OPS Australia Preview

[victim]

The mags out, I don't have it. Here's what Wehmer from GTAF has to say.

"suburb upon suburb of randomly generated houses simply didn't add anything worthwhile"

People are reading newspapers, gesturing whilst talking on their mobile phones, people sitting on seats while talking and absent-mindly flicking dust off their jeans. "We really know we're in Liberty City when we see an 80-year old granny staggering down the street as she takes swigs from a bottle of whisky."

You can feel the bass of passing cars, and hear the radio that they're listening to when it goes past. Rockstar asked the magazine not to publish the name of the song, as no artists have been set in stone.

Niko passes an ATM and it prompts him to "access funds". It's likely that if you die, you may lose all your money, so putting it in a bank when you get a substantial amount seems like a good idea. The magazine also hints at being able to bribe people and the possibility of being mugged.

As has been said, can travel from the road into a building with no load times. Manual aim has been upgraded considerably from SA, and is now much easier.

Niko exits into a seedy back alley, where it is "populated by piles of litter, weeds and homeless guys huddling around fires in barrels."

As Niko ascends a telegraph pole, the animations are smooth. Also, at the top, the vertical density of the city can be fully realised. "The skyline is crowded with complex architecture, above-ground train-lines, fire escapes, endless billboards and the Broker Bridge in the distance."

Niko breaks into an easy jog, showing realistic fluidity, leaning his body into corners as he takes them. A random passing car bumps into him and Niko stumbles backwards before regaining composure.

Niko smashes a car window, hot-wires the car and climbs in while glass clatters to the ground.

Broker has the real-life feeling of a bustling, lush new cityscape. Sunlight reflects off the car's paintwork, and the shadows are beautifully realised. The back streets of Broker, however, are much different. They are "a grungy mixture of rundown factories, overflowing dumpsters and dank back alleys."

Driving physics have been "tirelessly tweaked and enhanced"

Niko pulls up to a dock and gets out. Cement and gravel groundings feel and sound differently. You can see Algonquin Island (Manhatten) off in the distance as Niko pulls out his phone and requests someone to meet him. That's where the demo ends.

From the outside, you can see through windows into houses. While it may sound like a "Big Whoop!", staking out a house for a missions purpose could have its advantages.

The mobile phone feature has endless possibilities.

On the size of GTA IV: "Dan Houser: Well, area wise, the scope is about the same as San Andreas. I don't know exactly how it compares area to area, but it's bigger then any one city we've had in a game before." Also, "If we give people exactly what they think the want then, a) we're not doing a very interesting job any more and, b) we're not going to amaze them."

Gameplay will match the visuals.

OPS asked "Did you see GTAIV as a sequel to GTA III or GTA SA?" and the answer they got was "Neither." It's not a sequel, its a new version of some of the ideas in previous iterations.

OPS asked "In terms of weaponry and vehicles you had a pretty good spread in San Andreas," to which Dan Houser replied "Yeah, I don't think we will be adding vast numbers of things there." They explain that its about honing in and tightening. "So, for example, with game in one city there are no longer planes because there's nowhere to fly to. ...you take planes to get here, and you don't take planes to get across the city."

Not everything unbelieveable will be dropped.

The idea of terrorism is in the game, but it's not a focal point. It's obvious that it's a post 9/11 game. Just to stop people going on, Niko is definately Eastern European, not Middle Eastern. There is no Ground Zero, mainly because a "massive area of flat concrete" isn't all that exciting. Terrorism and the "War On Terror" are shown to be used as an excuse to limit freedoms.

You cannot raze buildings, because say you raze the entire city, what then? What about missions?

They never considered a first-person view

American culture is just to ripe to be taken off at the moment to do an overseas game yet.

A big part of the gameplay will be on the rooftops, apparently. It should be very fun.

Also, as a side note, they haven't really thought about San Andreas Stories, they are thinking of other things at the moment.

Rockstar says that the usual GTA driving controls have been tremendously tweaked and enhanced.

