GTA III/Vice/San Andreas can all go to hell. Seriously.

No idea WHY I'm bothering with IV. Other than... you know... all that awesome stuff you guys have listed up there.

it better be great,i've been waiting for it a long time.

I've heard that the May issue of PlayStation World Magazine states that there will be dl content for the PS3 version of GTA IV. I havent seen any actual proof but does anybody here know if itz true? Itz probrably not the same 360 content but at least itz something...i guess.

@youngmike99: well, the whole dl content has been going back and for from x360 exclusive to both system getting them, so at this point, i dont even think rockstar even knows the truth haha.

I do want to give GTA IV a try despite never having played San Andreas and only making it a few hours into any of the GTA games from III on...

I don't think it's worth buying for me yet. I should borrow a friend's copy or something.

this is what I do have. [www.gamecollision.com]

I love the GTA games. I own most of them. I've never finished a single one. That said, I'm really looking forward to #4.

I have just become one more victiom of the hype. Just ordered my copy...

Personally, I've never been interested in any of the GTA games before, but GTA IV is actually a game I would consider buying (once it comes out on PC). I think the main difference is that Niko actually seems a lot more likable than previous protagonists. Since I enjoy games with good plot and characters, this is a big selling point (for me, at least).

Dammit. Don't make this a feature. Please. I'm going to give in, and buy this game the week before finals, and I'll be screwed. Please.

I think Rockstar has done a great thing here..Personally,I've never been the biggest fan of playing their games.I've dabbled with them,but I'm so looking forward to playing GTA4 and I'm not sure why. Is it the mp aspect or the single player story or the fact the game is based on NY so much.I have no idea,but if they can turn someone like me that really was never interested in their games into a fan,then they have done a good thing.

@youngmike99: Everything after that is purely speculation. The article talks about two possible scenarios, one being that Microsoft only paid for timed exclusivity and the PS3 will eventually be getting the same thing. The other, more realistic scenario, is that the downloadable content will be in the form of PlayStation Home unlockables. Considering that almost every game from here out will have some sort of Home-integration (most being game-themed wallpapers, furniture, etc.), that does make a lot of sense.

if that's the case, that's not quite as cool.

GTA 4 Im looking foward to, mainly because the setting isnt something that will piss me off like SA did.

I also hope that Nico can swim like CJ could.

Vice City was excellent also. Just making money in that game drove me insane at times just to move on the story.

@Witzbold: Hey witz, what system are you getting it on? I'm thinking about kicking your ass on Live...;)

(Which reminds me that I really need to start adding people from Kotaku on my friends list...)

The only GTA's I've beaten were II & III. San Andreas was pretty fun until the RC plane mission . IV looks to be a true sequel to III so . Can't wait to cruise LC with a Faggio.

[pnmedia.gamespy.com]

@scotty: It all depends if its region locked or not. Im seriously assuming it will be since they locked Bully and thats one game that NEEDs to sell.

*so my hopes as of right now are sky high.

I have to agree about the San Andreas being boring part...

The gameplay was good,but by god did rockstar screw up the story and characters,with the exception of the truth I dont think their was a single character I liked.

Still,with no CJ in sight I have high hopes for this one.

@Witzbold:

Yeah,it's probably going to be like that.

@bigbadron:
I think it's going to be something sort of in between with Home downloadables a given,but the PS3 will recieve a certain form of Downloadable content. I think MS paid for it's 2 main storylines seperately,but what we're going to be seeing on the PS3 to be is a different beast all together.

This GTA DLC thing between the 360 and PS3 is only going to heat up, it seems like. Even people with all three systems (a club I am not yet a part of) seem pretty torn on which one to go with. Some particularly wealthy people say they'll get both, which I can empathize with I suppose, but yeah.

I got the 360 for this and NG2 really, but I hate to see the PS3 get screwed and have it set a precedent to where more and more games have system-exclusive DLC crap. I have no problem with a game itself being exclusive, timed or otherwise, I do have a problem with a big section of the market being screwed out of significant gameplay in what may be the biggest game of 2008. Not that it won't happen anyway, but it does suck.

