The OAO Grand Theft Auto IV Thread

[CQI13]

about the comedians...

Spoiler: Click here to view

Patrice O'Neal is extremely funny. I wonder if it will be new material or stuff from his website...KKK brand clothing was funny

[Anderson]

I might just wait untill next month and pick it up then after reading about how good it is.

[King Ellis]

Social Club is live! GOGOGO

https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/swf/index.html

From the Help FAQ:

How will my gameplay statistics be downloaded to the Rockstar Games Social Club?

When the Rockstar Games Social Club officially opens on April 29th with the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, you will be able to link your Xbox Live Gamertag or your PLAYSTATION®Network Sign-In ID.

I guess we wait till we can link our tags.

Edited April 18, 2008 by Ellis Misses Benji

[abundant]

In other great news, the games finally gone Gold!! Massive shipments begin next week.

[Dr. Rated-R]

So is anybody else about to die from anticipation? >_<

For the first time in my life I've actually wrote something on a calendar and started X'ing away the dates until I get to it. I don't think I've ever been so excited about a video game, and it's happening just in time. Having an Xbox 360 and not sucking the almighty dick of Halo or any other FPS (except Fear ) is hard, hard work.

[Media 2.0]

So is anybody else about to die from anticipation? >_<

For the first time in my life I've actually wrote something on a calendar and started X'ing away the dates until I get to it. I don't think I've ever been so excited about a video game, and it's happening just in time. Having an Xbox 360 and not sucking the almighty dick of Halo or any other FPS (except Fear ) is hard, hard work.

Same here. Not exactly marking X's but I'm definitely counting down the games. And it's coming right before the start of summer? Are you kidding me? I can tell now, at the least my first month of summer will probably be me curled up in front of my HDTV back home playing GTA.

I've also been replaying both Saint's Row (Finally got 100% the other day!) and San Andreas recently. And playing those two together, I realized just how much Saint's Row improved upon. (The driving is much better, which I didn't realize until going back to GTA, and of course the targeting system is better) And if IV improves upon what they did...wow. Definitely can't wait for this game to come out. Lazy summer for sure.

[Ruki]

So, we can't do anything on the Social Club yet, right? Or am I missing something?

Also....what exactly does it mean when a game goes gold? I keep hearing it, but I never know what it means...

[abundant]

Lazlow was on Opie and Anthony today and he brought GTA IV. Some tidbits from the show;

-The cast of Opie and Anthony did voices for certain characters.

-if you get shot in the leg you will be limping

-every news sight from the Internet to the radio will be reporting on all the crimes you've committed,

-there are over 100 radio commercials

-the first 20 missions are tutorial missions

Also....what exactly does it mean when a game goes gold? I keep hearing it, but I never know what it means...

It means that the game is finished and has been mass produced.

Edited April 18, 2008 by abundant

[Kaney]

So, we can't do anything on the Social Club yet, right? Or am I missing something?

Also....what exactly does it mean when a game goes gold? I keep hearing it, but I never know what it means...

Means the game is finished, everything has been completed and it's ready to ship.

[Ruki]

Awesome, thanks guys.

-if you get shot in the leg you will be limping

-every news sight from the Internet to the radio will be reporting on all the crimes you've committed,

-there are over 100 radio commercials

Woo! 11 DAYS!

[apsham]

Ugh, I can't decide if I like the little details or the big changes more.

[therockbox]

'GTA IV' release to provoke mass 'sickie'

Thursday, April 17 2008, 09:19 BST

By David Gibbon, Gaming Reporter

'GTA IV' release to provoke mass 'sickie'

A games industry expert has sent a warning to UK businesses as the country prepares for the launch of the biggest video game release of the year.

James Binns, a publishing director from Future, claims the release of Grand Theft Auto IV on April 29 will provoke a "never-before-seen wave of absenteeism".

The magazine chief, describing the phenomenon as GTA IV flu, said he believes thousands of gamers will fake illness to play the game, adding they will join the legion of gamers who have already booked a legitimate day off to enjoy the game.

“Having worked in the games industry for 15 years, I’ve never witnessed anything like the hysteria building around GTA IV," said Binns.

"This game series has become culturally significant and a new chapter is a major global event, as important as a new Harry Potter novel. Gamers want to be the first to experience GTA IV and don’t want anything to spoil their enjoyment. Businesses need to be prepared for the array of excuses and 24-hour ailments that will hit their workforce as GTA flu grips the UK.”

Grass

[LL!]

It's a great thing that my boss nor my co-workers have any idea about this game.

[Ruki]

This is why they should release it on the weekend, like they do Dragon Quest in Japan.

And by the weekend, I mean this weekend, or the next....whichever would bring it here sooner.

[King Ellis]

Who realeases games on a Tuesday anyway? A Tuesday! Come on!

