The driving makes driver seem easy. I've still not got used to the fact that it is like driving a 40ft concrete yacht around a city. In a game were the AI can drift comfortably round corners in SUVs, it's insane that the turning under braking is so bad. Under power the cars don't turn, under braking the cars don't turn. You have to slow right down to get round a corner in a car that is so slow you are going to be miles behind. The other alternative is to tap the hand brake. This even if you are going slowly locks the handbrake on and you it will either plant you straight into the opposite wall or spin you a complete 180.
I've pretty much only enjoyed racing games thus far on the 360 and the driving in this is horrid. I love racing games and I love trying to get cars to drive well. In fact that is the thing I like most about racing games. But these cars are awful, I can't seem to get an of them to turn unless I slow to an almost stop and release all power and turn then and only then does the car skid out into the corner but you then need power out at which point you are probably going into the far wall anyway.
Sorry it isn't to your tastes, bob, but it sounds like my kind of driving game! To be fair to the developers, cars really don't turn under braking or acceleration, so it sounds like a more realistic approach (yippee!). I thought they might have taken the driving more this way, since San Andreas gave the cars a more weighty 'feel' as opposed to the older games.
I'm at college just now, and had to leave before the post came, so I won't know if I've got it yet til I get home *nibbles fingernails*
I've not got or played GTA4 yet, and I'm kinda waiting to see what bob thinks of it after a while as were pretty like minded. However from the description above of bob, that just doesn't seem like "more realistic" driving. I don't know the speeds involved but hey, you should still be able to corner effectivly if you have decent brakes, in pretty much any car. I appreciate without playing I can't really comment acuratly, so this is just an observation!
As I've said, the driving works for me. I think I can just about see where bob is coming from on this but I thing that some of the things he's not liking I'm either working around or actually liking. Weird, no?
At speed, the cars nudge beautifully so you can drift between moving traffic with relative ease (and only a minor scrape or two on the paintwork ). The game ramps up into a slightly "lesser" version of San Andreas' version of going-really-fast mode, in that some of the motion blur is there but it's easier to tell what's going on. Hit something solid like that and Niko will be flung from the car, through the windscreen probably.
Cornering at speed seems to be a mixture of just dodging the corner entirely (pavements FTW) and a careful application of handbrake, brake and timing. Some cars have their rear end flip out very easily. Others, the Sabre GT for example, have better road-holding characteristics.
I agree with Tets; it's a huge shame that you're not finding the driving works well for you, bob. I hope you find a technique that makes it, at least, tolerable!
The in traffic driving is still classic GTA and I love that, I can jink in and out of traffic with ease, I just can't get the cars round corners. I'm getting there slowly. As you say the Sabre GT handles very nicely.
I find that with some cars, you can get a nice drift by letting off the gas, starting to steer, giving the brake a quick tap, and then nailing the gas again. Again, it really depends on the car you're driving.
I've not got or played GTA4 yet, and I'm kinda waiting to see what bob thinks of it after a while as were pretty like minded. However from the description above of bob, that just doesn't seem like "more realistic" driving. I don't know the speeds involved but hey, you should still be able to corner effectivly if you have decent brakes, in pretty much any car. I appreciate without playing I can't really comment acuratly, so this is just an observation!
I know its not realistic driving but i said more realistic... Things like you need to break early for corners and things like that.. It even says to break early in the small tutorial boxes in the corner...
One thing witch i wished they added on GTA, is that even tho your not on online mode but still signed in, i wish you could use your phone to txt your mates on your friends list whilst playing single player cos what would be a cool feature... Ya know just too see how ther gettin on and stuff
One thing witch i wished they added on GTA, is that even tho your not on online mode but still signed in, i wish you could use your phone to txt your mates on your friends list whilst playing single player cos what would be a cool feature... Ya know just too see how ther gettin on and stuff
i wish you could use your phone to txt your mates on your friends list whilst playing single player cos what would be a cool feature... Ya know just too see how ther gettin on and stuff
And yea at the moment, ther gona add it soon..
But at least with the txt idea you wont have to cover over the game cos then you could txt while in a taxi or driving if you can manage to do both without crashing that is
My issue is not the braking. It's the insane understeer in all but a handful (of the ones I've driven so far) of cars. I'm not even that bothered by the fact that I have to slow to an almost stop to get round most of the city corners. That wouldn't bother me if it seemed to affect any of the AI.
Anyhoo am getting pretty good at jusging it, still get moments of utter frustration as I drive into a wall having slowed down what I would consider even in real life to be enough to corner.
Yeah, I've just had a pretty frustrating spell. I was on a bike and it literally would not turn any direction in full speed. Same as most cars, you need a 90 degree turn and it does 45 with the break, or 180 with the handbrake.
My issue is not the braking. It's the insane understeer in all but a handful (of the ones I've driven so far) of cars. I'm not even that bothered by the fact that I have to slow to an almost stop to get round most of the city corners. That wouldn't bother me if it seemed to affect any of the AI.
Anyhoo am getting pretty good at jusging it, still get moments of utter frustration as I drive into a wall having slowed down what I would consider even in real life to be enough to corner.
Do you brake before or while cornering? If you do it while cornering that'd be why. I rarely bother with the footbrake when rushing, controlled handbrake turns ftw!
Do you brake before or while cornering? If you do it while cornering that'd be why. I rarely bother with the footbrake when rushing, controlled handbrake turns ftw!
Finally arrived yesterday morning! After playing all day, I've come up with a few things I like and a few I dislike.
