The 411 about GTA 5

September 29, 2013

The Short Version for people who don't want spoilers, the game is good but it falls into the familiar tropes and problems of the GTA series. namely that of dealing with annoying characters who are supposed to be funny, but usually end up being flat and annoying, which make you wish that you could get rid of them right then and there. like lamar and your annoying aunt that you live with as Franklin from the start of the game

and you actually have missions where you take a trip on drugs, multiple times sometimes and I kid you not Torture someone, complete with waterboarding, tooth pulling and electrifying them as Trevor.of which I now know doesn't involve a board like I figured it did.Yeah so this is definitely not the kind of games you give to a 10 year old without any moral backing, religious upbringing or lack of social skills and even then its HIGHLY so - so. and I know of atleast one 10 year old that got this game with his parents on release day.They really should rig it up so that you have to be atleast 15 WITH a parent to get this thing and even then I wouldnt do that if I was a parent. hell with how much mister unfunny Lamar drops the N word at the start, no kid should be playing this game.I think even in Black Belt Jones they didn't use that word that much, like maybe twice in the whole film.hell I think in the heyday of a blacksploitation film in the 1970's they kept it under 20 for a film usually, here Lamar uses that up in 5 minutes.

Not to mention I like Red and Dark Red cars which he openly insults when you go for the red Jaguar F type clone... way to endear me to the character rockstar, plus when you get older you loose the ability to see RED, hence why I think ferrari's are generally in a red orange.so its doubly stupid to insult someone that way for liking a red car, especially if there the older type who owns it.and the heists towards the end do fall into a familiar trope, do this, do that in prep and then do the mission. but you have to do everything yourself to get it set up, you cant just hire one of your guys to do it and leave to it him while you have fun somewhere else.which I thought was kind of the point of being a criminal mastermind, Evil Genius style.

and for atleast two or three of the major mission chains, one of the heists included you do NOT get paid for it, making them utterly pointless, the other being a car theft ring.but on the plus side Michale's family disappears early on along with lamar. but unfortunately he shows up when you nick every kids fantasy car in the game, and what a buzz kill he is. I wanted to use him as target practice for the JB 700 right as he showed up and ruined the fun.and there is multiple endings, and there is a happy one this time aroundso its really a 8 to 9 out of 10 game, not an 9 to 10 like the paid off reviewers have been doing. and one of the few people to give it a review like that was apparently the Escapist,but that was a 7 out of 10 and that was because they didn't like the characters and that is FULLY understandable, especially if you liked someone from the GTA 4 era expansion packs.but however if you do follow the plot lines and pay attention to the characters they do all make sense, even in all of the endings, funny thing is you can actually get divorced or stay married depending on wither or not you actually do a mission for Michael.which really isn't that televised, so there are consciences for missing certain missions that aren't readily noticeableand also Saint's Row will still have plenty to make fun of with the GTA series like with the I fruit thing that never worked at launch that you needed to train a pet in the game so he doesn't crap all over your place as Franklin, and yes that is not a jokebut the graphics are stunning but its obvious that the car physics and damage models from the trailer are from a different version of the game, probably on next gen consoles judging by how the car blows up in this trailer when it gets hit by a Train at 0:51

as the damage model on the game is quite ridiculous, the cars act like tanks (probably to make sure you don't easily get stranded with a blown up car like In San Andreas)

along with being able to easily flip ANYTHING back on its roof.but the second you jump a car and land it either a wheel either locks up or if it has enough force where the gas tank is the thing explodes like a nuclear bomb going off.

But the handling is much more responsive but it's way too far the other way from GTA 4 this time, like your playing Burnout the racing game and its notably twitchier.while the only things that seemed wrong with GTA 4 was that the shocks on the cars were made out of Jelly, and that the Turning radius needed a tweak or two, along with the entry speed into the corners, other than that it was kind of realistic.Weapon wise it looks like they used Flash Paper prop guns for the pistols and its really quite jarring compared to everything else in the game. as even in the collectors edition the desert eagle looks like a fake gun and the textures seem to be subpar on the pistols.but everything else seems fine weirdly.and the game now utilizes the Driver 1 like style of detection for the cops

where they have an arc of vision that you need to escape to have a chance to loose them. although you can hide behind things to ditch them. but then you have to sit still and hope no one finds you like your playing a game of hide and seek with themand the game uses a driver SF like Google maps technique to switch characters

of which unfortunately you cant switch away from if your wanted and the missions also disappear if your wanted too, so you have to loose the cops first which can get annoying if you just want to play the mission from the getgo after jacking someone.as its way too easy to get a one star wanted level that quickly builds to two from jacking someone in the new game here.and the cops are super hard and telepathic in this one, so the GTA Vice rampage of going on a killing spree with a golf club and a caddie are impossible here as everyone reports you to the cops within 5 seconds and it easily goes up to a two star or a three star wanted level with little provocation.and they will open fire on ANY wanted level it seems, also no army this time around.which makes me wonder just what kind of tweaks to the game are going to hit for the release of GTA online on the first and second of october, so this game is definitely not a perfect 10 by any stretch of the imagination.the scope is incredible but the game is not perfect, I'd honestly say an 8.9 on my scale if they tweak all of the problem areas in a few days as I think they missed something here at 1:37 with the white station wagon

and at the start of the video with the helicopter, where trevor tries to pull himself up on nothing.maybe an 8.4 in a month really after the novelty wears off if they don't do anything about it, along with seeing just how the multiplayer adapts to into the new car mechanics and handling.http://www.youtube.com/user/NeXtGenGTAcom/videoshell who knows how long a demolition derby will take in the new game vs the old one there.also aircraft controls are better yet harder than they are in Saints Row 4, take that for what it may be.and the ragdolls are highly sensitive, like it takes nothing to knock your character over in this game now, which makes climbing up Mount Chilad highly dangerous and downright GMod like.another reason why the game is not a perfect 10 and needs some tweaks, especially if you get caught in a current in a river somewhere while exploring.and jumping at 2:20..... and running at 3:00, which feels slow even maxed out

to the point where they actually felt it necessary to put in a cheat to run faster, also cheats are no longer shortcutted in the phone, you have to put them in like it's the PS2 era all over again.a step back in that regard as well.Now Spoilers aheadVice and MM WisePam Grier is in as a DJ voicing the equivalent of the Funk and Soul show that Craig Charles of Red Dwarf fame does for the BBC radio, called the Lowdown 91.1I don't care anymore is used for one of the very first cutscene's with Michale when he meets franklinRobert Palmer's Big Log song is used in here, which has been used for Vice Fan movies on youtubeone of the expensive suits is rigged up with a pink undershirt and blue suit coat very similar to the Smugglers Blue's/ Mirror Image suit, the others seem to be a reference to Michale Man's heat with the way their rigged up.No Kavinsky as a radio DJ in this game, even though that was reported awhile back, no idea what happened, like if it was meant for an upcoming DLC or a new radio station meant only for the next gen consoles when that hits in 8 months down the track.There's a custom music score for alot of the missions that cuts out the radio audio during the missions it seems, although its much more Rockstar's Bully Like and not really that memorable weirdly, making the game feel almost driver 3 like in that regard, but it's not as good.

as weird as that sounds and even driver san fransisco kicked there ass in this regard, I found there mission only soundtracks to be far more memorable than rockstar's in this game.

although they were done by an actual band to my knowledge, I think Narco from Driver 3 I believe, this gta 5 stuff just seems like generic window paste music along the lines of what Star trek used after they fired they composer of TNG for being too memorable, the guy who scored the borg episodes.stupid Rick Berman.Bond Connections: the DB5 is in here as the JB 700 Complete with working gadgets and it has guns retrofitted into it for a latter mission chain for Devon Weston, and in the mission you steal it you actually wear a white Tux like 007 in goldfinger at the start of it.and you CAN get armor plating retrofitted to the cars as well, no smoke screen or oil slick at this point but the tack droppers which were an original feature that was never shown in the film are used on it in its said mission

the reason being when they made the film they didn't show it as they didn't want british kids dropping them in the middle of the road and poping peoples tires when goldfinger came out.sadly though at this point its mission ONLY, you cant buy a one with a working one after the mission and ontop of that you don't even get payment for that mission as part of the story.Soundtrack wise also it seems like some of the songs have been lifted from other games, Like California Soul from Driver San Fransisco and Rick James give it to me baby from Scarface the game, of which Saints Row 4 did earlier in the year by putting in some of the old GTA 3 Mafia songs in its soundtrack for Nostalgia's sake.Making Money wise, most of the money in the game that you can make seems to come from two primary sources, Doing Lester assassination missions and the insider trading that goes along with it, and the heist missionswith lester for instance you'll Ice some CEO to cause his stock to tank, while you've heavily invested in his competitors stock, causing it to go up 50% to make a huge profit from it, and you can do this for all 3 characters.and this is how you afford the more expensive pieces of property in the game, which can go up to 30 Million bucks, along with the one off cars that you have to buy from an online dealership to get in the game.funny thing is with the heist's its seems like there's only about 4 or 5 of them total, one for each major part of the game.Car WiseThe car collection missions where you pick up cars for a rich guy who is the boss of your Government contact is named Weston, although not Michale.No Testarossa or Daytona in it this time, as the Stinger which you have to buy from the online car shop looks to be a Dino 206/Shelby Cobra hybrid this time around and its not that pretty.

and it looks like a worse looking version of the same car from scarface the game.The monore is a Lamborghini Miura, sadly no earlier version of the Countach like in the GTA vice trailers to go along with it

Most of the previous cars from gta 4 return in some form or another, but some of them like the saber can be hard to find.It's a good game but it honestly feels like it could have been better, and the weird thing is the more you get into it, the more by the numbers it gets.

