It's fun, but hell, I didn't enjoy Ocarina of Time as much as others did. It was so much less fun than A Link to the Past.

As for GTA4, it's also fun. Did it deserve a 10/10? Probably not, but I enjoy it for what it is.

Interesting, I first played A Link to the Past last summer and I found it less than Ocarina of Time... but I also put Majora's Mask over Ocarina so what do I know?  I really enjoyed all the Zelda games (I've played) except that the boat in Wind Waker dragged that game down low in my eyes.

As for GTA, I can see why people like it, and I wanted to like it, but I just can't get into it.

Oh, and did I mention how I love the new GPS system?   Makes getting around and avoiding the boys in blue SO much easier.

Well, that and the new police system which means you can now just outrun a four star rating, something that couldn't be done in the previous ones. In general, the police are far less psycho in this one. It does make it a little too easy at times. I used to end GTA playing sessions with a rampage, leading to my inevitable death. This time, it's not that inevitable any more.

So now I end my sessions with a leisurely cab ride home.

But, yeah, the GPS is such a help with a city this big. I've just got on to the second island and I'm pretty overwhelmed with the size. But now I get to see the tourist areas so at least I get to recognise where I've been now.

Man, did I love Uniracers.  Too bad today's TV's don't stand a chance of keeping up with its speed. :-(

I love playing dress-up with Niko.  Though I hope to progress past the track pants and jeans eventually.

And is it just me, or is the auto save confirmation ditty - a variation of the Soviet Connection main theme - like the GREATEST THING EVER?

While I enjoy this game, I do wish they'd overhaul the save system. Having to replay ENTIRE failed missions is extremely frustrating.

Why can't they?

actually you just have to press up on your cellphone once you're out of hospital(after failed mission), and you'll get back to the mission(it's going to be after the cutscene), and you'll cut to the chase.
quite convenient.

Not really. You start back where you got the mission. Especially after more than one try, half the irritation is having to drive ALL THE WAY to where the action begins.

Of course, I couldn't resist but make a recording of said save ditty.  The one I speak of is the first variation, as there appears to be a number of different ones for every mission.  I also uploaded the original Soviet Connection, by Michael Hunter:   

Soviet Connection, Save Confirmed:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=8380 … 805c5236b9

As for having to start over failed missions, I actually haven't failed any one of the twenty three that I've attempted so far...... but I can imagine it being a hassle if you do have to start all the way from the beginning each time.

Side-scrolling games tend to blur on LCD TVs and Uniracers is the fastest side-scrolling game ever made (to the best of my knowledge -- it certainly blows the Sonic games away).  It might look ok if you played it on a small OLED TV or something like that, but who can say for sure.

I've never noticed.  Odd.

no, you have to drive to the spot where the action begins but you don't have to get directions anymore.
if they'd just cut to the chase straight, that would be convenient to some people but at the same time maybe too easy.

How so? Driving to a destination unhindered by anything isn't exactly challenging. It's monotonous. Either way, I don't expect them to add a "save-anywhere" option to the series. They have a formula and they're sticking to it.

Yep. Too easy? Like it could be easier driving from A to B following the route on the map?

In my opinion, this is a symptom rather than a cause. The real problem is that, in GTAIV, driving from A to B just isn't all that much fun. There's very little by way of jumps, the layout is pretty dull and the car handling punishes crazy full-speed driving. San Andreas suffered from the first two problems, but not the third. GTA3 and Vice City, however, kept drives shorter and they could always get crazy even on a straight A to B drive, keeping them interesting.

That I find myself using taxis more than driving and wishing I could skip those huge boring mission drives tells me that the main meat of the game, the driving, is not working.

it's hardly a flaw.
it's the way gta works.
you guys need to get better at missions if you're keep dying ^_~

Unfortunately dying in the game can be a result of many of the other flaws. But if the most of the game is driving and yet that is seen as punishment for failing missions rather than enjoyable, I would call that a flaw.

Ok, so this is about 4 months late, but I finally got to play GTA4 (360 version), and I have to say that I really like it.  I've never cared for the GTA series because the fundamentals were so sloppy, but they seemed to have finally tightened things up, and I'm pretty happy with it.  I may pick up the PS3 version for myself once it comes down in price.

I'm probably going to Goozex a copy of this soon. Glad to hear they fixed the shooting controls. What's everyone's thought on the game 4 months later?

Oh, and how's the music?

I've long since stopped playing the game regularly.... but the few sporadic times I do pop it in, I get hooked for hours at a time.  I've been ignoring the missions, but the sandbox element just completely draws me in.

I've really got to try online again.  I went on, like once, with Herrkotowski..... and I don't even think it was a full game.  I just didn't exactly know what I was doing.

I found the music in GTA IV to be pretty disappointing.  I also wasn't all that thrilled with the talk radio on this installment, which surprised me.  I was a big fan of Laszlo in GTA III, but really didn't like his segments in this game.  If I knew I wasn't going to be doing any missions, I just put a CD in and listened to that.

Well I finished it and enjoyed the missions. But, as a sandbox game, it just doesn't have enough to do except drive around looking at the scenery.

And that lost some of its limited appeal when I got a HD television. It could well be different on the PS3 but the 360 version looks far better at standard def. Throwing it into high definition causes it to apply this awful pseudo paint filter that muddies everything up, causes the images to flicker and accentuates the low frame rate and frame drops.

And yet, I'm still looking forward to seeing what they give us for DLC.

I lost interest after the first ten hours. All the endless driving was starting to anger me and I couldn't find one radio station I was able to tolerate. The characters remained interesting but I don't think this genre is for me.