Grand Theft Auto IV

Joe, you have along with those above in the comments, helped me decide where to spend my next £350

It was a toss up between a PS3 and GTAIV

OR

Upgrade my PC with a Phenom 9850 X4 and a 9800 GTX.

I'm going with the latter, so when this game DOES arrive on the PC, i WILL be able to run it at full 720p

can't wait to get my hands on my new parts :)

Originally Posted by djDEATH


I'm going with the latter, so when this game DOES arrive on the PC, i WILL be able to run it at full 720p

can't wait to get my hands on my new parts :)

The 360 runs it at 720p... wouldn't that be cheaper and you can play it now rather than at Christmas.. or later. :?

Hell, if you're upgrading for this game on PC then you may as well wait and use that £350 later to buy something that'll be more modern at the time.

Originally Posted by CardJoe
Hell, if you're upgrading for this game on PC then you may as well wait and use that £350 later to buy something that'll be more modern at the time.

Just buy a PS3 tbh, cheaper. :)

I will say though that if it was a PS3 exclusive, the graphics would be better as they would of been able to fully use the Blu Ray capacity.

Originally Posted by Major
Just buy a PS3 tbh, cheaper. :)

I will say though that if it was a PS3 exclusive, the graphics would be better as they would of been able to fully use the Blu Ray capacity.

Doubtfull, I should think the sheer number of objects on screen at a time is the biggest limitation to the textures and thats controlled by how much memory is available for the purpose, which if I remember correctly is actually one of the 360's strongpoints ?

I agree to some extent. The game is simply an evolution and an improvement of the previous but you will be very hardpressed to find a game that offers something totally unprecedented. You must bare in mind GTA was actually the first of its kind to really offer something like this, the role of being on the other side of the law and all the other games that require you to be this way were instigated by the original GTA.

This game is polised and iv never played any of the other GTA series apart from the original. I saw my cousin play san andreas but i was never into it. I bought this game simply because reviews said it was good generally and people i knew around me kept talking about it.
I played it and think its a great experience so far and iv only completed about 13% of the game according to statistics. Im counting down the days to when i get time to play it again and dedicate some real time to check out its depth.
Yes the game has allot of depth, too much content though? I dont think there can be such a thing, it simply offers value to the customer and this content isnt a necessity to accomplish - its a choice for the player and its always good to be given the choice yourself.
I would rate it 9/10 from what iv experienced so far.

Originally Posted by Bladestorm
Doubtfull, I should think the sheer number of objects on screen at a time is the biggest limitation to the textures and thats controlled by how much memory is available for the purpose, which if I remember correctly is actually one of the 360's strongpoints ?

i think so too, but the PC wins on that regard for several orders of magnitude more than both consoles combined

Actually looked it up, ps3 has 256/256mb system/graphics ram, 360 has 512mb unified + 10mb on the GPU. so similar amounts, but the 360 can partition the system/graphics ram as appropriate and so has more flexibility

The other main difference is that the PS3 has the better CPU (if you can code for it), while the 360 has the superior graphics chip... at the end of the day, the difference between the two overall is negligable.

that said, ram is ludicrously cheap, this is by far the biggest performance limiter compared to the PC in my eyes. I'd love the ability to install ram in a console to reduce load times / texture popup (hinthinthint for next gen consoles please) :)

Originally Posted by Major
I will say though that if it was a PS3 exclusive, the graphics would be better as they would of been able to fully use the Blu Ray capacity.

don't understand this comment though, apart from load times, the difference in game performance between a pc with an 40GB HDD and a 1TB+ HDD is practically zero, how exactly is throwing more storage space at a console going to change anything?

Originally Posted by AlexB
GTA > Portal. Portal is one of the most over-rated games ever!

Agreed, it was an interesting little game but seriously... there's no way a several hour long puzzle game can compare to a AAA blockbuster title. Even in comparison to the other components of the Orange Box it was the weakest.
Good review of GTA IV though Joe, definitely made some good points made (especially about the soft-focus filter!). That's been bugging me every time I sit down to play it.
It definitely is a great game but it's does have its flaws, any score somewhere in the neighborhood between 9-9.7 seems fair in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Bladestorm
Doubtfull, I should think the sheer number of objects on screen at a time is the biggest limitation to the textures and thats controlled by how much memory is available for the purpose, which if I remember correctly is actually one of the 360's strongpoints ?

Hmm, I see. I think it's the PS3's strongpoint. :)

Surely more space on the disc, more things can be crammed on, they limited themselves to a DVD...

