5 Reasons GTA IV Is The Worst Great Game Ever Made
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Every Saturday, Cracked asks one of our favorite writers to fill in for us. Our readers get to learn about an awesome site, and we get to take a day off to pursue our career goal of finding a big bag of money. This week Cracked contributor Robert Brockway brings you a column from his honestly titled site I Fight Robots. _______________________________ Like almost every other being on this planet with functional eyes and opposable thumbs, I've spent the last month playing Grand Theft Auto IV and neglecting my loved ones.
It is shit. It's repetitive, poorly implemented, riddled with design flaws, awkward, and above all, glitchy. Yet I understand every word of gushing praise. Everything the reviewers say about the city and its scale is absolutely true. It's the little things that do it to you: Like how the fast food workers at the various restaurants actually have different duties. They come out from behind the counter and clean the tables. They sweep the sidewalks out front and wash the windows. Cars actually break down--even when they're not yours. I've driven by several random civilians causing massive traffic jams, standing in front of their overheated vehicles completely befuddled. This city is the closest gaming has ever come to a real place, a real New York. The flyers, the newspaper stands, and the grime--all of these aspects pile up to make a truly living, breathing environment.
It is indeed one of the single most impressive achievements in gaming ... so it's just too bad that Rockstar layered an irreparably flawed game on top of it. It shouldn't surprise anyone. The actual gameplay in Grand Theft Auto IV is nearly identical to every GTA before it, and gameplay has never been their strong suit. They've added and tweaked, to be sure, but it's almost universally for the worse. Or maybe the flaws just stand out more this time because of how great it could have been. In any case, here are the five most infuriating: #5.
The New Cover System
The new implemented cover mechanic is ridiculously clumsy. You hit the button once to cover, and then as you try to move along whatever cover you've taken, the system often randomly interprets that movement to mean you want to switch cover entirely. So rather than sneaking along a wall to ambush an unsuspecting enemy, it's equally likely that you'll break cover, run two feet to a fire hydrant and crouch behind it while bullets rain into you--leaving you to die squatting in the middle of the road like a diarrhea stricken hobo.
I understand why they wanted to develop a cover system for the game--the idea of being pinned down behind a Dumpster in Brooklyn, desperately fending off the S.W.A.T team from a covered position is the stuff fanboy dreams are made of. But it rarely works out that way. If everything works like it's supposed to, the AI is simply no match for you if you're using cover at all. You can murder an entire city block in seconds by simply holding the cover button and selecting the next target. However, if you attempt to adjust your position in the slightest, you're leaving it entirely up to Niko's better judgment whether he moves further down the alleyway like you intended, or jogs across the street to hide behind a hot dog vendor's legs like a lost child at the county fair. #4.
Jumping and Climbing Controls
Hitting the jump button will now allow you to execute a number of new actions such as climbing, mounting or just hopping over obstacles. This revamped system allows you to seamlessly hurdle through this vastly detailed terrain without breaking stride ... in theory. In practice, however, assigning all environmental interaction to one button, a button that already has a vital function--jumping--is an exercise in stupidity. No, it's more than an exercise. It's a grand athletic competition in stupidity. It's the motherfucking Olympics of stupidity. Maneuvering through this city is complicated now by the very details that make it great. Because the path is no longer flat, some sense of agility on the part of your character is absolutely, fundamentally necessary. Ideally, small obstacles would be handled automatically--your character should step up foot-high ledges, hop over fire hydrants and make tiny-distance jumps on his own. But he typically doesn't, and you find yourself having to force him to do these things quite often, but not always. This uncertainty leaves you to continuously wonder: Is he going to just step over this curb, or am I going to get caught jogging in place alongside it? If I hit the button now, does that mean hop over that guardrail, or leap in front of that speeding bus? Does pressing jump actually mean jump, or does it mean vault over the safety railing and fall to certain death?
This is a hell of a snap decision to make at a tense point in the game. At no point should pressing one button mean either: A.) Use the sidewalk or B.) Kill yourself Maybe Niko is supposed to be dangerously bi-polar and this is just Rockstar's way of simulating his mental instability. Either way, it doesn't help me to not throw the controller at my neighbor's kids. #3.
