GTA V Announced
- Thread starter Jax
- Start date
worth it 
+ never been involved in a midnight launch before.
I read there was some sort of mess-up for Gamestop's 360 version in Ireland, defective stock or something, so there was a shortage of supply. I wasn't planning on going to a midnight launch, but decided I had better just to be sure I got a copy. Two hours of queuing and one sore back later, and I got my copy. It's going to be a late night...
I read an interview where Sam Houser, the guy in charge of Rockstar games, revealed that he wanted a fuel system in the games but got talked out of it by the developers. Maybe they prototyped the idea and found it more annoying than fun?
Possibly. I like to think that anything's possible, though, and that it's all in the way they approach things. For example, remember all those gas stations in San Andreas? Just scenery. But imagine if they were more than just scenery, and interactive, and Rockstar always strive to make their worlds more interactive. Fuel could be only active in free roam, unless a specific mission calls for it.
I think a problem might be to find the right balance for non-annoying fuel consumption of cars. If it's just like the real world, it's boring, and if it's too fast, it gets annoying because you have to get to a gas station every ten minutes.
I played for a few hours last night and so far it's living up to my hopes. I only did a couple of missions, then spent most of my time exploring the world, and I can say that it feels much bigger while playing it than it did in the videos I watched over the weekend. My biggest fear was that they'd mess up the driving (I enjoyed GTA4's driving for the most part) but I think they nailed it. Driving is easier, but not arcadey, cars still have a good feeling of weight to them but have much better grip and tighter suspension. You can lose control and spin out, but not excessively so, as in IV.
Some advice: Don't try to climb Mt Chiliad in a pickup truck, use a dirt-bike. And be wary, those ninja cougars from RDR are all over the mountains.
Some advice: Don't try to climb Mt Chiliad in a pickup truck, use a dirt-bike. And be wary, those ninja cougars from RDR are all over the mountains.
My only complaint so far: I understand you're not supposed to install the "play" disc, except I'm running an older 360. With the active disc not installed, the thing sounds vaguely like a passenger jet taking off in my living room. Is there anything to be done about this, or am I SOL for not buying a newer version of the same console I already own?
Apart from that, it's great so far. I played the first few story missions, then took off to do some sight seeing. I decided to hold up a 7/11 on a whim. In retrospect, an ambulance might not have been the best choice of getaway vehicles.
Speaking of vehicles, they seem a little sturdier this time around. In IV it sometimes seemed like a violent enough sneeze would set them on fire.
Apart from that, it's great so far. I played the first few story missions, then took off to do some sight seeing. I decided to hold up a 7/11 on a whim. In retrospect, an ambulance might not have been the best choice of getaway vehicles.
Speaking of vehicles, they seem a little sturdier this time around. In IV it sometimes seemed like a violent enough sneeze would set them on fire.
Brett, if you have a large USB (16GB) flash drive handy you can install the play disc on to that. I kind of need a new drive anyway, so I think I might snag one, use it as a dedicated GTA V drive until I finish with the game, and then put it into normal service. You can still install it on your Xbox hard disc if you really want but there will be a performance trade-off since you are sacrificing the bandwidth of your DVD drive.
Edit: I'm not one hundred percent sure what flash drive to buy at this point. It seems like any decent USB 3.0 model should do the trick as they are generally fast. The Xbox doesn't do 3.0 but they should max out the 2.0 interface, whereas that's less likely on a 2.0 device.
Edit: I'm not one hundred percent sure what flash drive to buy at this point. It seems like any decent USB 3.0 model should do the trick as they are generally fast. The Xbox doesn't do 3.0 but they should max out the 2.0 interface, whereas that's less likely on a 2.0 device.
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I was able to log into it for about two minutes last night, but other than that I've been receiving various error messages.
Rockstar is working to resolve the problems.
Thanks. I have a 16 gig flash drive lying around that I like to keep handy for back ups. I'll try using that for GTA V until I eventually get bored with the game.
So don't install it, just run off the play disc? I'm confused.
The install disc installs part of the game by itself when you put it in the 360, the play disc shouldn't be installed/copied to the HD but run from the DVD-drive/disc...
The digital version of the PS3 has similair problems, the game runs into problems trying to read data from 2 places on the HD...
