GTA4 bugs appear to be somewhat confirmed

As an update to the freezing and other bugs with GTA4, there definitely appears to be an issue.

Ruling out my Xbox 360 as the problem, both PS3 owners and Xbox 360 owners are experiencing some of the same problems with GTA4 as myself. PS3 owners appear to be having even more issues because of the HD copy process. Some PS3 owners have it working perfectly, while others haven't even been able to get it working at all. Some have lockups right after the first cut scene. So, this definitely appears to be a problem with GTA4. Rockstar needs to address this issue and fast. If not, this game will likely be a bust and will most definitely not become game of the year, let alone the best of the GTA series.

Considering that Xbox 360 has a way to push updates out, I can see Rockstar pushing updates to Xbox 360 owners. I have no idea if the Sony's online store has a way to do this for the PS3. PS3 owners may simply have to mail away for an updated game disc once Rockstar determines the problem.

It is readily apparent, Rockstar definitely needed to run GTA 4 through a much more exhaustive testing process.

Articles:

• N4G
• GTAForums
• The Inquirer
• Loot Ninja
  

Xbox 360 - Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV by Rockstar

I'm trying a different approach for the Grand Theft Auto IV review. I intend to review this game as I play it. Since games generally take quite some time to complete (especially GTA games), reviews can be incredibly old by the time someone actually completes the game. So, instead, I've decided to create this living review that I will continue to add more information to as I progress through the game. While this review may seem premature, rest assured it is not. I have played well enough GTA games to know their premise and how they work... so, this review is actually especially important for my initial impression of this game. An initial impression of a game is just as valid, if not more valid, than final impressions.

Grand Theft Auto III vs IV differences

The main thing to notice about the differences here is obviously the updated and higher resolution graphics. In addition to these updated graphics, the cars look a lot better. In fact, because it's higher resolution, the whole world is rendered much more realistically. That said, it still has a stylized appearance much like Grand Theft Auto III.

Bugs, bugs and MORE bugs (first 5 hours of play)

• Spontaneously went into multiplayer mode without prompting (this happened in the first 5 minutes of play)
• Total lockup trying on a hat in the clothing store. Required power off. Had to redo this mission.
• Began the 'China store' mission and it went into 'LOADING...' forever. Had to power off the Xbox 360. Had to redo this mission.
  
• Twice this happened. Tried to get into a car as a passenger using Y and the game refused to open the door. Then, after walking away from the car and back to it, I ended up jacking the car (did not end up a passenger).
• Numerous times I've tried pressing Y while near a car to jack it, and it simply ignores the button press. Alternatively, numerous times tried pressing Y to exit the vehicle and no exit.
  

The problem with bugs, especially lost mission bugs, is that they interrupt your enjoyment of the game. In the worst cases, you lose your saved place and have to redo missions. So, games with selective save locations suffer badly when lockups occur when saves are few. Lost missions are enough to cause me to put the game down and focus on a more stable title. Game developers need to extensively work the bugs out of games for consoles. There is absolutely no excuse to release a title this large with this many bugs at release especially since the game was delayed twice or three times already.

Wanted Levels

The police wanted stars still exist in GTAIV. However, it's not always obvious which areas will lead to a wanted rating. So, you'll want to be careful when you wander into seemingly innocuous areas. For example, if you try to go over a bridge that's blocked by police, you'll get a full 4 or 5 star wanted level if you try to cross. So, 5 stars for trying to cross a blocked bridge? Give me a break.

Gameplay

Here's the crux of it. This game, while it has some decent stories (so far), is just too slow moving. So, you'll quickly find that it takes forever to get weapons and the other fun stuff. Worse, the game is buggy. And, by buggy, I mean very buggy. Buggy to the point that the game really needs to allow you to save anywhere, but you can't. I've started over from previous checkpoints at least 3 times so far and had to lose everything I had been doing up to that point. That included losing some cool jacked and stored vehicles. Rockstar definitely needed more development/debugging time with GTAIV.

