Kotaku 
Enter your username and password.
Denver, 5:13 AM
Wed Nov 25
53 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip us:
Editor-In-Chief:
Brian Crecente
| AIM | Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Stephen Totilo
| AIM | Twitter
Senior Editor:
Michael McWhertor
| AIM | Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor, Japan:
Brian Ashcraft
| AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, East Coast:
Michael Fahey
| AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Oceania:
Luke Plunkett
| AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Weekends:
Owen Good
| AIM | Twitter
Correspondent, San Francisco:
AJ Glasser
| AIM | Twitter
Columnist:
Leigh Alexander
Columnist:
Tim Rogers
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/15/09
11/16/09
11/15/09
Only a fan of Rockstar's GTA series, but that's enough for me. I loved IV and can't wait for V or whatever they end up calling it. #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
My favorite open-world game ever? Spider-Man 2. It's a fucking crime what they did to Spider-Man 3. If they would just patch to fix the awful fucking camera, I would pick it up again in a heartbeat. I tried the inFamous demo, but there's something about an open world game that is so much better when you can just fly or swing around the city. Goddamnit, Spider-Man 2 was awesome, despite the 'catch my balloon' missions. Perfecting Spidey aerial moves while swinging around the city just never got old for me. #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
So to the Houser Brothers, and the entire development teams, here's to Red Dead Redemption. And Max Payne 3. I swear- those two are games that I can not wait to get my hands on. I love that feeling of eagerly savoring every released screenshot of a R* title. #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
In the manual for Episodes from Liberty City, there's a teaser for whatever is new in GTA. It looks like a movie poster, and it says "Liberty City, it's over!" with a broken heart filled with GTA:IV and Episodes characters. In the bottom corner, it says "Next stop..." and shows what appears to be a snowy mountainside. At the very bottom, it says "Opens March Everywhere". My guess is we'll get an official announcement about GTA: Next in March.
Apologies for the shitty iPhone quality, it's all I have. #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
11/15/09
It will be GTA??? it will not be V. A new number is only given to the true new series built with a new engine. #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
11/15/09
:D Revisist San Andreas and London please. #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/16/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
Rather than a boring ugly rehash of an existing city with a poor story to go with it as in GTA4. ;D #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
So using the city as a starting point makes sense. You've got a springboard to start designing your character from. Sort of make your character the personification of that city.
Kinda how CSI works. Vegas is a bit OTT, Miami is glamorous n NYC is the gritty one.
11/15/09
Says the guy who's likely never designed any aspect of a videogame.
;-)
For me, GTA IV is one of the best examples of implementing narrative in a videogame to date, and I think it's that success on the part of Rockstar that turns off many gamers who previously loved the GTA series. For me, the games never sparked an interest until IV, and the story and world were the entire reason for it.
Not many people want to play a tragic, even unlikable anti-hero, and in GTA IV, and it's subsequent expansions, your player character and view of the world and events that take place within it are from exactly that perspective... Sure it's potentially limiting, but it's done for a very good reason that isn't exactly clear until the end.
Is it Proust? Of course it isn't. That's not the point. But the fact that the keepers of one of the biggest IP's in entertainment is willing to change it's formula from painting gamers as the prurient, willful sociopath without a conscience and rewarding them for it (as in previous GTA games), to a tragic, even despicable character that forces the player to do truly evil things they may otherwise not wish to do, was a step forward for the medium as a whole (particularly given it's financial success in comparison to other games with similar aspirations), whether it was your cup of tea or not.
Just because you didn't like something doesn't mean it was bad. Maybe it just wasn't for you. For me, GTA IV was the first game in the series I didn't bore of within a half an hour of playtime. The reason for that is described above. The dick-and-fart joke, adolescent-toned GTA's of the past were, to me anyway, games made for kids that were masquerading as adult entertainment. With the latest installment I feel Rockstar finally took the potential of GTA and started to do something really special with it.
And without that deeply realized world for the player to be grounded in, that very first thing Rockstar does when putting together a GTA game, rest of the game experience wouldn't matter at all. #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
Niko: I need money.
Roman: Let's play darts, screw that.
Niko: I need money.
Everybody else: Ok. Go do a menial task for me and I will give you money.
Niko: I need money.
WHY DID NIKO CONSTANTLY NEED MONEY? He never freaking spent it! The whole game revolves around talking to people wholly unrelated to the plot to do tasks unrelated to the plot to get money unrelated to the plot. The plot was sparse and I am blown away by how many people say it was an amazing example of storytelling, or that it was a goot story at all.
There was no story, for a vast majority of the game. :\ The first hour or so had lots of plot. You find out Roman is wasting his money away, you find he's desperate for money to propose to his girlfriend, you find that Niko is looking for this FLoiran guy who he blames for the betrayal of his unit in the army or some crap. You're betrayed a couple times, and then...
SPOILERS FOLLOW. Click to view image
And then you spend 30 hours doing menial tasks for a bunch of irrelevant people "For money" which you never spend or have any use for, gameplay-wise or story-wise.
You finally meet the Florian guy, find out he isn't who you were after, and find out about another guy, who you then go find. Then there's one of two dissatisfying endings.
The bulk of the game is irrelevant, and the storytelling flies out the window after just a short way into the game, once your apartment is set fire. And hearing "We come up with the city first" is making me think that's why. A vast chunk of the city is boring. Likewise, a vast chunk of the story is menial tasks.
Unlike stuff like San Andreas where everything you did was leading to something. In GTA4 doing things for someone was a drawn out way to meet someone else to do things for, rinse and repeat. In San Andreas, everything you did led directly to another important chunk of story. There's nothing about the game I can think of that was mindless filler. It took its time with the plot and sprinkled it properly through the game, but GTA4 just has this vast canyon of emptyness for far too long a time.
imo tbqh #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
I don't think you even payed attention to the story, it all starts off with him needing money yes, but as it goes on he gets forced into a lot of stuff because he needs to protect himself and Roman.
But I guess all stories can seem stupid if you don't take the time to actually pay attention to them in the first place #grandtheftauto
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/19/09
Maybe for me, someone who isn't a longtime follower of the series, GTA IV gave me a reason to be interested when the other games did not, and that had everything to do with the polished (comparatively to previous GTA's anyway) presentation, and the story that didn't rely on the appeal making you the big shot gangster as previous games seemed to...
#speakup
11/12/09
11/12/09
That being typed, I hope they start giving more for trade-ins and that the obnoxious 'pre-order bonus' trend dies a painful death in a dark ditch. I know it's just wishful bitching, since pre-orders are likely helping retailers stay afloat, but I don't like being punished for being a prudent shopper. #taketwo
11/12/09
I think this is the biggest obstacle to retail going away, quite honestly. Because think about it. Let's say 10 years ago that 100% of gamers bought games at retail. Now let's say that 70% of those people will someday switch to downloading, and 30% of people will be resistant for one reason or another. It's pretty simple math to figure out that somebody's gonna lose out on this deal. You can't switch distribution mediums and lose a bunch of customers in the process and make *more* money.
Or at least, most companies can't - certain middlemen and other people in the process might make more money, and they're the ones promoting the switch to digital downloading. (This includes the console manufacturers, btw, who want to be the new middlemen in the process of getting games from third party devs to you). But overall, the industry as a whole will lose.
And btw, the music industry already learned/is learning this.