First GTA IV details surface
The latest edition of Game Informer features extensive GTA IV coverage and fortunately for us the first details leaked. Some guy on some forum got his hands on a copy and the first details and scans are slowly finding their way around the internets. We’ll be updating this post as soon as any new info hits so keep that F5 button firmly pressed.
The first big scoop is that the game will feature no planes. It’s not clear whether or not this has to do with hardware issues (Saints Row developer Volition blamed the 360’s lack of harddrive for the absence of planes) or with the fact that the game is set in New York. The tragic events of 9/11 caused Rockstar to scrap planes from GTA III, which was also set in Liberty City, so this might very well be the reason.
Game Informer played the 360 version.
Multiplayer is TBA.
If you were getting your hopes up for visiting each of the 3 areas from the last-gen GTA games then you’re going to be in for a let down, the game’s entirely set in Liberty City. However, the game is going to be even bigger than San Andreas. However, at this point it’s unclear whether that’s in square miles or bigger in story-line; don’t hold your breath until there are readable high quality scans, this is all hearsay. Update: As you might have read in this post; the play area is smaller than GTA:SA’s however it is more densely packed. This is the exact quote from Game Informer; “It’s smaller geographical mass than San Andreas, but not an inch of this world is wasted or dedicated to vast stretches of country or desert.”.
The game’s storyline is going to offer more freedom than before, you’re no longer a slave to the people that issue you missions. You’re free to draw your own path. The character you’re playing is called Niko Bellic and apparently you won’t be riding unicycles.
“Ballic is not going to be riding a Unicycle or Rollerblading around, we’re giving a choice of variety that feels right for the character. We are not suddenly saying there will be no more motorbikes, were keeping all of that stuff, we are keeping the same range and diversity that we had it’s just going to fit the character.”
Apparently the pedestrians aren’t just lifeless props that are just aimlessly wandering around anymore; “a big part of New York life is walking the streets and meeting lunatics”, says Rockstar founder Dan Houser. He said that they were definitely going to try to incorporate this into the game.
The Game Informer issue with all this and more is on stands on April 18th. And don’t forget to refresh for updates.
lies
no plains??
plains are all over the place (well, maybe not in New York….).
Its the PLANES they removed.
We all know this game will be incredible now scan the page with All-Pro Football 2k8!
no planes thats stupid its like taking a step backwards…
They should put planes in the game and see who actually flies them into buildings and then arrest the people that do it.
No planes wtf?! That’s pathetic
San Andreas had them for crying out loud. I was looking forward to flying around Liberty city so much. Pr smells!
yep no planes sucks big time
I will not miss planes but helicopters thats a different story. I truly hope they manage to keep those in. Even if they don’t i will still be getting this game. Above all else i hope to God they drop the stupid Fitness/Eating/Girlfriend thing, i thought that was ill conceived and detracted from the fun of San Andreas.
what about helicopters?
You guys know how long it travel around in a car in GTA SA. now this place will be even bigger! give me a break
or jetpacks?
Why is everyone so upset about the lack of planes? Did everyone magically forget how poorly they controlled? Good riddance, I say.
I do admit planes were a pain to control in SA, compared to Vice City but for those who did master it (me, after a while) they were a great form of transport, and flying under bridges with half the airforce on your tail (or a missle from area51) was a great laugh.
One of my main complaints about the superb Saints Row, was that it had no airbourne transport, even though it had an airport. I couldn’t wait for GTA4 so I could fly planes….
GTA4’s engine probably streams textures and the city therefore planes would cause too much streaming and the engine would suffer same reason they werent included in Saints Row
“Pedestrians aren’t just lifeless props that are just aimlessly wandering around anymore; “a big part of New York life is walking the streets and meeting lunatics”, says Rockstar founder Dan Houser”. So that means you can wail on Corkies right?!?
What is wrong with you people, not to be rude, but if your European and are stating the fact that there are no planes is stupid. Get a life, its purely the reason of 9/11 and you cant have idiots flying planes in the game and then re-creating 9/11. I dont have anything against Europeans, but Americans are very hard on any subject regarding 9/11. Im not even American, but a Canadian.
