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Grand Theft Auto IV

Will you buy Grand Theft Auto IV?


  • Total voters
    110
Well, thanks to the latest tirades of Jack Thompson (and a sale at Circuit City), I decided to purchase GTA IV instead of waiting for it to drop in price in a year... even though I never play any of the games I buy for full price.
 
A few quick first impressions after playing it a couple of hours.

Not really digging the graphics, too soft, too blurry, and WAY too dark. The cell phone is pretty much unreadable on my TV, I've played with the in-game display settings and just can't get it any better.

Not sure if this is a PS3 thing, or GTA4 thing but I'm not happy with that aspect at all.
 
Stab attack at Grand Theft queue
A man was stabbed in front of a queue of people waiting to buy the latest edition of a computer game.

Up to 100 people witnessed the knife attack outside the Gamestation store in Croydon, ahead of Monday's midnight release of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Police said the 23-year-old victim was walking past the queue when he was stabbed several times by a hooded man who appeared to be waiting in line.

The victim was treated in hospital and has since been allowed home.

After the attack at about 2300 BST in George Street the victim did not call the emergency services but police were informed by a member of the public.

He was found not far from the store and taken to hospital where he was treated for several stab wounds.

'Many' witnesses

Det Insp Liz Baker urged anyone who was in the queue to contact them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7373348.stm

Wow. That's fucked up!

I wonder how long it'll take Jack Thompson to say GTA IV is the reason kids stab each other?
 
A few quick first impressions after playing it a couple of hours.

Not really digging the graphics, too soft, too blurry, and WAY too dark. The cell phone is pretty much unreadable on my TV, I've played with the in-game display settings and just can't get it any better.

Not sure if this is a PS3 thing, or GTA4 thing but I'm not happy with that aspect at all.

I'm picking up my copy later today so I don't know the answer to this: Does the game have options to remove video filters and stuff like that (similar to what Mass Effect did with the "film" filter)?
 
Stab attack at Grand Theft queue
A man was stabbed in front of a queue of people waiting to buy the latest edition of a computer game.

Up to 100 people witnessed the knife attack outside the Gamestation store in Croydon, ahead of Monday's midnight release of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Police said the 23-year-old victim was walking past the queue when he was stabbed several times by a hooded man who appeared to be waiting in line.

The victim was treated in hospital and has since been allowed home.

After the attack at about 2300 BST in George Street the victim did not call the emergency services but police were informed by a member of the public.

He was found not far from the store and taken to hospital where he was treated for several stab wounds.

'Many' witnesses

Det Insp Liz Baker urged anyone who was in the queue to contact them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7373348.stm

Wow. That's fucked up!

I wonder how long it'll take Jack Thompson to say GTA IV is the reason kids stab each other?

Walking past the queue, or trying to get to the front of it?
 
Walking past the queue, or trying to get to the front of it?

You think somebody fucked up enough to do that would have been queuing in the first place? More than likely it was some dick head, who didn't like the way the guy looked at him.

~Edit~
Sorry, I misread the story. I thought it said he was stabbed by somebody walking past the queue. I'd bet there's more to the story than what's in the article, but wtf is up with someone who'd do that just for a game anyway?
 
A few quick first impressions after playing it a couple of hours.

Not really digging the graphics, too soft, too blurry, and WAY too dark. The cell phone is pretty much unreadable on my TV, I've played with the in-game display settings and just can't get it any better.

Not sure if this is a PS3 thing, or GTA4 thing but I'm not happy with that aspect at all.

I'm picking up my copy later today so I don't know the answer to this: Does the game have options to remove video filters and stuff like that (similar to what Mass Effect did with the "film" filter)?


I don't think so... at least, not that I noticed.
 
A few quick first impressions after playing it a couple of hours.

Not really digging the graphics, too soft, too blurry, and WAY too dark. The cell phone is pretty much unreadable on my TV, I've played with the in-game display settings and just can't get it any better.

Not sure if this is a PS3 thing, or GTA4 thing but I'm not happy with that aspect at all.

so apparently reviews give the PS3 a slight edge in terms of visuals with respect to draw distance and texture popping, but they've noted as you have that the colors are far more muted than in the 360 version, which looks warmer and richer in terms of colors.

Recommendation: expand your color settings! If the game is too dark you can easily fix that - you won't be able to fix the softness, though.
 
I just pumped up the brightness settings.
There's some pop-in though, which is annoying. I'm trying to drive down an alley and poof, suddenly tables appear and I slam into them.
 
CoD4 is 600p and MGO Beta is running at 655p.
No one is able to hit true 720 for some reason.


