The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: jough on June 11, 2005, 07:32:02 am
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Got the PC version this week - and it is good.
The level of complexity compared with Vice City (my former favourite game) is just astounding. I'm not as impressed with the gameplay, some of which is tedious and frustrating, but just exploring the cit(y)(ies), messing around, driving and listening to music, is really good. Vice City was pretty two dimensional - flat and simple in layout (more so than GTA III, for that matter) but San Andreas is huge, with bridges and highways and city streets and cloverleaves and overpasses and drainage sluices (like in Terminator 2) and harbours and boats and... oh man. And that's just the landscape.
It's not as visually stunning as Half-Life 2, and the combat isn't as exciting, but for just cruising around in a digital world, accept no substitute.
There goes my weekend.
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As I think I've said before, I think the weakest part of the modern GTAs is the story missions. San Andreas has a good storyline but being forced to trudge through the frequently-tedious missions to play with the huge area they give you to run around and do whatever in is just incredibly frustrating.
I don't normally recommend something like this, but if you have access to a form of cheating that makes the story missions optional rather than obligatory I highly recommend using it. I swapped memory cards with a friend to get a save with the entire map unlocked and have enjoyed the game much more than I did before. I still have a save in the early game but I haven't felt any driving need to pick it back up. I play games to have fun. I only want a game to make me earn my fun if the earning is itself fun.
In conclusion: San Andreas is an awesome toy with a fairly mediocre game attached.
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Wow, that's really fascinating that the two of you should say that.
I rented GTA:SA this week. It's the first of the GTA's I've ever played. My take is very much like yours. The world is great and it's fun just to steal a car and drive around. The missions were a little too tough for me. I had a hard time getting past the Drive-by. Then once I did I have to go rescue Sweet and am getting shot up doing that.
I think it would be nice if it were more flexible in how you do you criminal activity. For instance, if I could just steal a car, take it to a chop shop and make money for it. Or mug people.
But it's cool just driving around LA, uh LS.
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I think it would be nice if it were more flexible in how you do you criminal activity. For instance, if I could just steal a car, take it to a chop shop and make money for it. Or mug people.
In the first GTA for the PC, you had to score a certain number of points to clear each city. And, if you fucked up a mission, you could not do it all over again - not to mention that failing a mission usually happened along the lines of INCREDIBLE DEATH and losing your guns, score multipliers, etc. So most folks would end up, sooner or later, spending thankless hours (no in-game saves!) stealing Nice Cars and taking them down to the docks to sell them, trying to earn the cash to CAN I JUST BE FINISHED AND SAVE AND GO EAT DINNER NOW. Ahem. That was a tedious fuck*ng dynamic.
There are lots of ways to be a bastard, though, AW. You can mug people - the best way, if you're just starting out and not weighed down with seven different assault rifles, is to grab yourself a knife, sneak up on hookers / drug dealers and slit their throat all stealth stylezzz. Completing the pimping missions is a good way to earn cash and unlock a neat little side-benefit - those missions alternate between "take your time" and "OH MY GOD GET TO THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN", which is nice.
Basically, this game is not a rental.
But it's cool just driving around LA, uh LS.
The point's been made, here and elsewhere, that San Andreas is a great toy. I disagree with Ben in that I liked a lot (but oh my god hell no not all of them) of the story missions - what I would have liked is, at the end of the game, the ability to return to hot spots on the map to replay any mission you previously cleared.
I was really hoping that Rockstar would drop something like an expansion pack or whatever for SA: simply put, I adored the setting, and even though I played the game for fuck*ng hours, I was sorry when there was pretty much nothing left that I wanted to do. You can tell a lot of time and care went into building San Andreas, and yet it seemed to me that some areas were grievously under-used. Los Santos is pretty much packed with things to do, side missions, distractions, etc.; by the square inch it is the richest area in San Andreas. I wish they'd spread some of that around to the small towns, wooded areas, and suburbs.
People with the PC version - I hear you can custom-build your own radio station(s)? Tell me all about this feature; it alone is almost enough to make me check this game out again.
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One more thing I wanted to mention about SA:
I got the feeling that, at the beginning of the game, you're basically a good kid thrown into a bad situation. I liked that - Vice City starred a sociopathic vacuum with a charmingly smart mouth who was also thrown into a bad situation, and I thought this was a neat narrative change of pace.
By the end of the game - and I strongly doubt I'm spoiling anything here - you're a mass murderer. There's no way around that.