Finally, is anybody interested in forming some type of Kotaku GTA league on XBL? I say this because with the 100 friends limit on XBL I'm getting tight on invites, but I would love to have some type of clearinghouse place to get up with Kotaku people to play this game online. Anybody interested send me a message on my profile with your gamertag/email (feel free to make it private) and any suggestions you may have on the best way to work it. I was thinking either some type of IRC or chat server, or a website, or both.

So yeah, I'm excited ;)

@Tom Clancy's Samuraidino: I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the story and characters of SA were terrible. If the next game after GTAIV is Vice City I hope after that they revisit GTA London...

hmm still can't wait for GTA IV, all anti GTA can go to hell.. GTA ownz every game in the world!!

anyways.. countdown to lauch of GTA IV can be found at [zeryl.net]

greeetz ;)

I liked San Andreas but it was beginning to feel stale.

The sheer scope and size of the game was amazing though. I played it for like 60 hours and could have easily played like another 80. i would just spend hours in rural areas, small towns and in the dusty mountainous regions. Then go and gamble for a while, followed up by a visit to the hood and a good ol fashioned turf war.

@reddevil3: I meant another 20. Another 80 would be crazy.

Sorry Owen, but San Andreas was one of the main reasons I lost interest in the GTA franchise.

It looks like Rockstar is aiming to redeem themselves with their fans though. This game looks to have the stronger storyline of the series. Not to mention, a lead character that doesn't make me want to throw up in my mouth.

omg c-reosly! how can you even consider not buying gta iv? i know im a real gta freak (me ownz every gta excdept for gta advance)

even if you hate third person shooters or open world games or shooting games or car driving games or dart games (^^) or movie-like games... how can u not just love the graphics an depth of this game???

Im sick of everybody whining about how San Andreas wasn't good, mostly because of what was in it. I loved that, it was a change of pace for the series which mainly stuck to the mafia story, and mixed in a little bit of everything. San Andreas was probably the best out of the 3 3D GTA games, although Vice City was definitely my favorite. I can't wait for IV to come out. So far its been looking to be the best in the series.

i cant wait man... i need to get my hands on these!

@Owen: "I'm looking forward to GTA IV as well, despite the fact that I got bored with San Andreas and hardly played at all." I'm not sure we can be friends after that.

Got to say, I feel exactly the same way. I was bored of San Andreas before I finished the first mission. I've had 3 goes at playing it, and each time I've given up and started playing something else before I finished that.

I've purchased every game in the GTA franchise that has appeared on the PlayStation platform, but I cancelled my GTA IV pre-order last year. From what I've read, R* have made some much needed improvements in emergent game-play and for that reason alone, I'm thinking about getting GTA IV.

i loved SA for a bunch of reasons like the stat building and being able to interact when someone said something. early in the game i was in the process of turning the map green but on my way to save i ran into a group of rival who asked where i was from. there i was flagging all dipped in green reppin for grove st. and just said "i don't bang homie" walked half way down the block and killed a drug dealer took his cash and ran to the safe house.

I laughed SO hard when I read the title of this post. Kotaku's getting a little GTA-crazy, isn't it? That 'How are you preparing for the arrival of GTA IV?' article was probably a little over-the-top, as well.

@Doshu: I'll fess up, I never finished GTA III. I don't think I even got off the first island. I went into it after Vice City, and it had the same terrible aiming, and the same retarded first-person lookaround mode (why, oh why did they do that.) You have to give San Andreas credit for at least normalizing the controls. I agree the RC plane mission was an unnecessary bitch, but I never felt like the game was beyond my control, the way some missions in the previous two were.

@enewtabie: at this point, it's too early to tell what is going to happen. it could very well be timed exclusive. look at Rock Band, it had 3 songs bundled with OXM, and now those tracks are up for download on PSN.

on another note, i don't understand the hatred towards SA. i really hope it just wasn't because of the gangbanger storyline.

III was defo the best. the problem with the other gtas was there was too much stat building and collecting money etc. 3 was straight to the point plus he had no name and didn't speak. perfect main character.

@Owen Good: I'll fess up, I never finished GTA III. I don't think I even got off the first island. I went into it after Vice City, and it had the same terrible aiming, and the same retarded first-person lookaround mode (why, oh why did they do that.) You have to give San Andreas credit for at least normalizing the controls.

The only GTA's I have finished are the first one, GTA III and Vice City. Vice City was the one I enjoyed most.