Ok, I'm a good ways in so I'll give some spoiler free opinions/reviews;
Vehicles
Cars: Love (most of) em they handle great save for the SUV's I've driven which tend to do complete 180's when i move the thumbstick slightly off center.
Motor Bikes: A bit too precise, don't really care for em in this game.
Planes: Nowhere near as finnicky as San Andreas's planes, quite smoothe when not upside down or knifing.
Helicopters: Man, what happened? Helicopters were my favorite in San Andreas but they are almost unusable in 5, if your thumb stick is even slightly off center you'll wobble uncontrollably, I don't get motion sick and the Helicopter missions in flight school almost had me ready to puke.
Boats: Meh, they do all right
Jet Ski's: Wide turns but pretty damn fun.
The Sub: Haven't got it yet, it's part of a heist that you need to put Michael through pilot school to obtain.
Characters:
Michael: Ex bank robber in his 40's, pretty cool dude and obvious "Main" character, reminds me of Tommy Vercetti a bit. Hate his wife, Hate his kids want to kill them. Also has the most awesome safe house in any GTA game.
Franklin: HAAAAAAATE every one of his missions. His "homie" that he loves so much does nothing but get him into firefights and end with having to duck a wanted level. He has no personality and no one listens to him. Hate Chop (He'll disobey frequently unless you buy upgrades for him with the cell phone app)
Trevor: A highly psychotic asshole that's prone to fly off the handle and is a poet with his profanity. Love this guy, he gets a lot of fun flying missions and some mildly annoying (at times) sniper missions. It takes 4 or 5 hours to get this guy though, you have to pull off the first heist to get him.
The cops: I hate what they have done with them, used to be you could get to a pay n spray or pick up a bribe star to get rid of em, and at least in 4 if you got out of the immediate area you could loose the heat, in 5 you have to loose line of sight with the police to get away and stay out of sight for a few minutes, difficult or impossible to do with certain (usually mission specific) vehicles
Upgrades;
Cars: This game does a pretty good job of letting you keep a car you particularly like, if it de-spawns you can go to an impound yard and pick it up for a few hundred bucks. Safe house garages don;t repair damage, you have to pay to fix em and the customizations do more than change appearance, they change performance and handling, but it's real expensive to do so.
Weapons: Good variety, but you have to either pick a weapon up or do a certain mission to unlock them, but when you get them you have a standard list of attachments you can buy, suppressors, extended mags, lights, ect. and I like that you can just buy ammo instead of having to pay full price for the gun every time you want more ammo.
The Map: Scale-wise I'd say it's about half the size of San Andreas, and it's only Los Santos and the surrounding county. LS itself is slightly larger and more complex than it was in San Andreas and, truthfully, I can't find a thing without the (very nicely upgraded) mini map and the ability to to set waypoints on the pause screen map and get outlined directions on the mini map. I wish they had just taken the map from San Andreas and just moderened-up the textures , but, I guess those extra layers count.
That's all I have for now but give me a week and I'll go into more details
Vehicles
Cars: Love (most of) em they handle great save for the SUV's I've driven which tend to do complete 180's when i move the thumbstick slightly off center.
Motor Bikes: A bit too precise, don't really care for em in this game.
Planes: Nowhere near as finnicky as San Andreas's planes, quite smoothe when not upside down or knifing.
Helicopters: Man, what happened? Helicopters were my favorite in San Andreas but they are almost unusable in 5, if your thumb stick is even slightly off center you'll wobble uncontrollably, I don't get motion sick and the Helicopter missions in flight school almost had me ready to puke.
Boats: Meh, they do all right
Jet Ski's: Wide turns but pretty damn fun.
The Sub: Haven't got it yet, it's part of a heist that you need to put Michael through pilot school to obtain.
Characters:
Michael: Ex bank robber in his 40's, pretty cool dude and obvious "Main" character, reminds me of Tommy Vercetti a bit. Hate his wife, Hate his kids want to kill them. Also has the most awesome safe house in any GTA game.
Franklin: HAAAAAAATE every one of his missions. His "homie" that he loves so much does nothing but get him into firefights and end with having to duck a wanted level. He has no personality and no one listens to him. Hate Chop (He'll disobey frequently unless you buy upgrades for him with the cell phone app)
Trevor: A highly psychotic asshole that's prone to fly off the handle and is a poet with his profanity. Love this guy, he gets a lot of fun flying missions and some mildly annoying (at times) sniper missions. It takes 4 or 5 hours to get this guy though, you have to pull off the first heist to get him.
The cops: I hate what they have done with them, used to be you could get to a pay n spray or pick up a bribe star to get rid of em, and at least in 4 if you got out of the immediate area you could loose the heat, in 5 you have to loose line of sight with the police to get away and stay out of sight for a few minutes, difficult or impossible to do with certain (usually mission specific) vehicles
Upgrades;
Cars: This game does a pretty good job of letting you keep a car you particularly like, if it de-spawns you can go to an impound yard and pick it up for a few hundred bucks. Safe house garages don;t repair damage, you have to pay to fix em and the customizations do more than change appearance, they change performance and handling, but it's real expensive to do so.
Weapons: Good variety, but you have to either pick a weapon up or do a certain mission to unlock them, but when you get them you have a standard list of attachments you can buy, suppressors, extended mags, lights, ect. and I like that you can just buy ammo instead of having to pay full price for the gun every time you want more ammo.
The Map: Scale-wise I'd say it's about half the size of San Andreas, and it's only Los Santos and the surrounding county. LS itself is slightly larger and more complex than it was in San Andreas and, truthfully, I can't find a thing without the (very nicely upgraded) mini map and the ability to to set waypoints on the pause screen map and get outlined directions on the mini map. I wish they had just taken the map from San Andreas and just moderened-up the textures , but, I guess those extra layers count.
That's all I have for now but give me a week and I'll go into more details
One thing that annoyed me about the motor bikes in GTA 4. Do Harleys sound like Harleys again, or like lawn-mowers?
I'm at the point in the game where Trevor arrives in Los Santos, and I'm surprised how much I like the character. From the trailers and character description he seemed like a one-note psychopath, which he kinda is, but he's funny and strangely compelling. His introduction was incredible, especially if you played The Lost and Damned.
I like the change. The wanted system in the PS2-era games was a bit lame because you usually had to go to a pay-and-spray to clear it, I preferred the idea of GTA4's system but in practice it was too easy to escape. In GTA5 the cops are much more aggressive and it's harder to shake them. There are tips and tricks to deal with it, one of which is to get your car resprayed once you've broken line-of-sight, but there are other obscure ways of doing it such as hiding in a bush.
It's actually around double the size of San Andreas' map. SA just seems bigger to you because of 1) nostalgia, 2) they crammed 3 (smaller) cities into the map, and 3) SA had such a terrible draw distance that it was impossible to get a sense of its true scale. This render from a map viewer gives a good idea of how far away Mt Chiliad really was from the desert region, which was pretty much on the opposite side of the map.
I can't speak for the quality of the game, but a GameSpot Editor did, giving it 9 out of 10. She also mentioned the rampant misogyny in the game (which sounds pretty hard to miss), and that brought on a torrent of abuse. Guess some GTA fans can't stand to have their favorite franchise criticized in any way. (I doubt that applies to you guys here!)
Not to mention that areas in SA were locked until certain story points, which I think contributed to the feeling of it being larger, as the game gave you a roundabout path taking the long way around to Vegas until everything was unlocked. Once everything was unlocked, you could get from one end of the map to the other in about 2 minutes or less depending on the speed of the car and the roads taken. The vehicles you first get also contribute to the feeling as it's only once you get to Vegas that you start seeing some of the faster cars.
Are you saying all the areas of the map in GTAV are open up at the beginning of the game?
I'm really on the fence with this one, I start school up next Wednesday and I'm not really sure I want the distraction.
Also a question? How's the gunplay in this game? It's one of the things that really killed part 4 for me. I was hoping it'd be closer to Red Dead Redemption, because that was the first (and so far only) open sandbox Rockstar game that I have beaten.
I'm really on the fence with this one, I start school up next Wednesday and I'm not really sure I want the distraction.
Also a question? How's the gunplay in this game? It's one of the things that really killed part 4 for me. I was hoping it'd be closer to Red Dead Redemption, because that was the first (and so far only) open sandbox Rockstar game that I have beaten.
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