I got my gta last night impressions soon.

Finished work at 12am last night, drove over to my nearby 24hr supermarket and managed to literally grab their last copy at about 12.30am (they had 55 copies). One of the guys working there was just about to take it for himself, but it was to be mine!

Playing it til 5 last night. So many cool new features in the animation and things going on around you. Characters and the music are brilliant as usual. The controls are a bit awkward as usual, and the frame rate can become choppy for a few seconds now and then (on 360).

Underneath it all Rockstar have given us the usual cartoony GTA rather than a new venture into a serious life-sim like I thought it might have been, which isn' t a criticism against it! The game is gonna be huge.

I' m sticking to 360 for the online play. Very impressed so far though!

Fine with me Ghost. I' ve got a lot of time for gaming on Wednesdays to begin with, so that' ll work out alright for me.

I' ll post my review after a day or so of gametime. I don' t want to rush it.

Here are my impressions so far.

To be honest, I feel a little let down, the phone is a good idea, I just find it hard to read the messages.

The cars seem to be very skittish, by this I mean they seem very easy to spin out.

The Police seem to be more intuitive which is a good thing, however you seem to get a wanted status very quickly.

The fight mechanics are better in the sense of you get a variation on attacks, however with multiple targets it does get a bit confusing.

The cutscenes are in some cases (and this is early into the game) a bit too long, but well done.

Oh and I can' t find Lazlo on the radio.

The police computer is a nice touch.

I am probably being very nit picky, but these are my impressions so far and I hope that they change

I just got mine, but won' t be able to pop in that bad boy until tonight, but as soon as I give it a good go, I' ll post my impression.

Here is what I think after playing for about an hour.

Graphics:
meh, obviously nothing special. Frame rate isn' t very good either. From a technological standpoint they aren' t good, kind of bad actually. Artistically it is alright though. It has a nice style to it. The graphics aren' t so bad that they ruin the experience or anything, but they could be vastly improved.

Controls:
They' re okay.
Walking around isn' t too great. The camera turns really slow, even though I have my sensitvity on high (but I think that only effects aiming guns). It would have been a lot nicer if they let you set the sensitivity for the camera. The camera can be annoying at times.
Fighting is okay, it can be a bit clumsy.
Driving is pretty good for the type of game it is. Each car drives differently and the physics system is good enough to make it a fun experience. The camera can be a hassle though.
I haven' t used any weapons, I' m not that far along in the game yet.
I like using the cell phone so far.

Gameplay:
Pretty good so far. I' ve only done like 3 or 4 missions and a little bit of random stuff.
Most of the missions so far have just been learning the game. Learning how to drive, fight, dating, using the phone, etc. They seem like they' ll become more fun when I get into the meat of the game.
Since I haven' t gotten any weapons I haven' t got to do much goofing off yet. I look forward to it. The highlight so far was stealing a cop car then turning on the sirens and seeing the cars pull over and clear a path for me as I sped down the highway.
The mini games are all well done so far. They have a lot of skill to them and are fairly fun. There also seems to be a lot of them, all I' ve done so far is pool and bowling though.
There were also a lot of funny things in the game such as the radio stations, the tv stations and other random stuff you see on the street.

Multiplayer:
Haven' t played it yet, I' m looking forward to this and I probably wouldn' t have bought the game if it didn' t have it. I just want to learn the controls and everything before I jump in.

Overall:
Obviously I haven' t played enough of the game to get a total impression of the game yet. I wouldn' t give it a 10/10 like everyone seems to be. There are so many things that could be better in the game such as the graphics and controls. The gameplay seems pretty good though. So far it looks like it will be an 8 or 9. I' ll be playing it some more.

Its definetly an Ace game, but like Loco says, its not a 10, not that 10 has to be perfect, but it has to be perfect at every thing it tries if you know what i mean.

Its like they took a huge mouthfull and cant quite get the crumbs out of their teeth afterwards.

GTA 4 gets so many things right that the flaws add up to nothing.

The negative:
-The camera is probably it' s weakest point. Especially in a Helicopter when you try to turn using the bumpers and the camera ends up stuck facing your rear.

-The cover system is cheap. Maybe I just need more practise, but it feels tacked on.

-a few glitches

-weak animations, often objects won' t have proper contact.

-Many of the missions are boring compared to a lot of the stuff you can do with this game.

-respawns in multiplayer are too close. Why do they make you respawn right next to other players (often enemies).


The positive:
-The dialogue is kickass

-The city is massive with lots to do both off and online

-The game is filled with " WFT did you just see that!?" moments

-So fucking fun, I' ve never had so much fun playing any videogame. The only thing I can think of that is more fun than this game is maybe sex.

-tons of online modes with options.

-Helicopter dog fights.

-The graphics are excellent for this type of game.

-Online in a GTA game. ' Nuff said.


Early in the game when you' re in a vehicle driving as Niko while having a casual conversation with Rom; there was a point where Niko is bitching a lot about America and whatever shit hole he was from. Finally, Rom responded with " don' t be so melodram-... Right as he was saying the word melodramatic I crashed the care into a tree (accidentally). Hilarious. That' s the kind of unpredictable shit that makes the game so brilliant. The game developers don' t even know the possibilities. I' ll never get sick of this game.