f13.net

I hope they make this one less of a chore.  San Andreas was one of my most favorite games, and GTAIV has to be one of my biggest disappointments.   I hope they incorporate some of their design decisions they relented on with Red Dead Redemption.  Having to drive 10 minutes to a mission, fail it, and then have to repeat really killed portions of IV for me.   I didn't have this problem with San Andreas, but I'm sure it was there.  I was just having too much fun to notice.

skip that 'friendship maintenance' shit.

Either way, I've got SR3 in two weeks to satisfy my urge for this type of game.

With regards to SA, how did people feel about the RPG elements?  I felt like my character was too high maintenance, a problem not unlike the friends crap in IV.   I really don't want too many character stats and such in a game like this.

SA I got tired of being OG.  I simply found CJ's story tiresome and couldn't relate to it.  

SR2 on the other had let you make pretty much any damn character you wanted to. I like that.

I had a fat black dude in a suit and top hat rocking around with a really bad cockney accent. It was awesome.

My tiny asian kung fu master got retired quickly after I got tired of him talking like a vato.

With regards to SA, how did people feel about the RPG elements?  I felt like my character was too high maintenance, a problem not unlike the friends crap in IV.   I really don't want too many character stats and such in a game like this.

The only stat that degraded if you were doing it right was hunger/obesity.  You'd only start to lose shit like strength if you were starving.

Degradation or not, why do I need to build up shit like strength in a GTA game in the first place?

If they're serious about improving GTA V, they should do the following:
- Car customization, turbo boosts, bulletproof windows, paintwork, bumpers, bodyworks, anything. Give the players a cash sink and something to own in the game. Niko Bellic spends 75% of the game doing hit contracts but he owns nothing in the game world. Not even a personalized car.
- Apartments. Goddamit. I hate having to run back to the same shitty apartment to save my game or park my car. Let me spend cash on more garages. I want to collect some sports car and compare them in my spare time.

Give those back so I feel like those earned cash actually meant something instead of just numbers on the top right hand screen.

Saint's Row is also a pita to get working. I fucked with it for probably an hour last night, and it's still not right. Mostly trying to fix the speed issue since as a shitty port it's tied to the cpu speed of the xbox 360. Really?

Is that why I was getting spammed on Steam with "Sky is playing Saints Row 2" over and over again? :why_so_serious:

http://idolninja.com/sr2.php

Is that why I was getting spammed on Steam with "Sky is playing Saints Row 2" over and over again? :why_so_serious:

Hopefully it will be fun.

Theory: Tommy Vercetti moves to San Andreas after 25 years in Vice City.

They should have called that a teaser not a trailer.  I wanted to know about the story and the protagonist.  All that showed me is that they continue to make graphical improvments but are still two years behind everyone else, as usual.  Which I'm fine with because it's fun and I like the story lines, when I get to hear what they are.

Theory: Tommy Vercetti moves to San Andreas after 25 years in Vice City.

what does that sign say? I can make out "Need money for.......at least im not bullshitting u"

what does that sign say? I can make out "Need money for.......at least im not bullshitting u"

This is pretty awesome; GTAV trailer in GTA:SA engine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ftk3f_0WZww

As someone who has only played the first GTA extensively, seeing everyone wonder what the friendship-maintenance and weight-watching mechanics will be in the next game is fucking weird.

I think most people are just hoping these things WON'T be in the next GTA.

I missed Fat CJ in GTA IV.  I missed getting better at things.

Gameplay trailer! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-xHcvug3WI)

:Love_Letters:

Going to be torture waiting for that to hit the PC.

They are SO going to fuck the PC Players on this.  :oh_i_see:

I've been dreaming about an MMO where you, among other things, manage a fantasy football team. Basically you get Football Manager into your usual MMORPG. In fact, I was so hoping for SWTOR to have something like that, where you managed a Huttaball team.

They are SO going to fuck the PC Players on this.  :oh_i_see:

Am I the only one not liking the look of having to change characters mid-mission? Switch to <redneck> camera angle to pilot copter away, switch to <black> camera angle to shoot pursuers.  Also, I get the concept of sandbox and I love me some of them but did anyone ever utter the words "GTA needs more stock trading"?

Eh, that's always just part of the game now.  It was equally as fun to do that in IV as it was in any previous iteration.  

It's a bit worrisome that the primary story focus seems to be on heists.  The big bank heist was the single worst mission in GTA IV.  Hopefully this game has checkpoint saves and a bit smoother of a difficulty curve.

Also, I get the concept of sandbox and I love me some of them but did anyone ever utter the words "GTA needs more stock trading"?

I found The Ballard of Gay Tony, one of the add-on packs, a lot more fun than the main game in GTA IV. The main missions weren't annoying and you were pretty much free to just cruise around crashing cars or doing little side missions if you wanted. It was long enough that they could have just released it as the vanilla game in the first place.