[abundant]

Here are the characters being played by the cast of Opie and Anthony:

Spoiler: Click here to view

Anthony - 40yr old mobster being sent down. Can be found at the strip club called Honkers (?)

Opie - Irish American Thug. 24yr old. Wants to be big and and feels no one takes him seriously.

Than - Doctor. Blames health problems on lifestyles.

Danny - Depressed Hipster. Worried about Terrorism and Chinese People.

Steve - Fat Middle Aged Cop. John Goodman type. Loves Burgers.

Jimmy - Porn Shop Worker.

Bob Kelly - Mob Guy.

Edited April 18, 2008 by abundant

[Vilge Duin]

Also....what exactly does it mean when a game goes gold? I keep hearing it, but I never know what it means...

It means that the game is finished and has been mass produced.

So, we can't do anything on the Social Club yet, right? Or am I missing something?

Also....what exactly does it mean when a game goes gold? I keep hearing it, but I never know what it means...

Means the game is finished, everything has been completed and it's ready to ship.

To be a little more specific... They create a final master copy of the game (usually more than one obviously) that is then used for the mass production of the other discs that get shipped out. The reason it's called "gone gold", etc. is due to the very fact that the master copies are always gold (not literally but in colour).

[abundant]

There is a new video up on IGN insider, with various editors disscussing the evolution of some problem areas in the series.

Unfortunately I can't get this video off of the site, so I took a few notes:

Weapons

- Aiming is greatly improved, lock-on "works" and free-aim is handy for precise shots

- Weapon sounds are realistic and authentic, as opposed to the previously 'tinny' sounds

Cars and driving

- Every car now has its own suspension system, and moves/drives like it should. Bangers spew smoke out of the exhaust, and are terrible, bumpy rides. Choosing the right car during a chase can make or break your chances.

- Free aim in the car is useful - molotov cocktails can also be thrown out the window

- Lots of backstreets and shortcuts which are advantageous when being persued.

Graphics

- Game is visually stunning, level of interaction is greatly increased Niko can climb up telephone poles!.

- Slick polish on the graphics, alot less cartoonish, and alot more movie like (Hilary Goldstein didn't think this level of detail was obtainable this generation).

- Best physics they've ever seen. Great AI

- Outstanding technological achievement, to have so much going on at once

- "If you don't like the graphics in GTA, you'll never be satisfied by anything" - Hilary Goldstein

The movies that we watch, the games that we play... they just wouldn't be the same if it wasn't for the audio. The Grand Theft Auto series is no exception; the ambiance of the city is as important to Grand Theft Auto as the Imperial March is to Star Wars. GTA IV aims to maintain this healthy balance of audio and visual, and on that note, I'm happy to say that GamesRadar has just recently posted a multi-page Audio Q&A for Grand Theft Auto IV.

The Q&A includes Matthew Smith, Craig Conner and Will Morton, all of whom are senior employees with the Rockstar North audio team. Some quotes that we found particularly interesting:

* "Stand in the street and you’ll hear three different radio stations at any one time coming from passing vehicles, all sounding appropriately tinny or boomy, depending on the type of vehicle and whether its doors are open, its windows broken, etc."

* "It was our aim that you could place the player in a random position on the map, shut your eyes and listen, and be able to tell where you are, and what time of day it is, and I think we’ve achieved that pretty well."

* "For multiplayer, we balance [the sound of gunfire] so that guns only really sound dangerously beefy when they’re at a distance you can be hit from, so it’s intuitive what’s threatening and what’s someone else’s private war."

* "It’s difficult to quantify how many speaking parts there are, but at our last count there were over 740 unique voices in the game. There are over 80,000 individual lines of dialogue, more than 7000 of which are Niko’s lines. If you were to listen to each line back to back, it would take over 29 hours. Also, these figures don’t take the radio, TV, and mo-capped cut-scene dialogue into consideration."

* "We also decided to make the pedestrian dialogue more realistic in GTA4. As an example, peds in previous games would walk around and randomly chat to themselves if they weren’t doing much else. In real life, people (generally!) don’t go around talking to themselves, so we dropped this behavior from GTA4. However, we realized that the random chat of old GTA games was a good way for the player to pick-up on what sort of personality a ped has, so we created the cell-phone conversations in GTA4 as one realistic way of portraying personality."

http://www.gta4.net/news/4075/gta-iv-audio-qa/

Edited April 19, 2008 by abundant

[CQI13]

Hey I talk to myself...sometimes.

That's pretty hilarious though. And while I won't be catching the GTA IV flu, I suspect that will take a large part of my time from here until who knows when.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I guess some people will love the fact that you can go to a comedy club in the game and watch a virtual Ricky Gervais perform in a number of two-three minute short sets.

Official Playstation Mag also gave this a ten (only their third after COD4 and Oblivion) so that's 10 from XBox and 10 from PS which is probably shaping up to be a good thing.