September 29, 2013

Nice review of the game, I have yet to pick it up but I have been watching the Walkthroughs on YouTube and have to say you are pretty spot on from what I've seen so far. I do like the main characters a lot better this time around than I did Niko in GTA IV, especially Trevor who outside of the abandonment issues and meth dealing stuff is usually how I end up playing GTA anyways like a lunatic. I'm surprised Michael's family stuff aren't as obnoxious as I thought it would turn out and glad they kind of put it on the backburner earlier on although Franklin's acquaintances more than fill the quota for that especially with the mentioned sidekick Lamar who seems to be like a mishmash of Ryder and Sweet from GTA: San Andreas except a hundred times more annoying. That's kind of tacky that they would make fun of your color of choice for a car in a GTA game though, even if it might not be really representative of how Rockstar feels about red cars. (I can seem them trying to work that into Vice City, if Lance had picked on Tommy about driving a Red Infernus he probably would have bought the bullet much earlier in the game.)People have been complaining about the money issues with the game, apparently the consensus is that they deliberately made it harder to get money in single player because the money is supposed transfer over to GTA online from what I understand. I'm surprised they added a happier ending to the game as an option, I figured they would have made a Wild Bunch-style ending with all three of the main characters going out in a valley of bullets. Guess they figured the backlash wouldn't have been worth it as it would have made the game unplayable after completing it. Shame about the cops though, that outside of the story was another aspect of GTA IV I found annoying and they seemed to have ramped it up a bit (although it's funny that you could lose your potential wanted level at times by just hiding in some bushes) although I notice cops don't turn a blind eye to people who attack you this time around.By the way, is it true they got rid of the Vigilante (Cop) missions from previous GTAs? There seems to be conflicting answers on that and those has always been my favorite side missions to do alongside the rampages which thankfully I've heard have made a return through Trevor's character.

September 30, 2013

Nice review of the game' date=' I have yet to pick it up but I have been watching the Walkthroughs on YouTube and have to say you are pretty spot on from what I've seen so far. I do like the main characters a lot better this time around than I did Niko in GTA IV, especially Trevor who outside of the abandonment issues and meth dealing stuff is usually how I end up playing GTA anyways like a lunatic. I'm surprised Michael's family stuff aren't as obnoxious as I thought it would turn out and glad they kind of put it on the backburner earlier on although Franklin's acquaintances more than fill the quota for that especially with the mentioned sidekick Lamar who seems to be like a mishmash of Ryder and Sweet from GTA: San Andreas except a hundred times more annoying. That's kind of tacky that they would make fun of your color of choice for a car in a GTA game though, even if it might not be really representative of how Rockstar feels about red cars. (I can seem them trying to work that into Vice City, if Lance had picked on Tommy about driving a Red Infernus he probably would have bought the bullet much earlier in the game.)People have been complaining about the money issues with the game, apparently the consensus is that they deliberately made it harder to get money in single player because the money is supposed transfer over to GTA online from what I understand. I'm surprised they added a happier ending to the game as an option, I figured they would have made a Wild Bunch-style ending with all three of the main characters going out in a valley of bullets. Guess they figured the backlash wouldn't have been worth it as it would have made the game unplayable after completing it. Shame about the cops though, that outside of the story was another aspect of GTA IV I found annoying and they seemed to have ramped it up a bit (although it's funny that you could lose your potential wanted level at times by just hiding in some bushes) although I notice cops don't turn a blind eye to people who attack you this time around.By the way, is it true they got rid of the Vigilante (Cop) missions from previous GTAs? There seems to be conflicting answers on that and those has always been my favorite side missions to do alongside the rampages which thankfully I've heard have made a return through Trevor's character.[/quote']Yeah with all the characters save for Lamar (who ONLY redeems himself in ending C it) seem like while your rigged to hate them in certain points, they all make sense. Especially Trevor if you go back to his trailer after ending C.and they do fit the setting of GTA, unlike Niko who seemed like his story belonged in a Movie made by a European about America about the horrors of war, like something like that film "The Hurt Locker". plus the family at the end does seem to mesh well oddly and it ties into Trevor's reactions and feelings towards Michael well given ending C's epilogueI half wonder if with Lamar though that maybe he was one of those real life gangsters they hired as a voice actor that just went off at the mouth about the car color choice and decided to throw it in despite how stupid his attitude is, and how much he blabbers after you save him at a Weed farm latter in the game.thanks useless Franklin love interest Tanishia who is dumping you in the game, I really wanted to save that useless waste of space and then have him talk my ear off for half an hour while I drive his useless ass back to the city.if only you left on a boat with him in the passenger seat after that, you could tell him to take a Taxi, Miami Vice style like in killshot lol, that would make it worth it!yeah insult my taste in cars huh? take a Taxi! wtf N word this water is cold N word, hey dont leave me here you F word, N word is how it would have probably been written by rockstar though.and with ending C I bet it started out as a wild bunch like ending originally and it just evolved into what it became. I think the cop missions are really gone too, I cant remember seeing them anywhere or a prompt for themplus with Six Stars gone outside of one of the missions and playing a cop in one of the missions from the car boosting storyline it would make sense that Vigilante is gone sadly as it weirdly seems like their going for a heavily realistic portrayal of LA the game.so those fun switches of tone are gone, along with Paramedic I think too, although I'm not sure if that was removed by the time GTA 4 hit last time.but they also may be saving those for GTA Online, which seems like the most logical choice tone wise really, just with player vs player instead of NPC.Personally as a sidenote with the game review scores that GTA 5 has been getting it seems like all of these game reviewers are giving it either a perfect 10's or a 9 like angry joe here
which seems a point or so too high on average to mewhich is highlighted when he brings up all that possible stuff that is being left out for GTA online with the interiors and what sounds like a new radio station in addition to the problems he brings up, and it just makes me want to shake him and ask him what is your major malfunctionand yell at him saying this game is not a ten, look past the window dressing and the novelty and look at the game mechanic's themselves, there is problems here that need to be addressed and its giving me abit of a love hate relationship with the game honestly.not unlike what happened with the Christopher Noland Batman films for me, I cant honestly sit through the first film more than 20 minutes as the thing just makes me uncomfortable. Given Bateman just seems like a Psychopath to me, not the sympathetic character of batman who lost his parents to the crime and corruption of Gotham.and its huge popularity made me even more closeminded to itplus angry joe's views on the superman film that came out month's ago, he just completely whitewashed the whole thing and glossed over that movies major problems.and I'm just sort of having the same wiplash effect here after seeing it for myself, worst part is if no one calls them on this, the games wont improve, hence why I felt obligated to write this and I would have though Angry Joe of all people would have had the guts to say it and yet he didnt...go figurenot to mention what Angry Joe says they should be focusing on instead of the torture scene in his review really pissed me off, as I thought he was on my side, guess not.so much for being an Angry "Regular" Joe, so Angry Joe this is for you lol
although on that sidenote it makes me wonder just how many of these people have been sitting under a rock considering the kind of torture Jack Bower did on 24 just a few years ago during the bush administration, like where were these people then?I mean what happened to all of those thick shells they had years ago, did GTA get at them in a cultural molting point with the torture scene in this game? I mean its just a bunch of Pixel's on a screen, its not like the people who are playing this, or should be playing this are 10 year olds and think this is reality.I mean those 18+ ratings are there for a reason, hell your not going to show Dirty Harry to a 5 year old now are ya?also this song needs to be in a GTA lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feKeJfgBBzg

