GTA radio habits are the same as my real life ones. Conservative talk radio. Hilarity on both ends.

[Szar]

I spent an hour watching Republican Space Ranger reruns.

[Super Buu]

Apparently my GTA radio habits are the same as my real life ones. Conservative talk radio. Hilarity on both ends.

Hell yes. WKTT or whatever it's called, plus PLR is pretty hilarious.

[Saz]

Looks like my Amazon order hasn't been delayed. 0.o Apparently it's gonna be delivered tomorrow. Sweet.

[Sage]

Wow. More stations than any other game, and almost all of the music sucks.

That's a huge disappointment. I thought with their immense budget they could liscense a few good bands.

Other than that, my only qualm is that the camera whilst driving is... wrong. The car is off-set to the right for reasons inexplicable from my point of view, and it's overly cinematic.

Driving has become a lot more realistic, so it's just my fault that I keep overshooting my intersections, since I'm trying to corner at 300 mph like I did in the old games.

Combat has proven somewhat irksome. It seems almost impossible to have an epic police standoff like you could in the last games without getting cut down in ten seconds, but maybe that's deliberate. It also has a lot to do with me sucking at it right now. XD

The game presents itself with a far more polished look than any GTA before it, and when I first starting wandering the city, I realized that Rockstar was really trying to make this thing epic. Everything just looks so cool.

And the cars are so much more lifelike than before. It's soooo easy to tell what their real-life counterpart is now. There's minor variations, but it's obvious when you spot a Grand National or a Prius. You can spot a Corvette a mile away, same with a McLaren F1.

While I'm sure manufacturers are irked with the fact that R* made it brutally obvious what the car was and then tweaked tiny stuff to avoid paying for liscensing fees, I love it. Half of my fun has been going "oh, look! That's a <whatever>! Cool!!"

I've been farting around a lot. Wandering about drunk is pretty darn funny. Cars seem a lot tougher in this game, too. Either that or I'm just not abusing them like I used to.

I'm having a blast. I totally get into this game. It's been a long time since I could get sucked into a game like this. That right there tells me it's better than most. With any luck, it gets better. There's a lot of stuff Waff and Burt have been talking about that I can't do yet, and it sounds pretty cool. Just have to wait and see, I guess.

Just thoughts off the top of my head.