First of all this is a RANT so do not take it as an insult or an unbiased opinion piece...

I'm currently listening to the archive of Bombcasts and for all of 2008 the crew gave great opinions as to why GTA4 was their game of the year. So since I decided to skip it before, I guessed it was time to give it a try to see what all the fuzz was about and got the game for the PC along with Episodes from Liberty City from a bargain bin and decided to give it a go, but before I go into the details of my experience let me tell you of what I have done with GTA in my life before this.

My first GTA game was GTA2 for the PC which I liked very much, originally for the simple and funny gameplay but never got into because there was nothing to do in that game but to wander aimlessly looking for missions, no story, no point, no interest; when GTA3 came out the story was somehow there, the gameplay was still there so it finally clicked a bit and I got enough into it to finish the story missions, but the story was so bland that I immediatly forgot about it, then Vice City came along and being like GTA3 I thought I could get around to finishing it. I got bored right in the middle of it. Finally San Andreas came and went and I just couldn't care for it.

Now onto GTA4, first of all I have a medium range PC (It pisses me off, because I can run Skyrim in medium settings and Portal 2 runs great on high settings, both games came out in 2011 and GTA4 came out for PC in 2009) so being a port the game was annoying from the beginning; I had to run it on low settings in order to get a playable framerate. The game starts out great, the story is finally there, the characters are great, the way the missions and everything else came together (I cursed the heavens when I found out MIchelle/Karen was working for the FIB). The problem was the gameplay.

I had given the GTA franchise a pass when it was funny, but now that it's serious the gameplay has become almost impossible to tolerate; the missions are not varied at all, they almost only come down to: go find a guy/money/drugs, kill/recover and optionally get away from the cops, if it's a guy you have to chase him down while in a car most of the time. Now, it became intolerable in the following scenario: the game was already becoming frustrating with its "varied" missions so I decided to do the bank robery mission with Packie and after dying for my own stupidity the first time, I hit wall; the game respawns me at the beginning of the mission (OK that's acceptable) and Packie asks me to get a car, "all right" I say to myself only to look around at blocks and blocks of an empty Liberty City, the words "Fu** you" pass by my mind, I continue on and end up dying again, this time because even if I have a couple of "teammates" helping me rob a bank I'm the only target for the cops; I ended up trying the mission a few more times and wasting an hour of my life but not fighting the cops, instead I wasted most of the time finding a car and getting to the damn bank.

I guess it's only one mission gone bad, so after the last one I go on another one: I have to find some guy named Oleg but he isn't in his house so I have to find him and then chase him down and kill him (Oh! Wow! That is so new! But the problem is not chasing him, the problem is driving; the controls suck and I'm using a 360 controller!!) he has a great racing car so it's almost impossible to catch him the first time, I respawn after he gets away from me and I have to go back to his house and then chase him again (What a waste of time!), but how strange I have to find a car (again!!) in an empty city after I respawn, I spent another hour just finding a good car and cursing the driving controls.

That was the straw that broke the Camels back. After I finally finished the mission I just stared at the screen, hit ALT+F4 and just uninstalled the game, I was done. The only thought going by my head now is how did Jeff and Vinny manage to pull a Jedi mind trick and convince Ryan and Brad to pick this for game of the year 2008 when MGS4 was so much more.

PS: Even Brad hasn't even finished the game after all this time: https://twitter.com/#!/bradshoemaker/status/147522455957807104

First of all this is a RANT so do not take it as an insult or an unbiased opinion piece...

I'm currently listening to the archive of Bombcasts and for all of 2008 the crew gave great opinions as to why GTA4 was their game of the year. So since I decided to skip it before, I guessed it was time to give it a try to see what all the fuzz was about and got the game for the PC along with Episodes from Liberty City from a bargain bin and decided to give it a go, but before I go into the details of my experience let me tell you of what I have done with GTA in my life before this.

