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166 Comments
- PacoDG, on 10/12/2007, -8/+132Wow, the first GTAIV Digg post I have seen in the past day that has actually been worth reading and not been a dupe. Thanks (honestly!)
- Twoodge, on 10/12/2007, -24/+96@ DBiz
I dugg you up. Off topic rant ahead: Digg users often bury people's comments because they have an opinion which they moderately disagree with. I think that's a bit silly. I think people should be buried / dugg up for their level of helpfulness, support for their opinion and general courtesy, and not because they give their honest view on something as trivial as a game.
Right. Bury me to hell and back! - DBiz, on 10/12/2007, -39/+101Digg me down if you must, but I just am rather tired of the current GTA formula we have.
I also didn't see any gameplay, which really will make or break this game for me.
We've essentially been playing the same game in a new place for the past 6 years, and it's starting to get stale in my opinion. With a new console and a new generation of GTA games, I hope for new ways to play GTA. - PacoDG, on 10/12/2007, -5/+63What I want to know is why you would watch such a god awful show.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+59The game looks a hell of a lot more realistic than ever before, with much larger environments that FINALLY make you feel like you're in a bustling city. Going ape-***** crazy on THESE streets will more than satisfy my desire for a "new" GTA experience.
Anyway, I thought all the GTA games thus far have been sufficiently different, and I see great improvements in all of them. Starting with GTAIII, we got our first generic, open-ended 3D "city" (it felt very small, but it was a start). Then we had Vice City, and the 80s style just oozed all over the place, making it even more entertaining. After that we hit San Andreas, where the game world expanded vastly, and there was now so much more variety in locations and mission types.
If GTAIV matches the scope and variety of San Andreas, but brings in these amazingly detailed and life-like environments to make it feel more city-like, I'll be more than satisfied. But I'm sure Rockstar will manage to give us even more than that. They have outdone themselves each time before, and I'm sure they'll do it again. - Zaxx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+40You are missing the point of the GTA series. Despite all the hooker killing fun, the game does not take itself seriously.
The humor would be lost if the advertisements were for Coke, Nike rather then the great names within.
I still love playing any GTA and listening to the talk radio, man that crap never gets old... - Exhaust, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36@DBiz
With a tag line like "Things will be different" I'm sure it won't be the same old thing we've seen. Rockstar knows next-gen means more than better graphics. - pilot3033, on 10/12/2007, -2/+37Should be interesting.
I'm also happy with Liberty's face lift. All the places in the trailer have real world NYC counterparts it seems. And they are re-created in stunning detail. The shots of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge (with Roosevelt Island Cable Car), Times Sq, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty etc.
these 7months are going to suck. - PacoDG, on 10/12/2007, -4/+36Id like to bone Rachel Ray, but I don't go watching her show.
- Cooldrew, on 10/12/2007, -2/+32Wow! I never noticed the Travel to Vice City sign before. Glad to see some folks who aren't just drooling over the trailer, but instead poring over it with a fine-tooth comb.
- jamesong, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31@ pacodg
"Id like to bone Rachel Ray....."
well, for 40$ a day, you can! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28omgwtfroflmaox2:
The amount of ignorance you're spewing is heart-wrenching, as is your unwavering opinion that you're somehow more knowledgeable on the topic than everyone around you. It reminds me of Bill O'Reilly, in fact.
Look, for a game of this SCOPE, you really can't do better graphics on the consoles we have. This is just MASSIVE amounts of texture and architecture, stretching for many (in-game) miles in every direction. This is a limitation of this design choice.
Are there better-looking games out there? Sure. If you're looking for photo-realistic recreations of cities, for example, you have Project Gotham Racing 3 on the Xbox 360. However, the reason that game looks as good as it does is because it's a racing game, and so the only textures and graphical data that needs to be loaded is only what you'd be able to see on a particular race track. Another game is Gears of War, but I don't remember having an ability in that game to freely walk around 100 square miles of detailed terrain. You clearly don't understand why this limitation exists.
As f or what's in the game... Rockstar is 7 months away from release. Did you not realize this? Yes, much of the game is finalized (specifically the single player quest/story, geography, and numerous technical things), but I'd be really surprised if they've even begun the Quality Assurance phase on the project yet. And it's not too late to develop new visual effects and other tricks to put in, which I don't think is necessary seeing as how this is the most detailed game of this SCOPE that we have (even looks better than Saints Row, which I thought looked phenomenal as it is).
So, just stop, ok? You know not what you spew. - Nobi-Wan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29Have you heard? The game isn't done yet.
- Bitaemo, on 10/12/2007, -8/+29Please please please Rockstar...
A PC Version.
Ill give you all my marbles. - m4szyman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21@omgwtfroflmaox2
I thought the graphics looked amazing, what were you expecting it to look like? Gears of War? Look at how many cars and people there were on screen at the same time, all with their own AI, real time lighting and physics. I thought it looked way better than hl2 and unlike hl2 (where the maps are very small) you cant have loading screens every 5 minutes. When you have so much going on at once certain areas of the game are gonna suffer and I would rather have 50 decent looking character models on the screen at once instead of 4 or 5 detailed character models using up all the processing power - drewskiMD, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Although less important to gameplay, I noticed that they copied the Hoboken, NJ Ferry Terminal when they created the Liberty Ferry Terminal. See the comparison to a photo I took last year.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7581806@N04/439730813/ - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23But will I be able to pee on people?
In Postal 2 you could :) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Its their way of saying, it isn't real, its just a game, don't really go to new york and start killing people
- yournamehere, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18and we care it's your 200th because???
- latova, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17If you saw the trailer, you probaly saw one of the buildings with the slogan "Getalife". I've always admired rockstar's ability to put the most random things in a serious setting.
- EvilFerret, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I *really* hope cars/people don't disappear when you lose sight of them as they did in the previous games. LOL So many times I remember running around on foot trying to do something, then a crazy driver runs you over.... By the time you jacked a car to chase him down and get your revenge, he was already gone :(
- Mazz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16That would be nice, but not in GTA. Half the fun of GTA is the ridiculous radio, ads, and people that mock the real life media. Its one of the many things that was missing from the god awful Saints Row.
- PacoDG, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18Wasn't this game going to be using the 'RAGE' engine that was used in Rockstar's Table Tennis. It had pretty good graphics. I do however, hope the game would use ragdoll physics, which doesn't work for all game types, but for GTA, it just fits.
- creep303, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Counter-point'd!
Ouch. - RoroCo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Folks... All bare witness to the kind of person Sony advertising works on!!! Come one come all... but leave your children at home because this kind of stupidity may be contagious to young ones.
- GreenPlastik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14What I wouldn't mind seeing is a reputation system. Where your character starts getting street rep. Citizens may know you and react to you. Story line changes depending on what your rep is. The ol' Sheriff Badge police is chasing you system is neat and all, but if they are the only people that know you just blew up a minimart, does it really matter once you outrun them.
I think it would be cool to have citizens talk to you and be like.. "Did you hear about that guy who blew up the minimart? I would have loved to give him a piece of my mind" And then you give him a piece of his mind (with a baseball bat). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18wonder if they will have kids or pets in this one
thats one thing that makes the game seem unrealistic ;), i dont mean to be sick, but no kids or pets? - yournamehere, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14i'll pee on you.. and then i'll kick you in the nuts. we can call it the 'extended' version.
- Exhaust, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14@xisupermanix
ATOS didn't show it first... The trailor was released 3pm PST or 6pm EST where i'm at. ATOS comes on at 7pm EST. - NickyBatts, on 10/12/2007, -11/+24@martinj88
I so agree...
But I dunno, maybe it's because I am one of those dreaded "casual gamers", and I am sick in the head, but I love just cruising around killing people and beating hookers. If that got boring I could actually try to complete a mission, but rarely did it ever come to that. I don't know what it was, but those games are addictive as hell. They have always been more relevant to me than running around some fairy tale land fighting dwarfs and elves.
*shrugs*
Who knows... - PacoDG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12As long as they remain humorous, I like their fake ads. I do not like the changing ads in Crackdown (unless they somehow pass the ad revenue on to the consumer in the form of a cheaper game and/or free extra maps/missions). I loved the real places in Crazy Taxi. Im so torn.
- shit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12>> """If GTA IV is the same "tried and true" formula that the last 4 games have been then it will get old quick."""
The last 4 games (Vice City, San Andreas, LCS, VCS) were derivatives of GTA3, which was a major leap from GTA2.
I'm assuming GTA4 will be a major leap from GTA3. - gardnmi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14How awesome would it be if they put some kind of "crackdown" cheat in the game that makes you superhuman just so you could tinker around with it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12a lot of people thought it was New York, which any long time GTA fan would know, doesn't exist
- Bokista, on 10/12/2007, -8/+19Title should have been "GTAV IV Trailer - 5 pretty obvious things, 3 things you probably didn't pay attention to, and 2 random things you didn't see."
- silverwolfe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Good article, worthy of dugg.
However, the trailer didn't wow me. The city-scape was gorgeous, but we've seen many games now with beautiful cities. I'll probably be more interested when we get some actual gameplay trailers out in the wild. It's a nice cinematic trailer, but it alone isn't telling me enough to sell me this game. - Gizza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10It'll come. Probably 6-12months down the track, but it'll come. It always does. With improved graphics too. But usually botched controls.
