[parker]

The spectacle of armed robbery
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[Norberton]

[TXTSWORD]

[thestage]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

speaking of which, do you think they'll go ahead and put Bigfoot or UFOs in this one, or just more teases?

[Oh God Spiders No]

Mostly in response to thestage:

I'll agree that the missions and storyline are better when you're a psychopath doing evil things for powerful people, through a satirical lens that acknowledges the entire world as being completely insane.
But, I'm gonna buy it anyway and probably enjoy the parts of it I will, and probably not enjoy the parts I don't. Maybe I should boycott and demand better from the chef? You can make that argument but I'd rather do other things with my time.

Now, I should admit that I frequently will angrily refuse to see movies because I refuse to consume poorly-written, incoherent dogshit, but I feel like for a game it's a bit different. For the time that you're interacting with a game it's yours, and you can easily tailor the experience to be whatever you want it to be. As a kid I used to just wander around levels in Mario 2, happily acting out stories to myself with the little action figures on screen. I wasn't playing the game that they designed but I still had a blast. Modern GTA games are called sandboxes for a reason, and come bundled with cheat codes for a reason, too.

Couldn't make it through Mass Effect 2, but that's because there wasn't ANYTHING in there that I wanted, or at least not enough to merit my time and energy. Not so with GTA5. There appears to be a lot in there that I want.
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[Youpi]

Only thing I wanna know: will they finally fix the shitty humor acknowledging itself, delivered in an absolutely perfect big budget fashion to make the waste all the more tragic?
In 4, they built such a coherent universe, then all the copywriting for the fictional brands goes all "HELLO THIS IS A SARCASM" "JOKES HUMOR LOW-HANGING FRUIT FUCK IMMERSION" "BANGING TRASH CAN LIDS FOR AN HOUR!"
I really hope they will address this in 5.
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Twitter: @youpi

[TXTSWORD]

I'm going to go ahead an assume that it's really unlikely that they would adopt a more sophisticated sense of humor at this point.

[CubaLibre]

If they can transfer the lessons they learned with RDR back into GTA then the game will be good.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[parker]

[CubaLibre]

Speaking of which, one of these days we need to play more Payday.

That awful 3-player Call of Juarez game is still 30 fucking dollars on Steam. I dunno what they're thinking.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[parker]

Yeah I just checked the other day too. There can't be anybody buying it. It should of been 2.50 six months after it came out. They're coming out with a new one though so maybe soon.
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[cake]

Youpi, you're right about the humour, I had to avoid it at every turn in GTA IV, although not because it spoilt immersion but just because it was so awful. I also wish every car didn't have the radio turned on by default because nearly all of the channels were terrible.

I actually ended up liking the car handling in GTA IV but, at least on the PS3 version, the low frame rate made it difficult. I really hope they fix some of the problems with the persistency of the world, but as GTA V is targetted at the same platforms as GTA IV (and that seemed to have a similar engine to GTA III) I'm not holding out much hope.

Exploring is fun in open world games, and it doesn't involve killing people.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

parker, I get the feeling I've asked you this before, but have you played The Clue (sometimes known by it's native name Der Clou!)?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/clue
http://superadventuresingaming.blogspot.com/2012/03/clue-amiga.html

I'm not sure you'd be into it, since it's an old adventure/strategy hybrid with a lot of talking and no real action. The difference between GTA/Payday/etc and The Clue is kind of like the difference between modern sandbox superhero games and Superhero League of Hoboken. It's set in 1950s Europe (specifically London, playing as a Polish immigrant) and is less about the tension/paranoia/thrill that American heist media seems to thrive on. Also, as you can see in that second link, it's kind of a fussy game.

It has a sequel but it's kind of weird and very cartoony.

[parker]

I know I've heard the title but I guess I never looked further into it. Looks cool as hell.
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[boojiboy7]

Does anyone in GTA4 ever react to Nico being a psycopath? I think that was more of my problem with the game than Niko himself.

There was one quick throwaway line about it in one of the expansions that made me smile.

