GTA IV - 360 & Ps3

[ezee ryder]

To be honest, I am playing on the 360 and I haven't had a huge amount of pop up and have been playing for about 18 hours now.

[fried gold]

Probably is my Xbox then, it's gotta be nearing the end of it's days now. Atleast GTA isn't on the Unreal Engine 3, these pop ups are nothing compared to Mass Effect of GoW. Still, I'm very impressed by the game.

[Matt]

It's not your machine, it's the game. At night, the coloured street lights pop up on the road about 50 yards from your car. Other vehicles pop up about 150 yards away I guess.

The different between these popups and the unreal engine, is most of the unreal stuff is texture loading causing the popping. GTA4 is mainly poly popping, and light effects, though there is the occassional distance texture but it's rare. There's a filter not very far in away from the character that looks to be blurring everything to reduce jaggies, and textures past this point are muddled. They improve enormously up close of course, though I have seen some quite horrendous low res textures but not in any main game areas - just round the back of buildings, out of the way, that kind of thing.

While I appreciate that the city itself is stunning, and it's much more alive than any other game, that does not mean the graphics themselves are good. There's a lot of effects and the changing weather and lighting is impressive, if not exactly subtle, but then GTA has never been subtle with the lighting Of course it's not going to be Gears level graphics, no one would expect that. But the post-processing in that game is superior to the similar effects in GTA. I'm happy to ignore the polycount in GTA, though the angle curves in the road look last gen but OK it's a massive environment so you forgive it. But I think anyone saying it's amazing is wrong. The pics online are nothing like the the ingame graphics - I'm sure they're the same assets, but not real time renders. This game, more than pretty much any recent 360 game, needs AA. I'd love to know the real resolution as it looks frighteningly low. I imagine the blur is to help hide the jaggies, but it kicks in too soon. Anything more than, what, 100 yards away in game becomes blurred, and not in a good, subtle depth-of-field way.

I know the polycounts on the Gears maps, and I imagine GTA is pushing a similar number around screen at any one time, albeit with more complex culling going on. And with all city actors to work out, and the wonderful physics, the game is doing a lot. But it still looks rough in my eyes, rougher than I imagined it would be. The shadows can look horrendous, shimmering all over the place.

You see some cool ****, like the water bobbing up and down, the steam from the manholes, it's all very cool stuff. The cop chases are fun and the star system thought out a lot better.

Very much a mixed bag for me, and I'll admit to being a bit bored already, after maybe 3 hours - I played a lot of GTA3 and VC, and while this is better, I'm not feeling anything significantly different despite all the improvements.

As always, will be interesting what people think of this in a month or two once the hype and hysteria has died down and we can all be more objective. Hopefully once I start online it'll really shine, I'm looking forward to that a lot

[ezee ryder]

I think it looks superb, just my mere opinion though.

[Robster]

Is the gameplay not the main focus instead of gamevisuals?.

I will enjoy for the gameplay before the visuals!!.

[tyler]

I played very little of the first three games (3D versions) but I'm 15 hours in to GTA IV and have to tear myself away from it. Maybe it's something to do with not getting too involved in the previous games that this feels so fresh?

I'd also say that, at times, it's one of the most impressive looking games I've seen. Being on a boat on the East River at night time is phenomenal. The view of the city, the bridges, Staten Island, they've just captured the feel of New York City so, so well.

It just gets better and better for me.

[ezee ryder]

Is the gameplay not the main focus instead of gamevisuals?.

I will enjoy for the gameplay before the visuals!!.

Yeah definately. The gameplay is superb, there is so much to do and see. Visually it is superb too, not perfect but there are few games out there that are. If they had high resolution textures everywhere they would have to cut back on something else. The main graphical stuff looks top notch and that is what matters. It doesn't really bother me if the back of a building or the bark of a tree has low resolution texture, it would be great if they were high resolution but hey you can't have everything. The pop-up again doesn't really bother me that much (hasn't happened to me all that much anyway), I mean a tree or box popping in is hardly game breaking. If it was a whole house or background then it would bother me, but that is not the case. Loving this so far, just can't get enough of it

[glazza]

Just played this online for hours playing ll the various modes and have to say there wasnt one that i diddnt enjoy can realy see this game eating my life away and i cant wait for more peeps to get online from tuesday onwards.

