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| GTA San Andreas = D+ (if that) |
| 01.24.05 (10:46 pm) [edit] |
Just so you know, I am slightly biased against this game for the following reasons:
1) I don't like Bad Boys.
2) I can't relate with 90's gangsters. I'm a white guy who's lived in upper-middle class suburbia all my life. I just can't relate.
3) I was honestly expecting something much better. They didn't have Punisher or Resident Evil 4 at the rental store, and I was looking for something to satisfy my bloodlust (like the previous installments of GTA have)
4) I didn't really read the reviews, only the hype. So I was expecting something much more.
That being said, let's get on with the crap!
Rockstar games continues it's trend of pretty dang good games by hardly touching the existing GTA graphics engine and giving an unsatisfying game!
wait ... what?
I'll go ahead and break up the review into categories, to make my ranting much easier to follow:
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STYLE*
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(this is style minus execution. This is simply how well they got the flow and the feel of the thing.)
300%. It's 90s hood rappers to the extreme. Even if I really don't like the stuff, I do have to admit that it's pretty authentic.
They even use the F-word about 5 times a minute. And I'm not kidding, the drop the F-word left and right. I think this is only the second game I've played that's said it this much. (the original Conker's BFD had a cheat code to unedit the Fs). So, if you wanna hear polygonal characters cuss, here's something for you. (whatever ...)
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EXECUTION
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(referring to the polish in the cutscenes, timing, etc.)
D-
had they released this 4 years ago when GTA3 came out, I would have graded higher, but times have changed.
Basically, it's like watching a Bad Boys style movie without a rap soundtrack. Rockstar decided not to included any sort of music with their cutscenes, making them dull sordid affairs.
Another problem is that their cutscenes are longer than before. SO MUCH HIDEOUSLY LONGER! I mean, why? Seems they did a half-assed attempt at appeasing critics who pointed out that there really wasn't much reason to care about the criminal protagonist. But the character is still pretty dull and lifeless. Besides, IMO, you don't play GTA to care about a criminal, you play GTA to BE a criminal.
To give you an idea, here's how they tell you about the other gangs. Actual quote from the game via hud text: "these are the ballers, they are your sworn enemy." Boom, they expect you to care about this guy with this much build-up. wow.
Couple this with facial models that have ZERO expression, and you got yourself snoozeville.
Timing gets thrown off due to the outdated graphics engine they're using (more on that later). i.e. there's a hold-up at a pizza joint. the clerk insults the gunman, distracting him, then pulls out a shotgun and opens fire. the plot outline seems like it's funny enough. HOWEVER, there's no actual cutscene specific animation*, the camera angles are stationary in dull spots, there's no music again, and there's no facial expressions to help. Throw in the load times between phrazes, and instead of a foiled heist, you have a foiled joke. (*if you're looking for an excuse, Insomnic's Rachet and Clank 3 has about as many cutscenes and they're all loaded to the teeth with special animations. Insomic is also considerably smaller than Rockstar.)
So, yeah, those style points account for nuttin'.
============
GAME CONTROLS
============
The nice thing about being so disinterested about the whole be a thug concept is that I could focus on the gameplay.
And it sucks.
They're using the EXACT mechanics they used in GTA3. Sure, there's more whistles and bells and things to level up. But the control of the cars are still slightly glitchy, the bikes still ride like a car, and combat is better handled with a vehicle running people over than it is acutally hitting them. So, yeah, no real improvements on the core gameplay.
Sure, GTA3 was good control back in the day. But that was also the first game of it's kind we had seen. But now that there's been a good number of other games, with more responsive control (i.e. games with a sense of momentum when you're walking around on foot), GTA San Andreas well ... sticks out like a shattered thumb.
Makes me think that I would have hated GTA3 if it weren't for the NY Mob influince.
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GRAPHICS
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SUCK.
SUCK SUCK SUCKY SUCK.
The graphics are inexcusable.
The only improvement I've seen is that the fog of war has been lifted to a managable driving condition, as opposed to the 200 feet of yesteryear.
But other than that, it sucks.
BIG TIME.
I mean, there's bloody portraits hanging on the wall that are like 25x25 pixels wide. I mean, they might as well have used one of these emoticons like this guy here: :D . He has more pixels than the pic of the main character's late mom. (I'm not kidding you in the least bit. The pic of the late mom was about 8 pixels wide ear to ear and 16 pixels from top of the head to bottom of the frame. For all I know, that could have been a pic of a man.)
