[Official] Grand Theft Auto IV

[+Mystic MVC]

The radio stations lack the humour and personality that existed in GTA3 and Vice City. :(

I'm not so sure about that, I have almost found the opposite. Especially the one commercial that makes fun of CSI (especially CSI:Miami).

[Huleboeren]

Has anyone heard of the easter egg where there is this woman at a police station and she is like lying down and there are 3-4 cops around her, like a gangbang? I wonder where it is at. I cannot find it.

Yeh, saw that yesterday..

Theyre just standing around her tho

Its the police station east of middle park, the one between road "Bismark Ave" and "San Juan Road" if you look at the map

Look for a staircase leading up to the helicopter on the roof - you will pass the gangbangers

Sleep mode disables everything though, meaning you cannot turn it on during a mission to only do that mission, it will disable everything. Not sure if you realized that or not, but from your wording I just wanted to clarify it.

Basically it just means free roam, every mission and side mission turned off, which is still very cool.

Also achievements? pigeon hunting etc?

The radio stations lack the humour and personality that existed in GTA3 and Vice City. :(

Well, Lazlow is back on Integritywhich many people missed

[Guest]

Guys I think I finally found something that I don't like about the game (it was inevitable). The soundtrack that has always been on in the past games for me, just seems off in GTA IV. I guess I don't enjoy 3+ acoustic stations. By this time in the past, I already have a couple favorites too. Sadly, I can't pick one out specifically, not sure why, it just feels weird.

On a good note, multiplayer is a blast. I finally took the plunge and I can say I am stunned that Rockstar pulled it off. I was sure multiplayer on this type of a game would be a disaster, but it has been completely the opposite for me yet.

Agreed. None of the radio stations stand out to me. With the game being set in the modern day, the soundtrack isn't as definitive as previous titles. It's not the same hearing Kanye on the radio, rather than A Flock of Seagulls :rofl:

I said from the moment it was announced the multiplayer would make the game, and I was right. We all knew what to expect from the single player experience, but they've really taken it to the next level with the online modes. Countless hours of fun.

[Cormier6083]

Yeh, saw that yesterday..

Theyre just standing around her tho

Its the police station east of middle park, the one between road "Bismark Ave" and "San Juan Road" if you look at the map

Look for a staircase leading up to the helicopter on the roof - you will pass the gangbangers

Not as exciting as I thought. :D

[TheRealDave]

Has any one used the police siren when it's broken? Try flipping the car on its roof then bashing it back over. It sounds so comical.

I love the little details like that which have gone into GTA. So funny :)

[Huleboeren]

Not as exciting as I thought. :D

Not at all ^^

At first I thought it was bug

Has any one used the police siren when it's broken? Try flipping the car on its roof then bashing it back over. It sounds so comical.

I love the little details like that which have gone into GTA. So funny :)

Ye, tried that in an online race with only police cars - felt like the others were laughing at me with their fancy working sirenes :(

[chris.baldwin]

You heard about they update they are going to be releasing soon, I've been told that it will give multiplayer mode 32 players as compared to 16.

[Huleboeren]

You heard about they update they are going to be releasing soon, I've been told that it will give multiplayer mode 32 players as compared to 16.

Really? source?

I want more options like excluding certain weapons/vehicles in multiplayer..

[chris.baldwin]

I haven't got a source my mate told me about it. I'll look it up though, because when they released GTA IV they weren't happy with the graphics on XBOX cause' they couldn't fit it on the DVD so there may be an upgrade for those as well :D

I will post a source when I get one - I have seen it on the interweb as well though.

[Sethos]

Sounds a bit like something grabbed from thin air - I highly doubt they'd up the Player limit under any circumstances.

Have you been in a 16 Player match? They run like a complete joke, no matter how close you are to each other and how fast the host's connection is - Having 32 Player matches isn't even feasible.

I haven't got a source my mate told me about it. I'll look it up though, because when they released GTA IV they weren't happy with the graphics on XBOX cause' they couldn't fit it on the DVD so there may be an upgrade for those as well :D

And most credibility was lost right there, because that is nonsense - They haven't and would never make such a public statement - Plus, they had over 2GB Left on the Disc to fill up with contents on the 360 version, so i doubt it was a space issue.

[Ayepecks]

I haven't got a source my mate told me about it. I'll look it up though, because when they released GTA IV they weren't happy with the graphics on XBOX cause' they couldn't fit it on the DVD so there may be an upgrade for those as well :D

I will post a source when I get one - I have seen it on the interweb as well though.