Really? For all the talk I hear of 4 I thought it did much worse.  Then again the franchise was at it's height right before release, I'm even more curious to see the release numbers on 5 now.

On the other hand (continent), if I preorder from XBL then I will get $20 in store credit.  The people that I MP with all have a 360, so it's decided.

I'm not sure, I think they looked at GTA 4 and it reminded them that people wanted a world they could screw around in, not just a shooting gallery.

I didn't like the way they would dump you into firefights after cutscenes with no cover. It was like...okay and fuck you too.

I did however complete Red Dead Redemption...

No media outlet will dare give a main GTA title anything but glowing scores at this point.

I don't think I've ever actually completed the main story of any GTA title since they're so fucking boring to actually play properly. Futzing around in the sandbox has lost its appeal for me so I spent all of 7-8 hours with GTA4 and didn't enjoy most of it. I'm not buying this one.

I did however complete Red Dead Redemption...

Maybe I'll try and dig it up again but the gist was that after subtracting the costs for manufacturing of the game disc and box and subtracting the cost of shipping and handling of the merchandise and after the cut the distributor, wholesaler and retailer took, Popcap made about $1 to $2 on each game sale for a $20 to $30 boxed game. They actually made more money by selling the game for $2,39 on the app store even considering the 30% cut Apple takes and they don't have to compete for shelf space with bigger releases. That's why Popcap was already keen on digital distribution by then.

GTA being profoundly mysoginistic, as if that was a new development in the GTA franchise and not something that GTA had always.

GTA being profoundly mysoginistic, as if that was a new development in the GTA franchise and not something that GTA had always.

Not sure what you're getting at here. They should get a pass on it because it was always bad in that way?

The Escapist's review (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/10598-Grand-Theft-Auto-5-Review-People-Suck?utm_source=latest&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all) has doused any embers of desire I might have had to play this game; "The three men you take control of throughout the game aren't even anti-heroes. They're just scumbags."

The Escapist's review (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/10598-Grand-Theft-Auto-5-Review-People-Suck?utm_source=latest&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all) has doused any embers of desire I might have had to play this game; "The three men you take control of throughout the game aren't even anti-heroes. They're just scumbags."

So it's every GTA game?

No, but if a reviewer is only just now realizing it then he clearly spent the last decade in a coma or in North Korea. GTA's authors had always a mysoginistic streak but I guess it's OK as long as it's about kiling hookers for money or something. To put it another way criticizing the umpteenth installment in a series for a tendency that is ingrained in the series and that the gaming press as a whole tends to ignore or even glorify is like being grand master of the blinding obvious.

It's also pretty hipocritical coming from a sector of the press that has no problem whatsoever with objectifying and margilazing women in general

It just seems a little strange to call out the misogyny specificially.  It would be like putting in your review summary's negative column "Prodigious amounts of vehicle theft - this is really getting old, Rockstar".  Because duh.  Everything in these games is excessive.

Some of the reviews are better balanced, and calling all of this stuff out as tiresome.  But to pick any one thing and repeat it while ignoring all the others is just odd.

She gave it a 9/10 out and it was one of the more glowing reviews I've ever seen Carolyn Petit give.  She also called out the inconsistent character actions and plot weakness.  Awww, that crap is always in GTA5, better not mention it. Or better yet, put it on the box as a feature.  :oh_i_see:

Seriously, she loved the game.  I'm shocked they even had her review it (I would have guessed they'd have Van Ord do it and dreaded the possibility of Tom McShea) and somewhat surprised she liked it this much.  She's been reviewing art house indie crap all summer.

You guys need to take off the fucking berets.  It's Grand Theft Auto.

You guys need to take off the fucking berets.  It's Grand Theft Auto.

Typing more words is not taking off a beret.

They cannot have it both ways.

I don't see any berets here.  We're discussing a game and it's reception thus far.  Unwad.

You'll be able to shoot and run over people.  That's a given.  There might be more to discuss.

Yeah, no. If fucking Saints Row, with its dildo bats , stripper gang outfits, and "puckish rogue" PC, is more progressive and had more nuanced & sympathetic characters than GTA then Rockstar has fucked up.

Again.

They cannot have it both ways. Either they're making serious games for serious gamers, in which case this broad streak of misogyny running through the GTA series has to fucking stop (amongst other things); or they're making comedic knockabouts, in which case they have to stop fucking pretending they're making serious, cinematic games and roll with the craziness.

no u

Seriously though, I'll have it soon enough and I'll see if it's good, as will everyone else who cares.  I don't know why we're discussing misogyny, nuanced characters, and the other minor elements as if this is a Coppola movie.  Now Bloodworth has even started musing about a female lead in GTA.

I do have a two-part answer, though:
1. No one would wear clothing
2. Too many people were angry they had to play a black guy in San Andreas

Ad populum? Really?

Disappointing.

In GTA V, you play as a terrible person. Well, three terrible people really, the game's major gameplay innovation from its predecessors being that you can play as three different protagonists. Driving through Los Santos and the rest of Blaine County - a representation of Los Angeles and the surrounding California countryside - is still the highlight of Grand Theft Auto V, and it does make you feel like you are really part of the criminal underworld of a morally bankrupt city. But it's only worth playing if you are ok with being the bad guy. No, a really bad guy.

Now, you may say, that's the hallmark of the crime genre Grand Theft Auto spawned, at least in videogames. But some of the events and missions of Grand Theft Auto V feel more malicious and, well, evil, than the comparatively light-hearted violence of most games, the recent Saints Row 4 being a perfect example. What's missing in GTA V's story is a sense that the characters have been painted into a corner by various machinations beyond their control, like Niko Bellic of GTA IV, or must commit their crimes to mete out justice, as Tommy Vercetti does in Vice City. The three main characters of GTAV do terrible things merely to get paid, and deserve no sympathy. There's no drive in them even to be the best at what they do, the last American value we afford criminals, but rather they commit these crimes with no lifeline thrown to the audience to pull us along in supporting them. It is the difference between The Godfather Part 1 and Part 2, between Inglorious Basterds and Triumph of the Will, and between Just Cause 2 and JFK Reloaded. In the former examples, the audience can get behind the anti-heroes depicted for whatever reason and condone their admittedly awful actions, but in the latter group, the subject matter or the protagonist's morals are skewed too far from the norm to be comfortably witnessed.

Sooooo... the bad guys aren't romanticized enough per the typical American/Hollywood-ean treatment of "real life" and are instead depicted as they tend to be in reality; petty, vindictive, malicious and spiteful.

How is any of this bad again? I mean, if one is going to criticize GTA for being crass (hookers, etc) that's one thing, arguably true, but saying that the game is bad because it cuts a little too close to the bone is weak as.


" ... the protagonist's morals are skewed too far from the norm to be comfortably witnessed."


Time to take a trip outside the ivory tower methinks.

Time to take a trip outside the ivory tower methinks.

Because they're not the bad guys, they're you. I can understand the desire to tell a story about bad people, but surely it is not surprising that there are people who don't have the desire to act it out themselves.

EDIT: Also the reviews we've been talking about here range from 3.5/5 to 9/10. None of them are calling the game bad in an overall sense.

Because they're not the bad guys, they're you. I can understand the desire to tell a story about bad people, but surely it is not surprising that there are people who don't have the desire to act it out themselves.

EDIT: Also the reviews we've been talking about here range from 3.5/5 to 9/10. None of them are calling the game bad in an overall sense.

Except people have been acting it out themselves the whole time, in GTA, SR, JC, etc. except because the protagonist had some single redeeming quality, they were able to empathize with a psychotic criminal. By removing that, you make people realize that what they're doing is incredibly evil; that might make some people uncomfortable but to me that sounds like a better game.

Notwithstanding the point about scores, it then sounds like a complaint, purely, of narrative mode. Bad in first person is icky and yuck, bad in third person is ok and acceptable.

If this is the case, then we are simply underscoring what appears to be the exact point of the way the game is oriented; highlighting not only how shallow we are as consumers but in giving us an an unpasteurised taste of what it is we actually enjoy.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to play a minigame where I gouge out Gloucester's eyes in a video game version of King Lear, either. I think there's a pretty significant difference between watching a tragic narrative as a non-participant and controlling the guy who is actually doing the scooping.

"Because video games" is the argument why a lot of the violence and law breaking is considered acceptable. It's fun!

Racism, sexism and homophobia are much less comfortable as bedfellows.

"Because video games" is the argument why a lot of the violence and law breaking is considered acceptable. It's fun!

Racism, sexism and homophobia are much less comfortable as bedfellows.

I've been to productions of King Lear which involved actors in body-length penis costumes dancing to hard-core techno. I'm not sure what I was supposed to feel.

but now I'm wary of fucking cougars.

Besides GTA, there have been plenty of games in which I was very uncomfortable being the bad guy.  Also sometimes simply watching.  Many of these are RPGs; I've probably blocked out many of them so I can't give a quick example, but I believe Bioware was involved.  Why is GTA being singled out?  Popularity?  Media?

Cougars in Redemption were bullshit, utter bullshit.

I can understand wanting to play on the good side, I always pick light/paragon what have you in bioware games and never bother to play through the other side.  There is usually some sort of glimmer of hope in GTA protagonists though, I would miss that.  Most missions in GTA are also against other evil people too, I don't mind evil on evil too much.

And if you want to call GTA misogynist then go for it but don't dare try and bring up Saint's Row as some sort of counter point.  I finally finished SR3 over the weekend and there was a mission where I was stealing kidnapped women sold into the flesh trade out of cargo containers and handing them over to the pimp on my payroll.  These women were intended to replace other prostitutes I had killed in the previous mission.  So shut the fuck up about Saint's Row being some sort of feminist approved franchise compared to GTA.

 :why_so_serious:

GTA 5 on the other hand feels more like Hostel 2 meets Movie 43

Cougars in Redemption were bullshit, utter bullshit.

I can understand wanting to play on the good side, I always pick light/paragon what have you in bioware games and never bother to play through the other side.  There is usually some sort of glimmer of hope in GTA protagonists though, I would miss that.  Most missions in GTA are also against other evil people too, I don't mind evil on evil too much.

And if you want to call GTA misogynist then go for it but don't dare try and bring up Saint's Row as some sort of counter point.  I finally finished SR3 over the weekend and there was a mission where I was stealing kidnapped women sold into the flesh trade out of cargo containers and handing them over to the pimp on my payroll.  These women were intended to replace other prostitutes I had killed in the previous mission.  So shut the fuck up about Saint's Row being some sort of feminist approved franchise compared to GTA.

Besides GTA, there have been plenty of games in which I was very uncomfortable being the bad guy.  Also sometimes simply watching.  Many of these are RPGs; I've probably blocked out many of them so I can't give a quick example, but I believe Bioware was involved.  Why is GTA being singled out?  Popularity?  Media?

GTA would always lose me where there's one shitty, difficult mission that you have to drive 5 minutes before you even start the difficult part.  Go pick someone up, drive halfway across town, etc. Then the mission starts and there's about 5 different times that you can easily get scragged and lose.  Then, if you die, do the whole fucking thing over again.  I'll finally beat this mission and then just lose the will to play anymore.

RDR helped this greatly with just being able to restart the mission, and if I'm remembering right, mission checkpoints.   No 5-10 minutes of prep dependent on 30 seconds worth of execution (on a gamepad most of the time).

Personally, I'm able to separate video game from reality and this shit doesn't bug me too much no matter the era or world setting.

That drives me nuts too and I don't think I can do it anymore, it's the only reason I haven't bought the game yet, I'm going to wait to hear about if there are checkpoints and such. I can't count the number of times in past GTA games where I have violently smashed my controller, switched off the system swearing never to play it again, only to pick it up the next day.  I manage to get through all the shooting and then have to escape on a fucking motorcycle only to hit a bump and go flying to my death.

I feel better about never having been interested in this title now.

I assume the positive reviews are part of the "block-buster" mentality. The actual content of the game is secondary to the excitement the event of its release has generated, and the industry supports and feeds it being a big event you must buy into. The negative comments on the game, if any, will come out later.

 :why_so_serious:

I did already have to shoot a cougar though after I drove my car off a cliff at one point and had to run through a bit of the wilderness.

I feel better about never having been interested in this title now.

I assume the positive reviews are part of the "block-buster" mentality. The actual content of the game is secondary to the excitement the event of its release has generated, and the industry supports and feeds it being a big event you must buy into. The negative comments on the game, if any, will come out later.

I continue to be fascinated about self-confessed 'not interested' people that are still interested in posting in a thread about the game.

Fuck RDR. Worst Rockstar game ever published on the PC.  :oh_i_see:

I continue to be fascinated about self-confessed 'not interested' people that are still interested in posting in a thread about the game. I should post more about Diablo and WoW.

I continue to be fascinated about self-confessed 'not interested' people that are still interested in posting in a thread about the game.

Would probably have to be a prequel in the case of RDR, as RDR is set at the very, very end of the "Wild West" period.

I fucking LOVED RDR.  It really affected me in a surprisingly deep way.  GTAIV, however, left me numb and I only played about four hours. 

Yeah, I haven't played far enough to draw a conclusion on the whole game, but the driving is super easy compared to the last one.  Like, not even close.  Trying to shoot someone while driving?  That is ass.  Easier to run them off the road.

I haven't tried it myself, but I remember one of those billion popup messages said something about driving camera angle in the options.  For those of you having problem with that, I guess you should check it out.

Now that the game's out and I'm not playing it, I don't really have anything more to say about it - I've said my piece. But if you prefer, Sky, I could instead stop posting when I hit the same number of posts you made about FFH in the Civ V thread.  :-P

Trevor does some incredibly heinous shit in this game, and I'm not even at the second heist yet.

One of GTA V's characters admits at the end of the game, "I'm getting too old for this nonsense." And you know what? I felt the same thing numerous times while playing GTA V, even though I continue to admire the hell out of much of what it accomplishes. So if I sound ambivalent, Niko, I think it's because I'm part of a generation of gamers who just realized we're no longer the intended audience of modern gaming's most iconic franchise. Three steps past that realization, of course, is anticipation of one's private, desperate hurtle into galactic heat death. I'm left wondering when I, or any of us, express a wish for GTA to grow up, what are we actually saying? What would it even mean for something like GTA to "grow up"? Our most satirically daring, adult-themed game is also our most defiantly puerile game. Maybe the biggest sin of the GTA games is the cheerful, spiteful way they rub our faces in what video games make us willing to do, in what video games are.

The author goes through a lot of effort to say he no longer enjoys that kind of game as much.  Lots of extra words in there. 

The author goes through a lot of effort to say he no longer enjoys that kind of game as much.  Lots of extra words in there. 

I think he needs to take a step back from video games and do something else for a while.

Screwed if you do, screwed if you don't.  Write anything critical or thoughtful about video games and you're taking it too seriously.  Dismiss the hobby as a thing for kids, or a waste of time and you don't take gaming seriously enough.

That was actually a pretty good read.

I'm now nearly finished with GTA (had to continue playing after throwing $70 at this game).

Trevor keeps being a psychopath/sociopath. Kudos to the guy voicing him because he manages to make him a charming motherfucker. The author of GTA must know at least one pathological sociopath (maybe himself) because the portrait is pretty spot on. Charming, no morals, can fake empathy and is prone to violent outburst/psychotic breaks. I still don't want to play that character or spend any amount of time with him though. If my played time is any indication I've managed to only spend 30% of the time I've had on either Michael or Francis with Trevor and even that seems too much.

The worst part is that nothing they make Trevor do in the game has any story justification at all. They could have easily told nearly the same story without any of the 'controversial' stuff. He also doesn't serve as any kind of moral example or antagonist you're supposed to hate. They've given him too many wacky and funny bits for that. He's all over the place. One moment he's armchair philosopher lecturing others about morality and life, then he's tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, then he's channeling Urkel and funnily falling over or he changes into a Tarantino-esque bit-character that does doing wacky or brutal stuff. Oh and then he does something so despicably awful that you have to turn of the console while contemplating to call 911 on the writer's ass because he must clearly have issues.

I also don't get the direction and story telling in that game. They make you play a torture scene right out of the fantasy of a tea party member where you have to torture a guy of vaguely middle eastern descent because 'terrorism'. A scene that is not only utterly despicable but also very, very, very pointless. It serves no purpose whatsoever for the story except being 'out there' and isn't mentioned ever again. Oh and you only get Gold status on the mission when you use all of the different torture implements at least once without killing him in the process. It's not even that the guy has to be tortured because he is cartoonishly evil and refuses to tell you where the nuclear device is hidden in Los Santos (at least 24 had that kind of 'decency'), he is a normal guy that simply can't remember any details because he is frightened shitless by the CIA and FBI equivalents. All the torturing does is jogging his memory and the threat is literally something, something terrorism.

Yet by the time Trevor Philips has his fourth psychotic break and kills two people because they simply wanted him to leave their apartment (that's literally what happened) the game fades to black and 'spares' you to experience that. After killing half of San Andreas and having already seen countless despicable acts by the protagonists somehow a character psychotically killing two guys is too much for the player to see? Give me a fucking break.

The game also never ever gives you a choice. You HAVE to do that stuff, you have no alternative way or alternative story path where you could refuse to do that shit. You can't even switch to another character that is on the same mission so that the stuff you don't like happens off camera. The only other choice would be to turn off the game and not play it again. This is bad in a game that gives you so many choices if more superficial aspects are concerned (you can even choose how to answer your shrink)

So far Trevor has done the following:


Maybe I could live with that if the rest of the game was awesome.

It's a great achievement as far as the game design/level design/ world design is concerned. The world is huge and designed with great care, it looks great and it feels like a real state with lots of things going on. The designers obviously put a lot of work into building the world and the engine. It's a great technical achievement.

Apart from that it's just more of the same however. More cars, more boats, more planes, more clothes to buy, more activities to do, more missions, more side missions, more collectibles (175 items to collect/destroy), more car upgrades, more weapons, larger area, more characters to play more buildings to buy, a pretty pointless stock market etc.. It's basically GTA but lots more of it. With the exception of the three characters and the character switching though it never really goes beyond the GTA formula or adds anything new or exciting to it. It's also never as 'deep' or vast as for example Skyrim. The game also delivers its morals parody of american society and commentary on culture with a big blunt hammer and in a rather infantile way even more so than previous games did. Sublety is not the forte of GTA 5.

Worse, most of it doesn't feel like you're spending time in San Andreas instead it feels more like wasting time. As if Rockstar wanted to give the impression of the game being longer than it actually is. (You could easily play through the main story in ten to fifteen hours or spend two or three times that when you do all of the side stuff)

Yes you can play Golf or Tennis or race against the computer in cars, or in boats, you can parachute and run triathlons or play darts. But no minigame even approaches the depth of a Top Spin or Forza so you play a few times and then you move on. If you wanted the 100% completion achievement however you'd have to spent much time on each individual activity in order to beat all levels/opponents and this does feel like a chore and not like an achievement. I feel like the effort could have been spent on less stuff and instead they could have focused on making each individual thing better tan just throwing lots of stuff in there.

Finally the guy responsible for the plane and especially the helicopter controls should never be allowed anywhere near a game developer job ever again. Flying helicopters and planes  is the most frustrating part of the GTA 5.

A quick heads up.

You won't have to pay any money for the garages and Trevor's Hangar and Helipad if you sign up to the Rockstar Social Club for GTA which will save you a couple of bucks

Don't bother to steal any high end cars and store them in those garages though. I don't know if it is a bug or if it's supposed to be that way but those cars will eventually just vanish. If the in game hint system is to be believed then you can store cars at those garages and use them and if the cars get lost you will be able to get it from the impound lot or it will reappear in your garage. At least that is what happens with stolen planes and helicopters.

As it stands I lost two completely tricked out cars already even though they have been stored at garages. I drove them to a mission and after the mission got finished they simply vanished. Also sometimes the car you drove will be replaced by the car you own, if the story needs it to be there instead. So I'd arrive in my tricked out $1,000,000 super car and it get's replaced with Trevor's old rust bucket after a cut scene.

The only major bug I encountered so far but since you can easily spend millions on cars and car upgrades you should be aware of that.

I have now finished the game and most of my complaints still stand.

It's basically the only game purchase I regret to have made in the last few years with the exception of maybe Mass Effect 3 (but that at least was rather great up to the end) and I would have gotten a refund if that was at all possible.

I just have a few observations (I'll probably spend to long to talk about).

The heist idea is nice, the heists are pretty much the best part of the game and they also feel like the most work went into those missions. The 'leveling up' of goons is pointless though. Firstly because you won't earn any kind of real money for pretty much all of the heists except the first and the last one so the kind of cut they take is irrelevant. Secondly because by the time the final heist comes up you'll be swimming in money anyway. You have Lester's assassination missions plus one or two random encounters that give you guaranteed stock market events that each give you between a 50% to 100% payout. Getting a hundred million dollars per character just from those is easy if you play things right.

Lastly because all the mediocre or bad goons I took on heists died due to cut scenes or mission checkpoints you can't prevent. If you do for example exactly what Lester tells you to do for the Jewel Heist (subtle approach) and select the gun man with the lower cut (who is worse) then he will get killed and you will lose out on a third of the take. If you go with the bad hacker, you wont have enough time to get all of the jewels and the bad driver will select vehicles absolutely unsuitable for the job. The second time I took on a mediocre goon for a mission that 'shouldn't involve any opposition' he got killed by a cut scene explosion. Better team members on the other hand seem to survive such events. So I never managed to level up a bad goon, they either died or prevented me from taking a significant amount of money due to their incompetence.

GTA heavily relies on a trope and has for at least three games now that I learned to hate even more in GTA 5. 90% of the time the story finds a reason why you won't get paid for a mission. Either because your boss simply refuses to give you your pay, you need the money for a bigger heist or for some other convoluted story reason. I've basically done more unpaid work during the game than an intern at a big media company. The most ridiculous is probably the one where you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and several missions on a big heist and then the game makes you give the thing you stole back because 'story reasons'. It's either, 'I simply won't give you the agreed sum', 'you have to help me because we are friends/homies/ex lovers/family/I have dirt on you/we need to tie up loose ends', 'we need the money for a different thing' or 'sorry Michael the take is in another castle'.

The internal stock market should be a nice idea but it seems to be completely broken. You basically have two markets, an in game market that should respond to in game events and an 'online market' that should respond to things players do and is synched via the social club. For example ammu nation is a player influenced stock in the social club controlled market place so it should fluctuate as more people buy weapons and most other stores belong to the in game influenced markets so they should respond to in game events. The stock prices are updated every 30 seconds. So if you cause a lot of property damage or other types of damage the stock should go down and that of a rival company should go up. This doesn't seem to work at all right now. The internet is full of reports by players that don't seem to be able to influence the stock market at all while others apparently can.

