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All you had to do was follow the drat train! Yeah, I've been there. I haven't attempted to play any vehicle missions on the mouse and keyboard since the RC helicopter mission in Vice City, but "Wrong Side of the Tracks" isn't easy with a controller either, at least until you figure out that you need to put a bit of distance between yourself and the train so Smoke can aim at the enemies instead of hitting the side of the train. I think my least favorite 3D GTA mission ever is the early mission in Vice City Stories where you need to use a forklift to save Phil's moonshine crates from a burning warehouse. You have a fixed camera angle that makes the controls all weird, and a ridiculously strict time limit with no margin for error. I ragequit the game for months.
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Apr 28, 2016 13:39
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Also goddamn flight school. I really should have gotten a controller but I was stubborn I guess. The finger contortions to fly a plane on keys are ridiculous. Still need to play the stories games, might replay the other 3D games now though. EDIT: Oh, didn't see this asked, planning on doing the DLC? InternetOfTwinks fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 03:28
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DLC is a "maybe" at this point. I'm not a huge fan of either one of the expansions, and GTA IV is such a long game that I'll probably have had enough of Liberty City by the time we get to the end of the main story and all the Stranger missions. We'll see what happens.
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Apr 29, 2016 12:56
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It's really interesting to compare the use of color between this and GTA5, you can definitely tell what kind of "feel" they were going for in both cases. It's almost like Rockstar went, "Oh yeah colors are rad!" in the next game.
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Apr 29, 2016 13:23
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They actually give you sliders for brightness, contrast and saturation in the options menu. I usually raise the saturation a bit so things look slightly more vibrant, but here I've got them all set to the default 50% because that's how the game was ~meant to be played~ or something. Also, I just finished recording a couple of hours of footage, but the recording seems to have messed up and the video looks all garbled when I drop it into Vegas.  This is what you get when you don't follow one of the golden rules of VLP (and video/audio editing in general): DO NOT CHANGE A SETUP THAT WORKS! I recorded in OBS, using x264 at a 24 MB/s bitrate to save on HDD space and CPU/GPU load compared to DXtory and Lagarith (in the end, you don't see much of a quality difference anyway when you're watching the final video on Youtube), but I must have messed up a setting somewhere.The good news for the LP is that I'm using multiple save slots so I can easily re-record the footage, and even better news is that I was only going to do side missions in this episode anyway. The episode will obviously be delayed a bit, but it's coming.
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Apr 29, 2016 17:58
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Stupid GTA wiki lying to me again, it says WAV files can be used with the Independence FM custom radio station but apparently it's just MP3, WMA and M4A. I thought I could just drop the radio stations from GTA III and GTA2 into the folder, but guess not. At least converting them is easy. I don't know how much I'll be using custom soundtracks, but it's nice to have the old stations in there anyway. Chatterbox FM remains the best talk radio station in the series, only VCPR gets close.
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May 3, 2016 23:35
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Doc Morbid posted:DLC is a "maybe" at this point. I'm not a huge fan of either one of the expansions, and GTA IV is such a long game that I'll probably have had enough of Liberty City by the time we get to the end of the main story and all the Stranger missions. We'll see what happens. Once again I am of the complete opposite opinion. I liked both dlc, not because they had a ton of content but because their tone was finally somewhat set and they actually let you buy stuff with your money again.
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May 4, 2016 00:55
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I dunno, I just never quite managed to get into TBoGT in particular. I enjoyed it and all, but I barely remember a thing about the storyline. Maybe I was having open world game fatigue when I played that. TLAD was pretty cool when it came out, but the story in that might be even more  than the main game, especially knowing what happens to The Lost later on.If there's interest, I suppose I can do the Episodes after the main game is done. I don't know if it'll be in this thread or if I take a break after this and come back with an Episodes from Liberty City thread. edit: well now here's a weird issue with Independence FM. I put GTA III's Flashback station in the custom music folder after converting it to MP3, and it plays fine except for the fact it loops back to the beginning at around 11:30 (start of "She's on Fire"). Wonder what the deal with that is, the GTA wikis and forums are as helpful as ever. I'll do some testing with other files and see how they work. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 01:27 on May 4, 2016 |
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May 4, 2016 01:14
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I'd definitely be down with seeing TLAD at least, but don't burn yourself out.
