On the Subject of Episodes from Liberty City

Perla/Simi

As I reported previously, GTA4 was a surprise hit for me and so it was inevitable that I would pick up the Episodes from Liberty City expansion. Naturally I did so immediately before it was sold for tuppence in a Steam sale. You'd have thought I would have learnt that lesson by now (cf Grid, Dirt 2).

Anyway, after completing the original game (no thanks to the fucking stupid helicopter bug in the final mission which still hasn't been fixed as far as I'm aware), I was straight into The Ballard of Gay Tony. In hindsight that was possibly a mistake, as TBOGT is superior to The Lost and Damned, so I would have been better off getting the latter over and done with first.

First things first, and Rockstar somehow managed to cripple the engine with the release of EFLC. It's supposed to feature fancy-pants clever shadowing trickery, but ultimately makes the game run like shit compared with the earlier version. Unfortunately this shittery now applies to the original game too, thanks to the patch which was released alongside EFLC (and which is of course mandatory if you play through Steam). After a lot of dicking around with graphics settings and turning down shadow quality, I was eventually back in business.

Since this is an expansion, there's not too much to say. It's the exact same game world, and there are some clever crossovers between the three stories, especially regarding a central diamond heist. To be honest I prefer Niko to either of the expansions' protagonists, who are slightly one-dimensional in comparison. On the other hand, TBOGT in particular adds a lot of variety to the game play, often involving a parachute. I cannot fucking stand the helicopter sections though, that fucking thing is virtually unflyable, or at least it is when you're trying to shoot something else at the same time. And doubly so when that thing is also in the air. During one particularly annoying mission I kept having to land and take out persuing choppers with the (ludicrously overpowered) automatic shotgun thing (don't ask me), before taking to the air again to continue. Fucking awful.
Still, there's not too much of that, and plenty of the standard-issue infiltration and general carnage. With a slightly worthless rhythm game tacked-on in the nightclub. Speaking of the nightclub, I believe there's supposed to be some sort of "nightclub management" mini-game, but despite being asked to show up at the club by the doorman, and despite the woman being in the office, it never seemed to trigger for me. Didn't seem to make any difference in the end, at least it didn't prevent me from completing the game.

So in TBOGT you run around clearing up the mess made by an over-the-hill, coked-up club empresario in freefall, and in TLOD you're a biker gang-member who's chief has gone off the rails and is running the club into the ground for no apparent reason. To be fair, TLOD did pick up eventually and does has its moments, but it doesn't offer the variety or the humour of the other campaigns and feels a bit flat.

Together they form a pretty satisfying extension to the game, and overall I had a lot fun. I suspect that when I do dip back into the game in the future it will be into the original story rather than the expansions, but that's not a criticism of the expansions as much as a vindication of the original.

On the Subject of GTA4

Maria Ozawa

I know I'm very late to the GTA4 party. In addition, I haven't played a single GTA since the very first, top-down version. That was fun enough, but I suspect I fell victim to media hyperbole with respect to the sequels. Not in the way the scaremongering media idiots would prefer, I suspect, but simply because I began to suspect Rockstar were becoming increasingly, needlessly controversial when it came to designing the GTA games in an attempt to sell games by way of controversy rather than quality.

Still, at $7.49 (I think) in the massive christmas Steam sale, I thought "why not?". Based almost entirely on forum feedback, I anticipated the game being a particularly poorly-performing port of the console version. And of course my expectations of the gameplay were no greater.

Another aspect I was aware of in advance was the ludicrous amount of hoops you initially have to jump through to get the fucking game started. Signing up to the Rockstar "Social Club" stupid online shit, then digging out my old MS GFW Live login from whatever piece of shit game originally required me to sign up for that, and then linking the accounts, and then logging into both just to get to the main game menu. Admittedly it's only really a hassle once, but bearing in mind that you're also running this from Steam itself if that's where you bought it, it really is quite unnecessary.

But as I said I was ready for that, so it didn't come as a surprise. What did surprise me was the actual quality of the game. For a "shitty console port" it seems to me that it runs pretty damn well, especially given the seamless scale of the city. I do experience a lot of flickering shadows, particularly in some indoor environments, but outside of that I really haven't had any technical issues. Not a single crash to date, despite some extended play sessions. Maybe the patches have improved the game, of course I can't tell.

