Grand Theft Auto Megathread

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Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

K8.0 posted:

I just hope that Rockstar learns from their mistakes in GTA4. It was so great going from GTA3 to Vice City to San Andreas and each time going "Wow, they actually put in most of the stuff that the previous game made me dream of" and then GTA4 had almost nothing interesting to do and a terribly boring world and lovely characters. It's still a really good game and the physics and UI are fantastic but it doesn't hold a candle to San Andreas in terms of game design. Bring back tractor trains!

I think we'll just see something like what happened in the last GTA generation.

GTA3 ran a little choppy when it came out, GTA3:VC ran a lot smoother while adding more content and GTA3:SA expanded on that even more.

Then they made GTA4 on a new engine and had to start over, just like GTA3. The next full game will hopefully run a lot better and add more content.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2011 18:10

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 23:30

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

illcendiary posted:

My favorite GTA experience has always been turning on the "Peds Riot", "Peds with Weapons", "Peds Attack You", and "Flying Cars" cheats in GTA 3 and just running around the city with chaos all around. It was great to be speeding down the street in a Cheetah only to have the car randomly explode out of nowhere, then realizing it was an old granny holding a bazooka that did me in.

For some reason the codes got really gimped in Vice City and it wasn't nearly as fun.

This is really the only thing that bothered me with GTA4, was that there were only like 8 cheat codes that you could use.

GTASA: http://www.gtasanandreas.net/cheats/pc.php

GTA4: http://vgstrategies.about.com/od/pccheatsg/a/GTA4PCCodes.htm

I mean, at least on PC its fixed with trainers, but on consoles you don't even get a godmode cheat. Thats the best cheat in GTA.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 16:36

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Tewratomeh posted:

On an unrelated note, why do people trash GTA IV so much and not GTA III? GTA III has even less to do between missions and yet nobody complains. Is it just the fact that GTA III was the first of its kind? Is it really the fact that Claude is a "silent protagonist" and they feel like they're more free to be a bastard?

One came out 10 years ago.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 17:41

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Tewratomeh posted:

So it's just nostalgia then? I just don't see the issue with toning down the bullshit they kept adding with each new installment. It was fun bullshit, but where do you go after San Andreas? They kept one-upping themselves until they kind of got backed into a corner, and GTA IV reset everything back to GTA III. I'd imagine that GTA V is going to be the next-generation San Andreas, and I can't wait.

GTA4 was a brand new engine for the GTA series, like I posted earlier we're probably going to see what happened with the last GTA generation. The next game will probably be better optimized and have more content.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 17:53

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

After bumming around on imdb I realized that GTA4 didn't have any celebrity voice actors. This should be changed for the next title.

GTA3: Frank Vincent, Joe Pantoliano, Michael Madsen, Robert Loggia, Michael Rapaport
VC: Ray Liotta, William Fichtner, Tom Sizemore, Dennis Hopper, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzm�n, Danny Trejo, Gary Busey, Fairuza Balk
SA: Samuel Jackson, Chris Penn, The Game, Big Boi, Ice T, James Woods, David Cross
GTA4: There are a few celebrities doing radio commercials, but no one voicing a character.

edit:

imdb posted:

Ricky Gervais and Katt Williams both did full motion and voice capture for their brief appearances in their own comedy skits at the Split Sides Comedy Club and on the in-game television.

Cage fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Apr 6, 2011

# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 21:03

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Geight posted:

A serious reduction in how much DRM is loaded into it. Steam, GFWL, SecuROM, and their own little Social Club thing. Rockstar, nobody wants to steal your game -that- badly.

What does steam have to do with it? GFWL was only used for multiplayer, and the social club was only used for uploading videos (Im guessing here, did anyone actually use the social club?). I dont really know what Securom does, but this was their first multiplayer GTA game, I don't blame them for wanting to step security up a little bit. I've had to reinstall at least 10 times, and Ive never had any trouble even though Im using the DVD.

They realized no one likes the social club, they tried their best to get rid of it but Im guessing that it was too hard to completely remove it from the game, since it was coded in that you need to be signed in to play online.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2011 04:02

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

mutata posted:

I think it's mostly the fact that you have to sign in to literally 3 different programs in order to even play the singleplayer portion of the game. God help you if they all get updates all at the same time.

They did try to remove Social Club, though, but there's no forgiveness for GFWL.

3? GFWL and Social Club. Steam doesn't count since that only depends if you bought it on steam, and even if you did you can still run it independently of steam.