I'd love to see that source :laugh:

People said a lot of things about why it was delayed. Most were about the PS3 taking longer to develop for (and that doesn't mean it's inferior by any means, just harder to code for), but Rockstar wouldn't even comment on that rumor.

[Sethos]

Anyhow, It's still not a space issue - Since both versions are similar, only real difference is the downscaled PS3 version which different filters.

[McSmiggins]

Gah, just found out I'm not eligable for the 100% club! You had to start your game after 12:01 ET 29th April, but since I went to a UK midnight launch, and started my game at 2am BST, I can't get in! :(

[Kushan]

What you just said is a flat-out lie. There's absolutely no reason for a 360 game to not take up the full 8.54Gb of space other than it simply not being used.

Even if there WAS room required for "boot information" as you suggest, it sure as hell wouldn't take up 2Gb of space. I don't think you have comprehended just how much data 2Gb really is.

I'm not a religious person, but to put it into perspective, the Holy Bible is probably around 5Mb if you stored it all as text. Ever seen the size of that thing? That's a LOT of data. 2gb is enough space to store 400 of those, uncompressed. Compressed, it probably could store nearly 1000 (depending on the compression method).

Trust me on this, no "boot data" is going to be that big, in fact my PC's BIOS is exactly 1Mb and that includes quite a large uncompressed Bitmap.

Plus, did you consider that people who download the ISO's to burn to disk really don't want to (or have the capacity to) mess around with having to join an extra 2Gb of data to it?

There is, and let me repeat this, absolutely no reason for a 360 game to not be able to use that last 2Gb of space. It's there if the developer wants it, there's no hardware limitation for it or anything like that.

They COULD have put more data on the disk, sure, but if you don't need to, then why bother? One thing the 360 is very, very good at doing is uncompressing data on the fly. Modern compression techniques work extremely well, I dare say if everything in the game was completely uncompressed, it'd probably take up near 25Gb of space, if not more. This whole myth about DVD's being too small is exactly that - a myth and GTA4 proves it.

Anyway, rant over.

I am really enjoying GTA4, but there are some things that annoy me about it, simple, silly things that the initial design of the game should have picked up on. I'm referring mainly to the inconsistency of the controls.

For example, how do you change weapons? Well, it's different if you're on foot than if you're in a car. If you're on foot, it's pressing left and right on the dpad or holding L1\LB and pressing a direction - but if you're in a car, it's X\Square. Why is this? There's not much reason for this that I can see, consistent controls are extremely important when designing a game, otherwise it just confuses people (especially those not used to the controls). Climbing up ladders is another one, you press Y/Triangle to do it. Saving the game is also Y\Triangle, yet in other situations L1/RB seems to be the context sensitive "action" button. Why isn't it just one or the other? Having 2 completely separate "context sensitive" buttons that don't seem to have any sort of specific relation to anything is really confusing.

Plus the online play is, in my opinion, borderline broken. It's hard to get a good match going, it suffers from some serious lag issues (how many times have you emptied a clip into someone, died yourself then 10s later seen that you killed them as well?) and seems like it was literally thrown together at the last second (Especially since the Manual has no information about it at all - I actually had to read an article on Kotaku to figure some of it out). It's clear now why Rockstar was so quiet about it for so long - they hadn't even started working on it until much later in the development phase. In fact, I really wouldn't be surprised if that was the REAL reason why the game was delayed.

But I digress, I know I sound harsh but I really do like the game, the singleplayer is awesome and I'm not much of a multiplayer guy anyway.

Edited May 11, 2008 by Barney

[gunnerhkjp]

I heard that developers avoid using the outer fringes of the disc since some dirty lenses have difficulty reading them.

So they leave out a gig from each layer.

[AimLXJ]

Bomb Da Base II: 5:02

Hangman's Noose: 2:25

:D, 1 more to go!

[Huleboeren]

Bomb Da Base II: 5:02

Hangman's Noose: 2:25

:D, 1 more to go!

Where can we see the Rockstar records?

[AimLXJ]

Where can we see the Rockstar records?

I'm not sure but it's:

Deal Breaker - 7:04

Hangman's Noose 2:32

Bomb da Base II 5:32

[strotee]

What you just said is a flat-out lie. There's absolutely no reason for a 360 game to not take up the full 8.54Gb of space other than it simply not being used.