- nklnch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"the plethora of fake adverts available for glimpse in the video, including upcoming flick 'Top Hooker'"
If you look closely it says "America's Next Top Hooker" which is parodying the TV show "America's Next Top Model" - enforcerpsu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11What did you say Pai??
That made 0 (zero) sense. They got to you didn't they...damnit...WHY!!!!! If we act fast we can still pull the Sony rootkit out of your spinal cord. It will hurt, but it must be done if you wish to live! - pabloD, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13@ latova: Um... the 'Getalife' building is clearly a take on the MetLife building in Manhattan. . . not random at all.
On that note, I could buy that it's Liberty City, except for that shot of the Statue of Liberty. . . plus the Empire State bldg, the MetLife bldg, the Flatiron bldg, the Chrysler bldg, and of course the Brooklyn Bridge. As a New Yorker, it totally felt like NYC to me. In addition, they're bringing in the Eastern Europeans/Russians, so I could see Coney Island and Brighton Beach making an appearance. I know that LC is supposed to be NYC-like anyway, but this feels way too much like the real thing... which would be frakkin' awesome. - PaladiNSX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+102 reasons:
1. I enjoy the leeway they're allowed to have with fake brands. cluckin bell (kfc+taco bell...genius!) It gives them the freedom to design and create whatever they want, and not be bound to "we need a McD's add, x pixels by y pixels, and it needs to be this bright"
2. With all of the Public Image problems video games have been getting in the last few years (due largely in part to THIS series) I don't think they want things to be too realistic. The ability to go postal in the middle of times square is likely going to really cause problems once this game comes out.
//$.02 - chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10in GTA3 they had signs all over the place about Vice City but you could never go there.
- martinj88, on 10/12/2007, -16/+25personally I think GTA hit its peek with Vice City, it felt soo right, the music, cars and atmosphere.
Hopefully it will make a comeback with GTA IV. - GreenPlastik, on 10/12/2007, -13/+22Is it just me or is anyone else surprised that the ads in these games are still fake. I mean back in the day video game companies had to pay licensing agents to get companies like Nike into their games. Now the shoe is on the other foot (pardon the pun).
I know, I know. So many of you will yell and scream at me for suggesting that game companies should get to use their games as virtual billboards and gain financial benefit at our expense without passing the savings down. To me it's just a matter of realism. They do use music from the real world on the radio stations; why not real world ads? real world weather? real world news crawlers on times square and the radio stations?
Wouldn't these companies want to bring the real world to the game in a way that gives gamers the ability to begin straddling the line between the two worlds they so readily inhabit?
Just saying... - aknowles5139, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I wonder if they put that new Apple store in.... it would love to run a car into that be block in glass...
- MannyHills, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@pilot3033, That would be the Queensboro Bridge that the Roosevelt Island Tramway is next to, not the Manhattan Bridge.
- glucoseboy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14he internet was grinded to a halt last night by the arrival of the first massive trailer of this year's biggest game, the legendary fourth instalment of Grand Theft Auto IV. Hit this link and download it now, in case you've just woken up.
After pushing our office hours to the very limit and wrestling with old Captain Bandwidth to get at the biggest video size possible, we've dissected to the GTA IV trailer thoroughly and picked out all of its little secrets you may have missed the first time around.
So magnifying glass in hand, here's what we've discovered...
It's Liberty City!
Despite internet reports claiming otherwise, GTA IV is indeed set (at least partially) in Liberty City - or more likely Liberty State, the area beyond Liberty City. If you're still not convinced, you can see the words 'Liberty City' plastered on a docked tanker in the trailer, a ferry and of course there's also a glimpse of the 'LCPD' patrolling the GTA IV streets.
As you can see from the comparison screenshots at the bottom of the page, the layout of GTA IV's Liberty City seems to resemble we remember from the PS2 - though obviously there's a whole lot of extra detail washed onto the streets.
As for what's beyond the walls of the famous GTA III locale, the trailer confirms GTA versions of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and a fun park including rollercoaster, which were all missing from the PS2 instalment.
The time setting
While there's already plenty of debate over what time setting the next game takes place in, there are plenty of cues in the trailer to suggest a modern day setting for GTA IV.
The vehicles in the trailer all look pretty 2007 to us - including a BMW look-a-like and a sports car that has a very post-2000 design. There are also plenty of advertisements plastered around Liberty City that also cropped-up in the 90s-set GTA III, including Burger Shot and Cluckin' Bell.
Is that really the main Character?
The narrator in the trailer is a Russian character whose background seems to revolve around murder, smuggling and erm, selling people. The internet is already shouting from the electronic rooftops that this Eastern European chap will be the main protagonist in GTA IV, but really the trailer confirms nothing of the sort.