September 30, 2013

Yeah, they did remove Ambulance missions alongside Firetruck Missions in GTA IV, but GTA IV did have the Vigilante missions and actually did those well by instead of hitting your right thumbstick to trigger them like in the GTA 3 era games, you accessed them from a computer in the cop car. Plus you had access to two different types of Vigilante missions, one for hunting down specific suspects and one for doing regular patrols. Like you said, they probably are saving those for GTA Online.As far as Angry Joe's review goes, he mentions that they brought back those stupid automatic weapon changes from Max Payne 3 I brought up in my blog.( :evil: ) and GTA IV also didn't have the army show up either but I'm guessing again they'll probably have more of a presence in the Online mode which from the look of things this game seems almost like a demo for to get used to the mechanics, they could have at least had the National Guard show up if you get too out of hand in single player though.I remember some controversy about torture in 24 but it was mostly because people thought soldiers were going to emulate the actions of Jack Bauer, it didn't really last that long though and heck they are actually bringing the show back soon. In Angry Joe's review they showed the three leads take down an entire police force with miniguns, it's not like everything else in this game is exactly G rated so why all of a sudden when the game finally hands you a set of pliers to do some illegal dental work or wrench someone in his "business" do people go bananas? Do people remember this series also had Flamethrowers at one point? Molotov Cocktails? That Electro Gun in GTA 2? The Treacherous Swine mission in Vice City where you chase Gonzales down with a Chainsaw? These games have all sorts of manners of ways to off people in gruesome ways and given it's about ruthless criminals who are kind of known for this sort of thing, it should be expected. Heck the trailer for Trevor shows that he's about to torture someone at the 26 second mark so they didn't exactly hide the fact you would be doing this in the game.

In the end, maybe it's the adults who also need to pay more attention to the ratings.Those songs would have been awesome choices, BTW. Although I do commend them for including Don Johnson's "Heartbeat" and the Phil Collins song was used pretty well and it kind of gave us a better idea of what kind of character Michael is. Kind of a disillusioned Tommy Vercetti. Maybe with GTA VI they'll take the series back to Vice City, those two songs you mentioned would fit well, maybe they can get Kavinsky (the musician) to do the score for it.

October 1, 2013

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozI1Hslg6zY In the end, maybe it's the adults who also need to pay more attention to the ratings.Those songs would have been awesome choices, BTW. Although I do commend them for including Don Johnson's "Heartbeat" and the Phil Collins song was used pretty well and it kind of gave us a better idea of what kind of character Michael is. Kind of a disillusioned Tommy Vercetti. Maybe with GTA VI they'll take the series back to Vice City, those two songs you mentioned would fit well, maybe they can get Kavinsky (the musician) to do the score for it.

Yeah and you gotta love that, the two missions where you actually do good and help people, and get good rewards for it like being fireproof and increased health and they remove them, hell if it wasnt for that one Brucie Mission in GTA 4 I bet Vigilante would have been gone as well.and the thing with the weapon wheel brings up angry joe's hypocrisy even more, plus the whole custom cars not saving in safe houses problem there having right now, yet 9 out of 10 with no stipulations and saying its going to be a 10 once online hits?yeash, I mean you would think someone who is so experienced in playing games and getting over the novelty of a new game would be more biased, fair and thoughtful, part of the reason while he may have a funny review once in awhile I'm watching him less and lessand you can see the duality right here with that superman example, mind you the below save for the bum review are quite long, so watch at your own discretion.His Review:

His Co workers views on it more or lesshttp://blip.tv/at4w/vlog-8-5-13-bela...l-vlog-6625520 http://blip.tv/bum-reviews/zod-revie...-steel-6604118 http://blip.tv/the-cinema-snob/midni...-steel-6603107 http://blip.tv/the-cinema-snob/man-o...review-6604166and I watched those first on the bottom, I was just utterly shocked at how he was liking the film, I mean I get the point he's an alien so things might go over his head but to praise it like that? it feels like a doppelganger took his place for that blog and that's just how shocked I was at his reaction.and that is the reason why I'm watching Doug Walker's stuff far more than his nowadays, I mean I can understand wanting a new movie for something like Superman, but when it sucks it sucks, hell Star Trek 09 had huge problems and the sequel still had problems and I'm not championing it like the next coming of Christ.and I'm a life long trek fan pretty much, but I'm not going to champion something that sucks just because its the return of something I've wanted back for quite some time, and it seems like he has that same kind of fanboyismn going on here too with GTA 5.and yeah with the online mode I guess it'll be a wait and see, the thing is due to go live in about 4 hours apparently, 7 AM, and apparently the money you have in single player will go over into multiplayer as well too, I have to admit its a brilliant marketing move on rockstar's part if that's true though.wait two weeks to get it ready for the massive amount of people who will play it, and to make sure you keep them playing the game and not buying new games like Beyond Two Souls that is due out on the 8th of October by releasing it two weeks latter with the money you made in the final heist transferring over into the online modealmost like they're gunning to make it a GTA MMO of some sort, I guess rockstar is nothing if not crafty when it comes to matters of making money.and yeah indeed with the ratings, and I miss the molitov Cocktail and flamethrower from the old GTA games, hell I can still remember having so much fun with the GTA 3 Rampage with the flamethrower in chinatown where you burn all of the triads, hell that was one of the major fun bits missing from GTA SAyou never could find a damn flamethrower or Molotov cocktail outside of one of the early missions, hell can you just imagine how much fun the gangwars in SA would have been with a fireproof and bulletproof car if you could have just stuck the flamethrower out of the window?or even a Katana?hmm another thing to add to the list of why GTA SA was my least favorite game in the series, that thing was such a disapointment on ALL levels, My Saber Turbo was gone and pussified into a half assed old jalopie, the Python was gone and I was stuck with a ghetto boy as the lead protagonist who ruined all of my fun everytime he opened his mouth.and the stinger was DUE to be in it, a modernized version of the one from Vice City that got replaced by an RX7 from the 1990's in addition to the underwhelming music of that game and yet you could change the interior color of the lowriders yet not the TR to match the vice car WTF?and how do you do an LA riots missions and leave out the song that started it all? NWA's **** the police, that is so stupid its unbelievable or Ice T for that matter and his song about that or this song?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_0xa-Lzjg8thankfully they remedied that with GTA 5 this time around though, the rap songs are far better than they were in GTA SA, but I just cant fathom how they could screw up SO much with SA after having such a hit with Vice cityGTA SA, the beginning of the end of the glorious GTA series in modern times, the most disappointing game in the GTA series bar none for me, I was so happy about getting away from CJ in GTA 4 that the story didnt bug me one bit, atleast it wasnt CJ Johnson's story again.and in the first cutscene with Niko and Roman in the apartment I actually sighed a breath of relief at that fact, like thank god I'm not dealing with CJ again.Sorry SA was what GTA 4 was to you, how could you get so much so wrong, I was expecting a Casino like Story in Las Venturas, Maybe Bullet in SF and LA, I dont know what the hell you do with LA story wise really, car theft ring like gone in 60 seconds?and there wasnt a single race in the aquaducts like here either!

its like they had no real vision and just threw it all together in a hurry with GTA SA, oh so much missed opportunity with that game, such a disappointment and a horrible game to have follow the peak of the GTA series.but with the controversies maybe its just the people in the news rooms picking on what's hot and what to say to please the station manager and his thoughts on the world, as to spread it around like a bad smell. I mean if there's no bad news they have nothing to work with and nothing to hold the viewers reallyas nothing gets ratings like bad news about murders, death and destruction, hell it makes me wonder just how many people tuned in back in 01 after that Terror attack, it was probably the single best 48 to 72 hours every news station ever had I bet.plus GTA 5 made something like a Billion Dollars in 3 days so naturally with a game about killing, robbing and jacking cars in a fake world they want a piece of that popularity pie to boost their ratings.Hmm actually I guess the best piece of advice in that regard would be from a Monty Python skit a few years back at 0:25 to 0:42

just ignore themWith the songs there I agree, and with Michael I heard the best description of him From the Brad Jones (the cinema snob) Review of GTA 5, a Domesticated Tommy Vercetti, which seems to make perfect sense.especially if you do ending A in GTA 5.all and all I think this is really what GTA 4 set out to be, a reinvisioning of the series just like GTA 3, its got problems but its back on the right path again.Save for lamar....... his aunt... and his girlfriend..... the annoying tow truck girl you work for who spreads rumors about you being a prossie because you've gotten into money recently....... could have just clipped franklin and the game would have been better for it actually.although to be fair its not Franklin that is intollerable, about the only two people he runs into that are likable are his dog chop that lamar owns and Trevor.other than that he's CJ 2.0 with 70% more spine and 70% more brains