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May 4, 2016 07:54
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And here I thought it was Ballad of Gay Tony that was much more well-recieved
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May 5, 2016 00:58
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I never played the DLC, so it would be nice to see it.
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May 5, 2016 03:14
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The only thing I didn't like about TLAD was the loving motorbikes. Beyond that though I was on a big biker kick when it came out - Sons of Anarchy had just started, and I'd been reading Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson.
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May 5, 2016 04:18
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Skippy Granola posted:The only thing I didn't like about TLAD was the loving motorbikes. As for EFLC, I installed my Steam copy on this Windows 10 machine and nothing exploded yet, so technically everything should be okay (as much as anything involving GTA4 PC can be) for me to do the Episodes at some point. I played a bit of Ballad of Gay Tony for testing purposes, and really liked how colorful everything was. I guess they took out all the grey and brown filters, and it looks really nice. I guess I should also figure out some fun way to censor that one scene from TLAD. Maybe it's not necessary and Youtube doesn't mind dicks in videos (insert your own joke about popular youtubers), but I'd rather not test that. Anyway, episode 7 should be done soon enough. I had those technical problems earlier, and I've had to focus on work stuff in the last couple of days, but it's on the way.
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May 5, 2016 15:44
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I may be wrong on this, but I seem to remember reading somewhere they actually changed the handling controls for cars in TLAD in order to make them handle worse for Johnny, could be wrong though.
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May 6, 2016 06:53
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Doc Morbid posted:Maybe it's not necessary and Youtube doesn't mind dicks in videos (insert your own joke about popular youtubers), but I'd rather not test that. Youtube clearly allows dicks in videos, your channel hasn't been taken down yet! 
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May 6, 2016 08:05
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 Episode 07: Rush Rush (Side Missions #1) (Polsy) In this one, we take a small break from the main story to tackle some of the side jobs available to us at this point, mainly Little Jacob's drug running missions as those are the ones with the most action (I do complete Roman's taxi missions as well, but that was done mostly off camera and I only show the 10th and last fare in the video). We also finish off our first Stranger mission chain. I also worked on the OP a bit and added some nice banners to make things look slightly more professional.
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May 6, 2016 17:06
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Those drug running missions seem better than taxi fares but still incredibly boring. Good thing it looks like the reward is handy.
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May 8, 2016 00:38
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The drug running missions aren't that bad really, at least they let you engage in GTA's core gameplay (driving fast, escaping cops, shooting gangsters) whereas the taxi missions consist entirely of mindless tedium and the only entertainment comes from dumb AI traffic trying unsuccessfully to navigate toll booths (which, of course, didn't happen on this recording and I couldn't salvage anything from the previous session). Some of the timed runs are also very challenging, although I suppose they can be trivialized by hailing a taxi or using a decent car instead of driving the beater. I assumed the drugs were in the trunk or something, so I didn't even consider switching vehicles. Jacob's gun car is unlocked at 75% friendship, which you can reach by just hanging out with him and never doing his side missions, but I figured this was the less boring option.
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May 8, 2016 01:26
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I found this game to be a massively disappointing and dull slog with repetitive missions and terrible characters. I haven't touched it since I beat it so I'm curious to see what my thoughts will be 8 years later watching this. Also my least favorite GTA mission is I Need Your Clothes, Your Boots, and Your Motorcycle from this game Nut Bunnies fucked around with this message at 05:33 on May 8, 2016 |
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May 8, 2016 04:29
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Nut Bunnies posted:Also my least favorite GTA mission is I Need Your Clothes, Your Boots, and Your Motorcycle from this game Also, anything involving the driving school is awful. I'm good enough at GTA driving to win the second San Andreas countryside race without even scratching the car, but some of the gold challenges there require inhuman precision or a ton of luck, preferably both. I got them all eventually, though, because I'm not a busta. 