(I'm quite unknowledgable on it)... :D

Originally Posted by Major
Hmm, I see. I think it's the PS3's strongpoint. :)

Surely more space on the disc, more things can be crammed on, they limited themselves to a DVD...

(I'm quite unknowledgable on it)... :D

Well the PS3 has two 256MB of RAM and the 360 has just the one chunk of 512MB. That means the PS3 has to be passing data between the RAM and video RAM. The 360 doesn't. That reduces the amount of texture data the PS3 can use at any one time (possible reason for the PS3 version being lower res).
The Blu-Ray can hold more data, yes, but that data has to be streamed from the disc to load parts of the game. Since the Blu-Ray drive's data rate is slower than the 360's 16X DVD drive, it can't stream quickly enough, which why many PS3 games need to be installed.... that extra space doesn't make a lot of difference if you can't get it all off the disc quickly enough. So.... as more data is added to the Blu-Ray, the bigger the install size will get. Segmented, smaller, levels get around that, but GTA4 is all there at once.

If they had to reduce the resolution down from 720p it would suggest the system wouldn't run it as well at 720p. I doubt they did that for the fun of it.

Just reading the review made me laugh so hard I woke up my brother.. And I seriously will want to buy this when it comes for PC. Just for the fun of it. To hell with the graphics in GTA. That isnt what the game is about.. GTA for me is the new Carmageddon.

What I'm waiting for is a PC version that allows co-op through the single player campaign.

Now that would rock!

Until then, I'll stick with Fable 2, Merc's 2, and MMO's.

Hope the PC version is coming soon (I am gonna guess 9 months). I like the game alot, but there is way too much aliasing going on to be ecstatic about the whole of the game. Gameplay and style are top notch though.

I was massively underwhelmed by this game.

I didn't even pay much attention to the hype for it, which doubled my disappointment in the game. Ahwell, can't have everything I guess.

I enjoyed the review, and although it's probably been asked at least a dozen times, how do you guys get such good screenshots from the 360? Are you using a card with component input or something?

You can't take screenshots from a console without a debug console and developer and publisher permission - hence, all the screenshots you see from any console game (on pretty much every site, including the big ones like Gamespot) are provided by the publisher. Having played the game we then chose the ones we feel best represent the final game and will contact the publisher if we have problems or issues with the screenshots (such as if they'd been tweaked).

Originally Posted by CardJoe
You can't take screenshots from a console <snipped for tidyness>

Ahh, thanks for clearing that up. I always wondered how your console shots always looked clean in comparison to the general publics shots.

Originally Posted by CardJoe
You can't take screenshots from a console without a debug console and developer and publisher permission...

...unless you have a PS3, Resistrance: Fall of Man, a keyboard and can locate the printscreen button.

Anyone else notice that Niko bears a striking resemblance to Sasha from Behind Enemy Lines?
http://www.g4g.it/phpnews/images/GTA4_Behind_Enemy_lines_trailer_01.jpg
http://www.complex.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/grandtheftauto.jpghttp://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/twentieth_century_fox/behind_enemy_lines/vladimir_mashkov/enemy4.jpg

Blimey, that is a blatent copy. :)

Question: I have never played San Andreas but have heard good things about it. I'd like to play it but I'm wondering having played GTA4 if I would be disappointed going backward to the Xbox version of San Andreas. Any opinions?

I have missed most of the GTA series but I have really gotten hooked on GTA4. I agree that the graphics aren't real sharp but sometimes I look at it and it feels like I'm running around inside a Kinkade painting... It really is pretty though not realistic-looking at all. The overly-muted colors in certain portions are kind of annoying.

One of the most annoying aspects of the game is that when you agree to pick someone up they always say "be here in an hour," and many times they're on the other side of town so unless I'm currently driving a turismo or something equally capable there's no way I'll get there on time. Forget about going home and changing clothes first!

San Andreas would probably disappoint you if you're looking for great graphics and the same level of emergence, but in other areas it surpasses GTA4 in terms of just pure fun-ness and accessibility. I find the older games were a lot more fun a lot earlier on than before Rockstar started trying to take themselves seriously.

i think that´s a good game, but i don´t have ps3 or xbox. xD

I don't understand why all the hate is towards GTAIV's graphics? How in the world do you come to the conclusion that they are "under par"? This is easily one of the best looking games I've seen this year! I was playing it at my friends house and we were all like "Holy crap this game is freaking gorgeous".

I struggle to see how you can say that, unless you don't play a lot of PC games and so on. The physics are great and look fantastic, but actually just looking at the blurry DOF, lack of AA and muted, dull 'realisitic' colour scheme itself is a lot less impressive. Did you read the whole review?