Checkpoint saves

GTAIV saves your game at random intervals, usually after completion of a mission. However, you can also save your game at your safehouse at any time. But, you have to get back to the safehouse first. Good luck doing that before you hit a lock up bug. Unfortunately, the lockup bugs are far too plentiful to make this save location useful. If a game developer intends to release a buggy game, then they need to allow you to save your game at any point in the game. With selective save locations, like GTAIV, then developers need to be especially careful to work out all of the bugs before release. Otherwise, a buggy release with selective save points becomes a buggy frustrating mess that no one will want to play and will ultimately get bad reviews.

Random quests

While you can swim, there's nothing to swim for. You can walk around all day long and find nothing of interest. I've been driving around Liberty City and have found not one insane stunt ramp. I know some have to exist, but where are they? Also, because of the more realistic crashes, you can end up flying head first out of the windshield ending up in the hospital. So, the insane stunts may not really even be possible in GTAIV.

I'm sure as you progress through the missions, it will open up more and more of the game. But, why aren't there things to find around the city already? Literally, beyond the missions, there's NOTHING to do.. other than beat up total strangers, jack cars, swim, become wanted by the cops and ride the elevated train.

Cab missions

Where are they? I jacked a cab, but had no ability to do any cab missions. In all of the previous GTA games, you could always do cab missions to get extra cash. Granted, Roman works for a cab company, so I guess his missions count as Cab missions (some of them), but c'mon. Taking the cab missions out really makes it a lot less fun.

Love Interests

Thankfully, Rockstar decided to open up the character to the possibility of relationships. But, unless the relationship becomes interlinked in the missions, it will simply be one-off missions. Again, this is a living review and I will update this as I progress. So, as the story unfolds, the love interest combined with the missions may become clear.

Car Handling

While the cars look way better, the handling has gotten far worse. The controls are overly slow and cumbersome to respond to commands. The cars almost constantly back or run into something when you're trying to maneuver them from a parked position. So, on missions where you need to peel out and catch someone, you find you're being slowed by breaking windows or maneuvering the car into position even just to get moving. All of this kills precious time that you need to chase someone. This portion needs more work badly.

Controls / Controller issues

The controller is overall slow to respond. So, you press a button and the game as to "think" about it before it reacts. This makes working with the game tedious at best. Instead of just trying to work the game, you're concentrating on trying to get the game to respond to the controls. This is a bad move by Rockstar. Sluggish controls do not make an award winning game. In fact, this game is overall sluggish. It feels like you're in slow motion compared to other GTA games. Perhaps they added this slower pace to counteract the unrealistic speed in the previous GTA games. But, this sluggishness really detracts from the overall game and makes the game appear lackluster.

Fights

When you get into a fight, you use the RB button to lock onto your opponent. The issue is that the accuracy is horrid and the controls are extremely sluggish. So, you press the buttons to do the move, but the game takes up to a second to react.

Camera

I don't generally have need of harping on the camera in 3D games, but GTAIV is the exception. The issue with the camera is that it takes too low of a center. So, you can't see what you need to see. If you try to move the camera up, the game moves it back down and centers again. There's no way to move the camera to where you want it and leave it there (that I've found). This is a serious problem. If you're actually trying to see the car you're chasing, then you need to move the camera and leave it in that position. In other words, the auto centering camera needs to go.

The cinematic camera angles are practically useless. Yes, while they are cinematic in quality, they are overall confusing to actually use while playing the game (especially while driving a car). So, I can't imagine anyone actually trying to use these randomly changing camera angles and actually play the game, unless you want a real challenge.

Note to developers. A camera is there to let you SEE the environment. It's not there to be used as a challenge point.

GPS Navigation

This is a MUCH needed addition to this franchise. You could spend tons of time trying to get from place to place, but with the GPS, it leads you there easily and reroutes you when you end up on the wrong road. Even still, having the GPS nav doesn't make up for the sluggish controls and buggy game.