My first GTA game was GTA2 for the PC which I liked very much, originally for the simple and funny gameplay but never got into because there was nothing to do in that game but to wander aimlessly looking for missions, no story, no point, no interest; when GTA3 came out the story was somehow there, the gameplay was still there so it finally clicked a bit and I got enough into it to finish the story missions, but the story was so bland that I immediatly forgot about it, then Vice City came along and being like GTA3 I thought I could get around to finishing it. I got bored right in the middle of it. Finally San Andreas came and went and I just couldn't care for it.

Now onto GTA4, first of all I have a medium range PC (It pisses me off, because I can run Skyrim in medium settings and Portal 2 runs great on high settings, both games came out in 2011 and GTA4 came out for PC in 2009) so being a port the game was annoying from the beginning; I had to run it on low settings in order to get a playable framerate. The game starts out great, the story is finally there, the characters are great, the way the missions and everything else came together (I cursed the heavens when I found out MIchelle/Karen was working for the FIB). The problem was the gameplay.

I had given the GTA franchise a pass when it was funny, but now that it's serious the gameplay has become almost impossible to tolerate; the missions are not varied at all, they almost only come down to: go find a guy/money/drugs, kill/recover and optionally get away from the cops, if it's a guy you have to chase him down while in a car most of the time. Now, it became intolerable in the following scenario: the game was already becoming frustrating with its "varied" missions so I decided to do the bank robery mission with Packie and after dying for my own stupidity the first time, I hit wall; the game respawns me at the beginning of the mission (OK that's acceptable) and Packie asks me to get a car, "all right" I say to myself only to look around at blocks and blocks of an empty Liberty City, the words "Fu** you" pass by my mind, I continue on and end up dying again, this time because even if I have a couple of "teammates" helping me rob a bank I'm the only target for the cops; I ended up trying the mission a few more times and wasting an hour of my life but not fighting the cops, instead I wasted most of the time finding a car and getting to the damn bank.

I guess it's only one mission gone bad, so after the last one I go on another one: I have to find some guy named Oleg but he isn't in his house so I have to find him and then chase him down and kill him (Oh! Wow! That is so new! But the problem is not chasing him, the problem is driving; the controls suck and I'm using a 360 controller!!) he has a great racing car so it's almost impossible to catch him the first time, I respawn after he gets away from me and I have to go back to his house and then chase him again (What a waste of time!), but how strange I have to find a car (again!!) in an empty city after I respawn, I spent another hour just finding a good car and cursing the driving controls.

That was the straw that broke the Camels back. After I finally finished the mission I just stared at the screen, hit ALT+F4 and just uninstalled the game, I was done. The only thought going by my head now is how did Jeff and Vinny manage to pull a Jedi mind trick and convince Ryan and Brad to pick this for game of the year 2008 when MGS4 was so much more.

PS: Even Brad hasn't even finished the game after all this time: https://twitter.com/#!/bradshoemaker/status/147522455957807104

They liked it at the time. Most major news outlets don't care for the game all that much in hindsight.

That was the most frustrating GOTY podcast I think I ever listened to...except for last year when Brad was suddenly randomly turning on Mass Effect 2's amazing gameplay. Remember, he's the one who reviewed it and gave it five stars, but he kept acting like it was barely passable. I've never liked GTA, but it's mainly because the filthy content and lewd language is not for me (guess why?) and I'm not huge on open world games typically anyway.

But yes, MGS4 should've won. They all enjoyed how ridiculous it was even despite its flaws and weird quirks.

eh... it was ok. it had its problems and rockstar made sure they addressed them in later games.

It was the forced socializing that made me hate the game.

@hanktherapper said:

It was the forced socializing that made me hate the game.

this, I quit after the bank job mission. I dont want GTA to be a poor Godfather game, I want what Saints Row does. Im done with the GTA franchise. Vice City was terrific, waay downhill since then. San Andreas fans will not agree. OPINIONS!

Red Dead Redemption was a massive step towards fixing a lack of variety in missions, but at the time GTA 4 was the best thing around, better than MGS4 and that's why it won GOTY.

im the same with chicken.

i just can't understand why people like it. i mean i tried it once. and though it was ok, nothing specail like. but i tried it again and hated it. and i still hate it.

but i just don't understand why other people like it.

