GTA V

[Tebonas]

The beauty of GTA is that you can ignore any part you don't like, including the main quest.

Which is exactly what I'm planning to do if that character changing gets too bothersome.

[Rishathra]

I think that's the first demo I've seen of a game that involves shooting where the shooter wasn't utterly incompetent.

[satael]

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"?

I enjoy the games like GTA partly for the story (since other games do the shooting and driving better) and jumping between characters on the fly might make the story telling even weaker. Add to that juggling 3 characters into just the right positions to get the sequence seen in the gameplay trailer seems like a pain (unless it's actually so heavily scripted that it could be called a QTE)

[Lakov_Sanite]

That gameplay looked very, very scripted to me.  I'd really avoid calling it a gameplay trailer and more in game footage.

[Samwise]

Looks pretty, but it seems like with each iteration the game consists less and less of the part that I like.  Which is stealing cars and driving them around really fast while things explode.

[Rasix]

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.

[Hawkbit]

They said that while the story consists of six major heists, there will be smaller missions that lead up to the major heists.  Expect leading missions to be tools procurement and planning, from what it sounds like.

I think this iteration looks pretty awesome.  They did a lot of great stuff with RDR and I think some of those systems will port over to this new system.

Oh, and MP.  It might only be for fun, but that's where stuff is going to explode!

[Samwise]

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.

I mean, pretty much that.  You can still drive around, but to make the main storyline progress you need to spend a lot of time running around on foot shooting stuff.

I didn't even manage to finish GTA IV, but I remember that when I was playing it, when I got a mission that was "drive here and get this thing and drive it back here" I was like OH BOY A DRIVING MISSION because so many of the missions were "go here and get out of your car and spend half an hour shooting dudes".  It was such a relief when I got to just drive and have exciting car chases and fun shit like that.  The shooty parts are utterly boring to me because I always measure them against PC shooters and they always come up short when viewed that way.

[palmer_eldritch]

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.

[Surlyboi]

The only problem I had with Gay Tony was the goddamn helicopter sequence.

[Falconeer]

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"?

Honestly I am very happy with that. To me in a sandbox the more toys I CAN (not 'have to') play with the better. As long as you are not forced to do any of those side activities, I think it is just awesome that there's a bunch of them and very diverse. Not to mention that it makes me feel good about a game I am playing to know that there's lots of stuff I haven't even touched yet and that I don't have to touch but it's there if I want to dabble with it, it gives a sense of massive scale, of replayability, that is too often missing.

So yes, more stock trading in all our games please, which is an activity I hate in real life (as I hate shooting people or stealing cars) but I can fully and freely choose to enjoy in a video game.

[Bunk]

Is it sad that I got excited at the idea of playing tennis in the game? I always felt Vice City missed out on not building a golf game in.

[Nayr]

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.

The biggest upside of the GTA4 DLCs was the fact that they didn't make you restart a mission all the way from the very beginning if you failed.

Hope when GTAV DLC comes out, any new features would be implemented into the vanilla game as well.

[calapine]

According to Dan Houser via Golem.de (german) GTA V development budget is 202m € (170m £). That includes advertisements, but still. Crazy...

[Lakov_Sanite]

I know it's GTA and GTA is big but....what sort of games break even on that budget, HALO, COD?

[Rendakor]

GTA IV made $500 million...on it's launch week.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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.

[Velorath]

Anecdotal but a lot of people I work with that only buy a couple games a year are all at least thinking about buying it. The marketing on this has been good.

[Hawkbit]

It's got the advantage of being at the very end of this console cycle, which should make it one of the best looking and performing games that was ever released on the PS3.  Their marketing shots are all PC driven, so hopefully we'll get the PC version at some point.  I think it looks fun, and from what I've read the sidequest stuff is enormous in quantity.

[Jeff Kelly]

Positive: The ability to preorder and preload the game even on the PS3.
Negative: That they want to charge you €80 for the privilege which is €20 ($25) more than the regular price of PS3 or XBox 360 AAA titles (The last CoD did cost €60 for example) and €10 ($14) more than the retail boxed copy of the same game costs.

I don't know what I dislike more, the fact that a company like Rockstar tries to charge significantly more for a version of the game that incurs a lot fewer costs for them and also leaves the customers with fewer features and rights or that they probably wouldn't do it if there weren't enough morons that actually preorder the game at that price point over for example the Amazon version that offers same day delivery at a 20% lower price.

[Yegolev]

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.

[Samwise]

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.

Yes.  Honestly I'm not sure if I'm going to bother with GTA 5 after how disappointing 4 was.  I'm pretty certain they're not interested in making the type of game that I enjoyed with the GTA 3 series; it seems like what they want to make is primarily a shooter.

[Paelos]

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.

[Yegolev]

They get one more chance.

[Jeff Kelly]

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.

The PS3 preorder offers no such deal. You get "up to 75% discount on one selected title" from a list that only includes titles made or distributed by Rockstar and includes nothing that is current or indeed worthwhile to buy. You can select from stuff like GTA 3, the Stories from... series, Max Payne (1) or Midnight Club amongst other crap. Please take note that all the eligible titles are already heavily discounted and usually available for 9.99 or 13.99.

[Yegolev]

I should probably update this to say that I had to preorder from The Microsoft Store, which seems to exist.

[Bunk]

And apparently is broken...

Lets me pick it to preorder, then tells me my shopping cart is empty when I click next.

[Yegolev]

Maybe it found out you live in Canada.

I'm mystified that I can't just get this deal right off of XBL.  That takes me to some Gamestop deal which offers me a shitty airship.  If I also got a gunblade and fought moon-monsters, I might consider it.

[Jeff Kelly]

It's not just a gamestop deal. If you preorder the PS3 version from the Playstation online store you also seem to get the airship as a preorder 'bonus' (using the term loosely there).

[Yegolev]

It's fine, I'd rather have the store credit by a long shot.

[Bunk]

Yep, turns out MS does not sell games directly in Canada.

Has anyone confirmed if this is going to be available as direct download on the 360?
I loved how my 360 had that huge ad for SR4 all over the home page, yet when you clicked on it all you could order was add-ons.

[Samwise]

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.

You could fuck around in GTA 4 too, it's just that to move forward in the game it was all shooty shooty and very little drivey drivey.  The GTA 5 trailer showed a LOT of shooty shooty, so I'm guessing they're continuing to emphasize that in their gameplay even if they also let you wander around in a sandbox.  To their credit, a lot of the stuff they're doing looks INTERESTING, but it's got nothing to do with what makes GTA fun as far as I'm concerned.

[Pennilenko]

GTA is supposed to be about picking up hookers and then beating them up when you are done so you can get your money back.

[Sky]

All they had to do was follow the damn train.

[Cyrrex]

I am on the fence with this.  I like the idea of a new GTA game coming out.  My fear is that they are going to add all kinds of fluff to it an simply not address the shortcomings of the last one.  For a game that requires you to drive around all the time, the driving mechanics were total ass.  I don't need total arcadey lack physics driving, but make it snappier and fun, for christ sakes.  And for a game that requires so much shooting and running around on foot, don't make these mechanics total ass either.  For all the brilliance of the world they created in 4, the way you interacted with it stunk.

And yeah, haven't to restart failed missions from the beginning.  Dumb.