When selecting a contact on your mobile phone, a list of several commands are made available to the player, such as "meet me here" etc.

Playing the single player game through co-operative mode is not possible, however there will be a co-op mode in addition to all the other unknown multiplayer modes.

According to Dan Houser, VP of Creative for Rockstar Games, they haven't yet figured out if GTA IV is going to spark off another set of GTA games connected to it, and they're currently just focusing on this single game. He does say he "would have a certain confidence" setting GTA outside the United States, such as England in the future.

Edit: There are no new screens. Sorry all, here's the link to the scans anyway.

Edit 2: Updated with info found by Adriaan, from the article.

[Lettermaniac]

Wow, a few exciting new features in there. As I said in another thread, every preview I read makes me want it more and more and more. This is game isn't gonna break boundaries, it's gonna set totally new ones. Kinda like GTA III, but bigger.

Great post, looking forward to the scans a lot.

[Jimmy_86]

Thanks for posting, it'll be nice to see the scans.

[almostrodney]

sounds good, cant wait

[will99]

Originally Posted by Lettermaniac

Wow, a few exciting new features in there. As I said in another thread, every preview I read makes me want it more and more and more. This is game isn't gonna break boundaries, it's gonna set totally new ones. Kinda like GTA III, but bigger.

Great post, looking forward to the scans a lot.

Same, I can't WAIT to play it.

[Pignoah]

In one of the picture scans it says what Dan Houser thinks about the whole videogames create violent kids debate.

[Himuro]

Goddamn. We're getting new info every fucking day now.

[SA]

this is going to blow us away!

I just got an xbox 360 too..i finally left PS.

[Himuro]

Oh man, the details in this preview are absolutely insane. ATMs? Wow. It seems this game will be much harder. Lose all your money? Shit.

[Slim Trashman]

Some great new details here! Thanks a lot, victim. Much appreciated.

And thank fucking god they made that statement about SAS. It was all too obvious it wouldn't happen anyway. People really knew thought about the actual possibility of an SAS enough, or in a smart way.

[Himuro]

I knew they were going to tackle post 9/11 America. I cannot wait for the black comedy in this one. The quotables will be endless.

Imagine just walking around the npc's make comments about hos you look like you're from Iraq and that you look like a terrorist. Or taking cracks at the silly paranoia and color coded terrorist levels. Things like that. Oh God.

[Slim Trashman]

Looks like Dan Houser has indirectly spoken out on the PS3 in this article (View this scan, top right of the text area)

...

Speaking for myself, because of the games out there at the moment, I wouldn't go and spend six hundred bucks [$999AUD] on one of those machines yet. There's not enough interesting software, unless you happen to really like having an expenisve box that shows off graphics on some really uninspiring games, that's your business.

Obviously referring to the PS3 there. Some of you may read just that and think "Ha! Even Dan Houser hates the PS3! Sony must really suck!" well sorry to burst your bubble, you're wrong:

We are trying to make things that will make a large number of people go out and buy the machines. We have to do that by showing stuff early because it's a big purchase for people.

Now if you took the time to read that quote too, you can more clearly understand what Dan is saying here. In the first quote he is speaking from any person's point of view, those who want to make sure every cent of that $600.00 is well worth it. In the second quote (the following paragraph to the first), he basically states that Rockstar is trying to give the people a reason to go spend their money on these consoles, by creating a truly amazing gaming experience that should not be missed, of course this experience is GTA IV.

No doubt in my mind they would've done that anyway, even if they didn't intend to.

[victim]

Updated: with a few more facts, the scans were pretty shocking.

Edit: Also to those of you who don't know raze means destroy a building, so I guess destructible buildings aren't in.

[monkio]

so the idea is, that you get up into the largest building, open your cell, and tell the person you least like and select "meet me here" when they arive, beat around the bush a little and chuck em off

[Himuro]

What's so shocking about it? I haven't gotten around to reading the scans yet.