October 1, 2013

Brad Jones is probably my favorite guy on Blip and it was his review is actually made me a bit more optimistic about GTA V than I previous was because our tastes are quite similar. Given Angry Joe has already complained about the Create-a-Character mode in GTA Online on Facebook I'd say hyping the online mode before you even play it wasn't a good idea, just makes you look like a blind fanboy rather than an objective reviewer. What's worse about the Superman thing is the film from what I understand is the same exact story told several times already to better effect rather than just tell a different Superman story for once, it's like if every James Bond movie was just retelling the story of Casino Royale over and over again. I honestly wonder as well if turning GTA into an MMO is really what Rockstar intends but they first have to test the waters with GTA Online as that's where the money is going, I'm not an online-type gamer but I can understand their reasoning.3 and Vice City are still blasts to play thanks to all those goodies, those two I replay often due the fun you get out of stuff like Rampages plus the mission design felt a bit more open-ended as well. I had a lot of serious issues with San Andreas as well, some even more so than GTA IV because while IV had an amount of social commentary that sometimes felt too forced at least it didn't feel like Rockstar just throwing everything at a wall and see what sticks. Seriously if IV has a messy room for a plot, San Andreas was more of a nuclear spill of a plot. There were moments where it went nowhere, all it could do was throw a bunch of characters at you who someone thought were actually funny in order to distract you from the fact it has nothing going on to make you continue. It's one of the only GTA Games I never finished as I got to around the Las Venturas chapter and decided this game has gone nowhere really and gave up, it's all window-dressing and ideas that felt like were just laying in a desk drawer somewhere. The only praises I could muster up were some fun missions, K-DST, and James Woods. While I have some issues with IV's car controls, at least they aren't San Andreas awful, they completely botched them in that game so they could add in some dull RPG elements that make the game a chore to play. San Fierro and Las Venturas were severely underdeveloped, I mean seriously you missions set in San Francisco but you don't re-enact the car chase scene from Bullitt? Well, it would have been impossible to do anyways given the lousy car controls but still. IV at least used it's city well and felt more developed. While Niko is mainly just a victim of Rockstars attempt at Social Commentary, CJ is just a dull stock character from the Friday movies (which, reminds me, the guy who co-wrote those movies actually was credited as co-writer for San Andreas, imagine that http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0690770/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1) . Niko at least has his moments like when he's mouthing off to the Russian mobsters while tied up their basement being threatened with a hacksaw no less, CJ would have messed his pants and cried if he was in that situation. I'll still place IV above San Andreas because at least you still felt like you were playing a GTA game.As far as the media goes, I tuned them out mostly ages ago, they just want your attention and will do anything to get it. But it seems odd that GTAs own fanbase would be up-in-arms about the torture scene given what took place in previous games. If it's because of the realistic graphic them fine, but don't act like you haven't done worse in previous installments.But as you said, the series is starting to get back on track, just hope it stays that way for GTA VI if there is going to be one.

October 2, 2013

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0690770/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1) . Niko at least has his moments like when he's mouthing off to the Russian mobsters while tied up their basement being threatened with a hacksaw no less, CJ would have messed his pants and cried if he was in that situation. I'll still place IV above San Andreas because at least you still felt like you were playing a GTA game.As far as the media goes, I tuned them out mostly ages ago, they just want your attention and will do anything to get it. But it seems odd that GTAs own fanbase would be up-in-arms about the torture scene given what took place in previous games. If it's because of the realistic graphic them fine, but don't act like you haven't done worse in previous installments.But as you said, the series is starting to get back on track, just hope it stays that way for GTA VI if there is going to be one.

Yeah I think Brad Jones is one of the few people who could do anything and anyone would listen honestly, hell he is, or was a radio DJ at some point he said and apparently he's going to be doing a Videogame Gameshow for Channel awesome pretty soon as the host. Not to mention you'd have to be charismatic to get people to watch reviews of the weird ass crap he watches as the Cinema snob lol.But I honestly didnt know Joe had been complaining about that on facebook, if anything the only thing I look at is the twitter for when its used for business purposes like what SFdebris doeshttp://www.youtube.com/user/sfdebris/videos https://twitter.com/sfdebrisbut it gives me even more reason to dislike and not trust him, not to mention that insult to me he did in the gta 5 review, like I really needed someone to twist the knife about that again ugh... and up to that point when I saw that on screen I was on his side, so not only did it piss me off but it broke the flow of the review up for anyone like me or hickock45 on youtube probably.and the greatest insult is what he did with his little skits there, right next to a playground in broad daylight fooling around with fake guns dressed up as a cop, as to make him look even less connected to reality.and he lives in texas to top it off, when it sounds like he should live in washington DC with his mindset........yeah he earned this

Dont throw stones in a home made out of Glass Joe...With superman what I dont understand is, batman had the animated series that was the basis to the highly successful and GOOD Arkham City games. of which a new one will be coming out soon and superman had its own animated series that I can remember watching back in the day and liking. so why not use those as the basis of a movie?hell one of the things people have been itching for with batman for years was a movie adaptation of Batman Beyond, so it's not like there's a lack of material that you could actually use for a good superman film.hell I hate to harp on this again but its like star trek TNG, you can continue those stories in an interesting way, it just takes someone who know's what they're doing to write and then helm the movies to make them goodand the people from the transformer films are NOT them, they cant even get warp drive right, as it takes you across the entire galaxy in seconds rather than minutes, hours or days from chronos, the klingon homeworld.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRkNoynlSLslike they dont understand the basic concept of scale, and they land on Earth's doorstep and no one goes up to them an asks what's happening here? why are these two federation ships attacking each other?Same kind of stupid mistakes here, hell I remember the sibling rivalry episode of the nostalgia critic where Doug had a eureka moment when talking to his brother about it, Batman has morals, yet superman has none according to Christopher Noland.and that is basically what he tried to do, turn superman into batman and vice versa, plus its like anything else really, Everyone knows who batman is, his backstory, same with Superman, Kirk Spock and Mccoy, why bother with a Prequel or a reboot? as if the films good no one will care.although in ST09 that was the right move to set it in a completely new universe away from the normal timeline, although there was no need to show it with the crew starting up like they did, fresh out of the academy and then straight into the captains chair.although it is defintely NOT a parallel universe like they said it was to the main one, its a completely different one.but that is the kind of basic stupidity that film had, although far more than the Trek Films had in superman's case, like giving Sulu a Katana after saying he was a trained fencer, which was done in the original series to avoid that asian stereotype, and they walked right into it.but hell I bet alot less people are going to see the next superman film when it comes out because of that, hell why else do you think they tried so hard to get Bateman back.they knew without a major pull for the next film their ass is grass if they use superman again like they did there.with the online thing well you see just how long games like counterstrike have lasted purely based on their online multiplayer, it would be a logical step in that direct although from all accounts its more or less inoperable at this moment, as predicted.Yeah with GTA SA woozie, the casino, Maybe the Truth, Rosenberg and Salvatore Leone were pretty much the only saviors of the main plotline outside of James Woods, who all show up during the Las Venturas area.and they rewrite Salvatore's backstory to make it seem like Carl's betrayal of him for Woozie is what causes him to go back on his deal with you in 3, even though it was maria who said you were worthless and should be killed as a security concern.hell when you were forced to leave that area and go back to grove street I remember during one playthrough I openly ran over sweet once he screamed at us to get grove street back from the ballas after some idiot stole his blender, and I namely did that out of frustration at having to do the gang warfare missions all over again and having to save at that house again.god that home was creepy, and ontop of that nothing changed in your homes like it did in Vice, where after completing certain missions new objects would appear as you progressed, instead it was the same old creepy dilapidated home for the entire game.Hell why couldnt they do like scarface the game and give you the option to change the theme, repair the place and put new objects in it? or have someone show up with your favorite car for a mission via a phonecall.where if the car got wrecked you could just pay a fee and have it perfectly repaired and ready to go, you are the leader of a gang after all.the driving however save for that speed filter thing didnt bother me that much, it was the AI of the other drivers that would drive me nuts.where they would perform perfect right turns at 90 degrees, slamming into you as you tried to pass them on the back country roads, same thing on the highway, I remember thinking god damn it does no one know what a turn signal is in this game? as they slam into if your going for a high speed pass on the highway constantlyplus the game forces the traffic drivers to keep up with you, making highway passing a very dangerous proposition, even in the Cheetah, in addition to stopping on a dime if they come up upon a wreck in the road, wrecking you in the process.and then to have the cop bikes shooting at your low health car at every wanted level just made it impossible to have a prolonged chase outside of the Las Venturas area where they'd get hit by highway traffic.and the road blocks they put up, which made 3 star wanted levels impossible as they were the most accurate shots ever on the police force and they would open up at you when you got close at any speed, vs how they were in Vice where if you came up on them fast enough they couldnt shoot at you, which makes sense, as no cop would just go nuts with a gun in public like that.and then ontop of that if you tried to stay in the middle of the highway on the median a cop would cross over and block your path even without a wanted level star. which made keeping a nice car intact a hopeless proposition, hell I used to use only the train tracks to drive over to Torino's place, but that also slowed you down drastically which was also a pain in the ass.not to mention very low car health in the game, and one little bump and the front end of the car would be destroyed, hell motorbikes were the only way to go in that gameand also no fast travel options in that game, oh also in GTA 5 that is kind of bugged, sometimes the cabs will show up instantly, other times they wont show up at all on a map that is much bigger than San Andreas.and it seems like buying the cab depot is the cause of it in the game, yeah no mention of that bug in the GTA 5 reviews either.Music wise I found about 50 percent of the soundtrack was unlistenable to for SA, as it seemed like they had gone quantity over quality, namely they pretty much doubled the amount of soundtracks from GTA Vice yet 1/3rd as memorable (I remember I did the math, it was like a 150 extra songs over GTA vice)and then when it was typically they had people talking over the songs with bad dialog.where as save for Fernando Martinez being a creeper at the end of Crockett's theme if you really listen to him, that never happened in Vice.now the primary stations I listened to as I found them the least annoying were Bounce FM, K Jah, Playback and Radio Los Santos, the others either the DJ's would get in the way like on mastersounds or the songs were god awful like on Radio XRadio X, no Nin, No Metallica, No ACDC which was originally supposed to be in GTA 3 by the way, that song Dirty Deeds and they were all songs that had been played to death back in the 1990's, I think there was like one or two songs I liked on it, one of which was from the Movie the crow back then.and KDST, I really dont care for 70's rock, although there was about 5 songs on there that I did like, but the Joe Cocker song.... jesus christ, WOOMMANNN TO WOMMANAANN, No! "Click!"and it fell into the same trap as radio X it was all songs that had been played to death.hell I think the only reason why I listened to the above stations is because it was mostly songs I had never heard before really, outside of nothing but a G Thing, once again played to death back then.and it seemed like the soundtrack selection was rigged upin the spirit of being an anti 80's soundtrack, rather than an evolution from that time periodoh and where the hell is my Minstry on Radio X? No Jesus Built My Hotrod?