@hanktherapper said:

It was the forced socializing that made me hate the game.

There are only one or two instances of that that are mandatory. The rest is all optional.

It is still one of the best games this generation. Great characters and a city that just feels more alive than any other game world I've ever played in. Sure it's not all over the top Rambo-like action from start to finish, but as more a crime simulator, I think it is a more realistic take on the genre and I appreciate that. Despite the realism, or maybe because of it, I also think it is one of the funniest games I've ever played. From the radio stations, to the off-the-wall characters, to the crazy ragdoll physics...if you weren't laughing your ass off a lot during that game, I'm worried that you just aren't able to enjoy humor. Anyway, I can't wait for GTAV.

BTW...I just played the 360 version and it ran just fine for me from start to finish.

@phish09 said:

Still one of the best games this generation. Great characters and a city that just feels more alive than any other game world I've ever played in. Sure it's not all over the top Rambo-like action from start to finish, but as more a crime simulator, I think it is a more realistic take on the genre and I appreciate that. Can't wait for GTAV.

BTW...I just played the 360 version and it ran just fine for me from start to finish.

The pc version is a well known heap of dog shit which performs poorly on good rigs of the time.

I've tried playing every GTA since 3 but I've never gotten past the first island on any of them. Loved Red Dead and Saint's Row 3, but GTA has never done it for me. I think the PS2 era stuff was lauded because it was so ambitious, but the gameplay was kind of junk. Then they took it a little too serious for my tastes with 4. I have zero interest in GTA 5. I'll take my RockStar seriousness in the old west.

Surely by now you can understand the appeal of an open-world sandbox game. Perhaps after playing each installment in this franchise and not feeling too impressed, you'd conclude that this type of game just isn't for you. There are so many brilliant details Rockstar includes in its worlds that it takes a certain type of awareness to appreciate it all. I'll take a microcosm of the American dream over a monkey in a diaper any day.

Not counting briefly playing a gameboy gta, GTA 4 was the first and only game in the series I played. The story kinda interested me at first, but it ended up being something I just couldn't get into thematically and the gameplay mostly felt cumbersome as well. I ended up just watching a friend play through it just so I could see the story bits and then never touched it again. Can't say the experience left me with much interest in playing any other GTA now either.

That's fine though, it's just not for me.

I tend to see a thread like this every month, and I'll just say what I usually end up saying: Euphoria physics engine.

@Vinny_Says said:

Red Dead Redemption was a massive step towards fixing a lack of variety in missions, but at the time GTA 4 was the best thing around, better than MGS4 and that's why it won GOTY.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why you guys chose it as GOTY '08 and by playing it I got a glimpse of all those qualities you mentioned. But to me the game really loses ground against those gameplay flaws, there is probably something redeeming you guys saw at the time that I didn't manage to see now.

The only thing I'm questioning at the end is how funny I found Ryan praising MGS4 for more than half the podcast and then slowly transforming his opinion (on his own) towards GTA4 and (if I'm not mistaken, memory IS subjective) leaving Brad in the end as the only supporter of MGS4 (he then went and played GTA4 for a bit if I'm not mistaken), by that time it was really obvious you guys were tired as hell and just wanted to call it...

really MGS4 is also a terrible game anyway, so...

It is still one of the best games this generation.

Vice City is one of the greatest games ever made in third dimensions. All of them.

GTA IV yeah not so much, don't like where GTA has headed, but hey V could be great. For now I think Saints Row has graduated from 'sort of GTA clone' to its own thing, and it's basically the fun open world game I've been wanting, GTA IV didn't really deliver on that front.

@Napalm said:

@phish09 said:

It is still one of the best games this generation.

Nope.

Yep.

@phish09 said:

@Napalm said:

@phish09 said:

It is still one of the best games this generation.

Nope.

Yep.

Nope. (Could be subjective)

@ShiftyMagician said:

@phish09 said:

@Napalm said:

@phish09 said:

It is still one of the best games this generation.

Nope.

Yep.

Nope. (Could be subjective)

You might be right...but still, it is.

