Grand Theft Auto V. - Page 2

Eh, I'm not one of those mouth-breathers who's going to constantly go around screaming "Games are ART!! Shadow of the Colossus made me cry!" But I like that Rockstar is at least attempting semi-serious crime games right now. I don't know if they always get it perfect, but I'm glad they've gone more Michael Mann than Joker simulator. Which is what I've got Saints Row for of course.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to create a character though that's complex but also firmly entrenched in their criminal ways though. Somebody Parker-inspired maybe.

I realize only now that I didn't second the idea for international GTA. I think that's another avenue the franchise could follow.

Also, what would another "Bully" look like? A definitely like that idea.

I think an Australian GTA would be great. Opera House, outback, ETC

Final idea: HAWAII GTA. Volcanos, hotels, jungles, tiki bars, surfing, ETC!

Actually that's not totally terrible. Certainly would make the criminal element a little more fresh.

Kotaku is saying that it's LA (though New Orleans would have been interesting).  We'll see if their source is right.

Oh, and more than one player character.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 

Actually that's not totally terrible. Certainly would make the criminal element a little more fresh.

Glad you approve. Being on the pacific rim, in a tourist hot spot, would bring all sorts of interesting factions into play. Plus, tiki atmosphere!

PS If Kotaku is right and it's LA... Ugh. 
 

Yeah I'd be incredibly surprised if it's not LA. It's naturally the next in line after New York, despite them both being way overdone. I still dont think it will include San Fierro or Las Venturas (did i get those right?) but I expect Los Santos will be HUGE, highly detailed, and much more definition as far as the different neighborhoods go.

Yea, LA is way overdone, and personally I think a San Francisco Bay Area would be a much better choice than some of the ideas I've read (Australia? Really Kate? it would be like Red Dead with a couple of cities on the coast) although a modern day DC, Miami (with swampland) or Chicago/Great Lakes Area would be pretty damn cool too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by neoolong 

Kotaku is saying that it's LA (though New Orleans would have been interesting).  We'll see if their source is right.

 

Oh, and more than one player character.

 

Was just coming here to post that.  If it turns out to be true, I'll be somewhat disappointed.  Honestly, I'll take anywhere but L.A. or New York.

Hey now, I'm digging the New Orleans and Hawaii locales. Those would be pretty damn awesome.

LA would be cool if they twisted it up a bit and had you play a cop in the vein of Training Day/Street Kings/The Shield.

Or you could play a cop and a criminal in keeping with the more than one PC rumor.

DC would be great if they treated it the same way George Pelecanos treats it. But I doubt that'd be the case.

Yes, really. I'd be chuffed to see an Australian GTA ( though now my preference is for my Hawaii 5-0 GTA idea)

If it was in DC, it would be a must that you could sneak into Congress, lob a few grenades into the main chamber, and spray down politicians as they try to escape your wrath. TAKE THAT YA TEABAGGERS!!!

unfortunately that will never happen, and alas, neither will a DC-based GTA.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 
Eh, I'm not one of those mouth-breathers who's going to constantly go around screaming "Games are ART!! Shadow of the Colossus made me cry!" But I like that Rockstar is at least attempting semi-serious crime games right now. I don't know if they always get it perfect, but I'm glad they've gone more Michael Mann than Joker simulator. Which is what I've got Saints Row for of course.

Thing is I love San Andreas as well in its way and mostly enjoyed what I've played of IV (I got it cheap on a Steam sale, but it runs so shoddily on my old laptop that I gave up after a while). I don't think they were wrong at all for trying to evolve beyond Vice City and I hope they keep trying to move things forward. I just personally think on its own terms VC is the most 'perfect' GTA game* in that it's totally consistent in tone and succeeds at everything it tries to do.

Not to get into that old fucking 'games as art' debate again but I think it might be the most artistically credible of the games as well. They used videogames' ability to create self contained worlds and used it not just for escapism but to make all kind of satirical comments on a specific time and place in the real world. I reckon that's a more innovative use of games as a medium than in just trying to recreate real cities as faithfully as possible and just tell conventional movie-style gangster stories in them. Not that doing that doesn't have its value as well.

*along with the very first one, which I *still* don't think gets enough love.

And I think that's perfectly valid. I just prefer the series when it's taking itself somewhat half-seriously instead of being a satire. Not because I'm somebody who thinks "gritty" equals good, but because I just want to play a crime game that takes itself somewhat seriously and doesn't explode off the rails.

It's probably the same thing with Red Dead Redemption. I just actively wanted to play a Western game that actually felt like a WESTERN as opposed to a title pieced together from drunken barely remembered viewings of Django.*

There's plenty of crime games, but there's few that actually seem to take the genre seriously.**

* "Cough" Gun "Cough"

** And no Heavy Rain doesn't count.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 

And I think that's perfectly valid. I just prefer the series when it's taking itself somewhat half-seriously instead of being a satire. Not because I'm somebody who thinks "gritty" equals good, but because I just want to play a crime game that takes itself somewhat seriously and doesn't explode off the rails.