[parker]

On some of the dates you can go on Niko makes casual references to murder and human trafficking, being an empty killing machine etc. In the expansion you bug a car that ends up in Niko's possession and later you can listen to the bug and it's just Niko screaming and shooting.
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[parker]

My brother just reminded me of some of the specifics. There's a girl he can date where he confesses to her how he's become a one man crime wave since hitting american shores and he just wants to be loved or killed. In my experience this either completely wrecks a date or immediately seals the deal.

Also when niko is tailing a guy for somebody he brings up how he knows how to do this, something about stalking a girl in europe etc. He sympathizes with the mcreary's over the death of their brother, despite being the guy who killed him. The guy is clearly not all there. One of the random encounters is him giving 500 dollars to a girl to get her act cleaned up and whatnot. I mean depending on how you play he's either a nice guy or he's just a bullshit artist trying to buy himself some karma there.

Johnny and Luis from the expansions aren't nearly as crazed maniacs as Niko, and it's also a lot harder to justify going on murder sprees mid-missions with them (Luis especially, he's basically the only professional who has got it together in all his dealings with people in his story), but also their storylines are a lot more interesting and have deeper themes. I think it might be too much to expect every open world rockstar game to satisfy both points, you're just going to have to take one or the other at some point. I never played Ultima 7 and complained that Lord British wasn't doing a good enough job to convince me to play Avatar-like. The story is there if you want it, if you don't then that game is there too.
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[parker]

It's interesting Michael is a rat. And Trevor is also working with the feeb to get his buddy out of prison or something. Criminals and the government working hand in hand, that's just the modern age I guess. I blame the decline of criminal codes of honor on drugs. Drugs ruined crime.
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[boojiboy7]

You are kinda making me wish I enjoyed GTA4 as much as I did RDR, but oh well.

[Gorblax]

My favorite bit of hidden dialogue in GTAIV is how sometimes, but not all the time, in the first mission where you're forced to kill someone, Niko says "Shit! I promised myself I wouldn't kill anyone here!"

The only problem I had with IV is how every single person you must kill in the game are criminals or killers themselves -- except for the guys on Francis McReary's missions, when you have to clean up his unspecified scandal. There should have been another way around that.
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[Teflon]

[cake]

they?? you, you monster!!!

i tried calling an ambulance once for someone i ran over. the paramedic just ignored them and stood there looking at me. so i shot them and their partner and stole the ambulance.

[Take It Sleazy]

looks fun as hell

[Winona Ghost Ryder]

I wouldn't mind this being a buddy comedy the whole way through.

[TXTSWORD]

What do you mean it looks fun? that was all cinema?

[RobotRocker]

[parker]

[Take It Sleazy]

[boojiboy7]

[TXTSWORD]

I was being a jerk. I'm sorry. I liked the trailer.

[GcDiaz]

Rockstar = Pixar y/n?
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Steam/PSN/Xbawks: GcDiaz

Let's bring sexy back!

[boojiboy7]

no that is valve.

[GcDiaz]

parry/riposte ftw
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Steam/PSN/Xbawks: GcDiaz

Let's bring sexy back!

[parker]

I can't wait to get phone calls from my therapist while helping my unhinged veteran buddy dispose of corpses.
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[TXTSWORD]

I really like his neck tattoo but if he were smart he would reposition it to somewhere less lethal like his collarbone to deceive his enemies!

[evnvnv]

i liked the parr where the car drives off the big truck. i feel like more deliberately conceived car chase situations will probably improve the game, or at least bring it closer to replicating What Is Cool About Action Movies in interactive form... creating a perfect storm of ludicrous circumstances, but still leaving some room for improvisation (hopefully)
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The text will not live forever. The cup are small

[Felix]

[scratchmonkey]

[TXTSWORD]

I really hated the rubber band car chases. You're catching up? NOW I'M GOING 3000MPH okay the script is back on track.

[scratchmonkey]

IIRC the cars were always in the same places as well, which really bugged me, i.e. when you get to a certain intersection, regardless of how long you've taken to get there, there's always a taxi just edging through the crosswalk on the left, etc.