The stocks don't even respond to basic market stimuli. I once spent all of the money I had on all three characters (more than 200 million dollars) and the amount of invested money didn't cause any price change at all. Most of the time the trend graphs displayed that should give you an idea how the stock behaved over the course of an in game week show an entirely different stock price and stock price history than what the game actually shows you when you check the actual price. Since you simply won't get all of the money you need to buy all the in game real estate just by doing missions (except if you exploit an in game mechanic that is) this is bad. You need more than $200,000,000 to buy everything. If you don't use exploits and min/max everything (when to take the missions that give you a guaranteed stock market event for example) you'll probably have less than $40,000,000 per character which won't even get you to buy everything except the $120,000,000 golf course and will exclude you from a number of side missions connected to those buildings.

One of the last lines of the game is one of the characters talking about the bad effects of off shoring and outsourcing and a diatribe about how that 'ruins the US economy' and then the end credits spend minutes on telling you just exactly how many developers from China and India have worked on GTA. Without even the decency to list the actual work done or function instead just putting them all under 'additional work'.

A game that otherwise lists probably every person that has ever worked at Rockstar or Take 2 with his/her job title.

I assume that this is not the least bit hypocritical.

He does something unbelievable in pretty much the first minute of encountering him.  I was totally aghast and disgusted.  I mean, totally enjoyable within the context of what it was, but disgusting nonetheless.

But it sure looks interesting.

Played online for roughly 10 minutes before someone that I had been auto grouped with for a heist intentionally ran me over with the getaway car.

I predict this devolving quickly.

Public enemy No. 1 (http://www.ubspectrum.com/arts/public-enemy-no-1-1.3071447)
Despite the increasing controversy surrounding the series,GTA V’s launch on Sept. 17 was the most successful of any entertainment property in history, passing $1 billion of sales in just three days.

Some other asshole saw fit to run me over while I was running a mission. So, I stole a moving truck, T-boned him against a wall preventing him from getting out and then shot him in the face.

Some other asshole saw fit to run me over while I was running a mission. So, I stole a moving truck, T-boned him against a wall preventing him from getting out and then shot him in the face.

Eventually figured out that if you enter the game in Story mode and then switch to Online, you get can do the initial race "solo" just against Lamar.

Unfortunately, my bet is that GTA V's multiplayer does not give you enough ability to impose penalties on griefers that vigilante justice would be in any way meaningful.  As I understand it in DayZ you can set a griefer back by shooting him since then he loses his stuff and with it his ability to shoot at people.  In GTA I can't imagine there's anything you can do that stops somebody from running people over with the getaway car.

Unfortunately, my bet is that GTA V's multiplayer does not give you enough ability to impose penalties on griefers that vigilante justice would be in any way meaningful.  As I understand it in DayZ you can set a griefer back by shooting him since then he loses his stuff and with it his ability to shoot at people.  In GTA I can't imagine there's anything you can do that stops somebody from running people over with the getaway car.

Then by proxy it should also allow you to dish out some vigilante street justice.

It seems a little silly to punish people for being "bad sports" in a game that encourages you to act like a sociopath.

If anything partnering up with someone then not running them over 30 seconds later seems against the spirit of the game.

I'm basically going HAM on any and all of them

So I've basically been keeping a list of people who show up in my notifications as killing someone else a little too often. I'm basically going HAM on any and all of them with zero provocation. So far I've dropped four. Working my way up to a sniper rifle because if I can shoot bitches from my blimp, it's fucking on.

So far I think the lamest thing Online is that you suffer a cash penalty each time you are killed. With the vast majority of pubbie matches just playing the game like a deathmatch in a giant map, combined with how quickly you die in this game, this is just a needless annoyance to lose all your cash within the span of a couple deaths. Sure you can bank it but that's a pointless hassle, at the very least when not on a mission the penalty should be removed.

Overall I'm really disappointed in Online, it just feels unfocused. Even when trying to play with friends on a mission, as I was invited a couple times today, after the first, I was timed out and kicked out of online when trying to load the next. Tried to join again, and for some reason was only allowed to spectate? Why not just join right in? Even trying to organize people to do the missions seems needlessly fiddly and unpredictable. When I want online, I want to just click a button and get into playing. Here there's just too much time spent staring at a loading screen or menu, opportunities for the game to drop you, be griefed at a penalty, etc. And the best aspect of the game, the immersive aspect, it just lost because you're worrying about these dumb hoops you have to jump through to have fun.

some jack hole rolls up behind and shoots me and the hooker. I respawn nearby and run back to take him out as there's no way I'm letting him get away with my car. Turns out he has a partner. I take shots at him in his car, shoot off a door and he high-tails if out if there. I then proceed back into the scrapyard. His car's at the entrance. I hop in it and run him over with it. His partner then comes flying off the overpass above trying to drop his car on me and failing miserably. As he tries to get out of the now upside down car, I end him.

