By Pentadact

Dabs: I want to play this more than any other game I've ever wanted to play. This'll be the reaosn I finally pick up a 360 or PS3 and the decision which will be exclusively based upon which version is the stronger product. There's some discussion going on regarding the finer details of the trailer over on Preys-World, if you're at all interested:

http://forum.preys-w... ...;start=240

Dabs: I want to play this more than any other game I've ever wanted to play. This'll be the reason I finally pick up a 360 or PS3 and the decision which will be exclusively based upon which version is the stronger product. There's some discussion going on regarding the finer details of the trailer over on Preys-World, if you're at all interested:

forum.preys-world.com/viewtopic.php?t=15838&start=240

Dabs: I want to play this more than any other game I've ever wanted to play. This'll be the reaosn I finally pick up a 360 or PS3 and the decision which will be exclusively based upon which version is the stronger product.

Tim E: I think Dabs really, really likes it.

Dabs: Just a tad. I would happily sacrifice Valve to play this right now.

Sorry for the triple post also - obviously feel free to delete the bottom two.

The_B: You know, I was pointing the exact same thing out to my flatmates today: this does appear to be the first GTA game that doesn't seem as "cartoonish" as the others. On one hand, it makes me slightly excited to see the series grow up.

On the other hand. Well, we already have the NYC politicians up in arms for no real reason already. I think that speaks for itself.

Dabs: Needless to say it's a difficult comparison. I've never made it a secret that I'm fanboy-mad about both, although if I was put back in time 8 years and someone told me you can either play no Half-Life games from now on or no more GTA games, I'd not hesitate to wave Gordon off. I love GTA's 'make your own fun' freedom, its sense of humour, its scope, the cars (their variety, how they handle ... as a car nut, I'm especially about the cars). There's so much about it that I love and so often I could keep returning to it, if only I had the ocean of available time required. As great as Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are, the things they're good at are far fewer in number and the amount of entertainment that you can reasonably draw from them is far less, in my own experience at least.


I feel pretty safe saying that when I play Episode Two, I'll love it for its 6-hour duration and will be satisfied when it's over but I know that when I play GTA IV, I will love it even more and for months.

Dabs: Also, speaking of IV specifically, it looks especially incredible. Liberty City, and by extension GTA 3 as a whole, was comfortably my favourite of the post-GTA 2 GTAs, and as you've explained well yourself, this looks, by quite a long way, even better - "majestic". Also, whilst I wasn't immediately sure what I made of the character, an Eastern European ex-human-trafficker is intriguing enough for me to have faith in Rockstar North that they'll be able to do his story justice.Basically, I just think this game has massive potential based on that teaser and what excites me is that it's RN who'll be exploring it.

Dabs: It was the "selling pornography to children" to "advance in the game" one that got me. Someone remind me which mission that was because I'm a bit foggy.

Graham: Part of me is glad they're bringing the franchise back to grit, to its core legitimacy and the kind of charicatured reality we saw in GTA3, rather than Vice City or San Andreas.

Another part of me is hoping telephone boxes still vocally squiggle when you answer them, and that the Russian isn't as sulky as he appears in the video. Someone needs to tell him to cheer up.

All parts of me are hoping they fix the combat, make the missions more fun, and give you actual agency over the city.

Rob: I'm sure they'll fix the combat, it's been on the critical nag list since GTA III and if they don't get it right this time (despite the fact that similar games since like Saints Row and Crackdown have also got it wrong) then I don't see Rockstar's critical cadre remaining entirely positive.

I don't think the characters in previous games were clones - unless you're talking about the pedestrians, etc, which was surely only a technical neccesity. The speaking cast of all the GTAs have been witty and vibrant like no other series. Uniformly hateful, perhaps, but that's the particular slice of life it's trying to portray, and I'm sure that however amazing NYC is it has just the same amount of hate in it as anywhere else.

I think that the gaming public (and surely yourself) is easily able to distinguish between real life NYC and Rockstars own inflected Liberty City version. It has always been based on it, and bared a strong resemblence, and I think now that they have the hardware to do it justice, they're going for an even more accurate take on it because this can only allow them more accurate satire, which is ultimately their game.

It's the right time to get serious, and I'm pretty sure they'll do it without disrespecting anyone or thing that doesn't deserve it.