Poll: GTA4... have you really played it?

[JSDodd]

I made the mistake of buying it on PC and even though my PC had more than the minimum graphics requirements most of the textures failed to load. But the half an hour or so that it worked was fun

 

[Idiotastic]

Never really cared to play,it looked to me as if they were trying to go for a serious story.
(Which I really don't care for in sandbox games)

I do,however,enjoy the Saint's Row games.

 

[liveslowdiefast]

played it but was not able to complete it, kind of a shame, as i did enjoy it.

 

[GeorgW]

No, it didn't attract me. I played and liked chinatown, but I think it's more suited as a portable, so I never bothered with GTA4.

 

[Sleekgiant]

It takes a while to get used to the steering for me but I got real good and driving and flying helicopters XD

In multiplayer I was always the chopper guy.

Hehe, try playing it again for the first time in a year. "Ah, this will be easy, you never forget stuff like this. ...OH GOD! *Crashing through everything that can move*" XD And I'm good at flying the helicopters. I'm flying under bridges like a pro. XD

Plus it's always fun to get into the attack chopper on top of Algonquin's police station then introducing the cops there to the rotor blades... XD

I always tried skydiving and seeing what I could hit on the way down >

I'd always take Carmen out in a helicopter. I'd fly up with a skyscraper on my side and jump out, landing safely but sending the chopper and Carmen crashing.

So many things I did, my favorite was take Roman drinking then knock him in front of a car and hurt him.

I'm an asshole though.

 

[Purplefood1]

I only played multiplayer...
I got it to mess about with my friends and more or less ignored the single player

 

[natster43]

I played it for about 4-5 hours, I thought it was boring as hell, and then I stopped playing. It just did not draw me in like 3 and Vice City did. I like Red Dead Redemption a lot more though, especially Undead Nightmare.

 

[mireko]

Nope. I've played every GTA before it with the exception of San Andreas and London, and sort of lost interest in the franchise.

Partially because I realized I was only playing to gather cars for explosions.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Yeah, I used to play it all the time. I don't know, I guess I got bored with it. Also: NIKO! EET'S YAWR CAWSIN! WANT TO GO BOWLING??!!!

 

[MasterWhatever]

I didn't mind the single player campaign but i found vastly more enjoyment in the multiplayer. It was great fun to run around aimlessly crashing cars and shooting up a storm. Silly immature fun at its grandest. Best moment ("Surprisingly" myself and four friends, went an hour just jumping off the tallest fire escape. Falling on cars, helicopters and each other. Sounds dumb and it is but was a great laugh.)

 

[Yoh3333]

I got it and i joked around but i realy realy realy dislike the story... Nico Bellic, a stereotype who has to goes to the big city and gets thrown into a story. I stopped caring midway through because every mission was the same old thing:
Drive there -> Shoot him or pick that up -> Go there -> Kill some more / Deliver the item -> Done -> Next mission!
That got realy old, realy quickly and the weak story didn't help my motivation...

But i loved the game for it's sandbox genre. Driveing around in a car at full speed and jumping out to make an amazing ragdoll animation happen was hilarious! I remember when i by accident drove too fast and jumped out only to fly straight into a truck and get fired off in the sky where Nico would have arms flailing around as he would fall down face-first!
AMAZING!!!

 

[Sansha]

I played through the main storyline, but honestly it wasn't that fun. The game takes itself way too seriously, Niko Bellic is completely unlikeable, and once you finish the story missions, there's almost nothing to do except shoot pigeons and jump over stuff.

But my biggest complaints are these:
One, the game world is too small, and there's no real open spaces you can really hammer down with a supercar.
Two, while there's *SOME* side missions and stuff to do, but not a lot. Maybe a day's worth of stuff.
Compare that to San Andreas' titanic game world and myriads of stuff to do after the main missions.

The most fun I had in the game was killing Niko. Watching him get launched off bikes and through windshields never loses its charm, especially when he hits something else like a pylon or another moving vehicle. But, you can only do that so much because hospital is really, really, really expensive, and there's very limited ways to make money.