It kind of sounds like you don't like it just because you're bad at it.

I love GTA IV, but I realize most people (on this forum) do not.

@ShiftyMagician said:

@phish09 said:

@Napalm said:

@phish09 said:

It is still one of the best games this generation.

Nope.

Yep.

Nope. (Could be subjective)

Reviews-wise it is.

Anyway, the OP comes off as a bit young for some odd reason. I'd recommend you not play the PC version.

@vdortizo:

You really can't understand why people would like the games? I understand not liking the games yourself but you can't understand why anyone else would? Seriously?

@vdortizo said:

@Vinny_Says said:

Red Dead Redemption was a massive step towards fixing a lack of variety in missions, but at the time GTA 4 was the best thing around, better than MGS4 and that's why it won GOTY.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why you guys chose it as GOTY '08 and by playing it I got a glimpse of all those qualities you mentioned. But to me the game really loses ground against those gameplay flaws, there is probably something redeeming you guys saw at the time that I didn't manage to see now.

The only thing I'm questioning at the end is how funny I found Ryan praising MGS4 for more than half the podcast and then slowly transforming his opinion (on his own) towards GTA4 and (if I'm not mistaken, memory IS subjective) leaving Brad in the end as the only supporter of MGS4 (he then went and played GTA4 for a bit if I'm not mistaken), by that time it was really obvious you guys were tired as hell and just wanted to call it...

That's not Vinny bro.

It's not offensively bad, just not as great as what some of the reviews around release would have told you. It also had a really dull look to it sometimes, I've never been to New York City but from pictures most areas look a touch more colourful then what Liberty City looks like in GTA4.

@phish09: @Barrock: Hehe I thought that I did enough to imply I was having fun at my own answer by stating it could be subjective (which it definitely is) but hey damn text.

I still am unsure for myself personally if I can call GTA4 one of the best (but I can see to some extent why other people think so), but it is definitely one of the most popular games to have hit this generation, pleasing a massive amount of gamers, so that alone is enough to make it a key entry in the history books.

The OP needs to realise that it isn't hard to see why people can either dislike or like this game at all. There are parts of this game that turn people like me off immediately, whereas it will be tolerable for others and thus they find an amazing experience in the game. Skyrim I believe will be the next great example of this, as there is a lot to love about this game and to see why it can be considered for GOTY, however it can also do things that will distaste certain gamers as well and it is completely understandable whilst still touting it as GOTY. It's all a matter of taste. Sweet, subjective taste.

@ShiftyMagician said:

@phish09 said:

@Napalm said:

@phish09 said:

It is still one of the best games this generation.

Nope.

Yep.

Nope. (Could be subjective)

You might be right...but still, it is.

I played so little of GTA 4 that I can not remember any of it, yet from the 90+ I've played of San Andreas, I can detest that that game is pretty good.

@chrismafuchris said:

I played so little of GTA 4 that I can not remember any of it, yet from the 90+ I've played of San Andreas, I can detest that that game is pretty good.

I think you used the wrong word there.

@vdortizo said:

PS: Even Brad hasn't even finished the game after all this time: https://twitter.com/#!/bradshoemaker/status/147522455957807104

To be fair Jeff hasn't finished Uncharted 2. It's not like finishing a game is a requirement for it to be GOTY. In fact I highly suspect that Skyrim will win this year that someone on the crew won't have completed it. The length of these games adds to their value which is a contributing factor to them winning GOTY.

The main part of GTA IV was bad. The episodes improved a lot. The bike physics/controls were fixed for L&D and driving in a group was kind of cool. Every mission had you working with at least 3 other bikers and they definitely took fire because when they died they would have a memorial at the bike club. If they lived they returned for the next mission stronger than before. In BoGT they fixed shooting. Guns were fun to use. Explosive shotgun shells for a semi-auto shotgun? Yes please. There were still some generic combat missions but at least with better shooting it becomes less boring. Since the episodes are only 20-25 missions long compared to the 75-80 in the main game the pacing for the story goes by a lot faster and it is a lot less stale.