GTA: Replacing Fun Out of Mission Features with Boring Ones

Am I the only one who feels like there's a huge, sort of, hole of missing features in GTA IV? It seems to me that they've scaled back a lot of the out-of-mission features that were so fun in Vice City and San Andreas or removed them entirely and replaced them with less than fun ones. In particular the extremely tedious need to constantly take your friends out to keep them happy. Why Rockstar? And why do we always have to pick them up? Don't they have their own ****ing cars? Brucie has a helicopter! Can't we just meet up at the place?

The ones I'm talking about them omitting here are things like buying businesses. That wasn't in San Andreas either but it was a really cool feature excluding the need to go to the place to pick up your revenue as opposed to having them sent to you. I miss the general feel of you being a big shot. This may be a spoiler: In Vice City you started off as a broke loser and you ended the game with a humongous mansion and like thirteen businesses and no rivals left in the city. GTA IV left off with me 300.000 dollars richer and a slightly less ****ty apartment than the one I started with.

The spoilers are over.

Here's a quick list of the features I miss the most: Parachutes, planes (yeah I know it wouldn't have been appropriate, doesn't stop me from missing them though), the stats you could level (mainly the weapon, health and stamina stats), different fighting s t y l e s (why was that censored?), stealth missions, bicycles, jetpacks and the businesses from Vice City.

Here's another list of features that would have been nice and/or more in sync with modern gaming: Not having to replenish your health yourself, only being able to carry two to three weapons at once and having to store the rest at home or in your trunk, having the cars more attached to the ground (they bounce around like they're made of plastic and empty on the inside) and having the character be more big time, like Tommy and even CJ were. They were dealing with guys that had a lot of power, they broke into military bases and their effect on their surroundings was noticeable.

Don't throw a hissy fit just yet because I love the game to death and I've played it for 43 hours since I got it on May 2 and my eyes were popping out of their sockets after an eight hour playing binge. This isn't an attack on the game, I just don't think that you should take a step back with any of the fun features in a sequel. Am I alone in feeling they should have included at least some of these things?

Well, its a combination of things.

1) They were going for a more "realistic" narrative. Which is why you don't have Niko discovering area51 or doing any of the more over the top things the character could do in the previous games.

2) Its their first game of this gen, they spent an enourmous amount of time and resources just building up the engine. With a game of this size, its no surprise that some things ended up getting left out. Next time they'll be able to invest alot more time and dollars into beefing up the featureset. I'd be surprised if almost all those things don't return at some point.

another one.....

I'm guessing you havent played through the entire game yet?

The later missions are much more fun, interesting and varied.

also, you don't have to hang out with any of your friends, it's just an option.

Though I will agree with one thing, I do miss the stealth missions from SA...

As much as I hate the premise (stereotyping of blacks) and story of San Andreas, I have to admit, it is the best "GTA" outside of the main story/missions. One of things I have loved most about the GTA games is the side stuff not related to the actual story... which is one reason why I hate having to play the story to "unlock" the other areas of the map.foxhound_fox

Eh, the GTA games use sterotypes for anyone and everything. the entire game world is a joke, at the expense of all americans.

Yeah I agree about the scaling back, a lot of the really fun side missions are gone. There is almost nothing random to find in the game world outside say the friends. No parked cars that start a side mission. No ambulance, fire truck, ice cream, etc. missions. No killing sprees. No dirt bike races, stadium events, plane missions. No house robberies, no gambling, no stealth missions (yet).

A lot was taken out and not much was added in. They did improve the world, story and gun combat greatly so for that I really love the game. This game in a way feels like GTA3, its laying the foundation of the even better games to come.

