I think you’re misinterpreting the game. GTA is a very different style of game from pretty much everything out there. It’s half toy and half playing Scarface. They’re trying to make it like if you were living in that kind of world. To that end, they let you luxuriate in the game, and take it at your own pace, rather than always pushing you advance the plot. As for the bowling and date, that’s still part of the tutorial phase. That’s the only time, that I’ve found, that you have to take her out. It’s not clear it’s the tutorial, but until the first really major event or so, most of the missions are there for tutorial purposes.

As for the quick saves, having the girl die sucks. Sometimes it happens. I’m amazed they let her die and I’m curious how that affects the rest of the game. However, I think you’re missing the point on making it difficult to save. They do an auto save after every missions, and there isn’t a lot to be done between missions. What this creates is a situation where you’re discouraged from doing a save/replay strategy. You play the game and the pieces land where they will. If you’re anal about getting a ‘perfect’ game, you’re going to pay for it with lots of wasted time. It wrecks the storytelling when you can go back and do things like that.

It makes quitting a pain in the ass, but if you’ve completed a mission, even a side one, recently, you can just walk away and use the autosave.

Anyway, just my $0.02. I really love the game, but I’ve always loved the GTA games. It’s not a game-changer like GTA 3, but it’s a much better realization of what they’ve been trying to accomplish with the series.

Don’t expect a deep story, but expect a pretty good one. Like a summer popcorn action movie. It’ll be fun and funny and have some really really cynical commentary in there.

By keith on 05.06.08 12:58 pm

I don’t think I’m “misinterpreting” the game so much as not appreciating what they prioritized in development. I think that gamers are really excited about this (yes, even the NYT reviewer is a “gamer”) because it’s such a leap beyond earlier GTA games, but not because it’s such a leap beyond other games of this generation.

So, in a rare display of numerical ranking, I hereby proclaim this game an 8.5/10. Here are some things that would need to be different for it to be closer to 10:

• Quickly loads into main menu where multiplayer can be selected directly (rather than slowly loading directly into single player)
• Single player mode subtly makes it clearer which missions are part of the central storyline, versus those that are optional
• Quick save option, or at least more frequent checkpoints (not necessarily even autosaves!)
• In the future, downloadable content offering more cooperative multiplayer missions (which they may be doing for all I know, and which would indeed raise my score for it)

It’s a great game! Just not a 10/10. I maintain that any game that has features you would describe as a “pain in the ass” (especially something you do as frequently as “quitting”) is, quite simply, broken in some way.

By Jason on 05.07.08 11:06 am

I agree with Jason’s assessment about a number of points, especially saving. While there is the auto-save functionality, I still get apprehensive when I want to turn off the game and do something else, since I’m never totally sure that my game’s been saved.

Also, it’s totally weird how, no matter where you finish a mission, if you turn off the game and start again, you’ll be in the apartment. That’s one way of circumventing driving all the way back across town again, but it’s also kind of out of keeping with the game’s otherwise very realistic setting.

And I second Jason’s comment about the main vs. side missions. I realize the appeal of the game for many is its open-endedness, but this is my first GTA game, and I’m used to a far more linear game progression. Maybe this a problem for me rather than in the game design, but it’s confusing when you’re driving around and trying to figure “Okay, where the hell do I go next?”

But I do think that just tooling around in the city in multiplayer is a hell of a lot of fun, and I look forward to doing some more of that. And agree that they ought to release more co-op missions.

By Dan on 05.07.08 11:58 am

Sometimes I’m not sure why I even bother reviewing new games when Yahtzee says precisely what I’m thinking, only more quickly and with pictures. The whole “take your friends out” thing is as stupid as he describes, and I only do it when I do because it’s nice to have a dude drive out a car full of guns to you every now and then.

By Jason on 05.15.08 11:15 am

Just wanted to add: I’ve now beaten the game (both endings) and played a bunch of multiplayer. Having those many hours behind me, I stand by the review I first wrote. The story and characters did get more engaging for me over time, and it is a reasonably fun multiplayer game, but the lack of quick saves and a proper menu interface are inexcusable design flaws. Also, in some ways, the main story line of the game kind of has too much stuff in it, in a sense. By the time I got to the end, characters you’re supposed to be mad at either felt shoehorned into the end of the game or encountered so long ago that I barely remembered why they pissed me off in the first place.

Well, whatever. A pretty good game, but kind of can’t compete with the hype. At least now all the fanboys have moved on dry-humping Metal Gear Solid 4.

By Jason on 06.14.08 1:29 pm

Actually, this review at Angry Robot is pretty much perfect to my eyes. Can’t vouch for the comparison to San Andreas, as I never played it, but everything else is spot on.

By Jason on 06.15.08 10:28 am

Oh, and this review is totally right too. (From Cracked magazine’s site, linked by Angry Robot, and written by the guy from I Fight Robots, another site with a totally sweet name. And while you’re over there, read this because it is hilarious.)

By Jason on 06.15.08 2:23 pm