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I too enjoy overthinking GTA like its high art. Although that did become a problem when Rockstar started overthinking it itself in GTA:IV. I would say the contrary, playing a remorselessly psychopathic robot isn't terribly realistic either.
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May 23, 2012 06:00
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Tumble posted:Then CJ from San Andreas and Niko from GTA4 showed up, and all of a sudden the Grand Theft Auto series are focused around these conflicted characters who feel bad about what they are doing in the plot. Don't lump CJ in with Niko's bullshit. He disliked hard drugs, but only because they meant that his friends weren't up for going out and shooting purple-wearing teenagers with him and his crew. Even in cut scenes and reaction dialogue he'd rather gleefully tell the cops to send the fuckin' army or cheer on Smoke and Sweet as they went out to ice "those bitches." This is a big part of why I also roll my eyes at the people complaining about CJ killing that record producer and the construction workers. How is that at all out of character with him?
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May 23, 2012 06:18
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The disconnect never really bothered me honestly, especially since it goes both ways. When I did the ambulance missions in Vice City I never cared that Tommy Vercetti - a multimillionare drug kingpin and sociopath - would probably never go out of his way to do such things. And CJ isn't a good example either. He's not conflicted, just weakwilled. He has Marty McFly syndrome, just replace the word 'chicken' with 'busta'.
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May 23, 2012 06:23
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Ak Gara posted:There's many versions of the ENBSeries, which one are you using? Im using the one from the ENB website .0075c I think? I tried using your ini settings but my game only went at about 15-20 FPS when I was outside. From your tinkering, what would you say is the biggest FPS hog?
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May 23, 2012 06:48
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Coolodile posted:When I did the ambulance missions in Vice City I never cared that Tommy Vercetti - a multimillionare drug kingpin and sociopath - would probably never go out of his way to do such things. Wait, you mean filthy rich drug kingpins in your local area don't deliver pizzas from a scooter? 
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May 23, 2012 07:05
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Man, the ambulance missions in 3 and VC are brutal. In SA it is significantly easier if you know where to go. Can you even do them in 4?
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May 23, 2012 07:06
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Coolodile posted:The disconnect never really bothered me honestly, especially since it goes both ways. When I did the ambulance missions in Vice City I never cared that Tommy Vercetti - a multimillionare drug kingpin and sociopath - would probably never go out of his way to do such things. OK, he hates hard drugs because they are tearing his community up by its roots, but he has absolutely no problem slaughtering rival drug dealers with a sniper rifle or up close with molotov cocktails or a pistol? I don't mind a bit of disconnect: I feel that Red Dead Redemption did a decent job at presenting Marsden's dismay at killing innocent people. He would say his apologies when he accidentally killed a civilian or two during a mission to take out people who were, in canon at least, quite bad. To me, that's fine - he wasn't gleefuly slaughtering his enemies, he was trapped because of his families peril. CJ didn't really have that; he had a savage hate-on for drugs like crack and heroin, but his antipathy for drugs, drug-addicts and drug-dealers lead him to kill hundreds of people involved with them. That's worse than anything involved with the drug trade presented in the games story. My problem is that the games keep presenting the protagonists as people who are morally opposed to issues that are far less severe than assault and murder, but then have the characters killing massive amounts of people during the missions. And then after those missions have been completed successfully, they go back to having a problem with other, less serious goings-on. Certainly the solution is not to have every character be a psychopathic Vercetti-esque killer, but don't make it mandatory to kill massive amounts of people and still have those characters try to feel bad about it.