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May 8, 2016 05:57
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Guess who just finished recording two hours of footage after checking everything looked and sounded fine, only to find out when dropping the finished file into Vegas for editing that there's a problem with the audio stream and Vegas can't open it? The audio plays fine (albeit quietly) when I watch the video, so I don't know what the gently caress. EDIT: Oh, looks like DXtory had the audio format set to IEEE Float instead of PCM for some goddamn reason. I'm now trying to salvage it with the audio stream splitter or mess around with Audacity, but somehow I expect I'm going to have to record again if I want to get a file that my editing software understands. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 08:48 on May 8, 2016 |
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May 8, 2016 08:21
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Crisis averted, I managed to salvage the audio and convert it to PCM with Audacity, and now Vegas is playing nice again. Frankly, re-recording the footage would have been quicker (Audacity took almost three hours to import the audio from the recording), but there was some good stuff in there that I really wanted to keep, mostly to do with a certain song playing at such an appropriate moment and synced to the on-screen events so well that you might think it's scripted, and re-recording probably would have screwed that up.
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May 8, 2016 11:45
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San Andreas had some bad ones too. The entire Badlands section, the schools, the final mission, the mission where you have to kill Pulaski...
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May 8, 2016 15:54
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Supply Lines. It hasn't been particularly difficult since the original PS2 release where the fuel gauge was just a timer and you couldn't save fuel by gliding (which may or may not have been a glitch), but whoever programmed the RC Baron's controls is still a terrible person who hates you and everything you stand for.
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May 9, 2016 02:16
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At the very least Supply Lines was an optional side mission, unlike those
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May 10, 2016 01:36
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 Episode 08: Easy As Can Be (Polsy) This episode shows off GTA IV's weird identity crisis quite well. First, Niko has a massively bleak conversation with Faustin's wife about the horrible things he's seen and done, then he drives off in a truck full of explosives (I'm not sure if he's authorized to transport ADR Class 1 cargo, quite frankly) and finally goes to hang out with Brucie, who is completely over the top in everything he does and might as well be a character from a completely different game such as San Andreas or Saints Row 2 (and is also the best character). The video also shows some, uh, masterful driving on my part. Since I was too busy yammering on and on in this episode, I didn't get the chance to show off the awesome songs properly. So, here they are for your listening pleasure: Sisters of Mercy - Dominion/Mother Russia Electric Light Orchestra - Evil Woman And since I mentioned the first GTA IV trailer from 2007, here's that too. That is still a drat good trailer, Rockstar always knew how to make awesome ones. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 17:18 on May 11, 2016 |
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May 11, 2016 17:03
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Faustin's wife looks like a Doonesbury character. And that truck mission. Drive slowly and carefully, because that's fun. Don't go fast or drive recklessly like it's some kind of video game, because then you'll lose and have to start again.  And once again, Niko gives someone a totally unnecessary warning when he shows up to kill them, making the whole thing much more difficult.
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May 12, 2016 03:35
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That trailer brings back all the memories of being impossibly excited and then impossibly disappointed
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May 12, 2016 03:50
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Tiggum posted:And that truck mission. Drive slowly and carefully, because that's fun.  But yeah, that is not the most exciting mission. I know a lot of folks hated the trucking side missions in San Andreas for being stupid hard at times, but at least those had something going on (except the ones with the fragile cargo, which were just this without the explosive part). They could've at least given you a 1 or 2 star wanted level or sent Petrovic's goons at you or something, maybe bumping up the truck's durability just a bit in the process so it doesn't get frustrating. EDIT: Oh hey, the game does in fact tell you when the truck is about to blow up. That's what the tiny-rear end light (which I didn't even notice until it was pointed out) on the back of the truck is for! Maybe I should check some of this stuff beforehand... GTA wiki posted:There is a light on the back of the truck that indicates when the explosive is becoming unstable, followed by a speeding-up beep. Naturally, the game never tells you this until you hit something. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 06:14 on May 12, 2016 |
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May 12, 2016 05:52
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Calling the police is actually quite useful during missions with a lot of enemies out on the street. The policeman will roll up, get killed, and start a wanted rating for those fuckers that will eventually result in them getting (mostly) wiped out. I actually completed a few vigilante missions in the most law-abiding way possible, by calling the cops.