or Moby,

or Junkie XL

on the Techno station along with the Band Garbage that was coming into its own back thenand NO yello that was still around in the 1990's?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpLCa35P3Nsand if your going to go for a famous rock song, atleast make it fun and fit the GTA universe

like I said the whole thing just seemed uninspired and phoned in with GTA SA, there was so many songs they could have used from back then, granted a good portion of them were late 1990'sthen the color palate and the clothing, in addition to the sex appeal that was rigged up with it were ridiculious, apparently if you like to wear a black T top and converse it makes you stink in that game and is not sexy even if your character is buffand you had to painstakingly go through every clothing option, click on it, wait to load to see what it would look like and then buy it with no way to switch it out on the fly if it didnt match something you liked.ditto with the haircut system, absolutely nothing about San Andreas was streamlined it seemed.all of which have been thankfully improved and fixed for 5, but back then, bar none GTA SA was the most disappointing game in the GTA series, compared to GTA vice it was like going from a Fine Tuned race car To a Russian lada, slow and clunky in all of its regards.

and with half the charm of a lada....and yeah DJ Pooh came back for this game too, I bet he wrote the Franklin Section and he's the DJ for the Classic Rap station that this time has a far better selection than it did back then.but it does reek of his work, especially with "Take a Taxi" Lamarand take a look at this, maybe this was the brainchild of the success of the GTA series back then?http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1106693/?ref_=tt_ov_wrand he went over to Ubisoft from the sound of it to work on Driver San Fransisco, which was a very good game I might add, wonder what happened to make him go over to that side of the fence.maybe he didnt want to buy into the Niko Belic crap? but yeah atleast Niko had some sort of a Spine, probably from some sort of secret deathwish though.but funny thing was I didnt mind his cousin in GTA 4, as after CJ he atleast didnt seem that bad to me, and he did seem human although I can understand the frustration of the lets go boiling thing lolyeah but after what happened last year when it came to matters of one of my hobbies its kind of hard to tune out the media like I used to, but I'm starting to get back into the groove of not buying into there bullshit againafter all its the parents who are to blame for alot of the problems in the world, no father around to teach kids right from wrong and then they let there kids walk all over them and the mother cant handle a teenage kid on her own with just simply trying to keep a job nowadays.and then to see stuff like this with no moral or relgious backing in the world to teach them right from wrong and then you wonder why they do stuff like this with no real frame of reference in realityand a lack of friends and loved ones outside of the family, along with probably heavy bullying and zero social skills and zero comprehension on how to talk to women.I mean its always the outsiders who do all of this terrible stuff, its never Johnny Normal it seems.and then you have a socalist goverment who has no limit to the kind of money they give out without any rules or stipulations so everyone just walks over the rules and does what they want, its a recipe for disaster and I'm not to blame for it, nor is my hobby, or hobbies I support I should say.and of course they're not going to blame themselves or call people out on it, it might anger them and cause them to stop watching their TV programs.but at this point there really needs to be some sort of law that says even with a parent if the kid is under atleast the age of 15 they can not get a mature rated game for him, like I said there was 10 year old in line with his parent for GTA 5

October 6, 2013

Also this poped up recently, it really looks like they based there likeness on how they looked in real life with the voice actors

October 6, 2013

You might want to check out this, GQ managed to interview all three of the main actors from the game.http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-feed/2013/09/the-gqa-grand-theft-auto-v-actors-talk-franklin-michael-and-crazy-trevor.htmlAlso Steven Ogg who played Trevor has been posting videos on YouTube, kind of cool to see the real guy.

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGwwnoMaV6g

October 8, 2013

Hmm I'll be damn, I WAS right about Franklin, he was an ex criminal, probably lamar too.and I like how the other two are responsible enough not to let there kids play it or play it fully, just a taste till they're old enough. and its kind of funny to think Steve Ogg is a genuine Canadianhmm and neds got a pretty good quote herePeople are always looking for something to hate on. If this is something for them to target and hate on, thats their thing. I look at it as satire.and it sounds like the right people got the right breaks, Ned being out of the acting Business for 5 years, instead opting to be a car salesmen and giving it all he's gotlike I said it is one of the better gta's in years, its just not a perfect 10, and GTA online with its issues has seem to deflated people abit which I think in the end is a good thing.as if you stop innovating and fixing the little things in the game, car and gun world things start to stagnate and get boring and the problems build up, but the other thing is you need to take your time and do it as close to right as you can get.look at the silent hill series, they worked they're butts off back in the early 2000's with all of they're ideas and then they ran out of them, and the series hasnt been the same since, along with survival horror in generalwhich is why rockstar is taking so long with the GTA franchise here, as its when it gets rushed like LA noire and in a way I think Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne that problems appear.and LA Noire was made by the people who made the Getaway in 2001 too, a great movie game which had some gameplay issues, but there was no way it should have been as disconnected as it was with LA noire, funny thing is I still have the old thing nowadays actuallyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YVIuR6kxREand it seems like it could have been an inspiration for GTA 5 in some little ways, as they mo capped the actors and the like back thenplus with Max Payne it had closure in the second one, so it was kind of a mistake to continue the story.hell a remake of the first one would have been a better choice with the major advances in technology since 2000, although I really dont know how you would replicate the charm of the first one nowadays.and Red Dead had the Carrot and the Stick problem going with it where you never actually met the people you were trying to save till the end,nor did you really see the flashbacks to the past to show you how they used to be, which they rectified with GTA 5 here with Michael.Hell in a way, Michael is a Fixed Marston with a proper edge and fun streak to him, and alot more fun, and its really quite sad with RDR that they were going for a Retired Man with No name story to it like the 1992 Film Unforgiven and they missed the mark by not showing glimpses into the characters past with the way they act.which has been fixed for GTA 5, so I think its nothing but up for Rockstar now, although they badly need to avoid the Ghetto stories, as I cant stand them and the characters they make from them, and if you gotta go down that route, atleast make it fun.like its the 1970's or something, and make the charachter be a Black Belt Jones/Enter the Dragon,

black cesar, Superfly, Trouble man

or a Jules type from pulp fiction, hell I was initally hoping CJ WOULD be Jules initally, imagine my disappointment after hearing he was playing the VILLAIN instead of the lead for it.be a trevor or Vercetti of the Ghetto, a badass basically lol not someone who runs around doing stupid **** for stupid people.its a videogame not real life after all.and also Rest in Peace Jim Kelly, you will be missed, I only just found out about it now while looking that film clip up.