There are a lot of games that run in true 720p or true 1080p. The games you mention and GTAIV however, do not.

However, anyone who would be bothered by this is a bit of an idiot since all these games as some of the prettiest ever made.

The only reason there's so much noise being made about this is because the silly Xbots want to get back at the stupid Sony fanboys over Halo 3 not running in true 720p. DESPITE the fact that Halo 3 used the extra processing power to make the lighting in the game prettier, and the extra juice in the PS3 version of GTA was used to enhance the lighting and post processing.

It started out as a technical observation on Beyond 3D that's become fodder for fanboy flamebait.

That said, i won't be able to get my hands on a copy and play it till next week, so I'm avoiding spoilers like mad at the mo.

G4, do you have an HDTV? If not, that might explain why cell phone text is hard to read.
 
^That, or his display is low contrast or improperly calibrated.


Not being able to read the Cell Phone is clearly not what is intended for GTA 4, so it sounds like a problem on his display settings end, not on the game software's end.

Again I'd recommended expanding the color stretch on your display (whatever it is). Or if GTA 4 has a brightness setting you could try that too.
 
GAF had this argument too. The problem is that scaling without AA makes the image look grainy and spotty. From what I understand, Halo 3 doesn't have AA and CoD4 has AA, which makes it look "crisper".
I'm scaling up to 1080p anyway, so I suppose everything at that res looks like crap... I think I need to wait for the next generation of consoles to get true 1080p I suppose.
 
GAF had this argument too. The problem is that scaling without AA makes the image look grainy and spotty. From what I understand, Halo 3 doesn't have AA and CoD4 has AA, which makes it look "crisper".
I'm scaling up to 1080p anyway, so I suppose everything at that res looks like crap... I think I need to wait for the next generation of consoles to get true 1080p I suppose.

There are some PS3 games (and possibly some 360 games I think) that render true 1080p

Also, yes, Halo 3 didn't implement AA when scaling, CoD4 did, and I believe GTA IV does as well.
 
AFAIK, Gran Turismo 5 is the first PS3 game to natively render at 1080. All other games upscale (including all 360 games).

(Interestingly, only the cutscenes and replays in GT5 have FSAA - normal gameplay has no AA - not that it needs it, it's native at 1080 and already looks like sex).

(again, AFAIK)

Regardless, I think the "controversy" over "advertised HD" and "actual HD" is a bit silly. The games still look great regardless of what they're natively rendered in, and that choice is largely based on framerate optimization, which, IMO, is more important than resolution with respect to an enjoyable gameplay experience.

Of course, I happen to think that the most important aspect of how "good" a game looks on a screen is the game's lighting engine. You can have shitty textures at a shitty resolution, but if you light them beautifully, you've got a gorgeous, immersive game (all other things being equal, of course).

Halo 3 looks great, for instance (IMO), and renders natively at a relatively low res. But the HDR lighting in H3 is gorgeous, and makes it one of the best looking 360 games (along with COD4, Gears, and Assassin's, IMO).


firehawk: I was under the impression that COD4 did not AA? :confused:
 
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I don't know, I'm just reporting the debates over at GAF. :)

But yeah, the games still look better than last gen games for sure.
 
What's the online multiplayer like?

Bueller....Bueller....
It's awesome. I was up pretty much all night playing with a couple of friends. We didn't try any of the special mods, but we were in free roam mode exploring the city and shooting up random stuff, and getting into fights with other gamers. Then we turned on friendly fire mode and went into a triple fight to the death. Lot's of fun. :techman:

The game itself is amazing. The visuals, the sound, the controls, and even the very little I've seen of the story (the opening scene) are incredible. It's easy to see why 99.9% of all reviews give GTAIV a 10/10, 5/5, A+, etc.
 
A few quick first impressions after playing it a couple of hours.

Not really digging the graphics, too soft, too blurry, and WAY too dark. The cell phone is pretty much unreadable on my TV, I've played with the in-game display settings and just can't get it any better.

Not sure if this is a PS3 thing, or GTA4 thing but I'm not happy with that aspect at all.

I'm picking up my copy later today so I don't know the answer to this: Does the game have options to remove video filters and stuff like that (similar to what Mass Effect did with the "film" filter)?

I didn't see anything about removing video filters, but you can change the brightness, contrast, and "saturation" (whatever that is, the manual is useless in that regard). I guess I can live with the graphics of the game itself, but I have to get up out of my chair and get close to the screen to read stuff on the cell phone. I don't know why in the hell they had to make it so small and with such bad colors (black on gray).
 
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