 

It's probably the same thing with Red Dead Redemption. I just actively wanted to play a Western game that actually felt like a WESTERN as opposed to a title pieced together from drunken barely remembered viewings of Django.*

 

There's plenty of crime games, but there's few that actually seem to take the genre seriously.**

 

 

* "Cough" Gun "Cough"

 

** And no Heavy Rain doesn't count.

Lauren,

GUN is one of my favorite games. Certainly no RDR, but IMHO it's very good. Compelling story, great voice acting, (the cast list is excellent), and a beautiful game world fun of nooks and crannies and hidden detail. It was crafted with care. Couple that with excellent game mechanics (very solid shooting, and exhilarating horse combat), and it's one of the classics of the previous gen, IMHO

I have many of the achievements for it on 360 because I bought it again and played it all over again just because I get so much enjoyment from it

PS GUN was written by the writer of MASK OF ZORRO!

Game was fun, but I remember the climatic boss battle actually making me fucking angry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 

Game was fun, but I remember the climatic boss battle actually making me fucking angry.

 

Yes, beating Macgruder is one of the harder gaming feats I've ever pulled off

It wasn't the difficulty of the boss, it was the fact that I actually had to engage in a gimmicky game boss at the very end. One who's got a bullet-proof metal vest, and needs to be lured near gas deposits to be damaged.

But that's my problem. I wanted Peckinpah, the game decided it didn't.

Did RDR scratch your western itch in the end Lauren?

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 

It wasn't the difficulty of the boss, it was the fact that I actually had to engage in a gimmicky game boss at the very end. One who's got a bullet-proof metal vest, and needs to be lured near gas deposits to be damaged.

 

But that's my problem. I wanted Peckinpah, the game decided it didn't.

That is certainly my own preference as well 9/10, but in this case I enjoyed the character work enough that I bought into the boss, and the whole tone of the game was sort of grand western adventure, and with that end fight in a secret city of gold and all, well, it just felt appropriate for the kind of game I'd been playing up till that point

Anyway, to each their own

Oh yeah, probably one of(if not) my favorite game this generation.

Yep. Me too. The closest I'll get to starring in my very own western epic.

I just want a R* game that I don't get bored of 3 quarters of the way through. RDR was great up until Mexico then the empty landscape totally sucked my interest. I only really got through GTA4 because of the detail of the world.

Actually, now that I think about it, most 'open world' games I play usually wear out their welcome for me. Damn you ADD!

Anyway, I'll still buy this, if only to enjoy just driving around at night, music playing, the occasional hit and run splattered on the windshield.....

Quote:

Originally Posted by neoolong 

I thought Niko was from Serbia or somewhere in the Balkans, not Russia.

You're right, and the communist USSR would be a better setting.

I loved Vice City, so I'm partial to it, but I think if they went back to San Andreas, they'd probably not repeat the problems San Andreas had before.

What I'm more curious about is whether or not the game will be set in a different era. What really added a lot of charm to Vice City was the 80s time period, so I'm really hoping to see that again. In fact, if it were to be set in the 80s, I think I'd rather they use San Andreas. Miami in the 80s is so identified with Scarface, that I don't know how much new ground they'd break. But San Andreas in the 80s has the potential to allow for lots of cool stuff with the various cities. 

Hell, re-center San Andreas on San Francisco (keep the rural area, desert, and Vegas, and honestly, they can drop LA for all I care) and set it the 70s, play up the Bullitt/Dirty Harry stuff. After playing RDR, I'd really like to see a more thoughtful attempt at the rural area from San Andreas. That was my favorite area to cruise in that game, but there wasn't too much to do there. Hopefully the devs will fire up Justified and let us kick some cracker-ass.

If we're talking new cities, I like the idea of New Orleans, Tokyo, Nice(Ronin!), Paris, and Moscow. Washington and London, in my mind, seems a little boring (for a game like this), kinda flat and gray.

Also, no matter the setting, I demand alien invasion expansion rather than zombies.

RDR had, without a doubt, one of the best endings of all time. Classic, emotional, epic

It's because of RDR that I'll be picking up GTA 5.

Different studios.

But I'm really not excited about this. I've felt that GTA games have steadily been on a downward trend ever since the majestic heights of Vice City.

Set in LA, say reports. Long live CJ!

Additionally: there may be more than one playable character.

Hope I get an expanded Radio Los Santos with this.

I don't particularly like LA as a city, and I agree that it can be an overused location, but I don't really care. What will suck me in for this will be the gameplay and variety. Considering that GTAIV was really just a graphically beefed-up version of what we already saw in Vice City, it's time for them to kick things up a notch.