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May 12, 2016 12:00
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Oh yes, absolutely. I plan to show it off in one particular mission that gave me a shitton of trouble back in the day. I don't think I've ever called the ambulance, though.
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May 12, 2016 12:04
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Good god Brucie would annoy the poo poo out of me if he was more prevalent in this game.
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May 13, 2016 01:20
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I always liked Brucie but he definitely seems like a character who wouldn't be nearly the most remembered in other GTA games. He just happens to be the goofiest in a game that otherwise plays it very grim and straight
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May 15, 2016 20:19
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 Episode 09: The Lowest Point (Polsy) Everything goes wrong for the Bellics. --- MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS FROM EPISODE: Kino - Gruppa krovi Philip Glass - Pruit Igoe (1998 version) Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene Part 4 DMorbid fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Jun 19, 2016 |
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May 23, 2016 20:04
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Good update. One of the things I think they could have done better was to make you feel more of a connection to Dimitri. When he turns on you, I didn't really care because I didnt really care about Dimitri. I suppose Niko didnt either, but it just felt like a giant THE DIFFICULTY WILL NOW INCREASE signal.
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May 24, 2016 17:51
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Speaking of increased difficulty, one slightly underwhelming thing about Dimitri's betrayal is that even though the game portrays it as a big deal and you have to flee for your life and all that, there's absolutely no punishment for going back to Hove Beach aside from the safehouse being unavailable. I don't particularly miss the days of GTA III where you'd get utterly destroyed by shotgun-wielding mafia goons if you ever headed back to their turf after whacking Don Salvatore, but something would've been nice. Just have a couple of Russian gang members take potshots at Niko on occasion, like the Ballas or Vagos in San Andreas would attack CJ whenever they saw him. Not a huge threat by any means, but at least you get the idea that it might be dangerous to hang around. Pissing off gangs and having them shoot at you when you drive through their area has been a mechanic since GTA2, so I don't know why Rockstar didn't do it here. [e] Oh yeah, here's the music we heard during "Roman's Sorrow": Philip Glass - Pruit Igoe (1998 version) Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene Part 4 DMorbid fucked around with this message at 19:50 on May 24, 2016 |
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May 24, 2016 19:24
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It's especially strange considering that there's still gangs around in the projects that you can provoke firefights with, as well as random pedestrians who're wuite often be packing and are only too happy to play hero when you go on a killing spree. The open world in between missions has crazy amounts of reactivity in some respects, but it's like all these systems and levels of simulation it's got going on just don't interact with each other at all. I honestly don't think Rockstar know what they're doing with an open game world and they would much rather be making a nice, linear Heat or Goodfellas video game tie-in.
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May 25, 2016 16:05
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TomViolence posted:It's especially strange considering that there's still gangs around in the projects that you can provoke firefights with, as well as random pedestrians who're wuite often be packing and are only too happy to play hero when you go on a killing spree. The open world in between missions has crazy amounts of reactivity in some respects, but it's like all these systems and levels of simulation it's got going on just don't interact with each other at all. I honestly don't think Rockstar know what they're doing with an open game world and they would much rather be making a nice, linear Heat or Goodfellas video game tie-in. That would be quite ironic.
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May 25, 2016 18:14
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That's a little harsh since they seemed to learn their lesson with subsequent games. Red Dead Redemption had a great open world that felt more alive than GTA4 despite being almost completely barren, and GTAV took it further.
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May 29, 2016 19:03
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Red Dead Redemption didn't only have a great open world but was also really good at rewarding you for doing the side stuff in that open world, giving you cool new weapons and outfits and other useful things much like San Andreas did. I kinda missed that in GTA V, where you'd generally just get some paltry sum of money and the satisfaction, I guess, of knowing you're 0.2% closer to hundred-percent completion. RDR remains the only open world game I have ever 100%'d, although I might actually pull it off in San Andreas on my current playthrough. You know what San Andreas gives you for 100%? A tank and a VTOL in your backyard, as well as infinite ammo for all your guns and extra durability for all vehicles. 
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May 29, 2016 22:31
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