Firstly, the much-hated car handling holds a lot of appeal for me - it requires a bit of effort and skill but when you get it right it makes for pretty, screechy, fishtaily driving Also, the physics are great fun. Cars float with belly-lurching grace over jumps and interact really well with each other in crashes. One highlight for me was taking a pick-up version of the Rancher (complete with a row of cab-roof spotlights) and throwing it over sand dunes at Firefly Island. Wheeeeeee!
The humour seems to have been further distilled into the storyline this time, too, with less of the radio and billboard-based puerile innuendo and tongue-in-cheek jibes of the older games. A lot of the cutscenes are a great laugh
The gunplay is also a lot more refined this time around. Harder, but in a good way. Shotgun blasts have a nice 'impact', and the cover system lets you slip into 'counter terrorist' mode when assaulting rooms and buildings - sidling up a wall before cutting loose with an Uzi through the window
Now, for some little niggles and disappointments.
Although the car driving is great fun, the camera doesn't really lend itself well to the job - it's very loose, and the default view is far too close, which led to several blind turns of a corner and a lot of smashing mayhem. Eventually I figured out how to pull the camera back a bit, which helps, but I still find myself manually twisting the camera around when approaching sharper bends.
Another slight niggle is the fact that you get to keep your guns after dieing. Although I should be happy about it I guess, it takes a lot more of the pain out of dieing. When you can launch straight back into a replay of the mission you died on with your mobile, and still are able to retain your peacemakers, it makes you wonder if you should really be bothered about health.
Graphics also irk me slightly. The whole place is beautiful, but sometimes when going at high speed you sense a bit of juddering, and the haze that shimmers over objects about 100 yards away is a bit annoying. Strangely, when you drink-drive, the graphics are MUCH better. It's like the swaying camera filter overrides the haze filter and objects in the distance appear much more clearly - why they couldn't keep it that way the whole time I don't know.
One final point of note is that I don't find the storyline quite so absorbing or enterprising as the ones in the previous GTA games. I don't know what it is - there are fantastic characters, good missions, lots of Rastas - but something deep down prevents me from going 'I WANT to find out what happens next!'. Maybe it's because I don't want to finish the game too quickly, so I'm deliberately standing off from the missions to give me time to explore.
EDIT: One more thing - the police. A lot of fuss was made about how the police will be harder to evade this time around, about how you'd have to escape a 'circle of influence' and then remain under cover. Well, it's a bit of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it makes sense you can evade them by line-of-sight this time instead of waiting for your stars to go down, or venturing out your hidey-hole in a suicide attempt to reach a cop bribe, so common sense and some half decent driving can win the day. However, I mistakenly got six stars on me when I decided to see how far I could walk through the inter-island police barriers without drawing attention to myself (not very far, as it turns out). All I had to do was turn round, drive like a man with a death wish and get to my hideout. I even got stopped by a SWAT van on an off-ramp, at which point I though 'my luck is out', only to gun the whole team down easily with an Uzi and steal their van. Maybe I got a bit lucky, but they did seem a little easy to evade. Good or bad? Hmmm. Well, at least we have a chance against 6-star police now
Overall, they're minor problems that only a GTA enthusiast would spot under the microscope - it's an undeniably fun game.
So far, I'm on the Faustin missions. They're great - I love the polarity between Dimitri and Mikhail. I get the impression that the inspiration for the pair derives from the Benny/Lil' Ze partnership from 'City of Gods' (if any of you have seen that movie), Benny being the cool-headed advisor and Lil' Ze being the brash, impulse-acting drughead.
after playing the game i must agree that car and bike handling is a nightmare, but i cant help but laugh when you attempt to drift round a corner and your back end flicks out and catches an innocent by-stander, with the new physics it doesnt get old, even when you crash into an object and then the object flies into somebody and they die
Aye, the story though nice is a bit aimless. Just making money with no goal in mind isn't very motivating. I find myself floating away from the game every few hours because it gets boring. I've just unlocked Aldernay, so I'd say that I'd be at least half-way through and I've yet to have a far reaching concrete objective to work too (save the one Niko came to Liberty for, but that’s such an indirect one for me as a player). I've not seen anything to spend my money on, save guns, so why do I care about earning it?
The driving mechanic is okay, it works and you can complete missions and escape the police with it, but it's less fun than previous games. I've yet to have the old Vice-City-bike-jinking-through-traffic fun, or sexy-handbrake-turns-at-full-speed. I don't care if that’s realistic or not, it's enjoyable!
(Although! Doing 360 spins on the express way or main drags always leaves me feeling cool )
The combat is fun, although several times Niko has blown himself up by throwing his grenades at his own over, or blind firing RPGs into his own face!
Eurogamer hinted at a choice to be made in the game between two people, and I'm pretty sure I know who those 2 are, but what a crock of crap! I'm having to do special saves in my Safehouse so that when I do make the choice I don't have to play through the whole fuggin' game just to make it again! GTA isn't a game that can work around that. The point is that it's an open world where you can do what you like, but what you do will always be reset letting you have your 30 seconds of fun all over again. Once I make a choice between 2 people it's too permanent. I want to be led through Liberty City, only having to worry about whacking people and driving, that's what the game is all about! For me anyways
Hey Pia i know what you mean moneys pointless, you do a bank robery and get 25000, not used any of it i still have loads of money from other missions...
Lately ive been doin the most wanted lists on each island, sometimes gettin a copper car to do that gets annoying...
And do you guys know if theres that combat chopper in the game? Ive seen and used the Black Hawk type one with the miniguns,, if ya wana try it call 359-555-0100... I know its a cheat but its just for a bit off fun on a spree but its not as good as teh old one with missiles....
Also go check out the heart of Liberty its a bit freaky.