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May 23, 2012 07:15
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I personally believe it would help if GTA transitioned towards a style of combat that emphasized the importance of individual kills instead of mass-slaughter style, clearing out a warehouse of 100+ mooks before leaping onto a mounted turret to gun down attacking helicopters, etc. It might not be what everyone wants, but I'd love to see them explore an even more realistic narrative that worked hand in hand with "toned down" combat. More of an emphasis on small arms, smaller encounters, where the placement of each bullet is more important than the rapidity at which you take down enemies. If the combat is scaled down in this way, it may be much easier to convince the player that the characters actions as far as the missions are concerned are in line with the plots motivations. It still wouldn't excuse you running down a bunch of old ladies on the sidewalk in a convertible while lobbing grenades behind you-- but they must never deprive us of the ability to gently caress around like this, just in the same way they should never deprive us of the ability to follow traffic rules and be that kind of loser if we are so inclined. Whenever I get the urge to play through the beginning of GTA:IV, I find myself getting disinterested once it opens up a little and you've got all this money, all these guns, and the missions have you slaughtering hordes of foes. It all felt much cooler to me when you were struggling to dress yourself decently and carrying a pistol with 30 rounds and a stolen shotgun with a few shells. Clearing a small room of four or five criminals with a pistol and a shotgun, diving behind a couch, etc. immerses me much more than gunning down endless streams of generic mobsters with assault rifles in a warehouse. Each one of those murders was up close and personal and I felt it-- much more powerful an experience than thinking to myself after a warehouse segment "Hmm, I just killed maybe ninety Italian immigrants. I wonder how my actions have affected poor Little Italy!" I just think a quality over quantity approach to the GTA series in general would be a good direction. You should feel something every time you pull the trigger, I think. I understand that not everyone may agree with me, though, and that there are a large amount of people who want a return to that sort of senseless, chaotic, pass-the-controller-back-and-forth-with-every-giggling-death experience you had as a kid with your friends. I enjoy that, too. I enjoy both and I'm not sure exactly what sort of balance I want in my GTA. E: VVVV Grove Street 4 Lyfe. Respect. GrickleGrass fucked around with this message at 08:15 on May 23, 2012 |
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May 23, 2012 07:52
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Tumble posted:CJ didn't really have that; he had a savage hate-on for drugs like crack and heroin, but his antipathy for drugs, drug-addicts and drug-dealers lead him to kill hundreds of people involved with them. That's worse than anything involved with the drug trade presented in the games story. CJ hates drugs and dealers because they've hosed with people he cares about, not because he's a good person. He's apathetic about violence because he doesn't care at all about people who aren't his friends and associates. The only people he feels bad about murdering are his old friends.
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May 23, 2012 08:06
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CJ straight up states how he is during one liners in the gameplay. "What can I say? I'm a bad man." "I warn you: I don't give a gently caress." "You OK? I hope not." Oh yeah and he cheats on six different women at the same time.
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May 23, 2012 09:07
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blackguy32 posted:Im using the one from the ENB website .0075c I think? What GPU and CPU do you have? What res are you playing it? Dropping from 1080p to 720p would help fps. I really don't know where the bottle neck on GTA:SA is. 2x anti aliasing 0x anisotropic = 40fps 16x anti aliasing 16x anisotropic = 40fps I don't think it's CPU bound, either. I then tried turning off the options one by one, Bloom, Reflection, Occlusion, Shadow, Water, etc, and at most I gained 1 maybe 2 fps. However, turning off both Occlusion AND shadows, I gained about 30fps. So here's that ini. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ak_gara/enbseries.rar [edit] An 8 year old game is making me consider a GTX 690 
Ak Gara fucked around with this message at 14:26 on May 23, 2012 |
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May 23, 2012 14:24
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Pocket Billiards posted:Guess I was remembering wrong about the auto aim on PC or had it mixed up with Vice City or something. Come to think of it I was using right analogue stck as mouse control to get the camera controls how I liked it.
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May 23, 2012 14:33
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Vic always seems to be overlooked when it comes to "moral" protagonists in the GTA series. I always did find it odd that he had no problem with killing or anything else illegal but drew the line at drugs, despite being pressured by Lance to go into the drug business.
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May 23, 2012 14:43
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I must be the n-th guy to say this, but the disconnect in SA never bothered me (I'm still in the beginning stages of GTA IV). I kept playing, enjoying the story, even getting immersed in all the gangsta bullshit, without seeing the gameplay as working against the character building. I honestly get baffled when someone mentions the rapper and his girlfriend getting drowned in the ocean as something horrifying, because when I think back I only hear stupid and funny dialogue around it. I tend to play the GTA games (since VC) as somewhat conservative, though, i.e. not running everything over on purpose or stealing a tank and shooting up half a city, and staying "in-character", as far as these games go. So my immersion might be saved by my own idiotic RP-style gaming.
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May 23, 2012 15:22
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As far as I'm concerned, CJ and Niko are just psychopaths in a different way than Tommy Vercetti. Sure, they TALK a lot about things that sound like they're good people, but they're putting on a front! Especially with Niko, since he was a forced into being a child soldier earlier in life, that has to have hosed him up a lot if not fully made him a psychopath.
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May 23, 2012 16:09
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Niko's a psychopath with a heart of gold.