That's not the end of it either. The textures on a good number of things are PIXELATED! AS IN YOU CAN SEE THE PIXELS! AS IN SOMETHING I HAVEN'T SEEN SINCE THE DAYS OF THE PS1!!! WHAT THE CRAP?!?!?
I'm not saying like somewhat pixelated when you look close at it in First Person View. I'm saying that from the standard game camera, you can see pixels on a wall that's a good 60 feet away from the camera. Yeah, that was about how good the first play station was.
I MEAN COME ON!!! IS THAT ALL THE BETTER THEY CAN DO?!?!?!?
- 1000% for doing something that shitty.
Another thing ... the colors ...
Seems the director really liked the sunset scenes from Bad Boys that washed out the colors in everything leaving a orange black color scheme, 'cause that's what the whole game's like! They say that you can tell the difference between the different gangs by what colors they wear, but between orange sunrise and sunset, and too dark night fall, there's only about 20 percent of the game's day period that you can actual tell the colors of ANYTHING.
BAD CALL.
=====
SOUND
=====
HA!
First time I'm in a firefight, I hear some sort of static popping. I'm trying to think "What the crap's making that sucky noise?" Then I realize that it's the machine gun. The SMG makes a static pop 3 times a second when you fire it.
The shot gun makes a low static pop.
....
I could have gotten better sounds from a Napster style file program had I looked for 20 minutes.
Pitiful.
=======
GAMEPLAY
=======
Not as sucky as the other elements, but still not good.
Like I mentioned before, there's long cutscenes. Sure, they aren't as long as the half-hour codec conversations from MGS, but they are too long since nothin' really happens in them. (especially for me, who can't relate to gangsters, and who really doesn't care about the main character.)
Besides, the missions that i've played so far have been sloooooooooooooooow tutorial missions. I mean, all I want to do is bust some ass like I did in Liberty City.
And, I've already found a glitch in one of the missions. Don't know how I triggered it, but here's the scenario:
Buddy wants CJ (the main character) to look presentable. So after a 2 minute cutscene that's unskippable the first time, you take a ride out to the barber. You have to buy a hair cut. (Yeah, you HAVE to buy a hair cut.) then the guy tells CJ he looks skinny and tells him to go get somethin' to eat at the place accross the street. You get some food, and the buddy starts the hold-up gag I mentioned earlier. The hold-up CUTSCENE is supposed to start immediatly upon buying your food. First time I did it, the scene didn't start. So I had to drive all the way back to the starting point and restart the mission.
whatever ...
So yeah, I really didn't like the game.
I mean, I usually play rented games for at least 5 hours in order to get a pretty good feel for them before i write up the review. But I've played this one for 3 1/2 hours so far, and nothing interesting has happened yet. I feel pretty confident that nothing will.
I'd much rather spend my time building up my SSX3 riders than playing GTA San Andreas for 1 and a half more hours just to validate this review.
Verdict in plain english:
Don' even rent this game unless you're a massachist, or you loved 90s gangster films and you want to play a game that's a deathly pale and boring comparison to the movie. I imagine it's more fun to get kicked in the crotch for grabbing a ugly man's ass.
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posted by: MavericK (reply)
post date: 02.01.05 (9:45 pm)
i dont care what you say, u can have your opinion if you wish, but its alot of crap, u say about swearing.. its 18+ if u dont like it.. but play it, the graphics are shit because of the 5 year old graphic card in the ps2, get the slimline version for better graphics.. and u dont understand the way of the gangster, dont understand it, laugh at it and learn how the back street americans do things, jesus the mafia in GT3 was pretty fucking stupid, but no one complained. static pops.. no static pops, your high or something, and the controls, what do u expect from third person shooter, there has never been a good third person shooter.. first person is the best and only..
just stop complaining and give them credit for trying to squeese the best they could of of the old ps2
if this came out for the ps3, you would not complain
posted by: butcher (reply)
post date: 02.02.05 (12:01 am)
hmmmm ....
perhaps you're a bit touchy.
Or, judging by the fact that you didn't use the return key to organize your thoughts you were so mad that I contradicted you by knocking an item of the GTA series that you wanted to razz me bad.
Another possibility is that you're not that mature/intelligent since you used VERY LITTLE punctuation or capital letters. And you also used lazy typing practices like "u".
Or, you just weren't that organized when you wrote this and were tired.
Regardless, I'll reiterate my points just to make sure you know my views:
1) I made the review after playing a number of other titles on the PS2. I will refer to these other titles in the reexplaination.