October 8, 2013

The GTA Online thing has really taken a turn for the worse recently, I've been following up on it on various forums and it seems the first patch they released for it while fixed some online issues actually bugged people's single player games, the worse bug leaving players unable to switch characters. The second patch was released yesterday I believe and from what I gather so far is causing some crashing on the single player game during the load screen when booting up the game.That's why Silent Hill 3 was meant to be the end of the franchise, all the loose ends were tied up in that game, you kind of had an idea on why everything was happening and what was causing it if you played the first two. Silent Hill 4 wasn't even a Silent Hill game at first but became one in later stages as it was more profitable for it be a Silent Hill game rather than a new IP (this is probably why Silent Hill's "Team Silent" disbanded), but it was quite a good spin-off title that actually expanded on something that was merely an article found in Silent Hill 2. I love Silent Hill and I did enjoy the post Team Silent games as they are solid titles despite shortcomings here and there but the series has lost it's aim since Team Silent disbanded. Survival Horror has been dropping off the face of the planet because it's not really seen as a profitable genre anymore unless it has Resident Evil in the title, also Japan was the main country in which that genre was produced and the gaming market over there has been in decline over the past few years.LA Noire is another game I've never gotten around to playing despite being a fan of the genre, I watched some walkthrough videos on YouTube around the time it came out and it just didn't click for me. Which is odd given I like some of the main influences on the game such as The Big Sleep, Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. The Getaway though is one of my favorite games, although it's gameplay was flawed it did have a really good story and it really captured the mood of British gangster movies (especially Get Carter) very well.I thought Max Payne 3 was a great game on it's own, well acted and had a good action-movie plot, but it's really not much in the way of being a Max Payne game as not only is it like you said trying to continue a story already finished but it also had a severe lack of the series dark humor which is odd given it's Rockstar who pride themselves on that. I think having James McCaffrey who voiced Max in the first two games come back really helped as his performance really made that game shine in a way it wouldn't have without it.I definitely see the three main characters of GTA V as responses to criticism about the direction Rockstar have been taking with their protagonists, Trevor especially. I think starting with Vice City Stories they were trying to be more profound with their characters but didn't quite realize to do that you have to make sacrifices to the actual game itself which will ruin some player's enjoyment.The '70's has always been a setting I wanted to see for a GTA game, it's kind of surprising that Rockstar hasn't really tackled that decade all that much yet outside of The Warriors. But yeah they need to do something different with the whole ghetto thing, please no more CJs but someone out to become a kingpin and do what it takes to get there.