More importantly though, I am impressed with the attention to detail and richness of the game itself. As far as story and missions go it's nothing mind-blowing, and the voice acting is very much on the cartoony side, but there's a great deal of warmth and humour, nods to various movies and some surprisingly subtle mocap acting which often adds more to the performance than the generic dialogue.

I have a soft-spot for big sandbox game worlds, and GTA's Liberty City is very impressive. From the more obvious touches like day/night cycles and the ever-popular steaming manhole covers, there's a decent weather system and a very good sense of a world going about its business. The city's civvies have a large library of behaviours and animations, there are all sorts of street vendors (and walkers), ambulances turn up when you beat someone senseless. On the first mission involving a helicopter I more or less ignored the mission objective and simply went on an extended aerial tour of the city, which is even more impressive seen from above in its entirety.

Of course there's the "controversial" stuff. Whether it's lap-dancing or street corner whores, a multitude of drug-addled storyline characters or the inevitable carnage, there's plenty to keep Fox news on their high horse. What Fox neglect to report is that there's plenty of "context" to the life of crime. Niko experiences plenty of introspection and a fair amount of humour, albeit before ultimately embarking on another killing spree. But the point is there is some depth to the game, it's not simply a teenagers' guide to carjacking and murder. That's what I wasn't expecting, and it was nice surprise.

I expected the game to be very gamepad-friendly, and it is, although it does a good job of not only supporting keyboard/mouse, but also switching between that and a pad on demand. Which is useful, because the firefights are much, much easier (for me) with KB/M, but I prefer driving on the pad, so I switch as necessary and it works very well.

So, much as I enjoy imagining Rockstar as being a bunch of mindless thug idiots, I have to admit I've been enjoying GTA4. I'm not finished with it yet, but I suspect I'm nearing the end. It does suffer from some repetition, but there are some more substantial missions spread out amongst the endless assassinations and car chases. The game also keeps coming up with new features as you progress, like a camera phone for spy missions, or the helicopter, or the various "loyalty" abilities (as I call them since playing ME2) of your friends.

On the Subject of GTA IV

Alley Baggett

I don't have an xbox or (god forbid) a PS3, so the overwhelmingly hyped release of GTA IV doesn't really mean anything to me. Even if there was a PC release, I haven't bothered with the series since the original, top-down version from whenever-it-was.
I get the impression that Rockstar must be a right bunch of cunts. They only seem to be capable of creating needlessly controversial and contentious games. In many cases these games have garnered a reputation for not actually being very good (GTA being an exception). They bring to mind, for me at least, some low-rent pool hall frequented by mindless lager lout nationalists and be-hoodied chavs who get a homoerotic thrill from the gratuitous carnage in the their wannabe-scorsese murder porn.
The funny thing is when I had that thought, it was immediately followed by the notion that they're probably really nice, decent people who just happen to make violent games. But then I saw this.

Check out this character, namely "Rockstar vice president and Grand Theft Auto IV co-writer" Dan Houser. Wouldn't look out of place with a pint of cheap piss lager in one hand and a broken pool cue in the other, would he? Or prowling the streets with his manly chums looking to stick it to "the other side" after the match. You know the sort. I couldn't have come up with a more perfect picture of what I imagined a Rockstar employee to look like if I tried. He reminds me of the surly little fucker who greeted the great Colin Culk on his legendary visit to Electronic Arts, reproduced here for your convenience.



He's no Jade Raymond, that's for damn sure.

I used to walk past some shitty Krishna "temple" in central London on a regular basis, and would often imagine how hellish it must be to have to live there. The first floor windows were completely barricaded with faux stained glass motifs, meaning the interior must be indescribably dark and dingy and claustrophobic. Like a cult that you'd be afraid to leave because the top brass keep you isolated and disorientated. That's pretty much how I imagine working at rockstar. A bunch of nasty little bullies watching Mean Streets or Scum and stealing ideas for their next game, preferably ideas that will wind up the media and generate undeserved attention.

Rockstar management meet to discuss ideas for GTA V

Maybe they are nice people really. They work in computer games development after all so they're probably just a bunch of nerds with severe hair cuts. They're still a one-trick pony when it comes to their games though, and it's not a trick I'm interested in, although I'm obviously in a minority.