......

By the way, I don't mean to suggest that IV is not a terrific game. I'm just saying that its only evolutionary step was aesthetic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 

Hope I get an expanded Radio Los Santos with this.

theres got to be a channel with all narcocorrido songs too

     Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Jarvie 

I just want a R* game that I don't get bored of 3 quarters of the way through. RDR was great up until Mexico then the empty landscape totally sucked my interest. I only really got through GTA4 because of the detail of the world.

Mexico was stunning. Never got bored. Rode around that shit for hours, looking for that damn Chupacabra.

I was hoping in GTA V or in the next RDR they would use similar technology that LA Noire did for the actor's performances.  Imagine how many good actors they could bring into the project.  These are billion dollar games, surely some actors might be smart enough to get into this untapped territory.  

I'd love to seem some real talent filling in these roles.  It could make the game characters that much more compelling and dramatic.  

I don't mean to make it so that you have to press a button to 'believe' another character, but you could be able to control how the character feels about a situation more, and that might effect the plot or the mission at hand.

I don't know. LA Noire had problems, but I found it a great game, that really opened up a new potential for video games.  Make the performance of the characters count for something.  Noire was a little too tedious with that aspect, but that's what happens when you give it a detective aspect.  Btw, the ending for LA Noire was brave and had balls.  Say what you want about bad character development, but they didn't back down in the end.

I dunno man. There were hardly any recognizable names (if any) in either GTAIV or RDR. But it didn't matter because they still got great actors to fill those roles.

I don't think Rockstar really cares all that much about name recognition. And, frankly, they don't need it.

I haven't played LA Noire yet (I'm terrified of playing it because I have a 60GB fat playstation and I'm afraid of the game killing my system) and I can certainly see the appeal of getting some recognizable faces in there to help with the cinematic feeling. But I really don't think it's essential.

In some cases, that kind of thing can even be distracting. Remember that PS1 game Apocalypse?

Didn't think you did.

     Quote:

Originally Posted by Erix 

 

I haven't played LA Noire yet (I'm terrified of playing it because I have a 60GB fat playstation and I'm afraid of the game killing my system) and I can certainly see the appeal of getting some recognizable faces in there to help with the cinematic feeling. But I really don't think it's essential.

 

In some cases, that kind of thing can even be distracting. Remember that PS1 game Apocalypse?

 

Didn't think you did.

Watching Greg Grunberg's perfectly-rendered man-bewbies jiggle nonstop while you chase him for four blocks DID get rather disturbing.

Rockstar will knock it out of the park with voicework, big names or not. I have a feeling they'll stick to unknowns now in case they do some DLC in the future and have a hard time getting the voice actors back(or they want more money, like what happened with IV as I recall).

It would be really cool if Rockstar was managing to keep the lid on large portions of the game before release like they did with San Andreas. Imagine how awesome it would be to be playing in LA/Vegas for who knows how long, then have the game whisk you away to Tokyo or something for the second half of the story.

There's no compelling criminal element in Hawaii. We like to romanticize it that Yakuza are here 24/7 but in seven or so years of custom tattooing I've only met one guy that was a finger short and I get a lot of the local Vietnamese guys that run hostess bars and nail salons as fronts. If you take a book like "The Tattoo" it's  a pretty great example of the real criminal element in Hawaii. We're more of a stop over for pushing guns and people, though with our military presence and Homeland Security there isn't much gun or people trafficking that trickles in. Down here we've got lots of low rent meth cooks and dealers. There's barely a SWAT team. If you were going for that sort of vibe I'd rather do Tokyo and have one of the neighboring areas be like Hawaii. Resort tourist trap.

Europe would be great, lots of little hills and valleys to drive through and narrow, cramped streets to test your driving skills while you can have a sort of Autobahn to tie it all together.

Between San Andreas and IV Rockstar seemed to concede the surreal and crazy market to Volition and Saint's Row. I don't see them going that direction, taking a step back isn't staying fresh.

LA Noire was a pretty fun and interesting experience but it was no Grand Theft Auto and as great as the faces were, let's face it, the game looked like shit and it was incredibly boring to drive around and get the same fucking calls alllllllll the time. If I wanted to go drive around Hollywood I'd fly up there and drive around. Having a massive setting with nothing going on, or the same thing ad nauseam is like watching paint dry. But I can't agree more about Read Dead Redemption and Mexico. I fucking loved it. There's a lot to be said about scenery that's done right. Making sure you put this lamp post at the corner of Grauman's Chinese Theater is great but it's window dressing. 

Even doing LA just seems like more of the same. Let me guess...we're gonna have some inner city guy that's down on his luck and hangs with a bunch of dudes that all wear chartreuse? You'd think a company like Rockstar could get over their Boys in the Hood obsession and move on. Here's hoping they do something outside the typical cliche and can get back to the tongue in cheek fun. CJ is pretty much the best thing that happened to the series outside Tommy. Why go to the City of Angels again for a full game? I'd rather see an expansion of Niko or Luis in LA and a new setting for V.