As for improvements, for me I want a complete overhaul of the missions. The cell phone is a great new tool but it seems like everytime you use it the computer is telling you exactly what to do. What if instead of the usual go to certain point and kill people missions they are open ended. Say you have to do a hit on some guy and all you get is a name of a known associate, its up to you how to find him. I know there is something like that in this game but the game tells you "look at the police computer to get the info" so it becomes just another step in the linear process. What if the game didn't tell you anything, what if you could choose how to find him. Maybe you can spy on the associate, follow him to see if you find another lead. Or directly confront him, threaten him for info. Or find a way to police files to get clues (it wont be as easy as magically getting a location.) Maybe you can use your friends for info. Depending on how you go about finding the guy the outcome is different. A little detective work would be nice, something outside the norm, the game has all these cool tools and I dont feel its using them correctly.

dvader654

[QUOTE="dvader654"]

Yeah I agree about the scaling back, a lot of the really fun side missions are gone. There is almost nothing random to find in the game world outside say the friends. No parked cars that start a side mission. No ambulance, fire truck, ice cream, etc. missions. No killing sprees. No dirt bike races, stadium events, plane missions. No house robberies, no gambling, no stealth missions (yet).

A lot was taken out and not much was added in. They did improve the world, story and gun combat greatly so for that I really love the game. This game in a way feels like GTA3, its laying the foundation of the even better games to come.

As for improvements, for me I want a complete overhaul of the missions. The cell phone is a great new tool but it seems like everytime you use it the computer is telling you exactly what to do. What if instead of the usual go to certain point and kill people missions they are open ended. Say you have to do a hit on some guy and all you get is a name of a known associate, its up to you how to find him. I know there is something like that in this game but the game tells you "look at the police computer to get the info" so it becomes just another step in the linear process. What if the game didn't tell you anything, what if you could choose how to find him. Maybe you can spy on the associate, follow him to see if you find another lead. Or directly confront him, threaten him for info. Or find a way to police files to get clues (it wont be as easy as magically getting a location.) Maybe you can use your friends for info. Depending on how you go about finding the guy the outcome is different. A little detective work would be nice, something outside the norm, the game has all these cool tools and I dont feel its using them correctly.

R0cky_Racc00n

Personally, I think the multiplayer more than makes up for all those missing side activities... and then some.

As for improvements, for me I want a complete overhaul of the missions. The cell phone is a great new tool but it seems like everytime you use it the computer is telling you exactly what to do. What if instead of the usual go to certain point and kill people missions they are open ended. Say you have to do a hit on some guy and all you get is a name of a known associate, its up to you how to find him. I know there is something like that in this game but the game tells you "look at the police computer to get the info" so it becomes just another step in the linear process. What if the game didn't tell you anything, what if you could choose how to find him. Maybe you can spy on the associate, follow him to see if you find another lead. Or directly confront him, threaten him for info. Or find a way to police files to get clues (it wont be as easy as magically getting a location.) Maybe you can use your friends for info. Depending on how you go about finding the guy the outcome is different. A little detective work would be nice, something outside the norm, the game has all these cool tools and I dont feel its using them correctly.dvader654

That's exactly what my day-dreams have been about lately. I was always so annoyed when the game kept telling me what to do. I'd like to get taught how to do something, given a few different possible ways to do it and then put that knowledge to use later.

I'm guessing you havent played through the entire game yet?

The later missions are much more fun, interesting and varied.

also, you don't have to hang out with any of your friends, it's just an option.

Though I will agree with one thing, I do miss the stealth missions from SA...martialbullet

I made it clear in my post that I did finish it, I never said the missions weren't fun and you do have to hang with your friends if you want to keep getting cheap weapons, choppers, car bombs, cabs and thugs from them. Not to mention that it doesn't feel right at all to play through some of the missions that include your friends since they treat you exactly the same at 10% as they do at 90%.

I agree with the original poster.

Since coming down from the initial high I felt exploring the wonderful city I'm left a little numb to the actual enjoyment of the single player campaigne.

What really annoyes me are the car chase missions (which make up about 50% of the main missions). Most feel like you have to play out the whole set piece before your bullets even begin to register (A cheap trick in my opinion). So for the most part you are essentially playing a set piece racing game of 'keep up' within a closed enviroment... which would be a bit more bareable if the cars handled a little better. They've also added a massive amount of 'catch up' to cater for the millions of crashes you're bound to have.

I personally would love to see what a well established RPG developer could do with this engine.