I'm not arguing with you about this matter; I'm merely saying I've seen enough games on a private torrent tracker to pick up on a pattern and only a handful were over 7GB (a few at 7.3 GB but none > 8GB). Obviously, there's a reason why not a single 360 game has taken up the full disc space. Call it "boot information", whatever, there is a reason, I just could not find an article explaining why. Hopefully another poster here will know the exact reason.

Do you honestly think it's a coincidence that all developers end up with a game taking up roughly 6-7GB (Lost Odyssey & Oblivion being the exception)? Developers know going in what limitations are in place and the ceiling for disc space. Sacrifices are made to ensure the game will fit. Luckily, this hasn't been a factor yet since the 360 game quality have been good. (I don't own a 360 and can admit that)

Ponder this quote from Rockstar president Sam Houser:

If we're filling up the disc right now, where are we going? It's not like our games are going to get any smaller.

Source

[acies]

Anyway, rant over.

I am really enjoying GTA4, but there are some things that annoy me about it, simple, silly things that the initial design of the game should have picked up on. I'm referring mainly to the inconsistency of the controls.

For example, how do you change weapons? Well, it's different if you're on foot than if you're in a car. If you're on foot, it's pressing left and right on the dpad or holding L1\LB and pressing a direction - but if you're in a car, it's X\Square. Why is this? There's not much reason for this that I can see, consistent controls are extremely important when designing a game, otherwise it just confuses people (especially those not used to the controls). Climbing up ladders is another one, you press Y/Triangle to do it. Saving the game is also Y\Triangle, yet in other situations L1/RB seems to be the context sensitive "action" button. Why isn't it just one or the other? Having 2 completely separate "context sensitive" buttons that don't seem to have any sort of specific relation to anything is really confusing.

Plus the online play is, in my opinion, borderline broken. It's hard to get a good match going, it suffers from some serious lag issues (how many times have you emptied a clip into someone, died yourself then 10s later seen that you killed them as well?) and seems like it was literally thrown together at the last second (Especially since the Manual has no information about it at all - I actually had to read an article on Kotaku to figure some of it out). It's clear now why Rockstar was so quiet about it for so long - they hadn't even started working on it until much later in the development phase. In fact, I really wouldn't be surprised if that was the REAL reason why the game was delayed.

But I digress, I know I sound harsh but I really do like the game, the singleplayer is awesome and I'm not much of a multiplayer guy anyway.

Yea, I agree. I find alot of little annoying design choices. One thing is the clothes, why do you have to cycle through all the clothes in your wordrobe to get to the one you want, why don't they have a list and you scroll down and select the one you want??

Couldn't play a game online yet, kept disconnecting me. :huh:

[Kushan]

I'm not arguing with you about this matter; I'm merely saying I've seen enough games on a private torrent tracker to pick up on a pattern and only a handful were over 7GB (a few at 7.3 GB but none > 8GB). Obviously, there's a reason why not a single 360 game has taken up the full disc space. Call it "boot information", whatever, there is a reason, I just could not find an article explaining why. Hopefully another poster here will know the exact reason.

Do you honestly think it's a coincidence that all developers end up with a game taking up roughly 6-7GB (Lost Odyssey & Oblivion being the exception)? Developers know going in what limitations are in place and the ceiling for disc space. Sacrifices are made to ensure the game will fit. Luckily, this hasn't been a factor yet since the 360 game quality have been good. (I don't own a 360 and can admit that)

Ponder this quote from Rockstar president Sam Houser:

Source

Do you think it's a coincidence that all these games end up being 6-7Gb in size, despite having massively different amounts of content?

Just because none of the games you've seen use up all of this space doesn't mean they CAN'T use it. In fact, if you really want to spilt hairs, then tell me why do some games use 7.3Gb of space, yet GTA4, an absolutely HUGE game, one that rockstar (according to your quote) claims uses all of the disk space - comes in at nearly a GB shy of this?

And as you also stated, no 360 game has suffered any problems because of the size of the disk. 99% of them all come on one disk anyway. Remember the PS1? Even the PS2 had a tonne of games that came on multiple disks, the 360 has only a select few. Why is it a problem now? Why weren't developers complaining before about space limitations?

Don't get me wrong, I still believe that Microsoft will adopt a different medium for their next console and I also believe that it'll come with a hard drive as STANDARD, but right now it's not as big an issue as some developers want you to believe.

Trust me on this, storage capacity is only part of the tale.

[+Mystic MVC]

Has anybody else had problems connecting to ranked matches on the 360 side of things? I can get into player matches fine, but anytime I try to go into a ranked one, it says I was disconnected from he server before I even get in.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Do you think it's a coincidence that all these games end up being 6-7Gb in size, despite having massively different amounts of content?