The controls in San Andreas were one of the things that totally turned me off it. In particular, having to pedal that bike at the start. I never got as far as aiming a gun, so really don't know how well the rest of the controls worked.

@bigbadron: on another note, i don't understand the hatred towards SA. i really hope it just wasn't because of the gangbanger storyline.

I didn't get far enough to experience any story line. Having to push buttons to ride a bicycle at the start and all the micro-management I'd heard about from friends really turned me off. If I wanted to play a game where you have to "exercise" your character, I'd play something like the Sims. I just don't find that sort of thing entertaining. In the end, I only picked it up because it was in the bargain bins and there was almost nothing available for the PS3 (at the time).

@Tom Clancy's Samuraidino:

I liked CJ a lot. A nice guy that tried to get out of the lifestyle that just kept pulling him back in. He fights back and eventually makes good. Legit, even.

And takes down a lot of corruption in the PD to boot.

I love the game. First GTA game I actually managed to finish.

@Doshu: the small stat building stuff was really not intrusive as some people made it out to be. you could build muscle and burn fat just by running and riding your bike, which were normal things you do in the game. also, i never really had to feed myself outside of getting health.

I can't wait for this game. I was hyped for the game before...Then I just saw that Bas Rutten has his own show on the radio in the game. Now? 10x more hyped for the game. Bas is my hero!

Sorry for the double post. I should have added this in the post above. For anyone who doesn't know who Bas is:

+ Watch video

Me, and about four of my friends, are getting this game on the PS3. Hope to see some of you there. I'll get a helicopter warmed up for you.

@Nexus6:

I still have yet to finish that mission. I have almost 160 hours logged in that game, and I STILL can't beat it, even using every cheat code I can muster. Tried the slo-mo one, thinking it would be easier to aim and kill the people, and it worked, but I still didn't have enough gas to get back.

I just skipped it and went on with the story. I couldn't take David Cross mocking me anymore.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein needs more love. Not even Enemy Territories, the original. Best class-based shooter I've ever played.

I am ditching school to pick up my copy. YAY!

@Owen Good: Luckily, I had alot of trouble getting into Vice City when I first pickedu up the Xbox Double Pack, so I stuck it out in GTA3 first. I think it was just the setting in GTA3 was more "close to home" for me so I found it easier to lose myself in it. So thankfully I beat that wonderful game first and saw the most awesomest ending ever in a video game. After GTA3, I found it easy to "get into" Vice City and found it to be a vastly superior game (although I had trouble coming to terms with the less open-ended style to the missions themselves). And then San Andreas literally blew my pants off. Literally.

@Doshu: Honestly, there wasn't much "Micro management" in SA. Yes, you had to eat to survive, but you only have to eat once like every 3 in-game days. I thought they pulled it off good. That being said, GTA4 could benefit from losing some of SA's odd micro-management ideas. My only real beef with SA was that, honestly, it was too fucking big. Whereas in GTA3 and Vice City I quickly had a working knowledge of the cities in those games, in SA, I constantly found myself getting lost because there's just way too much to memorize. The second city in the game was the only one I ever felt I had a good internal-compass knowledge of (because that's where I did all my taxi-mission-ing.)

I seem to be alone in this, but from the moment Tenpenny kicked you out of the cab and you had to bike your way home, I was sold on San Andreas. That game was an absolute balls-to-the-walls masterpiece.

I see a lot of complaints that it was too big - a ridiculous argument in my opinion. The last time I played San Andreas I decided to do it with a 100% completion checklist sitting next to me. I wasn't going for a speed run or anything, I just decided to finish everything. It took me 40 hours. That's all - shorter than most RPGs - shorter than Odin Sphere.

The graphics and art style were at the top of Rockstar's game, the soundtrack, cutscene direction and voice work was easily the best of the series, and I seem to be part of a minority that just loved cruising around the desert or forests or mountains.

I know I'm pretty much alone in this, but for a long time my only fear about GTA IV was that they'd cut the out-of-city sections of San Andreas. Indeed they have, but I still find myself looking forward to the best interactive world-simulator game series.

I seriously don't know why people think Vice City was the best of the series thus far. Ray Liotta was awesome, but the rest of that game was pretty mediocre for me.