This off-hand comment in this news article [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.261831-Publisher-Almost-Scrapped-the-First-GTA] is what got me thinking about this...
or this:
I think it's great, yet I often see people complaining about how they can't take corners because the steering is too sluggish. I can't help but think "Don't they know how to brake (or, if that's too boring, use the handbrake)?", but there must be more to it than that. I realize there are a multitude of opinions out there regarding any game, but the opinion that GTA IV's car handling is terrible seems to be a pretty widely held one and I keep wondering why my opinion is the exact opposite. I have one theory...
I'm speaking solely from experience playing on the PC with keyboard controls, so maybe that's what makes the difference, though I wouldn't have thought it would be that pronounced... It's just that I thought the driving in the earlier Grand Theft Auto games was absolutely terrible on the PC. The car handling in those was evidently designed for console controllers with analog sticks, which allow you to turn just a little bit or all the way, accelerate just a bit or floor it, etc. As a result, the vehicles (especially the high performance ones like the sports cars) had a very wide range of motion, since you could make a really sharp turn if you wanted, or just steer slightly to get around a curve.
This doesn't translate to keyboard controls well at all, because when you press a key it's like an on/off switch; you're either flooring it or not accelerating at all, standing on the brakes or not braking at all, swerving... or not steering at all. The result is that the vehicles that would usually be the most desirable, highest performance vehicles (like sports cars) are twitchy as hell, so much so that, often, you can't even drive in a straight line because attempting to steer would lead to a constant battle to stop overcorrecting. In light of this, I found that I actually preferred to drive "worse" vehicles like old sedans and utility vehicles because they were smoother and more controllable. San Andreas improved this a bit but trying to drive with the keyboard still resulted in locking up the brakes and losing control on turns fairly frequently.
Driving games that are designed for PC controls largely avoid this problem simply by making the controls less responsive. Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven is a good example, being a city game designed for the PC and considered to be something of a rival to GTA in its time. In GTA Vice City, pressing a key to steer left would almost instantly snap the wheels as far as they could turn in that direction, while in Mafia they would take a bit over a full second to go all the way. The difference this makes is, if you want to make a fairly smooth turn around a curve in Mafia, you just tap the key to steer fairly rapidly, keeping the wheels half-turned and getting you around the curve relatively smoothly. GTA IV took a step in this direction and as a result all of the vehicles are smoother and less twitchy than in the previous games, but still not as stiff as those in Mafia 2 (the car handling of which I, personally, hated).
Look at how twitchy my steering is here, even in that crappy car (which is less responsive than most of the "better" ones), and even though I have a soft touch on the controls compared to everyone else who I've personally observed playing this.
Incidentally, the on-foot controls in the earlier GTAs had the same problem. On the console versions of GTA 3 and Vice City I gather that you could choose whether to stroll slowly, walk, jog, or sprint based on how far you pushed the stick. In the PC versions of those games you can only jog (default state) or sprint (by holding an additional key). I only discovered you could walk when I plugged in a joystick to fly a helicopter, and found I could walk by just pushing the stick a little. Rockstar finally got around to adding a "walk" button in San Andreas.
So, you can see why I think GTA IV's handling is such a big improvement over the previous games, on PC controls it really is. But perhaps the less sensitive controls, while they work well on the keyboard, feel sluggish on a console controller compared to the previous games? Never having played it on anything but the PC, I just don't know, but that would explain the large rift between my opinion and others'.
What do you think about the car handling in GTA IV and, if you've played it on multiple platforms, is the difference as pronounced as I suspect?
I don't understand, what's with this (seemingly popular) notion that Grand Theft Auto IV's vehicle handling is bad? I mean, the motorcycles are a bit twitchy, I'll grant you that (though it is fixed in The Lost and Damned), but I think that the car handling and controls are the best yet in the series. Better than any other open world game I've ever played, even. It's smooth enough to permit comfortable cruising, but responsive enough to allow me to do things like this:John Funk said:
or this:
I think it's great, yet I often see people complaining about how they can't take corners because the steering is too sluggish. I can't help but think "Don't they know how to brake (or, if that's too boring, use the handbrake)?", but there must be more to it than that. I realize there are a multitude of opinions out there regarding any game, but the opinion that GTA IV's car handling is terrible seems to be a pretty widely held one and I keep wondering why my opinion is the exact opposite. I have one theory...
I'm speaking solely from experience playing on the PC with keyboard controls, so maybe that's what makes the difference, though I wouldn't have thought it would be that pronounced... It's just that I thought the driving in the earlier Grand Theft Auto games was absolutely terrible on the PC. The car handling in those was evidently designed for console controllers with analog sticks, which allow you to turn just a little bit or all the way, accelerate just a bit or floor it, etc. As a result, the vehicles (especially the high performance ones like the sports cars) had a very wide range of motion, since you could make a really sharp turn if you wanted, or just steer slightly to get around a curve.
This doesn't translate to keyboard controls well at all, because when you press a key it's like an on/off switch; you're either flooring it or not accelerating at all, standing on the brakes or not braking at all, swerving... or not steering at all. The result is that the vehicles that would usually be the most desirable, highest performance vehicles (like sports cars) are twitchy as hell, so much so that, often, you can't even drive in a straight line because attempting to steer would lead to a constant battle to stop overcorrecting. In light of this, I found that I actually preferred to drive "worse" vehicles like old sedans and utility vehicles because they were smoother and more controllable. San Andreas improved this a bit but trying to drive with the keyboard still resulted in locking up the brakes and losing control on turns fairly frequently.
Driving games that are designed for PC controls largely avoid this problem simply by making the controls less responsive. Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven is a good example, being a city game designed for the PC and considered to be something of a rival to GTA in its time. In GTA Vice City, pressing a key to steer left would almost instantly snap the wheels as far as they could turn in that direction, while in Mafia they would take a bit over a full second to go all the way. The difference this makes is, if you want to make a fairly smooth turn around a curve in Mafia, you just tap the key to steer fairly rapidly, keeping the wheels half-turned and getting you around the curve relatively smoothly. GTA IV took a step in this direction and as a result all of the vehicles are smoother and less twitchy than in the previous games, but still not as stiff as those in Mafia 2 (the car handling of which I, personally, hated).
Look at how twitchy my steering is here, even in that crappy car (which is less responsive than most of the "better" ones), and even though I have a soft touch on the controls compared to everyone else who I've personally observed playing this.
Incidentally, the on-foot controls in the earlier GTAs had the same problem. On the console versions of GTA 3 and Vice City I gather that you could choose whether to stroll slowly, walk, jog, or sprint based on how far you pushed the stick. In the PC versions of those games you can only jog (default state) or sprint (by holding an additional key). I only discovered you could walk when I plugged in a joystick to fly a helicopter, and found I could walk by just pushing the stick a little. Rockstar finally got around to adding a "walk" button in San Andreas.
So, you can see why I think GTA IV's handling is such a big improvement over the previous games, on PC controls it really is. But perhaps the less sensitive controls, while they work well on the keyboard, feel sluggish on a console controller compared to the previous games? Never having played it on anything but the PC, I just don't know, but that would explain the large rift between my opinion and others'.
What do you think about the car handling in GTA IV and, if you've played it on multiple platforms, is the difference as pronounced as I suspect?
![Fr]anc[is](https://eg-forums-escapist-data.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/avatars/l/93/93202.jpg?1620797781){kind=avatar}
