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Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360)
Team Talk: What I Hate About GTA IV
Team Talk: What I Hate About GTA IV
Teamxbox - May 8, 2008
Submitted by Benopolis (530) at 4:18AM PST on May 9, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV is, without a doubt, a stunning game with an amazing amount of content. Yes, GTA IV is fully deserving of the praise heaped on it by the many media critics who've reviewed it. What follows is my critical analysis-call it nitpicking if you will-of GTA IV, in hopes that Rockstar will put this on the list of things to remedy before the next game comes out.
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5sagexsdx posted on Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) at 10:50AM PST on May 9, 2008. RE: Team Talk: What I Hate About GTA IV@Laoldar,
i agree about the scores/numbers. i am also of the mind of reading the actual review instead of basing purchases off some arbitrary number.
and it's interesting that you brought up the point of review-score creep. i was thinking that same thing the other day.
i started thinking maybe we should just be on a boundless system and rate it kind of like in dragonball where they have some power level. and then people could eventually give a game the internet meme's "over nine thousandddddddd?!"
but that was just a thought[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 148 ]bids
6Laoldar posted on Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) at 9:02AM PST on May 9, 2008. RE: Team Talk: What I Hate About GTA IV@sagexsdx,
The problem has been steady review-score creep. Games are being compared to previous efforts, rather than being judged on their own merits. As most publishers will improve their titles over time, the scores keep increasing, leading inevitably to crowding at the top scores.
A recent Zero Punctuation review made an excellent point...why should you care about the number at the end of a review? Reviews should point out what the game does well, and what it does not. It should talk about what the game is like, rather than give it some arbitrary rating that is based largely on the taste of that particular reviewer. Would people not buy GTA4 if the review was the same but gave it a 8 or 9? If so, then they're missing the point of it all.
Scores are just fodder for the fanboy wars anyway.[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 182 ]bids
6sagexsdx posted on Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) at 6:50AM PST on May 9, 2008. RE: Team Talk: What I Hate About GTA IV@Benopolis,
i am one of the people who thinks that all of the 10/10 scores are way too high. and this is coming from a guy who normally doesn't care about 10/10 being like "the perfect score". it's not the "perfect score" i have an issue with. it's the fact that the game has so many problems with it that i dont think it deserves a 10/10.
other games with technical and functional problems get knocked down points or percentages of points for them. but it seems this game hasn't.
one conversation i heard about the game, the people were saying that it seemed people were grading gta4 based on how it was compared to the previous gta's, completely ignoring what other competing games, directly and indirectly, had done in the space.
for example - and this is mentioned in the article - the cover system in gta4 is very problematic compared to other games with relatively tight cover systems (gears of war and rainbow six vegas say hi)
also you make all this money and money is suppose to be niko's motivation to do all these crimes. however, there isn't really any time i felt i was tight on money. i currently have a balance of 400k and i still don't see what im suppose to use it on. i know weapons are really expensive but at the same time, none of the missions up till this point have needed much more than the SMG or the Carbine. this abundance of money, for me anyway, really reduces the reward for the risk i take in the missions (where really, the only reward i'm getting at this point is the fact that i'm progressing the story)
from what i hear, playing through the whole game makes you realize and possibly even agree with all the 10's the game has received. but does that mean we can ignore all of the problems with the game?[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 148 ]bids
2Benopolis posted on Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) at 4:21AM PST on May 9, 2008. RE: Team Talk: What I Hate About GTA IV@Benopolis,
I posted this story to get everyones opinion. I agree with some of the points made in the article about what changes they can make before the next game.[ Guru ] [ Level 18 ] [ Rank: 530 ]bids
12Benopolis posted on Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) at 4:18AM PST on May 9, 2008. Article: Team Talk: What I Hate About GTA IVGrand Theft Auto IV is, without a doubt, a stunning game with an amazing amount of content. Yes, GTA IV is fully deserving of the praise heaped on it by the many media critics who've reviewed it. What follows is my critical analysis-call it nitpicking if you will-of GTA IV, in hopes that Rockstar will put this on the list of things to remedy before the next game comes out.[ Guru ] [ Level 18 ] [ Rank: 530 ]
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My point is this - perhaps we should consider the possibility that the top tier of game developers are getting better at their craft. Is Bungie of today a smarter developer than the Bungie of 2000, back when Halo was in development? I should damn well hope so, or they've not been very clever about running their business.
Reviews are an integral part of the videogame business, and it makes sense that a smart developer will 'game' the system over time, producing games that are subjectively 'better' according to the mostly static criteria of the average review.
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Back on topic, sure GTA4 has many flaws, but compare the number of flaws to the number of things it does right, and the 10/10's start to make more sense. The real joy of the game is in how many things it attempts, and the suprisingly high number of those things are done really, really well. Given the sheer volume of well implemented features, a few minor niggles seem forgivable.