GTA4 really isn't bug free... today i ran into the weirdest bug ever: i was cruising in the slums and here i see a bus hitting a wall, and suddenly it begins to bounce, but not bouncing back and forth in the street, bouncing UP and DOWN, a la crash mode in burnout paradise, it was pretty hilarious but sad at the same time...

@Abriael: Haha, random (harmless, thankfully) bugs like that have almost become a staple of GTA. I'd actually be disappointed if there weren't any.

The main bug for me is that I absolutely cannot find a copy of the damn game anywhere. That'll learn me for not preordering.

@Abriael:
I did a 360 flip when I hit a barrier in the park.Not a bug,but definitely strange looking.The game is really fun,but the cutscene issues are making me worried about my 360.

@Abriael: Yeah, last night I was driving and was turning around, a specifically careful 3 point turn, and I only tapped a taxi cab and it rolled over a few times a lá the Hulk knocking it out of his way

I think the funniest thing I've done is when I was chasing a van,I ran into the wall near the ocean..It threw me through the window out into the ocean..splat! lol

*knock wood* haven't run into much...

other than diving out of my car, losing half of my life only to get my HEAD ran over by a passing taxi - killing me :(

I've got a 60GB PS3 and luckily the game plays, but it does seem to randomly freeze for a few seconds every once in a while. Whenever it happens, I start to freak out that it's crashed, but then it starts up again. It's like it's pausing to load something when it happens; as soon as it starts up again I hear some kind of sound effect I've never heard before.

Ah, QA.

Speaking of problems, when I tried to run GTA IV on my 360, it gave me an error message saying that "The game should be put in an Xbox 360" or some such nonsense. That's never happened before to me. Anyway, I went back to the store, exchanged my copy and now it works. Did anyone else have a similar problem?

@Zaos: I resent that "knock wood" comment....I have feelings too you know.

On another note...

I've had a few issues.

1) One complete game freeze.
2) Constant short freezes when auto saving after a mission. When the mission completes, I see the little icon, I hear the little "Saved" music, and then the game hangs for a few seconds.

Annoying.

Other then that...no big bad bugs.

Rolled into Brucie's garage with a car he wanted last night... Right into the garage and right through the floor, stumbling into the endless abyss...

I get quite a few bugs for many games from my crappy refurbished system with a blown disc drive (I love you M$oft but my old system ran better before the RROD) so I'm pretty sure this is render and not software related. Didn't set me too far back to reload so no blood no foul.

i still want to know, can we ride the go kart track?

@Darth Navster: I actually get that a lot with a ton of games, but like I said... They gave me a refurbished 360 with the loudest disk drive since the old Apple II floppies.

I suck at driving in this game.... I keep crashing all the time, and failing missions because the romans car gets trashed.

my copy of gta froze for sec. I just hit the xbox dashboard button and it came unfrozing.

@badasscat: Yeah, 60 gigs PS3 here, and same problem happening, sometimes it even freezes for good, but luckily that is rare. This is the true big bad bug of the game, the others are pretty harmless.

Hopefully it gets corrected soon, if they do I won't care much about a bus or two bouncing towards the sky :D

I had my Xbox lock up completely (had to manually shut it off) upon entering a multiplayer map.

Just saying that for "research" purposes, the game is great and I certainly don't mind a few bugs to be able to play it.

@Schoolimangooli: Moost of the times the handbrake does wonders, just make sure you just tap it, or the car will spin.

All in all, I found the driving part quite easy, but after GT5P with all driving aids off, I guess everything would be easy :D

My game freezes every 10 minutes on a new 360 (as of less than a month ago). Other than that I havn't noticed to many bugs.

So far I've had no problems with the game, but I'll be keeping a close watch. I had one or two instances of slowdown in multiplayer, something akin to a 'deja vu' from the Matrix. Thankfully no agents showed up.

@Mr Fortitude: HAhahahaha.....Is that all?

I keep getting disconnected when i try to play with friends online. it's really starting to annoy me because now i can only play with certain friends and of those certain friends invite the other friends then i get disconnected from "one or more players"

I was waiting with a few people in the party waiting screen and the host (AHEM, BC) picked a match (Racing I think?) and I was kicked out - couldn't get back in after that.

But later I did get to play with some fellow Kotakuites. That was a lot of fun. We were all piled in a car chasing after some others in a deathmatch.

Of course, we had to stop for burgers. :)

@Abriael: Yeah the hand brake is so sensitive. I tried switching to the classic mode because I was so used to it but....I was like no schoolimangooli I have t learn the right way lol. SO I having a hard time but thanks for the help.