Swearing: ok, so I mocked it. Big whoop. main reason I mentioned it was that I'm sure most people aren't used to hearing vid games drop the F-bomb. (and it's not like I have a high-horse to get on, Ladykillers was one of my fav movies last year).
graphics: yeah, the PS2 has a 5 year old card on it. But, you didn't read my specifications on how the graphics sucked.
Here they are again.
Heavily pixelated textures. I mean REDICULOUSLY pixelated textures. (that means the images painted on the game s have big square blocks of color on them).
If you want good examples of games whose textures AREN'T pixelated, where's a handful: DOA2 (one of the first games on the system), Time Splitters, LOTR the Two Towers, SSX3, Rachet and Clank, XIII, FIFA 2001 MLS, Kindom Hearts, Maximo 1 and 2, Escape from Monkey Island, Simpsons Road Rage, Castlevania: Lamment of Innocence, just to name a bare handful.
None of those have the un-antialiased crap for textures that occur in this game. Like I said, the portrait of CJ's mom was an impressive 8x12 pixels wide. painful.
The gangster life: I just want to reiterate that I didn't mean to knock it. I just don't relate. Again, the reason I brought that up was to emphasize the point that I was looking at the game for what it was without the style.
And if you didn't notice, I did give it a 300% style bonus. I said they did the style well. It doesn't float my boat, but they did do the style well, and it helped the end score what little it could.
"static pops.. no static pops, your high or something":
what?
ok, I'm assuming you're trying to debase the fact that I ripped on the sound. If you want good examples of sound, PLAY ANY OTHER F***IN' GAME! Good grief! Rachet and Clank has some of the coolest gun noises I've heard, even Goldeneye from the 64 had better sound quality than this game.
But I honestly couldn't tell what the crap those gunshots were supposed to be the first time I heard them. I mean, Contra from the original NES had better gunshot noises. When you heard those noises, you knew it was a gun shot. When I heard the static eminating from my Big Screen, I thought that there was a glitch. Then I saw the person firing the gun. It just wasn't good quality!
that and "your high" is a possesive phrase meaning a high that I possess. I believe that the correct phrase you were looking for would be "you're high" which includes a contraction of the words "you" and "are."
controls: you made mention that "there has never been a good third person shooter."
I am going to assume you have never played the following games (which came out before GTA San Andreas): Rachet and Clank 1, Rachet and Clank 2, 007 Everything or Nothing, Oni, Jak and Daxter 2. All of these games contained at least a segment of 3rd person shooter in them. And all of these games were fairly effecient at giving you a good ammount of control over the character. (the rachet and clank series, again, is by far the best 3rd person shooter game I've played, including in terms of being able to control what you're doing).
I say it has sucky controls because the character on screen is sluggish to respond to your inputs.
I also say that it has sucky controls because it hasn't improved in the least bit since GTA3. (sure, they added more things too control, but they didn't improve on how you control the things you alread do, aside from the targeting system, which is passable at minimum.)
Drving controls would be a good example. the cars handle in just about the exact same way that they did back in GTA3, somewhat sluggish. (including the sports car that I stole) they've been at it for how many years now? and the controls of how the vehicles work still act the same way? Where would the Gran Turismo series be if that was their motto: "functional controls need not be improved upon." Right, they wouldn't have continued to impress us with the most realistic feel to driving a car that's out on the market.
I'm not expecting car control like GT, but I am expecting SOMETHING better.
Trust me, if this game came out on the PS3, looking as ty as a high-frame rate PS1 game, I wouldn't complaining. I'd be hunting down the developers for wasting my time.
posted by: Toby (reply)
post date: 03.04.05 (2:13 pm)
Some of your thoughts are decent, but lets face it...this game has the freedom that no other game, not even GTA3 could provide. its got so much to do, so many games built into one, no restrictions. as for the graphics - who gives a shit! its so detailed with its features nobody gives a flying fuck what little pictures are mounted on the wall. the fact that every room and there are 100's possibly 1000's) has that much detail. on top of this the price of the game remains the same. its a good game
posted by: newbie (reply)
post date: 03.15.05 (4:10 am)
what is all this about
posted by: haha (reply)
post date: 03.29.05 (12:42 pm)
It's about a nobody who wrote a negative review on a game just about anyone who knows anything about games loved...for good reason (i don't like the gangster bs either, and on sound you failed to mention how good/diverse the radio is).
posted by: Joahna (reply)
post date: 07.01.05 (5:08 pm)
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posted by: newbie (reply)
post date: 07.04.05 (1:19 pm)
Reply to: world
posted by: Gregor (reply)
post date: 04.17.06 (5:04 pm)
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posted by: Ahmed (reply)
post date: 04.19.06 (12:47 am)
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