What should a semi-sequel based on the GTA IV engine be like? While GTA: San Andreas' gang-banging was not to everybody's taste, I loved the open countryside with it's highways and remote nooks n' crannies, and I would like to see that back in the next GTA game. My idea would be a PS3 update of Vice City, in addition to the fictional version of Florida and Cuba, with several large towns, the Florida Keys, numerous other medium sized islands, and Havana. The main character could be an security agent in service of the Cuba's Communist regime, but a sudden coup launched by a rival sends him into exile to Vice City where he has to work his way to the top again and find a way to get even. Vice City would be updated, with the fictional Florida having the swampy Everglades, dense forests and arid scrublands. The islands would either have holiday resorts on them or be seemingly empty (but would have easter eggs to be found there), with one island being a equivalent to Area 69 since it has a supervillain's secret lair located there (with jumpsuited minions and a superweapon found in a hollowed out volcano). The fictional Cuba would have a mountain range, shanty towns, a fictional Havana (where you start and end the storylines), and a dense jungle. You could take a boat to Cuba, but earlier on in the game you'd trigger a Six Star rating and the Cuban Army would be waiting for you, although the Six Star rating would be cancelled if you head back to America. These are the initial ideas off the top of my head, and I may even draw a rough map.
A part of me thinks they are running out of ideas and should hold of sequels for new engines (GTA 5 would be next console most likely) and then do that in Vice City with a 6th in San Andreas. However I do think they will make the 2 spinoff sequels on the GTA 4 engines with modifcations at they go on. I want a story a bit like The Departed in the next GTA game..though any sequel I hope they improve the checkpoint/save system and handbrake turning.
Would they be able to do a GTA-type story where the main character is like an undercover cop? Of course, the whole running people over and killing cops and random bystanders rampage would be hindered.
I really can't see the point in having a undercover cop as a central character - given the amount of crimes you would inevitably commit it would be impossible and completely unrealistic (even for GTA standards) for you to remain in your job, and there's no fun if you have to keep your nose clean in order to progress the story. It works for the True Crime series, as the focus is on being a detective and following the law, rather than breaking it to progress, where as the whole Grand Theft Auto goes against the idea of doing good things! The closest you could get to that would be similar to Vice City Stories, where you start as a soldier, but after being forced into doing a few missions for your drug-dealing superior officer you get fired. You could have a story where you were undercover, but got fired for some reason - this could open the possibility for having contacts in the police force, which might open up some interesting possibilities...
I'd like to see a slightly more dynamic story line where completing/failing the missions had more of an impact on the game and story.
I mean't to say a departed type story but the guy you are becomes seduced by well being bad early on something like the first mission is a biggie then the rest of the plot is a few years later.
Didn't they say early on that they were going to do something like that for GTA IV, where choices and actions have a long-term effect on which missions were available to you? The only significant choice was the one that decided which endgame you played (and possibly the Playboy X/Dwayne decision); the other choices were more a choice of letting some insignificant character live or die, which at best might have led to a random character mission, and at worst made you feel better about yourself...
Driver 2 was in Cuba wasn't it? I started playing it but didn't get far as I found it lackluster to the original but I wonder now if it wasn't a bit ahead of its time. I should dig it out and give it a shot just for shits and giggles.
Little off topic but there was a Grand Theft Auto Gotham mentioned on Smallville a few months ago. I wonder what that'd be like...
I think a change of setting would be nice. GTA London would be interesting, for example. The structure of European cities is substantially different than those in the US, for example, and would mean you'd have to make a number of changes to account for that in any case. It would also be interested to contemplate what it would mean to have a woman as the main character. Though I'm not quite sure Take Two would be the right ones to pull that off properly.
If you're policeman, you'd be essentially like Tenpenny and you're badge would not be needed after so much death and destruction. Europe could work, but not necessarily London, which could be dull and limiting, with no interesting geographical features that you could in North America or mainland Europe. Also Tokyo Bay sounds promising and could have legs; the urban areas would be dense, high-tech and vibrant, while external rural areas would be an interesting change of scenery (you could have Edo era castles, fishing villages, paddy fields, and a fictional Mount Fuji, which of course be host to a supervillain's lair ). How about Carcer City, a Detroit/Pittsburgh style city where the Manhunter games take place, and is also mentioned many times in the GTA games? It would be a much more grim and unpleasant place than Liberty or Vice, with the local countryside full of slag heaps and abandoned industrial works.
Well, I suppose any town could be dull. But that's up to the game designers. And I really think you'd have to go to a hell of a lot of trouble to make London as a location boring. The important thing would be to transport the vibrance, variety and intensity that is London and make the player really capable of diving into that. Geographically, at the very least, you've got the river Thames. I'd also add that one shouldn't forget the structure of the town. The structure of many US towns is, when you get right down to it, relatively dull. It's just a grid. It's other things that make those towns come to life in reality or in games. But in towns like London, you can basically add the city's structure to part of the geography. It's quite literally an urban landscape. I think a GTA set in London could be extremely exciting. But, naturally, you'd have to do it right.
^ Wow, now THAT would be really tough. Creating new cities or parts of cities that work as well and are as attractive as existing ones is a tough challenge even for professional urban planners and designers. So I expect that creating a completely new city in a game that's not based on existing cities yet still manages to be both convincing as a city and to be engaging would be rather difficult. Still, an interesting thing to try to do for sure. I suppose what you'd get, essentially, would be a mix of different cities since you wouldn't be able to do it completely from scratch (or at least I can't imagine how you'd do it without some form of real-life inspiration).
Clearly the obvious answer to this is a GTA game set in a Blade Runner-esque Future. Flying cars, 3D streets!!!