Darkjohnny47's Place

These are my picks for game of the year.  Remember that if you don’t agree with my picks, poo on you. 

Favorite Co-Op Game   

1.       Gears of War 2

2.       Rainbow Six Vegas 2

3.       Mercenaries 2

Best Platformer

1.       Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

2.       Tomb Raider Underworld

3.       Prince of Persia

4.       New Super Mario Bros. (DS)

Yes, a DS game.  it's a really great platformer and it is the best Mario game in a long time.

 Favorite Music Game

1.       Rockband 2

2.       Guitar Hero World Tour

3.       Guitar Hero Aerosmith

Favorite Open World Game

1.       Grand Theft Auto IV

2.       Saint’s Row 2

3.       Mercenaries 2

Best Shooter

1.       Gears of War 2

2.       Far Cry 2

3.       Call of Duty World at War

Best Xbox Live Arcade

1.       Geometry Wars 2

2.       Bionic Commando Rearmed

3.       Castle Crashers

Best RPG

1.       Fallout 3

2.       Tales of Vesperia

3.       Fable 2

4.       Too Human

Best Xbox360 only game

1.       Gears of War 2

2.       Fable 2

3.       Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

Favorite Multiplayer Game

1.       Gears of War 2

2.       Rockband 2

3.       Rainbow Six Vegas 2

4.       Battlefield Bad Company

5.       Call of Duty World at War

Best Online Multiplayer Game

1.       Call of Duty World at War

2.       Rainbow Six Vegas 2

3.       Battlefield Bad Company

4.       Gears of War 2

Worst Game of the Year

1.       Destroy All Humans: Path of the Furon

2.       Shaun White Snowboarding

3.       Ninja Gaiden 2

Games of the Year

    15. Tales of Vesperia

    14. Battlefield bad Company

    13. Star Wars The Force Unleashed

    12. Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

    11. Call of Duty World at War

    10. Rainbow Six Vegas 2

      9. Tomb Raider Underworld

      8. Dead Space

      7. Fable 2

      6. Saint’s Row 2

      5. Far Cry 2

      4. Mercenaries 2

      3. Rockband 2

      2. Fallout 3

      1. Grand Theft Auto IV/Gears of War 2

It’s a tie because I couldn’t decide and I like both of those games a lot.

(this reveiw was written before i played a lot of this game.  looking back at it, it feels more like a first impression than a final review.  despite, my fairly negative review, i really like this game.)

so, to no one's surprise, Grand Theft Auto IV broke all kinds of records for sales in it's first day and week.  it even made the Guinness Book of World Records for videogames.  i have a mini review for everyone to read that's not written by a professional journalist (which may or may not be a good thing).

The Review

no matter what i say in this review, i do really like this game.  my review is going to focus on a few things i like and dislike about it. 

drunk driving is not hard  *(i do not condone this in anyway what-so-ever, i'm just talking about in the game)

getting drunk is fun and funny in the game, drunk driving is really not so hard.  when you get drunk in the game the screen moves around and Niko, the main character, walks all crazy and falls over a lot.  you can call a cab to take you home or wherever you need to go, OR you can grab a car and drive wherever you need to go.  when you start driving the screen still moves all crazy, but it's still not that hard to drive.  it's very funny just to see Niko walk around drunk, fall down, and interact with other people.

not-so-next-gen graphics

i understand that it is an amazing technical feat to have so much going on in this living breathing city, but graphically,  it does not blow me away.  there is a ton of detail in everything, but the people still look like Rockstar took the models from the PS2 games and updated them a little bit.  some of the characters in cutscenes look down right horrifically ugly (especially packie).

i really expected more when the game got such good reviews across the board.  Rockstar used a weird blurry effect on the screen that really makes it look bad, i think they used the same thing for all the previous games too;  they need to get rid of it.   

aiming is much improved, but a little frustrating

in all of the previous games there was a lock on system that was terribly broken.  it would stay locked on to dead bodies and it was very hard to change targets.  this time they addressed that issue by allowing the player to choose to free aim or lock on by how hard you press the aiming button.  a problem that i have with it is that if you accidentally push the button down too far you will lock on unintentionally.  it's just really annoying.  another problem that i and a few others have had is that it feels like i am always fighting with the camera to see what is going on.  it feels like i can never get a good view of what is happening.

running it old school

it feels a little silly to me to have to hold a button to make my character run.  this is 2008, not 2001.  all they would have had to do is to make it where the further you push the analog stick forward, the faster he runs starting with him walking.  i have never in the game encountered a point where i need to walk other than when inside of a building.  other game companies have done it with other games and it makes perfect sense. 

when you run, walk or move there is some minor camera sway that was starting to bother me.  i understand that game makers want to make their games more realistic and such, but i don't like it when the realism gets in the way of me playing the game.  a perfect example of this is call of duty 4's first level; on the boat at sea.  i could not play that level more than once because it made me sick.  i will never forget that i am playing a game, so stop trying to make me forget that.  i would rather be able to play the game than have a camera shake or a boat-a-rockin'.  end of rant.

no customization

other than changing clothes on Niko there is no customization.   

i have played a lot of Saint's Row.   some would say that it's a GTA clone and it is, but they took some of the ideas from GTA and improved on them.  In Saint's Row you could create your own character and customize them fully.  once in the game world you could steal a car and customize it fully.  when you were done with your car you could put it in a garage that held all of the cars in the game world.  if you got your car destroyed it would reappear in your garage, but you had to pay for it to get fixed.

the reason i'm talking so much about customization is that i think that next-gen (or current gen) means customization and GTAIV has none at all.  the last GTA game (GTA San Andreas) had a lot of customization and it feels like for this one Rockstar stripped that all out and gave us this.

a couple of things i don't like

• in the game you have male friends that are always calling you wanting to go on "man-dates" and take them bowling, drinking, eating, to play darts, or pool.  they start to do it so frequently that it becomes a chore to deal with them.  it's really distracting.  to Rockstar's credit, they put an option in the menu to allow you to ignore everything including friends and just run around the city.  that's great, but then you turn that option off again your friends will still bug you. 
  • when you get your friendship level up to a certain with each friend they give you special bonuses, but they bug me so much that i don't even want to deal with them.
• multiplayer looks like fun, but i can't do it more than once in a row without being kicked all the way back to the single player menu.  very annoying.  i'm hoping xbox live is better than playstation network.  there are a ton of modes to play and i think running around with a friend or friends would be fun.

in conclusion

it's a great game with a great story that i will be playing for a great long time.  i just had high hopes that would be some more changes implemented. 

i give 9 alpha males out of 10 wussy men.

brucie is one of my favorite characters from GTAIV.