Cops n Robbers mode is awesome realy is.

Add me people add me glazza36 need some ntsc guys to get online with

G.

[Robster]

Yeah definately. The gameplay is superb, there is so much to do and see. Visually it is superb too, not perfect but there are few games out there that are. If they had high resolution textures everywhere they would have to cut back on something else. The main graphical stuff looks top notch and that is what matters. It doesn't really bother me if the back of a building or the bark of a tree has low resolution texture, it would be great if they were high resolution but hey you can't have everything. The pop-up again doesn't really bother me that much (hasn't happened to me all that much anyway), I mean a tree or box popping in is hardly game breaking. If it was a whole house or background then it would bother me, but that is not the case. Loving this so far, just can't get enough of it

Amen!!

[Bleeders]

I don't think anyone will really appreciate this until they've seen everything it has to offer. It's GTA, it's modus operandi was never going to deviate, so what it does, it does incredibly well; I'm ****ing loving it.

Highlight for me; in a MP game with Zooki, Yosh and Jim, in a helicopter en-route to bombing a boarded ship, the scale of the city in the helicopter was breathtaking, really impressed. Sure, there are games with aircraft in them, usually on a barren battlefield, this was different, quite epic.

[Concept]

Chain - I'm telling you, the pop-in is nowhere near as bad as what you're saying on the PS3 version I'm playing.

Geo-V6. Yes, gameplay is still king but don't let that fool you into thinking the visuals are extremely simple, because they're not.

[Concept]

I played very little of the first three games (3D versions) but I'm 15 hours in to GTA IV and have to tear myself away from it. Maybe it's something to do with not getting too involved in the previous games that this feels so fresh?

I'd also say that, at times, it's one of the most impressive looking games I've seen. Being on a boat on the East River at night time is phenomenal. The view of the city, the bridges, Staten Island, they've just captured the feel of New York City so, so well.

It just gets better and better for me.

I know it's a lazy, obvious comparison given the increase in detail but it's a walkabout game in the sense that Shenmue was. In fact, I'd say the game strangely has something in common with Shenmue II's feel (at the beginning at least).

You're a foreigner in a city getting lost who's just come off a boat, you're in a ****ty bedsit, there are hundreds of people, all sorts of mini-games (including drunken aiming darts), you can decide to take jobs from people by asking them, you can drop in and out of endless apartment corridors, and you're (do not read unless you're 15 missions in)

->Open Spoiler<-

on a personal mission to gain revenge on a couple of killers.

The writing helps. Niko's by far and away the most interesting chracter to appear in a GTA game.

I remember someone asked if there were any gaming references earlier. I've noticed a couple more. A WoW one on the radio and Squid Row - Budget Seafood (accompanied by a Chav-looking Squid) on one of the signs. :P

[Jei]

I'm not sure if its any use but I cleared my 360's Cache before playing it and I've had minimal pop up, and thats with a 10 hour session yesterday

[Freddo]

I'm running HDMI. I know the 360 does lack contrast and crushes blacks, but this is the worst I've seen it

HDMI has the same black level reference settings in the dashboard as VGA, try experimenting with that.

[Concept]

The comments sections on the internet are so bang on the money it's untrue.

I've really grown to like the organic structure missions are relayed to you through (being phoned up, using email). There's always choice whether you want to do them or not. It makes the game far less mechanical. At first I wasn't too sure because it felt as though I was being funneled down too many story-driven missions without the usual diversions (with the exception the club/restaurant stuff). You get used it though. The main and off-mission structure is very subtly blurred. I can see urban openworld games copying it from here on out.