You guys did have Nappy Pulawa! Don't sell yourselves short on violent local criminals! Who also helped introduce lots of new strands of pot to people.

Nappy's known more for his "Hawaiian Nation" rhetoric and playing ball at Roosevelt. Outside someone Googling the name most locals don't know him and the old timers go straight to the football thing but you ask them about the Yakuza and oh yeah, they know someone who's aunties, cousins, uncles, sister dated a bagman for the Hayashi.

I still think Tokyo could be cool but having spent summers growing up in New Orleans it could be pretty fun too. Infamous 2 has a bit of that vibe with New Marais though. Since it looks like they're going to LA again hopefully we'll get to take a trip south of the border.

You want a setting that would interest me in a GTA? 

Rio De Janeiro. Tell me a GTA game in Rio wouldn't be the tits. From favelas to beaches to financial districts to super filthy rich suburbs. Every urban environment available. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGhost 

There's no compelling criminal element in Hawaii. We like to romanticize it that Yakuza are here 24/7 but in seven or so years of custom tattooing I've only met one guy that was a finger short and I get a lot of the local Vietnamese guys that run hostess bars and nail salons as fronts. If you take a book like "The Tattoo" it's  a pretty great example of the real criminal element in Hawaii. We're more of a stop over for pushing guns and people, though with our military presence and Homeland Security there isn't much gun or people trafficking that trickles in. Down here we've got lots of low rent meth cooks and dealers. There's barely a SWAT team. If you were going for that sort of vibe I'd rather do Tokyo and have one of the neighboring areas be like Hawaii. Resort tourist trap.

 

Europe would be great, lots of little hills and valleys to drive through and narrow, cramped streets to test your driving skills while you can have a sort of Autobahn to tie it all together.

 

Between San Andreas and IV Rockstar seemed to concede the surreal and crazy market to Volition and Saint's Row. I don't see them going that direction, taking a step back isn't staying fresh.

 

LA Noire was a pretty fun and interesting experience but it was no Grand Theft Auto and as great as the faces were, let's face it, the game looked like shit and it was incredibly boring to drive around and get the same fucking calls alllllllll the time. If I wanted to go drive around Hollywood I'd fly up there and drive around. Having a massive setting with nothing going on, or the same thing ad nauseam is like watching paint dry. But I can't agree more about Read Dead Redemption and Mexico. I fucking loved it. There's a lot to be said about scenery that's done right. Making sure you put this lamp post at the corner of Grauman's Chinese Theater is great but it's window dressing. 

 

Even doing LA just seems like more of the same. Let me guess...we're gonna have some inner city guy that's down on his luck and hangs with a bunch of dudes that all wear chartreuse? You'd think a company like Rockstar could get over their Boys in the Hood obsession and move on. Here's hoping they do something outside the typical cliche and can get back to the tongue in cheek fun. CJ is pretty much the best thing that happened to the series outside Tommy. Why go to the City of Angels again for a full game? I'd rather see an expansion of Niko or Luis in LA and a new setting for V.

Hawaiian factions I can see being fun:

Crooked real estate developers

Military (people using bases to smuggle drugs, or whatever)

Politicians

Local gangs of various Pacific Islander ethnicities (frankly this is more interesting to me than Latinos and Cartel stuff in LA)

Chinese Government Agents, doing nefarious Chinese things

Surfer gangs! (POINT BREAK)

Treasure hunters (jungle treasure/ Clive Custler Sunken Treasure)

Tiki cults!

I could list a million more, but already I'm excited for GTA: HAWAIIAN ISLANDS (you could have sea planes and fast boats, and do island runs between various islands!)

So if the game was basically a highly detailed, expanded upon and modernized version of San Andreas, most of you would be disappointed?

Crossing my fingers for a Blade Runner-esque futuristic GTA V.  After all, GTA 2 was set in the future.

Hey! We need time to take the lead for once in GTA! Everybody else gets it! Now we want it!

I do support Tiki Cults though, it's a conundrum.

Gotta be Tiki Voodoo Cults tho surely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 

 

 

 

Hey! We need time to take the lead for once in GTA! Everybody else gets it! Now we want it!

 

I do support Tiki Cults though, it's a conundrum.

I have nothing against a Latino lead! You could play as a fedora wearing private eye from LA who comes down to Hawaii for a change of scenery and a slower pace of life (possibly also to escape the cartels?)

It's just between CALL OF JUAREZ: THE CARTEL, GTA: SAN ANDREAS and a million other TV shows, films and videogames, the whole LA gang scene to me feels very tired, as far as material to creatively mine