[Traveller]

I got the Ps3 disc. I wouldn't say the graphics are horrible, but they've certainly not blown me away.

The water effects are some of the nicest I've seen though.

[Silencer]

To be fair, the graphics look more or less like most videos of gameplay I've seen, at 720p. I just don't consider those to be 'good' graphics. Not particularly blocky or anything, but those aren't high resolution textures they're running, and the attempts to reduce that with the colour palette and saturation do not actually help. But people have been all "oooh" and "ahhh" all over the place and while I appreciate it *may* be higher-end for the consoles, especially in terms of open world games, it just doesn't...'pop', for lack of a better term. My standards were probably raised by all the praise (especially the comment about not needing next gen yet...if I could find where that one was posted, I'd downvote the crap out of it on whatever site it was, or complain to the author if it was in review), when I should have known that, more or less, it was never going to be above mid-level graphics compared to PC capabilities these days.

So, it's more to do with my expectations than anything else, which were unfairly high. Still kinda disappointing, tho'.

[Dolmen 2.0]

But is it this fun?



Honest question here.

[Silencer]

Honestly? No. Not in my opinion.

SRIV is completely over-the-top unrealistic crazy insane stupid fun.

GTAV is slower, more paced, subtle, and dare I say it, nuanced enjoyment. Compared to most other games it still throws you in a sandbox and lets you blow shit up for kicks, but it does actually have a deeper social commentary and narrative to share than SRIV does, which tends to be more obvious about the tropes or commentary it wants to use/make, and all that crap is completely secondary, if not irrelevant, for which the game wastes no time reminding you.

Heck, I think comparing the two is impeding my enjoyment of GTAV. They're only similar in bullet points of broad strokes, really. In practice they are quite different games and offer different experiences.


Less serious answer: Tentacle Bat. Dildo bat (giant, and purple). Abduction Gun. What sort of stupid mother fuckin' question is "is it this fun?", you dweeb? XD

[Dolmen 2.0]

Silencer, on 21 September 2013 - 01:01 PM, said:

Honestly? No. Not in my opinion.

SRIV is completely over-the-top unrealistic crazy insane stupid fun.

GTAV is slower, more paced, subtle, and dare I say it, nuanced enjoyment. Compared to most other games it still throws you in a sandbox and lets you blow shit up for kicks, but it does actually have a deeper social commentary and narrative to share than SRIV does, which tends to be more obvious about the tropes or commentary it wants to use/make, and all that crap is completely secondary, if not irrelevant, for which the game wastes no time reminding you.

Heck, I think comparing the two is impeding my enjoyment of GTAV. They're only similar in bullet points of broad strokes, really. In practice they are quite different games and offer different experiences.


Less serious answer: Tentacle Bat. Dildo bat (giant, and purple). Abduction Gun. What sort of stupid mother fuckin' question is "is it this fun?", you dweeb? XD

Too many people are singling GTAV as the better of the two games. SRIV might not be the grandest play but it is chockablock with the fun and ridiculous! I think about it and I struggle to find a reason why I'd buy GTA over SR. Reading your reply it does start to make a bit more sense. They really are using similar tools to build two very different gaming experiences.

Fair answer to fair question, not gonna hijack the thread. I may not be sold on the game but I appreciate hearing your take on it Silencer.

[Aptorian]

Silencer, on 21 September 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

The driving feels terrible. It's relatively easy, but it feels clunky and disconnected from the controller.
...
The aiming is similarly overly slow and...hrm...I guess 'awkward'? Not that I'm having trouble hitting things, but it just feels off, somehow.

I can't say I've noticed that the driving or shooting is a lot better or worse than in other games. It's just a competent third person driving/shooting system. Nothing particilarly fancy but not bad either.

I am somewhat disappointed by the shooting though, mainly because it doesn't seem as fun as it was in Max Payne, which GTAV borrows a lot from. I think it might simply be the AI that has a tendency to just run straight at you.

Silencer, on 21 September 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

Meanwhile the graphics are nothing short of disappointing. I've heard comments to the extent of "maybe we don't need next gen yet" about this game's graphics and, frankly, that is absurd. Now, it's been a long while, but I don't think this game is graphically particularly superior to GTAIV, or RDR (though RDR did not have as much to show on screen, granted).

I think that the praise being put on the graphics is solely meant to be compared to other console games. The PC has always been miles ahead.

I do think the game looks amazing. It's not so much how high the definition is or the quality of the textures. It's more the combination of lighting, color palette and design. It's what the game does with the cars and the characters. It's how snow and foliage and the sea looks. It just looks good. It looks right.

Silencer, on 21 September 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

Don't get me wrong. I'm still enjoying the game. But honestly it just doesn't feel stand-out, ten-out-of-ten kind of gaming.

I agree this is not a 10 out of 10 game. It isn't even a 5 out of 5 game in my opinion. I think it's a solid 4 out of 5. A really good open world/sand box third person adventure action game. It's really good but it isn't in any way revolutionary or particularly inventive. The only thing fresh it brings to the genre is the Heist missions. The rest has been seen and done in other GTA games, Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row.

But what it does is pretty fucking awesome. Wait until the game really starts going. When Trevor gets involved. When the big Heists and Special missions begin.

Silencer, on 21 September 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

But I have to feel that I cannot literally get away with murder - the ONLY time I see cops is when they become a never-ending stream of police in pursuit of me, or when they are part of one of those events I just mentioned. Other cars get pulled over for running a stop sign, I can speed from one side of the city to the other through every red light and stop sign, crash into a couple of cars, and pull out a gun and shoot someone, and the cops still never seem to notice.