Crescente-

Just saw your XPlay bit last night.

It's Grand Theft Auto 4, not Gran Turismo.

LULZ

I had a rock just floating around the screen as if it were a leaf. That was odd.

The camera and feel of on-foot motion in this game STILL sucks, just like all the GTA games. I can't believe that's not better.

On the plus side, the dialogue is much better than in previous GTA's and I find myself interested in the story, which has never been the case for me personally before. (I skipped San Andreas, so don't know about that one).

@lionkitten: San Andreas had an amazing story. If you're willing to overlook bad graphics, get the PC version and give it a go.

I can not stand the fact that the camera auto centers. Why isn't there a way to turn that off?!

I have a 60GB PS3 and played for about 5 hours yesterday...it froze twice so I had to eject the disk and reinsert it. It started right back up and I didn't lose much history, but still, it was a bit annoying.

I'm yet to get a copy, and probably won't a few weeks. I'm so damn old! (I bought Halo 2 on launch day and didn't play it for a week).

I'm playing on a refurbished 360 and have encountered no technical problems so far, thank god.

It does take a little while to get used to the driving, especially braking, but I got the swing of it soon enough.

Overall, even with the frothing reviews this game is beyond amazing. The most convincing virtual city I've ever seen, and the plot progression (at least in the few hours I've played) is very natural and movie-like. You spend all this time hanging out with the other characters (bowling and pool are awesome) and going about your life that when it does come time to get violent, it's kind of shocking and stands out. Reminds me a lot of the Sopranos.

is it just me or did the Devs feel that no one should be playing this game on a TV smaller than 36", i swear i cant read a damn thing on the phone on my 27" hdtv. whenever i get a text message i need to move closer just to read it(i have 20/20 vision, so eyes aren't an issue). i also wish there was a screen size adjustment in the options, it seems like i can never see my money, stars, or ammo...

I'm mostly having issues with the total titfucks that seem to populate the multiplayer, and sadly I cannot seem to find a way to make it 'friends only'.

I know there is that 'player mode' one, but we always spawn in Alderny no matter where on the map we die. Is there a way to have a free play or deathmatch where it's not open to every twat with an xbox?

I've had one freeze on 360 after about 12 hours and a few random, weird glitches/bugs but I LOVE this game. I've found I like driving in first person and I like the close to the back Niko view on foot. It reminds me of Gears. I still cant get over how invested I am in the single player already. I never could get into the other ones.

I have the PS3 version and have yet to experience any issues.

only problem I find with the game after one single lock up is that I need to grow more fingers to properly fire a gun while driving...

You only need to use R1, L1, R2, the left thumb stick, the right thumb stick an the O button at the same time... ow and don't forget you'll need to do this at high speed..

but apart from this awkward choice of controls I love the game

@m3lkor: Yeah, I find that a lot with games on PS3/360. I do have an HDTV in the house, but sometimes I have to settle for using a SD set up, which wouldn't be bad if I could read what they are telling me on the screen.

Besides all that, 60GB PS3 running. Played for about an hour, no problems so far.

Barely hit a car once and it just caught fire! The other driver came out of it on fire, screaming and died right before the explosion. I feel bad saying that it was hilarious.

@Graywing:You toggle the R1 button so you don't actually use it after going into cover mode. If you shoot with R2 I'm positive you don't need O. And unless you're moving while in cover, the left analog stick is useless since you can auto aim with L2.

I've been playing GTA since midnight launch on the xbox. I played online multiplayer last night for a couple of hours and I have not seen one single problem, period. Its been flawless from start to finish thus far. We laughed so hard last night playing because of how badly we were hit by cars, or blown up by rockets, etc.
Sorry to all those having problems, but we have not seen even a hiccup.

I saw a taxi crash into a support pillar. The driver flew out through the roof, straight up, in standing position.

Like a damn rocket.

@Mr Fortitude: That one made me laugh.

The GTA franchise is known for having bugs and glitches, this is nothing new. Some people who have never played GTA fail to realize that GTA was never perfect and neither is any other game.

I got to play both the 360 & PS3 versions and both did not crash durring the intro the PS3 did freeze while i was buying food @ a Cluckin bell but it was weird cause all it did was make the controler lock up untill we reset the game using the PS button and D-pad that still worked. The 360 only had those pop-up problems and little minor bugs that are common in GTA's. I did not get a chance to play the PS3 online but the 360 worked very well. It was fun trying to get all of my buddies online to get in a helicopter and have one person shoot it down with a rocket while everyone jumped off the chopper before it exploded it was so beautiful I felt tears of joy running down my face. and i never laughed so hard when i stole someones bike by using a shotgun and hear someone on live yell at me "You stole my Faggio you Bastard"........priceless!