October 11, 2013

The GTA Online thing has really taken a turn for the worse recently' date=' I've been following up on it on various forums and it seems the first patch they released for it while fixed some online issues actually bugged people's single player games, the worse bug leaving players unable to switch characters. The second patch was released yesterday I believe and from what I gather so far is causing some crashing on the single player game during the load screen when booting up the game.That's why Silent Hill 3 was meant to be the end of the franchise, all the loose ends were tied up in that game, you kind of had an idea on why everything was happening and what was causing it if you played the first two. Silent Hill 4 wasn't even a Silent Hill game at first but became one in later stages as it was more profitable for it be a Silent Hill game rather than a new IP (this is probably why Silent Hill's "Team Silent" disbanded), but it was quite a good spin-off title that actually expanded on something that was merely an article found in Silent Hill 2. I love Silent Hill and I did enjoy the post Team Silent games as they are solid titles despite shortcomings here and there but the series has lost it's aim since Team Silent disbanded. Survival Horror has been dropping off the face of the planet because it's not really seen as a profitable genre anymore unless it has Resident Evil in the title, also Japan was the main country in which that genre was produced and the gaming market over there has been in decline over the past few years.LA Noire is another game I've never gotten around to playing despite being a fan of the genre, I watched some walkthrough videos on YouTube around the time it came out and it just didn't click for me. Which is odd given I like some of the main influences on the game such as The Big Sleep, Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. The Getaway though is one of my favorite games, although it's gameplay was flawed it did have a really good story and it really captured the mood of British gangster movies (especially Get Carter) very well.I thought Max Payne 3 was a great game on it's own, well acted and had a good action-movie plot, but it's really not much in the way of being a Max Payne game as not only is it like you said trying to continue a story already finished but it also had a severe lack of the series dark humor which is odd given it's Rockstar who pride themselves on that. I think having James McCaffrey who voiced Max in the first two games come back really helped as his performance really made that game shine in a way it wouldn't have without it.I definitely see the three main characters of GTA V as responses to criticism about the direction Rockstar have been taking with their protagonists, Trevor especially. I think starting with Vice City Stories they were trying to be more profound with their characters but didn't quite realize to do that you have to make sacrifices to the actual game itself which will ruin some player's enjoyment.The '70's has always been a setting I wanted to see for a GTA game, it's kind of surprising that Rockstar hasn't really tackled that decade all that much yet outside of The Warriors. But yeah they need to do something different with the whole ghetto thing, please no more CJs but someone out to become a kingpin and do what it takes to get there.[/quote']Indeed, I'm starting to think that what they said at machinma was true. that there server people were just 3 people and a dell in a small room in their office building who were all like I thought YOU had the job of getting the servers ready, No I thought that was you?!Today on the news GTA 5 sells One Billion Plus, Them: oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!and that's really something that it corrupts your save and screws up the game, hell it sounds like GTA online wasnt ready to go online for another 3 months with the problem's they've been having.With the Silent hill like games I think one of the few people who have been loosely trying to keep survival horror afloat is apparently seriously out of money, namely capcom with something like only 170 Million left of total capital.and considering their business practices of the 1990's in a modern world where arcades don't exist anymore. Namely the practice of releasing and rebalancing a game every couple of months along with on disc DLC and killing mega man, well its obvious time has passed them by and that they're heavily out of touch with what the fanbase wanted and will put up with nowadays.which is what has caused thisalthough I did like RE 6 and the Concept of Ada doing what she did but it had problems with the AI of your partner, BAD problems with them if you didnt have a human running them, like they would forget to pick up certain key survival tools like the shotgun in early levels. although then you have DMC Delorean Devil May Cry, that unneeded reboot....so they dug there own hole.... and to think they used to be like Rockstar back in the old days.With Silent Hill when you come right down to it with how advanced the technology has gotten since the PS1 era the Fog isnt as scary as it used to be, so you gotta rely on the story more nowadays and with it played out that means its pretty much impossible to bring back the old days unless you do something drastic with the concept.and I hate to say this but it could use a reboot with new rules and a new setting, hell they could do a " The Thing" with it and have the entire place frozen over like a wasteland or rig it up like a desert and have it broken off from the mainland. Like some sort of Bermuda triangle from of Hell, although I think they actually tried that at one point with the snow thing.or have the fog turn into its own separate entity and move from city to city, to a big one like Boston to feed off of the Evil that has been done there over years, with the player having to fight to get to the centers of the despair to kill whatever its feeding off of. while seeing just what evil has been committed in those areas first hand and by whom over time.I mean could you imagine the potental horror at that and the evil the human race can inflict on itself? and having to possibly end those people that are living to add to that the evil and being used by it to do so? you could have them be minions of the Fog that try and stop you, not unlike doom 3 in a way.and then have some civilians that are mixed in, normal people to give you an incentive to care, like everyday normal people who are just trying to survive there that you can save. and maybe they could implement a rule like they're gonna be using for Thief 4 here for it
namely that you only have the ability to survive a one on one attack, anymore than that without using your witts and your screwed, which would give even more incentive to save people to help you, as nothing is scarier than running from something you cant stop on your own. Also with how many one man army games they have out there it would be rather refreshing, and give the player a sense of accomplishment at overcoming the odds too.hell like I once did in the old games Oni and Interstate 76, not horror per say but I got a thrill out of surviving with like 5 percent health and having defeated 5 bad guys in hand to hand here with just purely defensive hit and run tactics at this section here at 5:14
complete with someone shooting at youand this mission, I hid in the barn and killed them with bugbites to quote Mass Effect 2 in interstate 76, although I didnt know that turning off the engine stopped the missile locks from the helicopter and the turrets
now if you could do that nowadays without it being super frustrating and annoying, that would be ingenius, as nothing is quite as rewarding as beating the odds like that and knowing what the odds are too, kinda like gambling in a way but without loosing all of your money to it. and that's kinda why I preferred contract's to the other hitman games as well, blood money and Absolution seemed to make him too powerful and the attempt to make him seem human seem hamfisted in absolution with dealing with that other clone and getting electrocuted, I seriously would have done that differently.as that's as bad as the glass jaw they gave the enterprise D in generations, and he was wearing rubber soled shoes no less, so much for the world's greatest assassin. At the very least they could have showed he was distracted by Burnwood's death at that moment and not thinking straight with the water thing. and I am Looking forward to Thief too by the way, it shame Garret isn't back but hey atleast we got 47 back and its not like Garret has only done Thief like 47 has. hell he was in skyrim as the leader of the Thieves guild, so I'm open to that idea of change.although the lady they got to replace burnwood did do a damn good job too I gotta say, 47 though, David Bateson, he's irreplaceable.but what I'm saying Silent Hill wise is that even though the original franchise and the idea is played out, there's still a way to make it interesting and bring back the feeling of horror of walking alone in the fog with no back up and no idea what is around the corner in a very dangerous placeThing is you just gotta up the stakes and make people care about what's going on and turn it from a single small group of people who have been effected to everyone, with people they would recognize and sympathize with to really make them invested, not unlike what beyond two souls did with a scene about the bums on a street that you live with recently really.after all if your not invested in the people in the story or there's some sort of disconnect it goes from being a horror game to a horror themed game with little substance and point.LA seemed like it didnt know what it wanted to be like, and Cole just seemed like he had no spine and no real character traits untill towards the end of the game. Hell you would think being in the war would have given him some sort of personality quirks, instead he just acted like it was nothing and like he had been a fisherman off the coast of france for the whole thing after the liberation of Paris.So to me he just felt like an Empty Vessel only ment for the player to occupy, and then to have him cheat on his wife and children out of nowhere felt really quite odd. Along with switching to the other guy at the end who felt much more human.hell it felt like Cole was a robot most of the time, and like it would have been more effective to have you play as the other guy from the getgo and have him see Cole's story from the outside. and it felt like they were trying to do and show too much with the levels of the police department, homicide is where he should have been most of the time, with Mcclusky on his side, and the interrogation system was kinda silly.although it was nice to hear Mark Hammond's voice actor again in the boxing mission for Vicebasically to say it felt rushed was an understatement. Hmm and its really a shame that getaway 3 never happened though, I gotta wonder of that team who woked on it and LA noire also worked on GTA 5 given their background of doing a 2 to 3 person story like that.Max Payne 3 heavily reminded me of Man On Fire, and like they were just doing a version of it with Max as the lead, but yeah if it wasnt for Mccafrey I'm pretty sure the game would have felt kinda underwhelming. and the things that got me was that it seemed like Max never really picked up on the hints about what was going on around him. Yes he was now a drunkard who lost his assassin girlfriend and everything that ever mattered to him, but even then when a cop is retired or off duty they have this kind of sixth sense about the wrong doings going on around them.and it just seemed odd that Max didnt seem to show any signs of that still remaining in him, or any sort of blood lust after all that he had done to the Criminal Scum of New York. Almost like he fully turned off the part of him that was a cop and the sarcasm that goes along with it. That cops sometimes use to keep sane under the heavy duress of doing a job like being a homicide detective.and it's like he fully accepted being a bodyguard for some rich brats far too soon and too easily, and we had no flashbacks to what happened at the end of 2 and his boss Bravura, who was shot in the elevator at the start of max payne 2 in its in medias res start. and we didnt see the details nor the repercussions of his actions afterwards either.Not even a glimpse of Mona's funeral, I mean did he get thrown in Jail and released latter, let off the hook but fully fired? did woden pull some strings before his passing to make sure Max wasnt charged again and then max got himself fired for being drunk on the job? did he ever have any nightmares about what he did to that female detective he shot to save Mona? the one with the kid?I mean there is alot of unanswered questions and I cant help but quote the NC hereExplain! Explain Movie!and what happened to the comic strips? at the very least they could have used them for the flashback scenes in new york.Yeah and that's the thing about developing a charachter, bad things, sacrifices and changes need to happen to them if you want to make them more indepth, and the city also needs to reflect that. But also killing off Louse did nothing seeing as she disappeared for half the story in VCS, only to become a martyr and the reason as to why the Lance's left vice for 2 years. and burning down an apartment doesnt count as reflecting a change in the story, however a good example of the player putting their mark on the world would be in GTA 3 with the fish factory, the boat and the disappearance of everyone around the dock after blowing the boat up in Bomb Da Base, and it made it feel like the world was all the more real.and just in general changes to the homebase or having a different one to get missions from really works, like in the old game mafia where 90% of the story takes place in Salieri's bar
and that would be the major thing with it, and they did have some of that with Michael's home no less too.But also its kinda funny about the brand identity, as it seems like alot of games are trying to change that to stay modern, rather than refining it like GTA 5 did. such as Saints row here which Spoony starts talking about midway into this video at 12:47
and hell I'd love to see a mix of GTA 5 and the empire building of the old Scarface the World is yours game really, but by far the closest game to even try to do something in the 1970's I have to say is the driver series, with one and two having serious overtones of the old days of crime back then.and the 4th one trying to do 1978 and 2006, hell maybe that's why they avoided that for so long, someone else beat them to the punch.

October 13, 2013

Yeah, Rockstar dropped the ball with the online portion, granted it was a pretty ambitious project but they had to have an idea much early on that they would really need manpower to get it to work properly.But Rockstar still has a shot at patching this up (no pun intended) unlike Capcom who are pretty much on their way to becoming THQ. But Silent Hill is in much worse shape than Resident Evil after last year which was supposed to be the year of Silent Hill with three game releases (Downpour, HD Collection and Book of Memories) and a movie but Konami handled it all so poorly with almost zero marketing, a dumb plan to release both the HD Collection and Downpour within a week of each other, and using an unfinished source to remaster the HD Collection from hence many bugs and technical problems. The movie didn't do so bad with the worldwide box office, it made it's money back but critically it was a total failure with the majority of it's viewers coming away disappointed with it. There's still potential for the Silent Hill franchise but after last year I truly don't expect anymore titles unless Kojima really jumps onboard like Konami asked him to (which could be a disaster in itself without restraint).Contracts is also my favorite Hitman mainly for it's atmosphere and international setting, I did love Blood Money but I prefer the more international locations in the previous games, gives it a James Bond movie feeling. Contracts had you going to Romania, Kamchatka, rural England, Rotterdam, Hungary, Paris and to me the most definining contract of the franchise, a four-part assassination in Hong Kong pitting two Triad families against each other. Blood Money had a lot of cool locations though such as Mardi Gras and Las Vegas, I hope with the next one (which is confirmed to be in development) we get more of those exotic contracts and not another Jason Bourne going rogue type thing like Absolution.A lot of people think Max Payne 3 was heavily inspired by Man on Fire, previous games were a mesh of John Woo's Hong Kong action movies and film noir, complete with a Mickey Spillane-style narration. I kind of wonder if the whole Max Payne thing was really just a vehicle for them to make a game with a Brazillian setting, either for financial reasons or they just couldn't think of a better way to make a game in that setting. I think they got rid of the comic book scenes because they wanted to go for that movie-style "realism", shame they went out with the humor.That seems to be the one thing that people miss the most in GTA and most open world games nowadays, the empire building. With a Rockstar game this gen finally not ending on a low note for main player I can see it making it's return in the future if the focus on the more fun aspects of GTA. There's a lot of potential to make an empire-building GTA if they know where to look.

