Thursday, June 05, 2008

Drive Me.

Well, I broke down and bought GTA IV. Partly because I had my wisdom teeth ripped out of my noggin and wanted something to do while I drifted on opiates for a few days. But also partly because I couldn't stand not playing it any more. All the reviews said it was awesome and highly detailed and well make. And given Rockstar's past performances, why should we expect anything else.

Well I'm happy to report that it is as badass as everyone says. I'm far from finished with it (i haven't even tried the online play yet) but everything I've seen has been great. It did seem more difficult to play at first, which I attribute to a new driving engine. You may remember (probably not) that San Andreas got an updated engine with suspensions and more detailed handling characteristics. It made the cars a bit harder to drive at first, but you get used to it. Well, crank that up a few notches. I'm not gonna say they're lifelike, but the cars handle a bit more realistically than San Andreas's rendering. You can't just throw on the handbrake and expect to make that turn. You need to slow down if you actually expect the car to go that way. And when you mess up and hit another car or building head on, poor Niko goes flying through the windshield. I guess I haven't found the "wear seatbelt" button yet.

Liberty City is indeed rebuilt. I keep expecting to turn a corner and see a street that's a little familiar from another game, but that hasn't happened yet. So confusing is a term that might be thrown about when trying to navigate by memory. But luckily that doesn't happen too often, unless you're trying. The nav system is excellent with live route updating that you couldn't find anywhere a few years ago, let alone integrated into a video game.

I could go on, but I won't. I haven't actually bought a video game in a long while, just looking at the stacks of games on the shelf I don't want to play any more is deterrent enough. But now that I think about it, GTA is actually a cost saving device. I looked at my CC statement and so far this month, besides the game purchase, the only transactions have been at grocery stores. Now that might be in part because my jaw hurts and I'm on Ibuprofen all day, but I think its really because all I wanna do is go home and play that game...

No comments: