Postcards from Liberty City: A Love/Hate relationship |
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by the hammer of Dan Zuccarelli! |
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Oh Liberty City, sometimes the memories of visiting your fair city is better than actually being here. Don’t get me wrong it feels great to be hitting the streets again, but I just can’t shake the feeling that something is amiss. Of course the driving is just a loose and soft as always, and that’s a bit jarring coming from games like Burnout. But after a few hours I began to get used to it, so now it’s all good.
I’ll admit, when I first got back to town I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be there, but now that I’ve gotten used to your ways I’m enjoying my stay. It’s even better now that my friends can come and visit!
Oh, but your buildings are WAY to easy to fall off of. How’s a many supposed to stand there and fire rockets into crowded downtown places in peace when I’m constantly stepping off the rooftop?
I do have one major complaint though, your radio stations are terrible. There’s just no cohesive theme to the music, and there’s no station worth listening to except the talk radio…. but I imagine I’ll tire of that soon.
(On a side-note, if someone out there tells me this game a “10″, “100″, or “Perfect”… I’ll laugh right in their face. The game is good, but it ain’t perfect.)
10 Responses to “Postcards from Liberty City: A Love/Hate relationship”
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Ryan Hewson on 05 May 2008 at 12:02 pm #
What is a perfect game?
Bonus question: if no game is ever perfect, what does a 10 mean?
Brisk317 on 05 May 2008 at 12:10 pm #
After playing this game for a week now here’s what I’ve got to say: does it excel as a driving game? No! as a shooter? No! as a free-for-all cluster phuck? YES!!!
Some may see this game as some sort of mindless guilty pleasure but I can’t stop thinking about what I’m going to do next, whether to go on a mission, pick up some taxi fares, throw some darts, or just cause general chaos. There seems to be no end to the random tasks you can do and now that I’m comfortable with the driving and shooting mechanics the gameplay is so much smoother. Not that I’ve perfected them…last night I flew through the windshield and I was LMAO.
Not to mention that trying to understand what Little Jacob is saying is like watching the movie “Airplane”.
Dan Zuccarelli on 05 May 2008 at 12:11 pm #
While that’s certainly a personal decision, and I have no doubt that nothing will be universally agreed to as being “perfect.”
My problem in this specific example is the heaping praise and perfect scores that every game site out there with an “advanced” look at the game seemed to think the game was without flaw. It’s an endemic problem with putting faith or trust into “reviewers” and I think that game journalists seem to typify the idea of payola.
I dig the game, and I think it’s damn good…. but I think the discrepancy between the reviewers scores and the readers scores on metacritic says it all.
Ryan Hewson on 05 May 2008 at 12:44 pm #
Yeah I take your point about the hype. Another question – did it bother you when Halo 3 or SMG got 10s? Honest question.
Ryan Hewson on 05 May 2008 at 12:54 pm #
Oh BTW I don’t take your point about the radio at all, I think you must be high.
personal decision and all.
Kevin Alexander on 05 May 2008 at 12:59 pm #
I think that there are games that can receive 10’s and be perfectly reasonable. Portal, Bioshock come to mind. Hell, even Call Of Duty 4. I think what bothers me (and possibly Dan) to a certain extent about this game getting a 10 all over the place is that there are things wrong with the game that have been wrong since the beginning of the series (well, since III). They’ve had a lot of time and money to make these things better and they’re just not. The addition of multiplayer is huge, but it’s kind of a “welcome to the party” sort of thing. Look what Bungie has accomplished with mulitplayer in the Halo series. No one has even come close to touching that in terms of working features that make sense and are impressive and fun. GTA IV throws in some fun multiplayer that modders have already beat them too (on PC since Vice City) and everybody shits themselves.
OPT1MUS PR1ME on 05 May 2008 at 1:46 pm #
Hmm….I have played GTA4 a fair amount now. I personally think it is a 10. There are some quirks that I dislike, but nothing that bad. The only thing I can say that bothers me is that I don’t like having to kill someone in almost every mission, there should have been a lot more variety. Although, I haven’t finished it yet, so this may change.
OPT1MUS PR1ME on 05 May 2008 at 1:46 pm #
Dan: Proceed with the laughing in my face
Dan Zuccarelli on 05 May 2008 at 1:54 pm #
@Ryan:
Yes it bothered my about Halo getting that score too… Super Mario Galaxy is prolly a bad one to ask me about since I have a personal distaste for motion controls.
@OPT1MUS PR1ME
HA! (sorry, you asked me to)
Snakes & Patriots on 05 May 2008 at 3:25 pm #
the talk radio stations, imo imo, are the best stations in all of the gta games. But the hardcore station in 4 is a personal fav and the broker radio station is good to…vladistok is growing on me.
As for the game…i’ve been busy at work so minus that first day my time in liberty city has been stunted. Though i do enjoy what i’ve played so far..the driving is god…difficult to say the least. I’ve posted before ..it feels like the brakes are worn out on all cars.
But my big issue is multiplayer. At times…its like no one is ever on(the ps3 version). And i sit and wait for others to hopefully join a match especially some of the finer game modes like turf war and crooks and cops.