Grand Theft Auto IV PC

Wow. I didn't think they'd mess it up THIS bad.

Is this an attempt to make us buy consoles? Are they intentionally taking a leak on the open mouth of PC gamers worldwide?

I, for one, will be torrenting this. I hope it's worth the €0,71 it costs to leave my PC running overnight for that, or i'm going to send Rockstar the bill for it.

I still haven't played it, but looks (by reading what everybody is saying) to me an effort to say later "we didn't sell it well because of piracy".

The most annoying thing was the actual install and trying to start the damn game.
First was a nice 8 hour download from steam. I kicked off the download and went to bed, thinking that when I got up in the morning, it would be installed and ready to play like all other steam games, how wrong was I.
I saw it had downloaded and my games said "installed". so i clicked on it and then all these registration things poped up, as well as the "real" GTA4 install that took another 10 minutes. Dialogue box after dialogue box, I dont want to sign up to all these things, its just a pain in the ass. I am going to download a cracked copy at some point and see if that gives me less hassle than one I paid for.

Haha this is pretty poor work by Rockstar, definite no-buy now. Provided for specs which 'are not even available'? what a pile of BS! That is some lazy lazy work... maybe as well as secuROM they though they could reduce piracy by making it rubbish as well

Originally Posted by Xtrafresh
Wow. I didn't think they'd mess it up THIS bad.

Is this an attempt to make us buy consoles? Are they intentionally taking a leak on the open mouth of PC gamers worldwide?

I, for one, will be torrenting this. I hope it's worth the €0,71 it costs to leave my PC running overnight for that, or i'm going to send Rockstar the bill for it.

From what we've seen, even the cracking process is ridiculously laborious and drawn out, and saving is still a major issue thanks to the reliance on GFWL. It's certainly not as easy as just swapping out the games .exe, as there are online checks at install, game start and everytime you want to save!

You seriously telling me that the GTX280 cant run this game at 1920x1200 smoothly?

Could this require a driver update to suit the game?

Or could this be a fail by the developer?

If todays top end GFX's cards cant run this game, i am selling the GTX280 and buying a Xbox or PS3.

Originally Posted by Tyrmot
they could reduce piracy by making it rubbish as well

It'd certainly be a unique method of reducing piracy :D

Originally Posted by Yemerich
I still haven't played it, but looks (by reading what everybody is saying) to me an effort to say later "we didn't sell it well because of piracy".

i don't think any developer is stupid enough to purposely ruin a game just to prove a point.

"never attribute to malice what can be expained by incompetence" - some guy

Originally Posted by supertoad
i don't think any developer is stupid enough to purposely ruin a game just to prove a point.

"never attribute to malice what can be expained by incompetence" - some guy

Would you put money down to back up your statement? This is just the kind of dirty trick i would expect to see on the run up to christmas. Force console sales.

I could be wrong, but what with them releasing an unstable version of the game, with errors occuring within the first 48 hours of its PC release is bad!

Has Rockstar really given any replies to all the complaining? I mean, the reception on the game seems to be more or less unanimous. I havent seen a single poster say that it works great and all the signups are a value-add. Are they really closing their eyes to all that?

Call me paranoid, but it really does look like they are doing this intentionally to promote consoles.

Originally Posted by Burnout21
Would you put money down to back up your statement?

definitely not.

i've had another thought though, completely in the opposite direction to my previous post. what if they purposely released a buggy game so that as soon as the DRM is cracked they could release a vital patch to fix performance and at the same time break any cracks. then when that patch is broken, boom - another performance enhancing patch.

Originally Posted by supertoad
definitely not.

i've had another thought though, completely in the opposite direction to my previous post. what if they purposely released a buggy game so that as soon as the DRM is cracked they could release a vital patch to fix performance and at the same time break any cracks. then when that patch is broken, boom - another performance enhancing patch.

I don't think it'll work. Crackers are more then willing to play that game, in fact, they positively thrive on this sort of thing.

On the other hand, corporate stupidity seems perfectly able to think they could have something to win from such a scheme.

A real question: is this game playable over LAN? And i do mean the proper, licenced, registered, validated, branded, monitored and legal version.

Aside from the hassle, the game does seem like a good platform for some serious LAN fun.

Plenty of other reviewsites are handing out the nines once more, praising this version all up into the sky again simply because it's GTA IV.
The PC version and console versions offer the same story and settings, nothing else which is a real extra. The settings are rudimentary, and to be honest, the specs needed are way too high for what it offers now and in the future. And then there are the stupid required log-ins: need to login to save - that's some serious WTF.
Yet other reviewers seem to be up in clouds because of the awesome vidjeo recording skillz we can all employ now, or wow - hey, play your own music. Sure, fun addition, but is this the fruit of 4 months of work ?
All the reviewers who gave this 9 and 9.5, i can't consider them real PC players when they not even mention the sign-ins. For all i know, they only used a 360 controller to play and used aiming assistance.

Thanks bit-tech, for providing me with an honest, clear and proper review

So me, who's stuck on mobile broad(ROFL)band, has to stay online and waste my traffic just to save the goddamn game?
And SecuROM? And GfW? And that RockStar whatevertheheckitsnameis? All in the background? Thanks.

YAAAAAYYYYY! Very nice RockStar! -1 to total sales figures!

The game seems to be fun so I'll just wait 2 or 3 years until I have upgraded twice and I'll be able to play a 2-3 years old game then? Sounds like a plan. :|

I'm so glad I didn't pre-order this like I have all the previous GTA games from 3 onwards.
It's almost as if Rockstar have aimed to release a broken game.

GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas all ran a bit slow on what was a reasonably high end rig at the time of their release, but you could always tweak your settings and get a nice looking and playable experience. Then after installing a slightly better CPU, GPU and a bit more RAM, you could crank up the settings to max (with AA) and enjoy the full capabilities of the game.

With GTA IV, I expected things would be similar. But it looks like even in a years time the latest bleeding edge spec won't be able to run full settings!

PC gamers have come to expect that games will be released on consoles first and then a higher res PC version will be available about 6 to 12 months later. But why oh why do games developers think that PC gamers then want to have to wait another year or two after that before they can take advantage of all the eye candy?

Personally I don't want to buy a game, play through it a 10 FPS (cursing the crappy performance). Then upgrade my PC and try the game again, only to find it now runs at a still crappy 15-20 FPS. Then upgrade my PC again and find it still only runs at 30 FPS. etc etc. It's just a joke. Why spend all that time porting the game and adding in all the extra eye candy if no one will be able to take advantage of it for 2 years. I'd rather have the game quicker and with no bugs, than later, with bugs and features I won't be able to use until I've got bored with the game and spent another 2 grand on hardware.

More and more games are being released like this, with Crysis being the worst culprit until now. I just don't see the point.

It's a game not a tech demo!!!

This is the type of crap that's ruining PC gaming, not piracy!!

Greetings!

Originally Posted by Article
Admittedly a discussion of the bloatware and DRM measures that come bundled with Grand Theft Auto IV PC is an odd way to start a review, but it’s also probably the most important one we think.

Game reviews should include a field mentioning what DRM is being used.
Just next to Publisher, Platform, ...

This game launch is a total mess. Check this article:
http://kotaku.com/5101687/grand-theft-auto-iv-on-pc-is-a-little-broken

At that point you’ll tire of the constant need to support these virtual friends and you’ll start resenting the game for pressuring you into them.

Am I the only one who ignores the calls completely? It's Grand Theft Auto, not Real Life Simulator.. They can go bowl with themselves, or whatever.

well, another example of why you shouldn't port a game. Im not even going to d\l this one, so they cant even use the "Piracy is why we have low sales" arguement

I'm yet another who is seriously dissapointed with how Rockstar have chosen to **** on the PC crowd.