Sound

The sound is no better or worse than other recent GTA titles. You still have the radio in the vehicles (which is mostly annoying at best) and also the chatter of the people on the street. This time, they have cell phones and they're constantly ringing. Worse, you can hear them ring when you're in the car (seemingly with the windows up). I just don't get that. You normally don't hear a thing from the outside in most new cars when the windows are up.

Overall

So far, I'm only moderately impressed by this game. While the graphics and sound excel, the controls and game storyline are overly sluggish. Worse, there's nothing to do or find when you just want to wander around. Also, with this is the level of debugging from Rockstar, then let's hope this is the last game in this series. Enduring these serious bugs to play the games is unacceptable and I simply won't do it again.

Let's hope Rockstar can push out some updates rapidly for this game through Xbox Live. It desperately needs an update to fix these major issues.

Score:

• Sound: 8/10
  
• Graphics: 9/10
  
• Gameplay 5/10
• Buggyness: 2/10 (too buggy too early into the game)
  
• Bang-To-Buck 6/10
• Replay Value: $5
• Overall: 7.5/10
  

Xbox 360 - Viking: Battle for Asgard Review

Viking: Battle for Asgard by Sega

Viking is, simply, a third person shooter (minus the guns, add blades/swords). The idea is that enemy 'Legion' have taken over Asgard by Hel. Freya commands your character to battle to win back Asgard.

Gameplay

For a third person shooter, the gameplay is okay, but not great, until you get to the final battle. Then it sucks royally. Basically, on the lesser levels your character, Skarin, has to free troops that have been captured by the legion and add them to your number to win several smaller 'castle' battles. There are three islands and each island has 'boss castle' levels that you must complete before you can reach Hel. The smaller battles, unfortunately, are nothing like Hel's battle at the end.

With the smaller battles, the rules are to take out the 'shaman' who spawn more soldiers. Once you take out the shaman, the legion can't add more forces. So, they eventually concede once you call your shaman to the pillars. Then, your shaman calls an end to the battle.

The rules are simple. There are 5 swords (or something) stuck into the ground around each shaman. First, eliminate the swords, then that allows you to eliminate the shaman. Of course, there are tons of legion soldiers trying to hammer on you as you do this.

Eliminating the shaman (usually three per castle and then maybe another two or three in a bit farther) isn't the easiest task, but it's easier than Hel's battle. Once you eliminate a shaman, you receive a dragon rune. These runes can be used to call the dragons to hit strategic targets (such as the shaman). The problem is, you only get 3 total runes per level and it uses 2 runes to eliminate a shaman.

Player movement

Skarin is slow. And by slow, I mean S L O W. You can't outrun anything. All of the legion soldiers are faster than you. Worse, there's no way to get speed potions or anything to aid in this aspect.

Skarin also has combos. The combos work great in open spaces. Unfortunately, they don't work well in small confined spaces (especially where there are ledges or fire). If your combo happens to lead you off of a cliff ledge or into fire, the AI isn't smart enough to stop you. It just lets Skarin fall or catch on fire. This is extremely annoying. Worse, Skarin must complete the entire combo move before you have control of him again. There's no way to abort a combo once it has started.

Skarin also has no way to target any specific enemy. If you happen to be pointing in the general direction and it's the only enemy there, you'll hit them. If there are three or four enemies in the path, then it randomly picks a target. This is ok, when the enemy is legion, but it completely sucks when you're trying to eliminate one of the shaman swords because the game ALWAYS locks onto a legion soldier over a sword. This can lead to lots of Skarin death/restarts.

Skarin's Deaths

Once Skarin dies, you are taken back to the beginning of a checkpoint somewhere. The problem is, the system doesn't alert you to where the checkpoints are. So, you have no idea where you'll end up when Skarin dies. Sometimes it's only a few steps from where you were. However, most times, you have to traipse over half the level before you get back to where you where. It's just very random and extremely annoying.

Alternatively, when you quit and then start up again, you start up in your 'home city' rather than at the last thing you were doing.