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May 23, 2012 16:12
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Cliff Racer posted:This is a big part of why I also roll my eyes at the people complaining about CJ killing that record producer and the construction workers. How is that at all out of character with him? I didn't think it was so much a disconnect from a his character, just the fact that killing someone in a really nasty way because some guys on the site (maybe he wasn't even there!) called his sister a whore was seriously cold, even for GTA. It'd stand out as pretty harsh even in Saints Row.
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May 23, 2012 17:06
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Rockstar did seem to move away from the whole "remorseful/conflicted main character" storyline with Episodes from Liberty City. Johnny isn't opposed to killing people or dealing drugs. He's just mad that his boss won't stop doing stupid things and ruining the business. Same deal with Luis more or less. He doesn't seem to remorseful about the people he has to kill, just that he keeps getting put in dangerous situations.
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May 23, 2012 17:59
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BrandonGK posted:Rockstar did seem to move away from the whole "remorseful/conflicted main character" storyline with Episodes from Liberty City. Johnny isn't opposed to killing people or dealing drugs. He's just mad that his boss won't stop doing stupid things and ruining the business. Same deal with Luis more or less. He doesn't seem to remorseful about the people he has to kill, just that he keeps getting put in dangerous situations. TLaD succeeded because it was more about the inertia draining from Johnny's life and the insane things that were happening around him, not a morally conflicted self-avowed serial killer trying to turn his life around. TBoGT was essentially an action movie, and I still liked the characterization of Luis better than in 4. They were all pretty good though.
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May 23, 2012 18:44
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BrandonGK posted:Rockstar did seem to move away from the whole "remorseful/conflicted main character" storyline with Episodes from Liberty City. Johnny isn't opposed to killing people or dealing drugs. He's just mad that his boss won't stop doing stupid things and ruining the business. Same deal with Luis more or less. He doesn't seem to remorseful about the people he has to kill, just that he keeps getting put in dangerous situations. The episodes were already planned out while they made IV, that is how they got all the characters and news stories to intersect, it wasn't moving away due to criticism, its what they always planned.
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May 23, 2012 20:02
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Cliff Racer posted:The episodes were already planned out while they made IV, that is how they got all the characters and news stories to intersect, it wasn't moving away due to criticism, its what they always planned. Yeah, but they still had time to tweak them. Like how Johnny's character model looks pretty different in GTAIV than it does in TLAD. Plus we really don't find out much about Johnny and Luis's characters in GTAIV either, so going into the DLC they had almost a blank slate and could write pretty much whatever they wanted.
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May 23, 2012 20:22
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Why would a biker (Johnny) or a nightclub bouncer with a history of violence (Luis) care any more about killing people than a guy who was a soldier (Niko) and saw some of the worst parts of the war?
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May 23, 2012 20:26
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[San Andreas] Any way to get past certain missions, with cheats or otherwise? I'm doing the Mountain Cloud Boys Mission with Woozie in San Fierro, and because I used cheats in the first place, I'm glitched stuck on the ground when me and Woozie visit the warehouse. 
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May 23, 2012 22:31
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I think out of all the non Vercetti characters, Johnny is the top. In fact, I want to replay TLAD right now. I loving loved that game aside from the horrible last mission.
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May 24, 2012 01:02
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GrickleGrass posted:I personally believe it would help if GTA transitioned towards a style of combat that emphasized the importance of individual kills instead of mass-slaughter style, clearing out a warehouse of 100+ mooks before leaping onto a mounted turret to gun down attacking helicopters, etc. I know what you mean. The first stages of any game are always the most interesting when survivability still seems shaky and the game hasn't become trite yet. I wish they kept things like that, kept cops scary, and kept you as a low down thug with 2-3 mags worth of ammo, a scavenged Uzi with 1 clip, and a baseball bat. I remember the first time I played GTA 3 and wasn't sure what I could or could not get away with, all I knew was I wanted a big gun from ammunation and looked for vulnerable marks in alleyways and beat countless hookers to death in alleyways til I could afford it. Recently I was watching Payback and I love watching the character coming up, stealing every paper bill from a charlatan hobo's hat full of donations, stealing cigarettes from a waitress while he blows smoke in her face, shoulder checking yuppies and pick pocketing their id and debit cards, buying brand new gold watches and then exchanging them in a pawn shop. Putting all money that has been ruthlessly collected into his chain smoking and the gold watches he exchanges with the man at the pawn shop for a Magnum, and you see him pick up the magnum, feel it in his hands, pop the cylinder out and then you know that moment. I think it could be interesting if every time you ended up in a hospital, got double crossed or something, basically every time you got caught up. You'd have to start with most of your resources gone and have to slowly or recklessly pull yourself back up into the game. I'd also like more control put into the player's hand. If I got the cash, the connects, and a piece I should be able to hire out some hoods to go and do some dirt with me. Basically, more focus on the low-end risky business of crime. Less of having 4 mill and not meaning poo poo other than frustration if you die.