The GTA series are what people use as excuses in court when they murder someone, but Rockstar is smart not to include the ability to fly planes in this game because of the layout of the city being much like NYC.
There are alot of dumb people who live in this world.
First and foremost I do understand how 9/11 is a touchy subject, and rightfully so, but on the other hand you can’t keep on using worldshocking incidents as an excuse for everything forever.
9/11 was bad, but it’s also 5.5 years ago already, and to be honest I don’t think it’s an excuse anymore for not including planes in a game related to New York. It’s not like ‘us rude Europeans’ are all banning WW2 games because the Germans bombed us down 65 years ago.
It’s ironic that you’re bringing that up, because in games like Flight Simulator, which are FAR more realistic than GTA games, you can fly planes through (and into) NYC. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that some of the instructions in certain flight sims are SO realistic and SO detailed that they are almost training simulators.
So removing it from GTA for that reason is daft. It’s like saying “They should take out violence because people get hurt in NYC!”
Re-creating 9/11? Dude…I live in New York and when San Andreas came out I crashed a few times into buildings… Most of the time by accident. I never dropped to my knees and cried and started having memories of how I felt when 9/11 happened. If people make the association between A GAME and 9/11 then thats there issue. The rest of the world should not have to have less of a GTA experience because some people might not be able handle a plane in a game designed after NYC. I agre with Number13. If games with more detailed controlls allow planes over NYC, then why not GTA. For the record…the planes hit the WTC…not the whole damn city. The buildings are not in the game…so I dont see a problem.
im american and i dont give a damn. i agree with niels up there with the ww2 thing. its just bullshit to say a horrible attack on a country should keep stuff out of videogames, shit happens
fuckin stupid…i was waiting for this game for the sole reason of planes, i mastered them on san andreas n i was looking forward to it on here but looks like we’re all fucked over again n let down by another big title.
Hahahahaha, oh dear. You look forward to a game for 1 feature?! That’s like not buying Counter-Strike because 1 weapon that nobody used or liked was left out. Christ, I don’t care about the planes anyway because they were shit, it was just another feature that basically sucked. Good ridance, all the action is down on the ground.
But seriously, talk about over reacting!
They should put planes in. 9/11 happend about 6 years ago. It’s a bad thing yes, but, it’s just a game.
damn shame there are no planes but wtf has no hard drive got to do with planes!?
360 has no capacity for caching a lot of data (that’s what an HDD could do but with the core SKU devs cant rely on an HDD for those types of things), the engine has to process lots of data (textures, models) when you’re flying a plane in a freeroaming game and Volition said it couldnt be done.
GTA sucks anyways…
no planes??? WTF I AM NOT BUYING THIS GAME!!!!!!
So if the 9/11 thing is the reason for not including planes, then what about guns, after all it’s easy to stand on the street and mow down innocent pedestrians or goto a school and shoot everyone in a class room, and hell someone might copy it, oh they already have. Or even what about cars after all we might go running down loads of people as well if we get board waiting in traffic. Sorry as unbelievably bad as 9/11 was, i don’t think its the reason for no planes in this game. I think it’s probably just a gameplay choice, maybe hardware but unlikely as people seem to of forgot Just Cause managed to have the whole bloody lot in there with no problems.
im from America and my birthday is a on 9/11. there is no doubt that it was a tragic event but no one here is still offended by it anymore except the fucking polotisions. but its really not a big deal. i respect those how died but its all in the past. i might even recreate it in the game just for fun. so what, its not fucking real its just a game and i believe people should relies that. aspeshally by now in this age it should be very common people recreating horrible things in games. i meen these things happen all the time, columbine, 9/11 , terrorist attack in England, THE GoD DAMN WAR IN IRAQ. planes should not be a problem
Lotus 111 i agree with you, i just hope it wasnt because of 9/11
No planes?? Rockstar should grow a pair. It seems that when it comes to the crunch, R* ARE scared of what politicians say. R* are slso patronising it’e potential customers.
New York and Planes dont mix.
I’m sure there are a few airports in New York so they must work on no one would be able to travel there from outside the new York area.