I think it's pretty random. Some times I clip a car or pedestrian and the cops are right on me. Other times I shoot ten people and I don't hear anything. I think it might be intentional. While the cops and robbers gameplay is fun, people would get annoyed eventually if they were constantly forced to run from the cops.

EDIT: I haven't played Saints Row 4 yet but I can already say that I had more fun playing Saints Row 3 than I am having playing GTA V. Not because Saints Row is "better" than GTA, it's just more entertaining. The world is crazier, the characters even more ludicrous, the missions more bizarre. GTA is a really good action/crime/drama film. Saints Row is a wacky and fun cartoon. The two franchises do different things and each of them are better than the other at what they specialise in.

This post has been edited by Crustaceous Apt: 21 September 2013 - 05:46 PM

[Solidsnape]

Traveller, on 21 September 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

I got the Ps3 disc. I wouldn't say the graphics are horrible, but they've certainly not blown me away.

The water effects are some of the nicest I've seen though.

2nd this. Standing on the pier watching the waves roll as hypnotic as it is in RL.

This post has been edited by Solidsnape: 22 September 2013 - 02:11 AM

[Jakovasaurus]

Unlocked Trevor over the weekend. Man, this guy is right up my alley. He has the best clothing, haircut, and beard options. He's an all around badass and I laughed out loud when I did one of the pop up missions where you help someone. In this mission I drove a drugged/drunk couple back to their motel. On the trip to the motel the couple start having sex in the back seat. When Trevor drops them off at the motel, he gets out of the car and comments that it smells like a fishmongers in there.

Whenever I drive around with Trevor I keep the radio locked on the "Rebel Radio" channel, seems appropriate.

[Aptorian]

I drove those two up to the Cultists. Almost felt bad for them but the way I see it, Trevor is the horror movie Killer and the two lovers were the promiscuous teenagers who got what they deserved because they broke the teenage slasher rules.

Anyway, I finished the game.

Spoiler

I was disappointed with how they wrap the game up.

Just like GTA 4 the ending felt sloppy. You have this looong story arc of weird instances that slowly build towards a kind of climax but the way the game wraps up feels way too easy and it lacks a real punch.

If they could just kill the Feds and Billionaire that easily, then why the hell didn't they do this before?

I was surprised at just how "happy" the ending of the game was

This post has been edited by Crustaceous Apt: 23 September 2013 - 07:05 PM

[Jakovasaurus]

[Grimjazz]

Its really hard for me to not just jump on this game as soon as I get home from work, I have to ransom it so that I'll get some writing and chores done before playing, so naturally been playing very slowly. But finally last night I got to Trevor, what a character. I just love driving round the desert in a pick up truck listening to country and making road kill. So much fun.

[Traveller]

Yeah, I'm at the same point. I'd just tried for gold again on the jewel heist (52 seconds, bah) then I got to Trevor.

What an intro. I don't feel like it's out of character to randomly crash into people or flip out and punch them like I do with the other two.

I'd not made it to that part of the map yet, and it all looked suitably different from the city area. I also saw a biplane dusting crops... I need to find one of those..

This post has been edited by Traveller: 24 September 2013 - 11:55 AM

[Jakovasaurus]

Online went live today. I guess it's been pretty messy launch. Any of you gamers try it out yet?

[Aptorian]

I tried logging on yesterday morning and yesterday evening. I could create a character but the server wouldn't let me in.

Kind of funny really in a frustrating way. Everyone was arguing that Rockstar was going to get crushed by the massive influx of people on the first day and that is exactly what happened. I watched Giant Bombs live stream last night and only two of them could get online for a little while but they couldn't communicate.

I am going to try again this evening but I am not hopeful.

[Jakovasaurus]

I haven't tried to get online myself yet, hope to try this evening. I watched some of the online posted to YouTube by Rev3Games. I didn't watch too much of the video though. The character creation seems involved. It seems to get your character you have to create your lineage (grandparents and parents). And select their individual physical features if you want to take the time or just randomly create your grandparents/parents if you don't want to waste time on this aspect of the game. I read somewhere that you can choose John Marston (of RDR fame) as your grandfather.

[Aptorian]

Got in on my third try today. Then I got stuck in some glitch where my mission objective didn't show up. Then it worked, I won a race, started the next mission and I turned invisible and my HUD disappeared. The online stuff is really not doing well, I don't know if it's because they are under a big load or if there's something seriously wrong with the network code or what ever.

[Jakovasaurus]

Got in, created my character (my father is John Marsten). Then things went bad. Got picked up by the airport by Lamar then had a race against him. No other real players were in the race. I'm guessing this is the online play begins for everyone? Anyway, then when I received my xp points and was ready to continue, it just hangs on the transition sequence and that is it. I had my mic on and bitched that "this is too fucking slow". A kid heard me and said it is a 20 min wait (hurray!). So letting it sit on this to see what happens.

[Jakovasaurus]

Shut down everything, bounced my modem, turned everything back on. This time I got in. Not sure if restarting everything had an effect, but no loading screens this time. I'm able to play.

I had a fun session. Completed a mission where I had to pick up drugs (took for ever to stop the guy). After that, just free roamed trying to mess with other live players. Flipped a guy's car who was being chased by the cops, he got out and blasted me. I need to gear up before I "lone wolf" it and mess with other players. Anyway, I had a fun time. The verdict is out yet for me as it relates to whether GTA Online will be lasting, but so far I look forward to another session.

[Jakovasaurus]

Epicness occurs around 3:07 mark.

[Defiance]

What the hell was Rockstar thinking when they made GTAV's character creator? The heritage system is so mindbogglingly bad that I find it hard to believe it ever even made it into the development phase. And the worst part is you can't even get some decent looking parents/grandparents, so trying to create a good-looking character is absurdly difficult.

This post has been edited by Defiance: 06 October 2013 - 06:32 AM