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May 24, 2012 09:18
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Mr. Fortitude posted:Vic always seems to be overlooked when it comes to "moral" protagonists in the GTA series. I always did find it odd that he had no problem with killing or anything else illegal but drew the line at drugs, despite being pressured by Lance to go into the drug business. Vic was really the only "honest guy" to start off. He had a legit job in the army and was doing it to pay his brother's medical bills. Then his CO pressured him into doing some illegal activities before screwing him over. The freshly unemployed Vic needed to do something to keep helping his family so he turned to a life of rather petty crime before (again) being pressured into more illegal activities, this time by his love interest. I was rather disappointed with my last replay of Vice City Stories to be honest. I remembered the story and characters being more enjoyable. Sadly the story does not flow at all since Louise vanishes from the plot for quite some time and when she resurfaces to cause problems, the average gamer probably didn't even remember who she was. I have not played much of GTAIV due to not owning the game but I've seen both Rock Tumbler's and Roosevelt's LP of the game. I think it looks a lot more interesting than any of the GTAs I've played. Whether or not Rockstar succeeded in making you give a poo poo about the story and characters is obviously subjective but at least they tried. GTA3 and VC are fun but they are great examples of an "Excuse Plot". I really want to get GITA4 now so I can make up my own mind on it. Maybe when I get some money the beginning of next month.
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May 24, 2012 09:29
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Dave Mustard posted:I think it could be interesting if every time you ended up in a hospital, got double crossed or something, basically every time you got caught up. You'd have to start with most of your resources gone and have to slowly or recklessly pull yourself back up into the game. I can see what you're going for, but that honestly sounds like a horrible game. Even losing only your weapons when you get busted/wasted is enough to make me reload.
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May 24, 2012 11:07
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To me that sounds great but it also doesn't really sound like a GTA game, sounds more like the crime sim equivalant of those hardcore military sims.
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May 24, 2012 12:10
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One of the best games I've ever played was Ultima Online. No online or even offline game has handled death quite like that did. In UO, if you died, you get kinda, teleported into a spirit world, everything is grayscale and you're a ghost that can run through doors and poo poo. People that are alive couldn't see you, but you could see them, the only time they could see you is if you tried speaking to them, but your words came out as OOooOOooOo etc. Now, if you're lucky, they'll take that to mean "help I have died, please could you take me to a shrine or resurrect me" If you was unlucky, they'd run away screaming. You had a precious few minutes to get resurrected and find your body (if you could remember where you died) and hope no one had looted you, because if you took too long, or someone had looted your corpse, that's it, all your stuff gone, even your money. You could get some real nice stuff over time from people's corpses only to lose it all in one bad fight that went unlucky. Now if you die or get busted you just reload. It makes games too easy.
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May 24, 2012 12:32
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I want GTA V to have choices that do more than decide which characters you'll see again later. GTA IV's endings just seemed so pointless, other than story value.
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May 24, 2012 15:01
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Zedicus Mann posted:I want GTA V to have choices that do more than decide which characters you'll see again later. GTA IV's endings just seemed so pointless, other than story value. In a game that already has so many different things to complete, I'd prefer to just have one save file that I can do everything on. Having two endings was a cute trick but I'd rather someone just make one good story and let me play through it like RDR. If they're moving away from being wacky and going more for story-driven, then do a good story instead of 12 different arching half-assed ones. I've never played mass effect but from what I heard there were a bunch of different choices to make in the latest one that resulted in different paths and everyone just complained it was too similar. Let's avoid that mess altogether.
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May 24, 2012 15:33
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davebo posted:In a game that already has so many different things to complete, I'd prefer to just have one save file that I can do everything on. Having two endings was a cute trick but I'd rather someone just make one good story and let me play through it like RDR. If they're moving away from being wacky and going more for story-driven, then do a good story instead of 12 different arching half-assed ones. I've never played mass effect but from what I heard there were a bunch of different choices to make in the latest one that resulted in different paths and everyone just complained it was too similar. Let's avoid that mess altogether. It wasn't just too similar. The endings of Mass Effect 3 were completely identical outside of what color of explosion you see at the end. But yeah, I agree with you. I don't think branching story paths is what a game like GTA needs.