I get one-on-one deathmatch challenges from both of them and ignore them. They both come running back into the scrapyard and I kill both of them again, again I get the dual deathmatch challenges. Seriously, fuckknuckles, if you kill me and I take you out in retaliation, I don't give a shit about your deathmatch invites.

Did you try logging out and back in? There have been instructions on how to maybe fix it at the online loading screens today. I'm assuming it's kinda widespread.

Speaking of glitches, if you've got a convertable, don't put the top down while you're near a hooker. Apparently, It's an invitation. That said, having never picked up a hooker before, I didn't know what to do, so I followed the onscreen instructions to find somewhere secluded. Drove to a scrapyard and then tried to deny service. As she's getting out, some jack hole rolls up behind and shoots me and the hooker. I respawn nearby and run back to take him out as there's no way I'm letting him get away with my car. Turns out he has a partner. I take shots at him in his car, shoot off a door and he high-tails if out if there. I then proceed back into the scrapyard. His car's at the entrance. I hop in it and run him over with it. His partner then comes flying off the overpass above trying to drop his car on me and failing miserably. As he tries to get out of the now upside down car, I end him.

I get one-on-one deathmatch challenges from both of them and ignore them. They both come running back into the scrapyard and I kill both of them again, again I get the dual deathmatch challenges. Seriously, fuckknuckles, if you kill me and I take you out in retaliation, I don't give a shit about your deathmatch invites.

After the update, Violent Duct only pays out 3K too. Apparently people were bitching about it getting farmed.

On xbox, look for Bat Country F13

Anyone figured out how to mute the other player's mikes in Online? So far the only solution I found when a couple dudes start a "conversation" (once it was just a guy belching in to his mike over and over) - is to change sessions. This game won't survive if its going to force all its players in to random sessions of chat roulette while playing.

What version is that image from?  My PS3 version looks terrible compared to that image.

I added you guys to the f13 crew. Not sure if you accepted yet

Still no word on a PC port?

A PS3 vs PS4 comparison video. (http://www.digitalspy.ca/gaming/news/a578103/gta-5-ps3-ps4-comparison-video-looks-at-upgraded-visuals.html#~oHuz57kzJKRCcy)

My Friends an I are looking forward to playing this together on PC. Anyone have insights on whats to do in the online portion, co-op? Let me rephrase. I see the games bullet list, but what is FUN to do with friends in this, the best parts?

Pushed back to April 14th.

http://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/52394/gtav-updates-online-heists-coming-march-10-gtav-for-pc

Taken just before someone runs them down. :oh_i_see:

I'd like to do some heists this weekend on XBone, if any of you have it on that platform. My gamertag is 'rldmoto,' and I'm pretty much free all weekend.

I'm also not very good.

I have been salivating over this PC release for some time, but I have to admit now that release date is close that I am a bit worried about how well this thing is actually going to run (and even more now that I see how great it actually looks).  I am over the recommended specs, but that was true with GTA 4 as well, and that didn't prevent it from being a disaster. 

59GB.  :ye_gods:

Nothing compared to Star Citizen's 100 GB.

I'm afraid this is going to melt my GPU to slag. Just got my tax return so I can float the $60 without a problem, but adding another $300 onto that for a proper video card might be stretching it.

7 cds, pfft. 30 floppies is more like it.

(http://i.imgur.com/8XB84NV.jpg)

For those that bought through Steam, do you have to log into both RSC and Steam?

Can't believe I'm even thinking of spending the cash on this. I never got far in the PS3 version because the textures and framerate were weak.

I just wish Rockstar would write characters that I enjoy playing more. John Marston might be about the only one I can think of, though I actually liked Nico more than most people did.

That's my biggest beef with the franchise; what appears to be a built-in requirement to play a douchebag. I get it, I get it; the game is built around murdering people by the bushel and only a douchebag would do that in contemporary society, so you have to play a douchebag, but for me it ruins a gorgeous game. Sorta like playing golf ruins a nice walk on a beautifully manicured park.

Sorta like playing golf ruins a nice walk on a beautifully manicured park.

Lincoln

Trevor on the other hand has no redeeming quality whatsoever, if I could play the game without him I would. He's a mean-spirited, profanity spouting maniacal psychopath whose social skills only include cursing at, punching or shooting people while being pretty much an absolutely unlikeable appaling bastard. I don't want to know people who like him.

Love this guy.

trevor.jpg

Also, goddamned cougars. So much for that hunting trip.

Rift did a pretty good job with their dungeon finder, most of my non-f13 friends list came from running dungeons with pickups that were competent. I should probably play online at some point.

Also, goddamned cougars. So much for that hunting trip.

That might be the closest you get to experiencing Red Dead Redemption on the PC.

970 is in and good lord, what an improvement.   :drill:

What did you replace with the 970?  I am trying to talk myself into buying one.

You can do crew only runs, no?