Mission Structure
Repetition absolutely kills the single-player campaign. The missions and goals are little more than ultra-gritty deliveries--sometimes it's coke, sometimes it's a car, sometimes it's death--but it's always drive from point A to point B, kill or drop off something, escape cops. I know this is the premise of GTA, that you're a mercenary driver, but if you can't think of any variety to add to these missions outside of "use a different car this time," then you probably don't need 30 goddamn hours of them. Also, why for the love of Christ are there no checkpoints in the longer, multi-stage missions? If a mission requires me to drive across town to steal a Ferrari, kill 45 cops in a parking garage, blow up a helicopter with a hand-grenade, deliver a boat full of heroin, and then dress up like a clown to perform at a children's birthday party, I shouldn't have to do every step of that again if my fucking seltzer bottle clogs up and the kids get bored. That's just shoddy design, and there's no justifying that.
#2.
Collision Detection
The collision detection is sketchy at best. A poorly-aligned car too close to your leg could just knock you down ... or it could send you into an awkward, flailing convulsion that effectively incapacitates you until the driver decides that you've had enough of doing the Batusi and mercifully moves on. This may not be completely ruinous in the single-player campaign, but it's particularly noticeable in the multi-player. Easily half of all the multi-player games I've been in have been won or lost on a collision detection glitch. I've been gunned down in Deathmatch because my foot was too close to a moped, which causes me to inexplicably levitate in the air while the other players take festive potshots at me like I'm a blood pinata. I've lost games of Cops 'N Crooks when--after a flurry of amazing stunt jumps, eerily accurate sniper-fire and well-placed rockets, I hit the enter vehicle button at the getaway boat and my guy can't figure out how to walk around the seat. I stand there twitching in place, unable to move, while cops stroll casually up and slap me to death.
To be fair, you could just assume I suck at this game, but even when I win, half of the time it happens by glitch. After a long chase, I'll frequently see my enemies hitting the jump button to step up a curb, and instead go flailing off of a bridge. Or else they'll get stuck in buildings, or have cars materialize into existence directly in front of them, or most perplexingly, they'll suddenly lay down and zip around the street--their bodies rigid and motionless as they luge about the intersection while I fire rockets at their ricocheting, paralytic corpses like a twisted, hellish game of air hockey. It's frustrating to lose to these things, sure, but even the victories are hollow when you know the only reason you won is because your arch-nemesis' knee accidentally touched somebody's fender and he couldn't stop disco-dancing.
#1.
It Would Be Easy to Fix ... Theoretically
It's times like this when I really wish that media ownership wasn't quite so proprietary. Rockstar made a city worthy of a great game. They just forgot to do the great game part. If they could lease out their digital environments like other companies lease out their gaming engines, astounding things could be done with it. A million different games could be set within the borders of this city--stealth games, racing games, fighting games or hell, even sim games. I assume the bulk of the hundred million dollars Rockstar spent developing GTA IV went to the insane detail in this environment. Why not let another company buy some rights to it, and spend substantially less to develop working game mechanics? A lesser company could come along and just detail the insides of the buildings a little more, for example, and that would do wonders in effectively expanding your environment. They could spend a tenth of your costs and add a little something more to your city. With a little cooperation they could build modest profits, and your wonderful game environment could truly thrive. Why wouldn't you do that, Rockstar? Oh, right. You actually want to make money. Well, fuck my beautiful dream, then. I don't mean to imply that the flaws outweigh the perks--they don't. I won't stop playing it over these issues and I'm not suggesting you do either, both because the city and what it could have been are too tempting, and because the few times where everything does go right, it is nothing short of amazing. If nothing else Grand Theft Auto IV exemplifies why the scoring system of game reviews is so fucked at its very core. If I had to score it, I would've said it gets a 10 because this game makes you remember everything you dreamed video games could be as a kid. But does a perfect score mean a perfect game? Not in this case. But reducing everything to a number is such a black and white summation that there's simply no way to accurately tell everybody that this is the most jaw dropping game you've ever played, and at the same time you fucking hate it so much it's like a knife in your eye.
Read more from Robert at I Fight Robots. |
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Very funny. I read this out loud to my husband. He agreed with the cover part, since he had the same problem with his GTA IV.
Very good points.I was thinking the same.
Why even write this it is a free roam video game with a massive amount of crap to do in it. OF COURSE THERE IS GOING TO BE FLAWS but i do not care it helps me kill free time when im not with my loved ones.
He made some very valid points. Maybe if you got your heads out of your arses, you'd realise this.
And the naming was meant to be ironic. For anyone to call the author stupid, then make reference to the title and how much he is contridicting himself, is for that ignorant and ultimately stupid.
Freakin' fanboys.
Robert Brockway, I hope you read this. I was just wondering who sucks more, you or your s**t article. Your 5 reasons why the game sucks are totally nonsense and dumb. Also, the game may have 5 negative things but it has MILLIONS of positive ones. You should go get yourself killed because you have no freaking idea of what the f**k you're talking about. Your opinion sucks and doesn't matter to anyone. GTAIV is the best. You should either go kill yourself or play Sims 3. f*****g n00b.
"Worst game ever"? Rofl show us your game then, sucka.
Are you using the PS3 version or Xbox 360 version? Not to sound like a fanboy, but I'm asking because in the Xbox 360 version, the jump button does what it's supposed to do at the right time and a car that scrapes my leg knocks me down rather than makes me levitate like I'm the victim of some sort of magic trick.
I will admit that the cover system is fucked up, though, because the number of times I have covered behind a dumpster so that the police can't shoot me so well, and I move a little to the left so I can clearly see that police officer whose head is blocked by a car, only to stand up, look like an idiot and have a rain of bullets fly into me is ridiculously high.
You know what always pissed me off? that they don't have little kids in the game! How sick would that be? You get in a gun fight on a play ground in the projects and a stray hits some little kid in the head and dies or a pregnant woman! That would some real life s**t!
OMG. You are really stupid and really biased...
#5: if you are trying to tell me that the cover system is poor, then you're just a noob that does NOT know how to play!!! You pull it towards you. And for shooting you use the other joystick. it is called "right joystick". I'm sorry I guess you can't tell the difference because your so stupid.
#4: here is agree with you until a certain point. If you want to jump over a wall, and sometimes he jumps on the spot but or jumps against the wall while running. It's a small glitch, and who cares.
#3: Here we are saying that video gaming industry is stupid. Take Call of Duty. You kill people. "They should vary up the missions" in your case. It's a f***ing war game what are you supposed to rape women? Wow!!! Your sick!!! Or look at Need for Speed. In your case you should do more things rather than drive a car or do something else. Like what drive a shopping cart or have kids??? That's because it's a racing game and not Sims. This is GTA, meaning, that it is a violent game, and they made so much stuff available for you to do. Who says you have to DO THE MISSIONS. After you are done, you can do whatever you want. Tell me another game where you can just screw around town and is just as good as GTA. None is the answer.
#2: This just proves that you failed physics. Here in this game they made it very realistic obviously not perfect but did a VERY good job.
#1: I just love what you said, "I don't mean to imply that the flaws outweigh the perks--they don't. I won't stop playing it over these issues and I'm not suggesting you do either" (last paragraph). This just proves that you are so stupid that it is just funny. You look at a game in a biased way and then name the article "GTA IV Worst Great Game Ever Made" and then you say that you should play it. Why? All you did was critisize everything and what you said if I were you i wouldn't play it because you didn't say anything positive, and if it is so bad of a game as you say. Why the f*** are you playing the worst game ever.
You A have to learn what this game is about and recommend buying a lot of other games and compare it yourself or B you are jsut plain stupid.
PS on #4 picture 2 it isn't Niko that is falling it is you shooting someone else in a mission by Playboy X and if you snipe him in the enemy in the leg then he falls. It is realistic and not stupidly done.
Thank you sir for your perfect example.
The 'Coup De Grace' of showing use you are in fact retarded.
"WTF is this "McCathy Gaymes" dude u hav a serious problem, go get a life..."
"WTF is this "McCathy Gaymes" dude"
For a start, its spelt "McCarthyGaymes", and i am a person not an "is".
You spelt have as "hav", you as "u". You want to start digging yourself a hole? You are having a great start.
Who let you in contact with a computer? You should not touch one, you are spreading your 'down flawed opinion' like its a fact.
You need to give up just now McCarthy, just leave it.
P.S. Your a f*****g idiot
WTF is this "McCathy Gaymes" dude u hav a serious problem, go get a life...
Sir, please ignore the comment below me.
This person is mentally limited and has no reasonable understanding of the various flaws incorporated with this game.
Blindly out of rage he defends the 'sand box game' because he enjoys repetitive tasks with good graphics.
I know him personally, he lacks in the 'mental capacity' area, and spends most of his days over-exaggerating topics.
Your review is honest in all factors sir.
McCarthyGames is a f*****g idiot.
Please, this is obsurd. I believe this is an awesome sequal, I mean what other game are fit to compare with it, maybe saints row? That's it! After playing this game I found that the missions were excellent and kept me wanting more and more. The cover system I never found to glitch, and the collisions I found were brilliant! Sure, the only thing I found to be a pain was the jumping and climbing situation (Reason #4) but that aside, I think GTA4 is one of the best sandbox-action games ever released.
i just seemed dissapointed with the scale of funness. in gta3 i could now have about 2hrs of fun,in vice city about 1hr, in san andreas 3 hrs, but gta4 barly half an hour becaus of the f*****g physiscs engine its like saints row no fun to real
ok you all have to be retarded most of those so called "glitches" are supposed to be there, rockstar put it in there because GTA 4 was supposed to be REALISTIC if u get clipped by a car and fall hard on the pavement of course ur not going to get up right away, and if the car parked up against a wall of course you wont be able to enter it and if your stuck just hit the blood jump button he exits the entwer car funtion as for the jump button and cover, that just means you suck at GTA 4 cause no one else has that problem in cover Niko doesnt leave his cover unless you move the joystick towars yourself so he is moving off his cover or if you press the cover butten anything else and nothing happens, i agree with you on the mission structure and how theres no checkpoints but you were right they're all almost the same but, what the hell do you expect do you want Niko to go dress up as a clown and entertain kidfs at a birth day party for a mission, i mean Niko is a Russian hitman of course his missions are going to involve driving somewhere killing delivering somthing and actually the mission are somewhat diverse considering different things happen while on missions. seriously guys you really dont know GTA 4 -.-
wow. this aticle had me laughing out loud seriously.
i just wanted to say that i also dont like the fact i couldnt do anything interesting with the money i earned lol. i know the next game will be superb.
Anyone who likes Saints Row better than GTA is probably going to also like Kristen Bell over Scarlett Johannson.(sp?) The shortcomings in GTA would probably cripple any other game. However, in GTA, they come together in a way that still keeps the game fun. Over and over again. I've played both Saints Rows and was, frankly, disappointed. They didn't even make a fun GTA clone.
This is hilarious. Ya Gta IV has many annoyances, but I don't let stuff like that bother me. I don't regret buying that game it still is awesome.
The guy below me is a f*****g genius. THIS ARTICLE HAS OPINIONS? GOOD THING HE POINTED THAT OUT, I DIDNT NOTICE.
Anyway, I agree with every word. Anyone who claims the missions in GTA4 are diverse is a god damn moron. They LITERALLY are Point A -> Point B -> Kill/Deliver something, and sometimes -> Point A.
I hated GTA4. It was an utter disappointment. I didn't get the month of overhyped love for it everyone else got- I realized in the first week it was a pile of s**t.
Luckily I got Saints Row 2, which is everything GTA4 should have been.
This is a very well though out article. But most of it was either your game f*****g up (with the glitches) or your own personal opinions. The cover system works for me and everyone I know. I have no issue moving up against walls or switching cover when I have to. That mainly just sounds like you have an issue with how you play. And even if there were actual issues with it, give them a brake, it's the first time they have ever tried a cover system.
Now I will kind of agree with you on the jumping. It would be nice to not jump off a building when you just want to get on the ledge but other than that it is perfectly fine. I mean your complaining about pushing an extra button to get over a wall. Also how long are you going to acutally be on top of a building. Most building you get to the top of there are stairs to go down if needed.
The next thing you said that bugged me was about the missions. The missions, on the most part, were different every time. Now I know mostly it told you to go somewhere first then the mission actually kicks off but out of all the GTA games I've played GTA:IV defintely offered a lot of diverse missions. BUT... it would be great for some checkpoints.
The collision detection is really good detail wise and graphics wise. If a car hits you going 3 mph. That is whats going to happen. Or if you get sideswiped, again you might fall. It is defintely better than the past GTA game where you would just slide across the ground.
And the last thing you said, that they could fix it, wrong. GTA:IV is THE best game ever made with the plot, graphics, and gameplay. Those combined make a game amazing like this. The only reason you think this game is s**t is because of personal opinons. And for that, you are wrong.
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this had to be one of the funniest articles i've ever read. and i completely agree with you.