System Map

While there is a map, this map is almost completely useless. The map doesn't show any topography that makes sense. So, when you look at the map, you can't make heads of tails of what's high and what's low. The only point to the map is when you use Leystones to do quick travel. Effectively, there are also two maps (but the underlying map itself is the same). When you press the back button, you get to a map that lets you find out what tasks need to be done. When you reach a leystone and activate it, you get the same map with more limited information (i.e., only other leystone destinations).

I don't fully understand this concept. If you have a map, use the same map for both of these purposes (i.e., show all destinations on both maps). I find myself getting out of the leystone map just to find out where the closest leystone to my next destination. Then, go back into the leystone map just to travel. This is completely inefficient and time wasting.

Couple this with the huge medallions that cover over crucial parts of the map at inopportune times, and it's easy to get lost.

Hel's Final Battle

The final battle is, to say the least, annoying and almost impossible to beat. Just like the shaman, you have to eliminate the swords in the ground. The difference is, tons of legion troops are appearing constantly and hammering on you. On top of that, Hel has set up firewalls between each of the 5 swords in the ground (sort of like a pie). So, even after you eliminate a sword, you still have to hang around in the firewalled section until one of the walls drops (which can take minutes). So, instead of the walls being linked to the elimination of the sword, it's linked to some kind of random timer. Thus, you stand around fighting and losing health in the firewalled section for minutes waiting for one of the walls to drop. The walls go up and down sporadically without any kind of regularity.

Worse, the enemy legion can walk through the fire. Although, it does damage to them, they can walk through it. If Skarin (your character) gets close to the fire, it does damage and blocks your path (can you say unfair?). If Skarin could walk through the fire and take the damage, it would at least let you get through the level easier. Because the firewalls have no regularity, you can't even time when to go into the next area. Sometimes the walls go down for only a second or two. Other times, they go down for 10-15 seconds.

So, all the while you're patiently waiting for the walls to drop to move to the next area, you're getting hammered on by the legion. And they continually take more and more and more health away without any way to restore health. The sole purpose of them is to hammer down on your health as much as possible. So, while the 'castle boss' levels were hard, they were not impossible. Unfortunately, there is no trick to the final Hel level to conserve your health. They just hammer and hammer and hammer. Their AI also appears to be adaptive. So, if you choose a new tactic (like using the blocking move), they also use a new tactic to hammer you down and they never stop.

There was even a point where I had destroyed all 5 of the swords, but the game didn't progress to the next segment with Hel. So, it's also obviously very buggy. There is NOTHING more frustrating than playing through an entire game and when you do the things you're supposed to do on the final boss level, it doesn't work.

Camera

I don't often discuss the camera in 3D games because most times they work well. In the case of the final battle, the camera is all over the place. This makes the ending level far harder than it should be. Sometimes the camera ducks through the walls and you can't see what you're doing. So, you have to spend time moving Skarin around just to see what you're doing (and, at the same time, getting sucked down on health). Other times, the camera is not pointing where it should be. Sega needs to work out a better arrangement for the camera. Like, for example, making objects transparent when the camera goes behind it and blocks the view.

Soundtrack

The one thing I have to commend Sega on is the choice in music soundtrack. While it's symphonic, it does work to set the mood properly and the scores are quite well done. It definitely sets the mood properly. It's too bad the game itself wasn't regal enough to live up to the soundtrack.

Overall

This game tries to be a mini-RPG, but fails miserably. It ultimately ends up as a mediocre third person shooter. The fighting controls are cumbersome to use overall, the controls are slow to react and often react to the wrong thing or in the wrong direction. Coupling this with the buggy behavior at the end, I can't recommend the purchase of this game. I really wanted to see a better game from Sega than Viking, but unfortunately it isn't to be. Save your money and buy Oblivion or Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas which are all better than Viking. While Oblivion may be buggy in some places, it doesn't seem to bug out at critical moments.

Score:

• Gameplay: 5/10
• Soundtrack: 9/10
• Bang for the Buck: 3/10
  
• Replay: 1/10 (not worth a replay)
• Overall: 4.0/10 (skip it unless you're really bored)