Grand Theft Auto IV

[Crizzle]

I've been a fan of the GTA franchise since the very beginning and I was starting to lose my excitement for the new game...until the 3rd trailer was released last week. All the excitement and love for the series was rekindled and now I'm all hyped up to get my hands on this game. If you haven't already seen it, check out the trailer:

Click Here

Any other GTA fans on here? And if so, what are your thoughts on the upcoming game?

[Derek]

I love GTA, so I'm excited about this one.  It's hard to tell how much of the new trailer is cutscenes and how much is the actual game, unfortunately, but it looks great all around.

One thing I'm really hoping they improve on is the missions... in the past games they've been way too strict about how you go about completing the missions.  And then there were always a handful of really irritating ones that were just no fun.

But yeah, I'm really excited about it overall!

[Mandrake42]

I love these games too, and I must admit, linearity of missions was a problem for me in San Andreas. I got stuck on the mission where you had to intercept the plane full of Hitmen. Fortunately the fact that by that stage so much of the game world was open to you It wasn't so bad. I've never actually solved the story to any of the GTA games since the release of GTA 3. Mostly I just go crazy in the  free form world and just drive around stealing cars and causing mayhem. I'm sure good old Jack Thopson is reading this going "Wahaha, see what I mean". You know, Jack, I realise its just a game. Thats what makes it fun. Adults can tell the difference.

[Crizzle]

I'm thinking that Rockstar Games is really aiming to have a living-breathing dynamic city this time around so hopefully with that they'll include more dynamic mission structures. Either way it's going to be an amazing game and that's for sure, Rockstar doesn't disappoint.

[PHeMoX]

Rockstar doesn't disappoint most of the time, but I didn't like San Andreas very much at all. I think that GTA is overrated, but I'm glad GTAIV is going to be more like GTAIII but more "realistic" and with an awesome main character style. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

[Crizzle]

I would agree that GTA is overrated but it's only because the awesomeness of GTAIII has carried that hype. The Grand Theft Auto franchise has always been innovative and with GTAIII I'd even say revolutionary. Obviously the concept of an open world has been done to  death with all the GTA copycats and even more with developers trying to FORCE open world gameplay into every single game. With that said, I definitely think GTAIV will bring something new to the table and will likely push the industry to make open world games that are really well developed with attention to detail being key.

[PHeMoX]

Oops, I meant to say GTA:SA was overrated. I loved the first and second GTA a LOT. GTA III wasn't bad in that it was something never done before ( for the most part, just think of Interstate '82 )  and therefore pretty brilliant, but I probably like GTA: Vice city best of the 3D versions.

The GTA clones out there usually are horrible indeed, eventhough I liked Driver: Parallel Lines quite a bit.

edit: edited some more.

[Crizzle]

Oh for sure, the originals were awesome, quite possibly two of my favourite games. I enjoyed GTA:SA quite a bit but I agree that it may have been a bit overrated. I think they bit off a bit more than they could chew with that one. It was one of the biggest maps in any open world game, but there was a lot of empty space even though they really did try to fill it all in.

[PHeMoX]

Yeah, I've done some thinking, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly what made GTA:San Andreas not as brilliant as I had hoped for. Perhaps it was too much of a 'been there done that' experience or something.

The big world is still impressive and there's a lot to do (120+ hours of gameplay I heard? haven't spend that much time with it though).

[Crizzle]

I suppose that part of the series was winding down. Also, the whole "gangsta-rap" type theme may not appeal to everyone. I think with GTAIV we'll be starting fresh. It'll still be Liberty City with that GTA feel, but like I said before, I think Rockstar Games is really going for a living breathing city this time.

[tiamax]

GTA:SA was a joke. I have nothing against blacks, but for how gansta it was, I just had to roll my eyes, having been surrounded all day by such puerile language by people who can't seem to pass economic class, whether they're black white or green. Other than that, I enjoyed how open-ended the game had grown to be. The easter eggs were almost choking by how many other things you could do, and the quests made me want to put the CD for the game in the microwave.

It looks like in GTA IV though, that they're still learning fast just as they had from GTA III to the next one, to the next. Kudos for Rockstar.

[Mandrake42]

Back when I was younger, and me and my friends were all single and childless, and getting together for a drunken LAN party was actually a realistic option, we would always end up on the early top down GTA's because they were such hilarious random fun multiplayer (Not to mention GTA 3 wasn't even a rumour). Besides, cruising around causing auto mayhem was a nice change  after an evening of FPS or RTS depending on the nights theme. I still have fond memories of being on foot with a bazooka and taking out all of my vehicle bound friends. It was hilarious for the 2 minutes before I became tire smeared roadkill

[tiamax]

I'm still in those days, and will be for a while. It's rather hysterical, going from FEAR multiplayer, or even NWN multi at a lan, then going WAY back to Quake 3 or 2 and running around like mad idiots. I didn't even know that the earlier GTA games had a multiplayer option! Rockstar has turned GTA 1 and 2 into freeware, so I'll have to download it and check it out, but this week we're doing another LAN, I'll definitely make everyone at least try a round or three