On the issue raised here it is a little stupid over the exclusion of planes if it is linked to 9/11. It’s like banning all games in England with bombs in it because of the IRA terrorist attacks over the last 30 odd years. 9/11 was a sad event, but there has been many sad events in history which are now games. And stupid.
If it’s been released for a game reason then I’m all for it.
adminedit: no racism here
well that tells the world all they’ll ever need to know about you. sad little child. sad.
Curry = da man! Eat it “No planes”!
what am i eating?
B-b-but I did that
sorry, I just assumed….
well, whomever it was = da man
but Curry is still a (very) close 2nd.
Haha it’s ok
And I did postban the fucker later on when he started spouting more crap
lol, good to hear!
LOL So racist, but true.
my two cents:
Planes aren’t included because of the streaming problems it would create. Without being certain that EVERYONE playing this game has a hard drive, the world/map must be streamed in (smallish) pieces (i.e. the nice choppy effect you see in Oblivi.). This type of performance lag was acceptable at the time, but 1 1/2 years into the machine’s life, it just doesn’t cut it anymore. No planes = slower movement through the world = more time for the machine to stream what it needs to, all the while keeping it in the background where this process belongs. This has NOTHING to do with 9/11.
9/11 was almost 6 years ago. You could see it as being a long time ago or not. You could see it as a triumph of American fortitude, or a failure on many levels of authority. Either way, idiots and children that can say (and believe) that its ‘okay’ to recreate because its a video game are just tools.
Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD. Show some respect for the people that went to work that morning and never came home. Think about just one single person in that heap of rubble. Don’t get me wrong, its a free country and its your game/time/money. Do what you will. But please grow the fuck up people. Not being able to fly planes in a game doesn’t determine if its good or not. Being able to mow down bystanders won’t make it good either. Bottom line, this title doesn’t need planes. R* don’t need to ‘grow a pair’. What needs to happen is for people to stop talking about this like its the end of the world.
I hope this incredibly long (for the front page anyways…) rant ends this topic.
Of course, I know it won’t, but its nice to dream…….
/fin
I think they should make the hard drive required. I bet if they did that then anybody that doesn’t have one would go out and buy one just to play this game.
I was going to buy both the 360 and PC version of this title, but I might only buy one format now. It’s enough to make me reconsider my decision to buy it on two formats anyway.
I BEG YOU TO SCAN THE PAGE WITH ALL PRO FOOTBALL
I’ll tell you what they need to do. They need to implement streaming from the hard drive, so they can support planes. Then they need to disable planes if you don’t have a hard drive installed. You can still play the game if you don’t have a hard drive…it just won’t be as good! Then we can see what kind of uproar that causes…which might give MS a clue as to whether they should let developers create games that require a hard drive to play at all.
It’s pretty interesting that R*, who are no strangers to controversy, would choose to censor themselves like this. As someone up there pointed out, the WTC is not in the game, and idiots who enjoy flying video game planes into video game buildings can already do so on many flight sims or on GTA: San Andreas.
And I disagree — this can’t NOT be related to 9/11. If it’s an issue of streaming, then how was a lower quality machine like the PS2 could stream everything just fine in San Andreas?
Is it that the jump in next-gen quality of GTA IV is simply too much to handle for the Xbox 360? If that’s the case, we should be pissed at Microsoft and not at R*.
see the textures used in Ps2?
see the textures used in IV for 360?
See the player/vehicle/building models in Ps2?
see the player/vehicle/building models in 360 version?
Any difference between the two that MAY require more processing power? just a wee bit. Anyways, planes sucked arse in the SanAndreas, why care so much?
360 has a better processor than PS2 though
mass 9, you’re totally right, it’s a huge quality jump that needs more processing power. But if this thing is going to be bigger area-wise than San Andreas (still unconfirmed as yet, but pretty likely) then it’ll be a bitch to get around without a plane to fly here and there. Guess that’s why people care.
Plus, it was fun to jump out mid flight and watch it fall to the ground as you parachuted down.