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May 24, 2012 19:20
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Dave Mustard posted:Basically, more focus on the low-end risky business of crime. Less of having 4 mill and not meaning poo poo other than frustration if you die. I agree with pretty much everything you have said, but also realize that going too far in this direction would detract from what I feel GTA is. I would still like to see the addition of some small-crime management, maybe tied into owning properties or rackets or something like that. Someone earlier in the topic mentioned that mission early in GTA IV where you have to go throw the brick at the Asian shopkeeper's window to intimidate him into giving Vlad protection money. I, too, thought that this was going to be worked into the game somehow-- and that eventually I'd be doing this for my own gain, or hell, maybe even ordering mooks to do it for me. That was not the case, though, and it seems they intended to include something along those lines but it never factored into the finished product. Why else would an early mission teach you how to throw a brick when you do it at no other point in the game? I just hope they bring back property owning but somehow make it more worthwhile than just showing up periodically to collect cash and weapons. I don't really want an intensely complex crime management simulator or anything like that-- I just want something to do with money, and to feel like I'm impacting the world. They could maybe take a few nods from that old Godfather game. I haven't played it in years, and never played the second one, but I remembered it having some of those elements-- though really bare-bones. It would be pretty cool if you could, say, start out collecting protection money from some small local business that the cops aren't helping, for example. Then maybe you could do some missions for the owner to keep the local thugs/rival gang/whatever off his back, increasing your reputation with the community. Maybe tie in a kind of hidden fear/respect sliding scale with regards to how you are perceived by different locales in the game that would affect how you are treated in the area. You shoot down a prostitute in broad daylight in an alleyway in a part of the city where your reputation is greatly feared? Maybe the witnesses will say they didn't see anything and run off and you don't get a wanted level increase. I don't know, though, because re-reading a lot of this poo poo I'm saying it seems if implemented it could feel really superfluous. I guess I have an idea for how I want the next GTA to feel, but I have absolutely no worthwhile suggestions to offer in terms of how to implement mechanics that would foster this feeling I want. Mostly I just want consequences for my actions and something to work towards other than the ending of the plot. Something to do aside from missions or mini-games with exaggerated racist caricatures.
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May 24, 2012 19:45
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Chinatown Wars has the best money-making side mission ever. The drug dealing thing is what I dreamed of as a young miscreant playing Dope Wars on my Palm in middle school. It never stops being exciting.
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May 24, 2012 19:55
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moms pubis posted:Chinatown Wars has the best money-making side mission ever. The drug dealing thing is what I dreamed of as a young miscreant playing Dope Wars on my Palm in middle school. It never stops being exciting.
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May 24, 2012 20:26
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The drug dealing was good, but I think I only got caught two times in all the hours I played the game. And this was with all the cameras working.
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May 25, 2012 01:41
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Nothing made me happier than the smashing cop cars to lose heat. It really changed the way I viewed heat.
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May 25, 2012 02:19
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Dave Mustard posted:I know what you mean. The first stages of any game are always the most interesting when survivability still seems shaky and the game hasn't become trite yet. I wish they kept things like that, kept cops scary, and kept you as a low down thug with 2-3 mags worth of ammo, a scavenged Uzi with 1 clip, and a baseball bat. I remember the first time I played GTA 3 and wasn't sure what I could or could not get away with, all I knew was I wanted a big gun from ammunation and looked for vulnerable marks in alleyways and beat countless hookers to death in alleyways til I could afford it. I think for a lot of people this would really go against what GTA is "supposed" to be. A lot of folks really like the journey of going from nothing to a one man army with three mansions.
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May 25, 2012 03:06
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Dave Mustard posted:Basically, more focus on the low-end risky business of crime. Less of having 4 mill and not meaning poo poo other than frustration if you die. Back when the teaser was released, I had this idea of instead of being a common criminal, there would be more focus on building an empire. You'd start small, by forcing people to pay protection money and so on. As you get richer, the opportunities would expand too. You'd buy companies, security and so on. Buy a little, scrawny medical company in the beginning and in the end of the story you'd have something that could rival Zaibatsu Pharmaceuticals. It would be a crazy combination of a Tommy Vercetti/Claude Speed, Donald Love and perhaps Ken Rosenberg. Both intelligent, savvy and ruthless as hell.
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May 25, 2012 12:43
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Low level street crime (i.e. stealing cars) is kind of intrinsic to the series. It pretty much limits any GTA protagonist from becoming something other than a lowlife.
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May 26, 2012 05:47
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