October 16, 2013

Yeah' date=' Rockstar dropped the ball with the online portion, granted it was a pretty ambitious project but they had to have an idea much early on that they would really need manpower to get it to work properly.But Rockstar still has a shot at patching this up (no pun intended) unlike Capcom who are pretty much on their way to becoming THQ. But Silent Hill is in much worse shape than Resident Evil after last year which was supposed to be the year of Silent Hill with three game releases (Downpour, HD Collection and Book of Memories) and a movie but Konami handled it all so poorly with almost zero marketing, a dumb plan to release both the HD Collection and Downpour within a week of each other, and using an unfinished source to remaster the HD Collection from hence many bugs and technical problems. The movie didn't do so bad with the worldwide box office, it made it's money back but critically it was a total failure with the majority of it's viewers coming away disappointed with it. There's still potential for the Silent Hill franchise but after last year I truly don't expect anymore titles unless Kojima really jumps onboard like Konami asked him to (which could be a disaster in itself without restraint).Contracts is also my favorite Hitman mainly for it's atmosphere and international setting, I did love Blood Money but I prefer the more international locations in the previous games, gives it a James Bond movie feeling. Contracts had you going to Romania, Kamchatka, rural England, Rotterdam, Hungary, Paris and to me the most definining contract of the franchise, a four-part assassination in Hong Kong pitting two Triad families against each other. Blood Money had a lot of cool locations though such as Mardi Gras and Las Vegas, I hope with the next one (which is confirmed to be in development) we get more of those exotic contracts and not another Jason Bourne going rogue type thing like Absolution.A lot of people think Max Payne 3 was heavily inspired by Man on Fire, previous games were a mesh of John Woo's Hong Kong action movies and film noir, complete with a Mickey Spillane-style narration. I kind of wonder if the whole Max Payne thing was really just a vehicle for them to make a game with a Brazillian setting, either for financial reasons or they just couldn't think of a better way to make a game in that setting. I think they got rid of the comic book scenes because they wanted to go for that movie-style "realism", shame they went out with the humor.That seems to be the one thing that people miss the most in GTA and most open world games nowadays, the empire building. With a Rockstar game this gen finally not ending on a low note for main player I can see it making it's return in the future if the focus on the more fun aspects of GTA. There's a lot of potential to make an empire-building GTA if they know where to look.[/quote']It is abit weird though that they completely seemed to underestimate the amount of people who would try and play GTA Online Like this. and another weird problem with it is that you cant turn off the cops and you seem to get the wanted level's at a much quicker rate in mutiplayer than it is in single player, not to mention a huge lack of cars and pedestrians for a game called grand theft auto while in that mode.and now theres a bounty system you can put on other players to have merc's show up and shoot at you, almost like they themselves underestimated just how many people would want to play it and try to troll on it.speaking of which when someone talks into their microphone it turns down the game audio automatically, so if you have a song playing and someone is talking, regardless if you want to hear them or not it pretty much interrupts whatever your listening to. Making it seem like its amateur hour over at rockstar's new online branch or something, I mean this seems like some pretty basic issues that should have been sorted out quite some time ago.I mean I don't want to hear a 4 year old yapping over this while I'm playing the game and what's even weirder is that when you think about it there's been mutiplayer for Max Payne 3, RDR and GTA 4, how could they screw this up so badly is my question?and yeah Kojima.... silent hill.... and no editor........ oh god
yeah I didnt even get beyond the first quarter of Metal Gear Solid 3 just because of how long winded and talk savy the damn thing was, as I felt like I was reading a book rather than participating in a spy thriller taking place in the 1960's. hell with the way he does things you could really look at him as the cause of this games as movies, instead of tv show episodes situation that gaming's gotten stuck in recently.and yeah I dont know what's going on with these people and scheduling, I mean it seems like a pretty basic concept to us mere mortals that you shouldn't put something you want to succeed right next to another release of the same franchise or against a juggernaut at the box office or on the latest game consoles.or TV shows for that matter.and for some reason people in japan seem to be much more oblivious to that than anything else, I mean you would think the american branch would say HEY! that is not a good idea! this game that sells millions of copies that everyone has been waiting for all year is coming out next week at the same time ours does as well.So maybe we should postpone it and give it more time in development.... hello..... hello sir.... sir?timing is everything after all.also I just found out something, apparently the music score for GTA 5, the ingame mission only soundtrack was composed apparently by the people who did Michael Mann's Thiefhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_of_Grand_Theft_Auto_Vin addition to a few others, so just like Driver 3 and Driver San Fransisco hiring Narco to do their ingame music, GTA seems to have followed Suit.Eh with blood money my main problem was the customization and the open ended feeling of it, plus the vagueness of the enemy, like there was no real presence or feeling that the heat was coming down on 47. Especially after that epic setup of it in Contract's almost like blood money was very rushed and nothing was really properly developed, hell I think the most developed character in the game was the bird, and we really never saw any real reactions from 47 outside of its death.and it felt like Contract's was the second Borne film, and then blood money was the third where they stuck the second ones ending in there to make it seem like it was tied into the past and it just seems like it cheapened the build up really.Plus Jesper Kyd seemed to have much more freedom to experement with the sountrack here with contract's, given the setting of the Hong Kong Missions, and that seems to have been lost with blood money and absolution
where he used musical cues from that particular area your supposed to be in, giving it its own specific flavor, like what he did with Hitman 1 and 2
2 having that score to it given its Italian and Russian Routes.

hell not unlike the old game freedom fighters really.My other problem with the latter games is that they made him feel like a tank too, in contract's he felt strong and capable but not invincible, probably because of the lack of a way to really fight back with your fists, so you had to always rely on your tools and the only ways you could use them that were given to you by the game. as with your fists are always there in the latter games and that kind of broke the game for me.close the gap, knock out, rinse and repeat, or grab, strangle and rinse and repeat, rather than sneak up, fiber wire, hide and take his outfit.hell honestly I think the way that would be a good way to rig it up is how they did it with Beyond Two Souls, where most of the inputs were hidden so you had to go off of what you saw, rather than a few specific button presses.http://blip.tv/videogamesawesome/beyond-two-souls-demo-is-awesome-6647205and that was one of the areas where I agreed with angry joe with his review of absolution as that fight with the clone was underwhelming, hell I think there was much more thought given to the fight with Krauser in RE 4 Frankly.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HISrvI5M9xAalthough with the way they did it, it didnt feel organic like the Beyond one does, it was kind of a guessing trial and error game rather than feeling dynamic and that your actually in there toe to toe with this guyand the last part would be the damn disguises and how that's handled, you shouldnt need the instinct to tip your hat down and all that just to not get noticed, plus that just seems silly most of the time, as then someone would finger you as an imposter on site for that, like hey what'cha hiding buddy. So they just need to really tone that down and make it more believable for the next one.not unlike well what they say here for this Commode Story from Reservoir Dogs.
like have that most of the disguises use 47's dress pants so he doesnt entirely change outfits or make it take much longer. like have a quick change option with a bare minimum of clothing, a coat, a shirt, hat then a longer one that offers a better Disguise, basically make it much more dynamic.and use voice options or text options to get out of tight spots possibly and have him cover up his barcode most of the time with some sort of liquid skin or makeup even honestly though the more I think about it, absolution seems like a second take on Blood Money when you come down to it, the setting, your on the run and getting knocked out and framed seem like stuff that would have gone along fine with the setting of blood money.hell if anything they should get back to the old way of making the games now, and what happened to the Syringes and the Rifle he used in Contracts?as I thought those were very handy in the old games and fit in with the way it was done very well, hell it seemed like that rifle, the WA 2000 was just as Iconic as his pistols and I was really wondering where that disappeared off to in the latest one.With Max Payne maybe they figured that since times have changed and bulletime has lost its novelty since the end of the Matrix Seriesremember that came out in 99 and 2004 and 2005, all which co inside with the release of Max Payne in one way or another and the Crow, which I swear it seems like it shared some similarities with,that they needed to find a new crutch for the game series and figured that the movie man on fire would be a good choice for its new basis.given his history, with the loss of his family and then seeing a possible early version of him in similar dire circumstances with a chance to have a family again. Which does make sense, my problem with it was that it didnt use his past enough to show his motivations and to fill in what has happened since the last game.and with his history you could turn max payne into the punisher from this, Max Payne 3 actually, the 1987 version, to give him a new sense of purpose which would make sense really, or a private detective of some sort.and Yeah I think empire building and leaving a mark on the world would be a new avenue they could use for the next GTA game, hell it seems like they were dabbling with it in 5 there.

Sign In

The 411 about GTA 5

Recommended Posts

Kavinsky

Link to comment

Share on other sites

agent 47

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Kavinsky

Link to comment

Share on other sites

agent 47

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Kavinsky

Link to comment

Share on other sites

agent 47

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Kavinsky

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Kavinsky

Link to comment

Share on other sites

agent 47

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Kavinsky

Link to comment

Share on other sites

agent 47

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Kavinsky

Link to comment

Share on other sites

agent 47

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Kavinsky

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Join the conversation

Community

Activity

My Activity Streams

Location Maps

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3