Just because none of the games you've seen use up all of this space doesn't mean they CAN'T use it. In fact, if you really want to spilt hairs, then tell me why do some games use 7.3Gb of space, yet GTA4, an absolutely HUGE game, one that rockstar (according to your quote) claims uses all of the disk space - comes in at nearly a GB shy of this?

And as you also stated, no 360 game has suffered any problems because of the size of the disk. 99% of them all come on one disk anyway. Remember the PS1? Even the PS2 had a tonne of games that came on multiple disks, the 360 has only a select few. Why is it a problem now? Why weren't developers complaining before about space limitations?

Don't get me wrong, I still believe that Microsoft will adopt a different medium for their next console and I also believe that it'll come with a hard drive as STANDARD, but right now it's not as big an issue as some developers want you to believe.

Trust me on this, storage capacity is only part of the tale.

It's only looked at as a "problem" this generation because MS had the chance to support a larger format but they choose not to - Many people will look at that and say why not? Benefits outweigh negatives? No? Well it's obviously debatable. Keeping it the same saves in costs/pricing. Changing it gives developers more space, but as seen with BR has lead to lower read speeds and the hardware is more expensive initially.

In the past each time a larger format has been available for a consoles launch, most consoles shake it up and change.

Although mandatory installs on the 360 would have put a lot of people up **** creek with no paddle due to the closed nature of hard drive replacement on the 360.

I'd of preferred a larger disc read at a slower speed (even HD-DVD for gaming) and installs to reduce noise - But im noise freak as all my machines for gaming are in my room so having a device that sounds like a jet engine at night in my room when things are typically quiet, is annoying.

However MS will get away with it this generation - Just. I can see potential for some multiplatform inconsistencies towards the end of this generation between consoles due to the different mediums used.

There's not much point in saying well 360 look MGS4 needs around 50GB, you're not getting it! - The 360 wouldn't be getting it anyway, as it's made exclusively for the PS3, with the PS3's limitations in mind, not the 360's. Developers will make titles for the 360 with the medium in mind.

GTA4 even has a slight difference in watching in-game TV. On the PS3 you can zoom in, on the 360 you can't - Surely to do with storing higher quality video on one disc. If not, I have no idea why R* wouldn't allow both to zoom in.

By the way, I read on the internet somewhere that each 360 game needs around 1.5GB left on the disc for security/security padding - I can't remember where I read that, and I don't know if it's true or not - Looking at the size of 360 games to download though, none of them do ever seem to hit 8GB :/ Maybe some space does have to be reserved for security?

^ I read about that in this thread - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=283843 - Word is around 7GB can be used for a game, the rest needs to be reserved...

Edited May 11, 2008 by Audioboxer

[AimLXJ]

Glitch?

Wtf Kate called me even though she's dead >.>

[Kushan]

<schnip>

The extra "security padding" doesn't really make sense. If it really was there, it'd be part of the ISO itself and be reflected in the file sizes.

Plus, 1.5Gb for security? No way that makes sense at all, any kind of security on the disk would be things like digital signatures, which aren't anywhere near that big.

I read the first page of that thread and didn't see anything particularly special or noteworthy, they just seemed to be talking about the same thing someone posted earlier in this thread. If there's a specific post you wanted me to see, please link to that instead.

As for size versus speed, it's one of those things that really doesn't make much difference in the end. Blu-ray disks are too slow to directly stream off of, so you need to either duplicate the data to get a bit of extra speed, or you need to cache/install it to the hard drive. The PS3 originally had ****ty sales because it was so expensive, the 360 on the other hand gimped out on certain areas to make it more affordable and it's paid off.

Sure, the lack of a hard drive as standard is a bit of a bummer, but to be honest if a developer REALLY wants a mandatory hard drive requirement, they can do it. Instead, they can work around it by streaming stuff off of the disk and that's where the DVD drive's speed really works, it almost negates the need for a hard drive at all. What's more, the 360 was designed specifically for this kind of thing and Microsoft themselves recommend almost dedicating an entire core to decompressing data on the fly, effectively giving you a lot more "bang" for your buck.

So it's a tradeoff situation, but it's also a catch-22 - you can have more data, but be required to offload it to a hard drive, or you can have less data, but be able to store it highly compressed. In the end, it balances out quite a bit.

I'm thinking of writing up an article, from a more technical point of view, describing how the two consoles are a lot more evenly matched than some people want to believe, especially when it comes to which is faster for games.