All said, I’ve been a fan of this franchise since the very first VGA version of it came out for the PC and it’s never disappointed me once. I’m sure R*’s got another gem on its hands with this one.
i agree,
however, planes REALLY sucked balls last time. Why suck balls again?
If you want planes get Ace Combat. It said no planes but they never said you can’t fly. Handglider, parasail, etc. (kinda like Just Cause) would be nice. Plus I understand that this game gets such a bad rap that they had planes it would get ripped off the shelves.
I would LMAO if the PS3/PC version had planes, no excuse about hard drives on those. Never going to happen but would be funny.
Anyways as i said earlier, if they keep helicopters that would be fine for reasonably quick transport around a big play area. Either way i STILL want this game NOW.
Planes. Who gives a fuck!
Whats the point in having planes for a game set entirely in a city???????
Helicopters? Hopefully they are in it.
BORTAX ALSO KNOWS SOMETHING…… “The map in the game supposedly is going to attract praise and be exciting for the users!”
Aw am saying.
This harddisk argument makes no sense what-so-ever, GTA SA on the PS2 has planes.
guess ill be playing gta san andereas. i mean wtf why make a game in the same fucking city as gta III thats just stupid. i think ill rent it first from gamefly and if i like it then ill buy it till then im not convinced yet
um… microsoft flight sim has planes, even feels and plays exactly like a plane, i bet even terrorists could train on it, and it has new york city on it, with the landmarks. and i have crashed plenty of times into buildings (only cause after you flew for 5 minutes you wanted to do something else, and to see how impossible it was to do) i don’t understand why rockstar wouldn’t put planes in if microsoft flight sim had an exact NYC with boeing 747’s. jeez rockstar… also i bet people would get mad if R* had planes tho cause so many people want to bring this game down cause they have no life and need something to do.
I already said that earlier, you copycat :p
hm.. you went to the future and stole my post and writen it into your own words! =\
I’ll miss planes in the game but will still buy it, likely if they did not add planes in the game there will not be any other flight vehicles either. The technical issues are the same.
I do not think this has anything to do with 9/11, it’s likely a technical issue due to the size of the world and amount of memory in the xbox 360. There is only so much you can stick into memory without caching data to a harddrive (virtual memory).
Someone pointed out a very good solution; detect if there is an HDD - if so then the player can enter into a plane; if there is no HDD then you cannot enter into a plane.
Who the Fuck can afford a 360 and no hard drive? Who the fuck has a 360 and no hard drive? Who are the dumbasses out there? I don’t care about planes, as long as I can blow bystanders away with a rocket launcher without the moral reminder that Agents can’t kill civillians every 10 seconds, I’ll be happy!
I have to admit that I really looked forerward to flying in GTA4, and not being able to fly in this game, will probably dissapoint the heck out of me. I mean that doesn’t make the game bad, but after the possibilities of GTA:SA, I would be missing it.
The streaming problem is a poor excuse, if you ask me, because that just means that the game designers went for good grafix instead of flexible gameplay. After all, it was their decision to take Liberty City as a scene, which means that they knew that they would have to sacrifice this and that for the detailed presentation of skyscrapers and so on. However, this is a graphicle issue and nothing that helps the gameplay. In Fact, if there are not going to be helicopters (at least), GTA 4 is going to go back to the standards similar to a GTA 3 , just being bigger.
I think that the flexibility to travel any way you like was one of the best aspects of GTA: San Andreas. Not only because you could move from A to B very fast, but because being able to fly around was entertaining quite a while and brought a lot of depth into the gameplay. The game was a universal toy, just like a ball, and I spent hours flying here and there, doing sub-missions and so on. So to speak, you were able to play any game you wanted with it. And actually I had no problems at all with the plane controlls (at least not in GTA:SA).
And about the size: If LC is somewhat smaller than SA, but still kind of big, then I wonder how I am going to move quickly to the other side of town, if I need to. By Subway or what? BORING!
Well, after all, its a lot of speculation, and since the article sais planes and not aircrafts , I suggest we just wait for the next trailers and infos. I still have hope that there will be some way to fly in the game.
If you jump off one of the skyscrapers you can fly, just straight down though.