@HaydenTenno: and neither is any other game.

Plenty of games are technically perfect. Plenty.

GTA games are huge and so you can forgive a certain number of flaws. I don't much care if I see buses bouncing around once in a while or rocks floating by every now and then. Freezes are a little less forgiveable, though.

I've been pretty fortunate so far on the Xbox 360. Though, I have run into a few bizarre problems. For example, One time I got my car stuck on a railing. I was able to get out of the car, but couldn't get back into it. After a few attempts at trying to enter the vehicle, it suddly flew off the railing and into the middle of the street -- it kind of looked like my character picked up the car and threw it there. It was so bizarre that both me and my friend who was watching me play both started laughing at once. Other than that, the game has been pretty solid. I love the gameplay and the sound effects -- 5.1 surround sound is just amazing in this gam.

I'm 9 Achievements, 7 hours in and the only complaint I have is the Driving.

I just find myself slamming into street corners every time there is a sharp turn.

People keep telling me, "The driving is realistic and takes skills", lol, the one thing that is realistic is the driving?

Man. I got arrested 7x within first 5mins of play. I kept bumping into people and they got all in my face. Some girl chased me and kicked me. Then I put down her and the cops swarmed me and chase pursued. Then I broke a cop car window and tried to jack it and...they shot me (arrested).
On a 360, no freezes, nice intro, and multiplayer ROCKS! oh man, up till 2am and using the SWAT copter to hose down my friends.
Since I am leery of the PS3 (I've a 60GB) issue, I may stick with the 360 version for now (yeah, I got both...PS3 version is the limited edit..unopened)
Oh, BestBuy keeps the copies in a cage at front. You need to request the version, they give you a shell of the case, you pay, then leaving, give receipt to doorman and he (better watch him) gives you the Real version to go. Hassle but hope it saves you walking through the poorly laid out store floor and not find a copy.

Had mine since Friday, no problems at all. I've been playing MGO all week though, so the game is sitting on my shelf looking rather depressed. :(

@Rebel Without Applause: I think all the cars lack shocks and brakes. Man, how many times I come over a hill, there is a light and cars stopped and I hit brakes and BAM! Someone needs a repair shop...ride and handle like boats!

@Darth Navster:
Brother, it sounds like your Xbox 360 CD-Rom drive is on its way out. If so, you will start getting these type of errors more frequently along with "dirty disk errors." I have to warn you, these types of problems are covered under Microsoft's 3-year warranty (which only covers the red ring of death), so you may have to pay the full $100+ fee to get it fixed.

I meant to say these types of CD-Rom failure problems "are not" covered under Microsoft's 3-year warranty in my previous email, sorry.

@SigmundTheSeaMonster:
I know. I always have to hit both the brake and the handbrake in order to stop suddenly. It seems like the brakes don't work nearly as well as they should.

@SigmundTheSeaMonster: Do you notice how the cars like float? If you hit even the slightest hill the car gets extreme air, I don't find that realistic.

It just kinda annoys me that a game based around driving and the mechanics seem off.

Maybe I just need to get used to driving in the game again. In most games that have driving I use the E-Brake to take turns, but in this game if I do that the car does a 180.

Gotta say that I am probably the only one not totally enjoying the game. Better everything yes, but I don't know what it is, but for me, something is missing. Not saying it is a bad game,for a sandbox game it is unsurpassed, but not enjoying it as much as I have others in the past. I think I finally have gotten tired of this type of game, and I never thought that would happen. :( Or maybe it will just take me some more time to really get into it.

@m3lkor: I hear ya. I have a 32" HDTV and a lot of stuff is just too damn small to see. It doesn't help that the cell phone screen is monochrome black-on-olive drab. I've just started to memorize what each cell phone option is so I don't have to squint so much.

On another note, my 60gig PS3 has had no trouble with freezes or the like. I saw one instance of texture tearing last night after 7 hours of gameplay.

Funniest moment so far: After finally finding a PCJ600 crotch-rocket i go cruising around. One one particular stretch of boulevard, I catch some air and start to pitch forward. I end up down a face plant on the pavement and skidding for a few hundred yards, eventually getting run over by a semi truck. Went from full health to dead.

@DugDawg: but wouldnt it be covered if it's from a refurb that they sent back for a RROD victim?

@SigmundTheSeaMonster: Yeah I know what you mean, the cars do seem a bit slippery when cornering. It's as though none of them have any kind of traction control or grip sometimes... and if you're doing a driving mission in the rain? Just forget it, you're not going to be going ANYWHERE hehe.