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.

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.

BORTAX ALSO KNOWS SOMETHING…… “The map in the game supposedly is going to attract praise and be exciting for the users!”

Aw am saying.

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.

But seriously, talk about over reacting!

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.

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.

but Curry is still a (very) close 2nd.

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*.

Curry = da man

B-b-but I did that

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

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!”