 

[Captain Booyah]

Played it not so long ago; it's all right. I was addicted to it for about a week -- doing the general dicking about, like blowing up gas stations -- and then lost interest about halfway through the story. There's a hell of a lot of 'Drive from A to B, then BIG-ASS SHOOTOUT' missions, when you're not being harassed by people who want to play darts or whatever.
Confession: the thing that spurred me on most to get through the storyline was to hear more of Niko Bellic's hilarious accent.

Yeah, I used to play it all the time. I don't know, I guess I got bored with it. Also: NIKO! EET'S YAWR CAWSIN! WANT TO GO BOWLING??!!!

"YOU ARE SO FOOL OF CREP, ROMAN."

 

[faspxina]

While GTA IV might not be as crazy and big as GTA: San Andreas (Saints Row 2 might scratch that itch for you), it has in my opinion the best storyline of all the series. I didn't like the driving sections too much, but I don't even like driving games.

So, the fact that I finished a 30 hour game that involves like 70% driving and I end up genuinely enjoyed and fulfilled by the experience, must mean something.

 

[hyker]

I bought it and I played it for about a week, I usually had loooong fuckaround brakes between missions, finished it, but I wasn't really satisfied with the choices I made (some missions had two choices, like a moral choice system) so i started it again after that but got bored of it and stopped, it was okay, but I didn't like it how easily you could get killed or fall of the bike

I wanted to install it and play it again now, but because they had that brilliant idea of putting the two disks on in the case so the cd got scratched (didn't touch it in the last 2-3 years btw) and now I can't install it, rockstar support simply wrote back saying that the easiest thing would be to buy another copy

 

[kuyo]

everything mentioned in the advertising suggested it was shit, and it was worse than that. For example, it gets really annoying and provokes deterioration having to tap A to move at a decent pace. I'd have expected them to fix it for RDR, but then I would've also expected them not to do it in the first place.
The payoff wasn't even worth it. What Niko got out of the experience was a couple of apartments and dead friends, so he would've been better off not doing any of the missions.
Playing this game is detrimental to both the player and the character, and I would've been seriously pissed if I'd had bought it for more that four bucks. (still pretty pissed about the four bucks though.)

 

[Yopaz]

It was indeed a chore to play; somehow the great setting and music could'nt hide the fact that you're driving your cousin to a f*cking bowling alley half the time; I just could not be bothered to play further. Somehow they took all the fun out of the gameplay.

Bowling alley was OK, it was boring, but you didn't suffer enough to want to gnaw off your arm, what I hated was when he wanted to take you out drinking. You had to use 5 minutes to get to a car without falling over, then when you entered the car you seemed almost sober.
If GTA didn't take itself so damn serious it could have been fun. I also really disliked the story...

 

[Kadoodle]

I've played it, but I sort of prefer Red Dead Redemption for its increased realism and graphics, as well as the western setting. Plus they use the Euphoria engine way better in RDR.

 

[HealthyMateus]

Doesn't anybody have fun on police chases? Doesn't anybody bother to turn off the cell phone? Oh well, I just find that GTA IV and the Liberty City expansions have the best physics, explosions, and immersion of the series. The police chases have always been the biggest draw for me in any GTA, and IV is the most fun because now you can aim freely while driving. That usually leads to some interesting accidents!

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

GTA IV wasn't as good as the predecessors imo. It went too serious for the series previous and would have worked better if it had been canned as a reboot from the beginning. Sure there were elements of the previous games in it, but overall there felt like major downgrades were done as San Andreas was a way bigger map in terms of variety. LC just felt bland and gray and while populated, it still felt more like an animatronic Disney ride (were it built by psychopaths and drug addicts).
Story bored the hell out of me after about 10 missions though I did finish it for posterity. I found Lost and the Damned to be way better than the original, and Gay Tony was only fun for the intersecting missions and the "hit the dude with golf balls" mission.
In the end, I feel disappointed with the game itself, although I liked the ideas presented in the maps. I'd like to see a bigger map, better engine to draw objects so I don't have concrete barriers appear underneath my car while driving, and a better protagonist. Also, please please please give me an option to have the NPC's STOP CALLING ME! Or at least not get pissed off that I'm busy and maybe hang out later... after I commit some genocide.
Saints Row 2 was a spiritual successor to what I loved about the GTA series. Over the top and lots of options to destroy people/things. If only Volition could introduce decent DLC...