Come on guys PC was the first platform they realsed their games on, I've been a fan of the series since the beginning and the latest installment really makes me sad.

One year after the console relase they give us this junk, promise of substantially improved graphics and extra content....ehh where? I have seen this on a friends PS3 and I really cannot see any major differences.

The installation method really is a farce, as is the control system. I found the best method to be a combination of XBox controller and keyboard/mouse.

All in all a very very poor effort, so much so that I would in hindsight suggest that Rockstar saved the overall development costs. It was just not worth it!!!!

utter disappointment, this game was top of my list for christmas. I even bought a GTX280 a while back to play Grid, with later intention of playing GTA IV, these two games were the driving force behind the purchase.

Now i am prepaired to sell up and grab a Quadro i've been needing for work, and use my HDMI port on the monitor to plug in a PS3 or Xbox 360.

Even the rumour of Gran turismo 5 making it to the PC helped with the purchase of the GTX280.

Originally Posted by Baz
...as there are online checks at install, game start and everytime you want to save!

So what happened to the Rockstar promise that you'd be able to play this on a non-internet enabled PC, as long as you could get to the internet on another system to activate via that? Was that FUD? :(

Terrible, on top of all this, it only supports the 360 controller?? No other controllers work, pathetic attempt to squeeze mroe money by MS there. There are complaints about this all over the GTa forums. I like driving with my logitch gamepad, and switchign to M/K when walking, but game only works with 360 controller. Man, Rockstar have no clue how to use PC resources.

I think you have been too kind giving this a 7 (or is that a 1? :p )

This is what I've waited 8 months for? Really?

As an owner of GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas (still installed and played occasionally) on PC, I consider myself a massive fan of Rockstar's murder simulators, but this blows seals (of the aquatic kind).
I avoided all console GTA4 temptations during this time. I even avoided social occasions where I knew GTA4 was being played, THAT is how sad I am!

The previous GTA console ports were pretty good. The GTAs have always played well on moderate hardware. Is there something about the XBox360->PC port that is an issue over the old PS2->PC porting? I thought it should be easier given GTA4 was developed for the XBox360 from the start.
I call BS on the "catering to future hardware" too. Who the &#%$ does that if they can avoid it? Seriously, the XBox360 is low level enthusiast PC equivalent now! There is no way it should be bringing a high end PC to its knees.
Maybe the PC version is so far down the list of their priorities that they got Marco the "special" intern to do it.

The authentication process is so awful that I'm struggling to to even think HOW Rockstar/Microsoft could have made it worse.
Emailing for a one time key each time you wish to play? I shouldn't even put ideas into their foolish heads!
I am dismayed to hear that the Steam version is even worse. I thought this might at least be a solution.
I think both Rockstar and Microsoft are trying to emulate Steam and its online community. From the very beginning of Steam I always knew this was going to happen. Everybody wanting their own content delivery/authentication client running on our systems. With the Steam version of GTA4 we have all the players muscling in; developer, publisher and distributor.

I'm not a piracy advocate, indeed my low-ish connection speed and restrictive download limits would prevent large file torrenting even if I wanted to. But I don't care how I do it, I AM going to play GTA4, but I am NOT going to give Rockstar a cent for this. Even if the requirements to get a pirated version running IS worse that a real copy, I'm going to do it out of principle. I don't care about the online multiplayer or the pointless penis waggling video uploads.

As I have been writing this rambling comment, I have been quite literally (and figuratively to boot) facepalming in sheer disbelief. Who knew Bioshock's launch would turn out to be such a tame affair?


Oh, and yeah, 16GB of freaking HDD space?!?! What the...

Originally Posted by LeMaltor
I think you have been too kind giving this a 7 (or is that a 1? :p )

You have to remember though that the game is actually pretty good when you do get it working and if you overlook the log-ins and so on.