Ive never had any problems with GFWL, either. Yeah, it would be nice if it was steamworks but Id rather have GFWL than a no effort server browser like Crysis 2.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2011 04:35

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Hank Morgan posted:

One thing I really hope they implement in future games is the police evasion system from Chinatown Wars. Unlike most of the other games where you had to avoid the cops in order to reduce the wanted level, in Chinatown Wars you had to disable the cop cars. The higher your level the more cop cars you had to disable. It was a lot more fun and you had to be a lot more proactive when being chased.

Yeah, GTA4 was a step in the right direction in that you could actually lose the cops just by driving well, but its still not perfect.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2011 22:59

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Himuro posted:

I thought it was terrible. You get right right outside the circle and a cop car spawns, making you start all over again. I thought it made chases just busy work instead of being fun. What's more, I can't think of one chase in GTA4 where I had to memorize routes.

In the older games, I memorized routes for bribe locations so I could strategically plan out my escapes.

Playing like that is unnecessary in IV.

That sounds lot a lot of trouble, what happens when you get 5 or 6 stars? How long does it take to drive around to collect all those? Seems like it would be boring taking the same route everytime to lose the cops.

If you get outside the circle and a cop spawns then you weren't paying attention to the radar. Cops won't just spawn in the middle of it, they'll always come from the edges. Its more than enough time to stop and change directions so that they never see you.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2011 00:14

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Himuro posted:

What's wrong with memorizing bribes then? It's more interesting to end a chase via bribe than pay n spray.

If you memorize where the bribes are in SA then whats the point of learning the roads? If you escape via bribes then you have to keep going to the same checkpoints, leading to taking a similar route each time, depending on where you are.

Learning the roads is a much better strategy in GTA4, every turn you make will make a difference in getting the cops off you.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2011 03:12

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Request for next game: make the outside car views loving HIGHER.

For me it sucks to play GTA3 and VC without the mouselook while driving. The default views are too low and are a little too slow to snap back after a sharp turn.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2011 03:23

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Himuro posted:

Yeah, the tub boat controls are awful. I can't drive at full speed anymore because if I do, if I have to make a quick turn it feels like the road is made of butter.

Use your brakes, the vehicles aren't slot cars anymore. Don't brake and turn at the same time either. Also don't use the handbrake unless you need to make a 180.

I mightve already said this, but Ive been playing since launch on 360 and launch on PC, I still fire up the game just to drive around. The physics and handling make it a blast for me. Whereas in SA where you could drive at full speed, hit the handbrake and you could make a 90 degree turn on a dime. I didn't mind it when it was all gta had, but now that they improved it so much it makes driving in the older games boring.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2011 04:42

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

K8.0 posted:

Anyone who says there's more skill or fun in GTA4's driving than the previous games never learned to drive in them at all. Go watch some VC/SA stunt driving videos.

What do you mean by "stunt driving"? Stuff like hitting angled parts of the map and doing some flips? Most of the skill in stuff like that is having good patience until you get the perfect take. Theres plenty of that in GTA4.

Time to whore out some videos I made. Not that they prove my point or anything, I just capture anything that looks cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZpVJTbadqY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6zldJaCcBs

Most of those are just from tooling around in freeroam.

Also, a map I made back in the day for MTA:SA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe413pbZ5b0

# ¿ Apr 9, 2011 20:45

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Himuro posted:

This is loving genius.

Haha, thanks. I wish I was good enough at the map editor to get the barrels equally spaced out, and the only way to set them off was to spawn someone above the barrels and have them die. This is also back when MTA had a 25fps cap limit, so all those explosions would slow you down.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2011 20:55

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Skilleddk posted:

This is the second time I'm playing through San Andreas, and I'm stuck on the same mission, called Cesar Vialpando I think. It's about some street "car dancing" thing, it's just loving impossible. Apparently standard USB keyboards have some kind of delay that makes this kind of missions nearly impossible. I looked around on the net, and found no solution. I'm also using the steam version, so afaik, I can't just import saves.

Does anyone know a way of beating this?

I remember when I tried it if I hit the keys right as the arrow was in the center of the circle it wouldnt register poo poo, but I remember it working if I looked at the arrow beforehand, and only used the beat of the music as my cue.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2011 21:26

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

For those of you buying the classics pack, don't forget about MTA:SA. Its a multiplayer mod for San Andreas and its still quite populated.

http://www.mtasa.com/

You can race, freeroam, and do whatever.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2011 00:07

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

K8.0 posted:

That doesn't change the fact that you basically stop every time you take a corner. Part of it is the lovely world design, but most of it is the bad vehicle physics, they just don't have enough grip and acceleration is slow. It's like going back to GTA3 all over again where driving anything other than a banshee or cheetah is a chore. They made all the cars much higher performance in VC and SA for a reason.