What it does confirms is that the story will somehow bring Eastern Europeans into the equations, which leads us to wonder what's happened to the Leone kingpins from GTA III.
Hit the water
Multiple-viewings make the GTA IV trailer's emphasis on water-based travel even more apparent; there are shots of bridges, ferry ports, a dock and some of the prettiest water effects we've seen to date in a sandbox game.
A realistically floating buoy 16 seconds in seems to suggest dynamic water physics for the fourth instalment, and of course you can see the gorgeous refraction effects later on in the trailer. A spot of boating for GTA IV seems a near-cert then, but - for as much as we hope - we just can't see jet-skiing going down in the Liberty City harbour.
Cast Your RAGE
As has always been heavily assumed, the next GTA ditches Renderware to make use of the graphically-spectacular Table Tennis RAGE engine (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine).
The confirmation comes from a Rockstar representative who told Gamespot: "We can confirm that all footage in the trailer was captured directly from 720p gameplay running real time in our Rage engine on a next-gen gaming console."
And the engine seems to be working well for the series - as you can see from the trailer tech-wise GTA IV is looking very impressive.
Super Pedestrian
We're expecting lots of advancements in how realistically the inhabitants of Liberty City live and work, but already there are a number of improvements on show in the short teaser.
At the beginning of the video you can see that the driver of the blue sports car is adjusting his rear-view mirror - a very nice touch indeed that we would never have seen working on the PS2. The pedestrians on the streets also have fully-modelled faces and carry groceries and books, which certainly adds a more realistic vibe to surroundings that the aimlessly-walking residents in GTA III.
The funny is back!
Oldschool movie buffs will recognize the spoof reference in the GTA IV trailer straight away; the music is from Francis Ford Coppola's Koyaanisqatsi, a dialogue-less documentary film from the early eighties that mixed landscape footage with a rolling soundtrack. The music, in case your wondering, is a piece from minimalist composer Philip Glass, who created the music for Koyaanisqatsi.
Further proving that GTA hasn't lost it's trademark humour are the plethora of fake adverts available for glimpse in the video, including upcoming flick "Top Hooker" and "Sprunk", a beverage we probably won't picking up on the next trip round Tesco.
You can checkout the Koyaanisqatsi trailer here. Anyone for a cool glass of "Piswasser"?
Visit Vice City!
Keen-eyed viewers with seriously-ninja Photoshop skills will notice an interesting in-game ad five seconds into the trailer. On the top left of the shot just above the wall is a sign that says "Visit Vice City - $300", leading many internet forums to explode with messages of "OMG!!11 MULTIPLE CITIEZ IN GTAIV!1"
So yeah, we might be getting a tiny bit ahead of ourselves taking this tiniest of glimpses as evidence that GTA IV will contain multiple, country-wide locals, but what would be more next-gen than a trip to all three cities that we've explored so vigorously on PS2? Having said that, would Vice City even look like Vice City in a modern day setting?
Doc Oc attacks!
Another one for the eagle-eyed among us is the brief glimpse of a cable car travelling behind a bridge 30 seconds in to the trailer, leading us to fantasise over the Spider-Man-style mischief we could have jumping around fighting an imaginary Doctor Octopus.
Having said that, we're hoping Spidey's influence stretches all over GTA IV; we just can't look at that massive Crysler building without planning a Crackdown-style route up to the top, and it would be an absolute crime if we can't base-jump from one of those skyscrapers.
Clever birds
Going from the trailer, we can see that the birds and pigeons in GTA IV are detailed and have some sort of behaviour system going on - which should please virtual game hunters everywhere.
In one scene you can see a seagull flying underneath a bridge, and in another we get a glimpse of two pigeons sitting on a statue. Will we be able to chase those dirty flying-rats through the streets? Pick them out of the skies with high-calibre rifles? At this point we'd bet money on it. (CVG doesn't condone the harming of pigeons).
Thanks to GTAForums.com for comparison shots (that have been stripped from the trailer). If you want to see the better quality shots, hit this link.
See anything we may have missed? Let the world know below - Exhaust, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11@omgwtfroflmaox2
It doesn't take 7 months to "manual creation, printing of game discs, boxing of the game, shipping details,etc. to be worked out"
Games normally go gold like a month before release.
You just want to talk smack about the game for whatever reason. The graphics look great. It's not Crysis or anything but its next gen. ilyag is exactly right on this one. - motherwell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7If Spiderman makes an appearance I hope we get to blow him away with a rocket launcher.
- dvgraphics, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Good old Roosevelt Island Tram....I was really excited when I saw that in the trailer, I hope it can be "used" in game play. As far as this article goes, he erroneously mentions Doc Oc....It was the Goblin who messed with the tram, not Oc.
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