It's just boring, there's really not much to improve at, and it makes driving around just for the sake of it not all that fun.

Do I have to make a video showing you guys how to take corners? You're only stopping at every corner because can't drive properly.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2011 09:06

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

conscript salad posted:

And allow me to acquire equipment to steal cars without getting into a police chase from the get go.

In GTA4 this will only happen if a cop sees you stealing a car, otherwise you won't get any stars.

You should check out GTA: Chinatown Wars if you have a DS, PSP, or iOS device. I never played it but it involved little minigames to do stuff like breaking in cars.

quote:

Older cars require a few turns of a screwdriver in the ignition, while other cars require hotwiring. Newer, more expensive cars require the player to "hack" the computerized immobilizer.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2011 20:18

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Mr. Stingly posted:

They also need to turn down cop spawns BIG TIME. Like, that's at the top of the loving list. It is a rarity to finish a god drat fist fight without having to run for my life from some lovely beat cop, because even gently slapping his handcuffs away brings down an avalanche of psychotic shoot to kill cops coming from everywhere. In the old games a one star wanted level wasn't a big deal, but in GTAIV because of the scene of the crime system, it could take forever to ditch the cops (because there's one on EVERY corner).

The cops are really easy to get rid of in GTA4. In the old games there was 0 chance of you outrunning them, you either had to find a pay n spray, or you could drive around the city to find those cop tokens, whatever they were called.

In GTA4 you can finally put your driving skills to good use in getting away from cops. You can even see the cops on your radar so you know how to avoid them. There are no tokens anymore but pay n sprays work just as well.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2011 18:03

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

How to not suck at police chases:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSIX4aQMUbg

I picked a pretty slow/boaty car, and even got my tire shot out 3/4ths through. If the cops see you on one street they will keep deploying on that street, make a quick turn when they can't see you.

Cage fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Apr 24, 2011

# ¿ Apr 24, 2011 19:49

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Zedd posted:

How did you get rid of the grey filter over everything and get it to look so clean?

Using simple native, change the weather to "ExtraSunny2" It basically gets rid of all fog/clouds so you get a perfectly blue sky right around noon. Its also pretty awesome at 22:30, everything is a nice shade of blue.

MacGyvers_Mullet posted:

That's what the PC version looks like with "Definition" on, the contrast turned down a bit, brightness all the way up, and saturation up to around 60-75%.

Contrast and brightness all the way down, saturation all the way up. Still, the main thing was the weather setting. Definition doesnt do anything but get rid of the blur.

Himuro posted:

Clean? Looks like it's missing shadows and lighting and well, everything really.

You try running fraps with shadows at 1920x1200. :l

Zigmidge posted:

He could have made a 30 second long video by ducking left-right-left-right at every intersection. The cops are idiots in GTA4 and don't have the same kind of infinite respawning advantage they had in the previous three games.

As good as I am I dont think you could loose 4 stars in 30 seconds.

Cage fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Apr 24, 2011

# ¿ Apr 24, 2011 21:20

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Cojawfee posted:

The problem with having less popular songs in the game is that you can't just jump in a car, throw a station on and be "HELL YES I LOVE THIS SONG" and cause mayhem like you can in VC and SA. Not so much for GTAIII since it was all lesser songs. Or maybe I just didn't know any of the songs in it. I mostly just listened to Chatterbox all day because it was the best station.

Just use Independence FM, thats what its there for!

The only stations I'd bother listening to besides In/FM was jazz nation and fusion.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2011 21:42

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

But they gave us "Four Leaf Clover", the mission that channels the movie "Heat".

They can be forgiven just for that, right?

# ¿ Apr 25, 2011 04:09

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

That mission reminds me of one thing they got right in this game is the sound. Especially if you had a surround sound setup. Hearing explosions and sirens coming from a few blocks away was really cool. And even the little stuff like after driving your car and getting out, if you shut the engine off (hold exit button instead of tapping) you'll hear those little ticks you hear with a real engine.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2011 04:32

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

nerdly_dood posted:

Hey you with the blue car chase, you got a trainer, you cheatin.

I used it for the weather and to spawn the car. :l

And to change it to that pretty blue. :ese:

# ¿ Apr 25, 2011 04:54

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

It is kinda weird that the GTA games never had a difficulty setting.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2011 05:41

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

At first I did feel bad the first few times that civilians got caught in crossfire because of the way they limp away from you. Then I saw this video, of someone testing executions on civilains in Godfather 2.

I mean, look at 1:43. I don't think I could bring myself to do that to anyone in the game that wasn't the biggest rear end in a top hat ever.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2011 21:00

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

So I started downloading new car models for the first time ever a few days ago. Changing car models was pretty easy, but I just left handling.dat alone.

A few cars are extremely top heavy using the stock numbers so today I tried using the recommended settings that came with the wrx sti that I downloaded.

I think I did something wrong, somewhere.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2011 21:54

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

http://gta.wikia.com/Cognoscenti

# ¿ May 6, 2011 00:17

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

You said mini-limo. :l

2003-present Lincoln Town Car

http://gta.wikia.com/Washington

Cage fucked around with this message at 00:27 on May 6, 2011

# ¿ May 6, 2011 00:24

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

csidle posted:

Yes. Great car for fast driving. Probably my favourite, although I prefer the Sultan XS over the stock. Are there no mods to remedy the car-spawn thing?

You mean Sultan RS, not XS.

There is a Sentinel XS, however. It's still just called a regular sentinel when you get inside though.

# ¿ May 6, 2011 01:15

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

I was going to take a picture of some of my car mods like the other goon but I just decided to make a video of one of my favorites.

Nissan 200SX

Linked because you should watch it in HD. :l

# ¿ May 7, 2011 06:07

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Lurchibles posted:

Mind you it doesn't exactly look BAD with everything on lowest settings. I just turned it down and it's still playable

The biggest performance hog is shadows. Unfortunately, they do make the game look better but I can get 5-10 fps more by turning them off. That and view/detail distance seem to be the big ones.

The next GTA game needs the classic "Graaand Theft Autoo" announcer when you first start the game. I still imagine it in my head whenever I play GTA4.

# ¿ May 9, 2011 22:42

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Also for the next game: No more social club. I wanted to have a game of MP but the social club website is undergoing maintenance, which means I cant log in which means I cant play online, even though I dont use any aspect of it besides logging in.

# ¿ May 12, 2011 18:18

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

I never noticed a difference between vanilla/episodes.

What exactly is so different?

# ¿ May 14, 2011 21:00

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Yeah, I knew the bikes were different but Ive been playing both games since launch and I havent noticed the driving being different.

# ¿ May 14, 2011 21:33

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Bullets dont travel forever, MP5 shoots farther than the UZI, and the M16 shoots farther than the AK-47. Aim for the head, it counts in this game. Dont bother with shotguns unless youre in really close combat.

When you duck or go behind cover your team colored dot above your head disappears for the other team, but comes back whenever youre standing or in a car.

I only play team mafiya work, not deathmatch so I don't really have any specific tips for you there.

# ¿ May 21, 2011 02:31

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Cliff Racer posted:

VC isn't that bad, but man is III ugly. Speaking of which, as someone who first played SA, then IV (did not finish but I feel like I'll start playing again soon,) III (did not finish) and lastly VC, I can't understand how someone could look back at the PC version of III and say it was a good game. Was it influential? Yes, highly so, but the models were godawful, the map terrible, the lack of running/climbing/swimming a bit ridiculous, the shotgun holding gangs ridiculous and there was that loving "whoa" animation whenever you failed to jump over something. Was I just loving up or was the PS2 version a lot less frustrating to control? It was certainly surprising to see how much better VC and SA were than the original, which makes me sad to have not gotten any real spin offs this generation.

It was the first one set in a 3D world with a new engine, at the time I remember thinking the graphics were amazing. Now that youve played games that Rockstar made after they got experience with the engine youve gotten spoiled, no big deal. I find it hard to play III or VC because of no mouselook while driving. Remember that III is 10 years old already.

# ¿ May 31, 2011 02:00

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

Mandrel posted:

That post makes me think we need to get together some sort of Goon presence in GTAIV. Admittedly, there's not much to do there except grief other players, but what the hell.

I've posted a lot about this in my GTA4 PC thread but if you guys haven't yet you need to play a game or two of "Team Mafiya Work" online. It's basically two or more teams fighting each other for missions, everyone gets a phonecall at the same time and you race to complete the mission first, killing the other team along the way. Most games will turn team blips on so that you can't see the other team on your radar and it's really a lot of fun. When I play too much and get bored Ill start getting creative with it, like taking a heli and parking it on a rooftop near the mission, where Ill protect _(camp) until my team gets there.

My GFWL tag is "cage xx". Feel free to send an invite.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2011 17:02

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 23:30

Cage: Jul 17, 2003; www.revivethedrive.org

I get 70fps if shadows are off, and about 35 when theyre on. That helps a lot.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2011 22:21

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