When I heard about SA's plot, and then all the attendant crowing about "open-ended gameplay", I thought to myself - OK, there's going to be several ways to beat the missions; surely at least one path allows CJ to keep his humanity (such as it is) intact.
I think the story, for all its length and breadth, needed to reflect the fact that you have gone from a halfway-decent individual to a cold-blooded thug who has gunned down hundreds of people - or offer a way to avoid that path. Yeah, you're reading that right: I was disappointed because a game called Grand Theft Auto did not offer enough non-violent options.
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I'm with Zart in that I enjoyed most of the story missions. Some of them were real bitches, but I always felt it worthwhile, since the cut scenes in the GTA's tend to be great.
I played most of it on the PS2, but knew I was going to get as much play as I did Vice City on the PC so went ahead and got it.
Have to say, I would also dig a way to go back and play some of the old missions. Was the same way with the last two.
I must admit I'm biased, in that I've loved GTA, despite it's flaws, since the start, but especially since 3.
Oh, and it's all just worth it for Woozie.
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When I heard about SA's plot, and then all the attendant crowing about "open-ended gameplay", I thought to myself - OK, there's going to be several ways to beat the missions; surely at least one path allows CJ to keep his humanity (such as it is) intact.
I believe I said this during the initial pre-SA's-release rumormongering: People who call GTA open-ended are dirty liars or do not know what the term means.
In an open-ended game, you would, as you say, be able to choose a non-criminal path, or even at least a different criminal path; so many missions in SA could have easily achieved the same stated goal with theft instead of mass slaughter or other alternative methods. ("Life's A Beach" is the early example that sticks out hugely in my mind: in a game called, as you note, Grand Theft Auto, you need something that's locked in a car... so you enter a dance competition to win it. What?)
GTA is not and as far as I know never has been open-ended. You have no control over what missions you do, what general order you do them in (beyond situations where you have Missions A, B, and C and must do all of them in any order before D opens up and the plot continues), or what direction your story takes. A few missions are optional, but have no effect on the plot. You can spend as long as you like doing random crap between missions, but if you want to go outside your prescribed area you have to do more plot missions, and when you do the plot picks up right where it left off no dustier for the week you spent using a tow-truck to hurl cop-cars off bridges. The game is as on-rails as Super Mario Brothers, but without warp zones.
Is this inherently a flaw? No, not really. For fairly obvious reasons, open-endedness and depth of plot tend to be conflicting design goals, and San Andreas has a better plot than any of the GTAs before it. The reason I get all ranty about this is because people constantly claim GTA is open-ended when it blatantly is not.
Oh, and Zart, about those hundreds of deaths CJ caused? They were mostly optional and therefore not relevant to the plot. It would be interesting if the game kept a killcount and changed your ending to suit, though.
Edit: Regarding useful non-plot criminal activity, a few other options do become available over the course of the game: hijacking freight trains, burglary, etc. I do miss Vice City's holdups, though, especially with the huge number of new stores scattered everywhere in the game. Going into a store and whipping out a gun only to have everyone cower and no wanted level appear was a little disappointing the first time.
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Yeah, I tried to rob a convenience store only to be disappointed that I couldn't grab any cash. I just ended up trying to shoot everyone in the store in the head, which isn't easy when they have their hands over their heads.
I got stuck on a few of the missions (I'm stuck on two of them right now and keep going back and forth between them, trying not to cheat) like the Drive-By which was hard until I realised that you DON'T have to listen to the NPCs in the game - they'll keep calling you an asshole and telling you to speed up. But don't, and they'll just kill the enemies and you'll be on your way.
The Sweet's Girlfriend mission was also one that took me a few turns. The trick? Before taking on the mission, steal a 4-door sedan and bring it to in front of sweet's house. Then recruit three gang members (you'll need a high enough respect rating to be allowed to have three followers, so get a few tattoos and wear some decent clothing) and THEN start the mission. When you go to Sweet's, bring your bangers with you. Then you can run over a number of the enemies with your car, and your homies will drive-by shoot a few, and then you only have to waste one or two of them. Piece of cake.
I found the missions REALLY difficult until I started going to the gym to build muscle and stamina, and then gathering a few homies to go to an enemy gang controlled neighbourhood and wasting a bunch of enemies to get more guns and ammo, and build up gun-skill levels in the various weapons. It's nearly impossible to aim and shoot if you're not at least rated a "gangster."
There are a dazzling array of stats that the game keeps track of. Like how many people you've killed, how many cops, how many head shots, how many wheelies, distance travelled in various vehicles, etc.
The missions are already starting to get a little tedious for me. For instance, there's one early on (I'm still very early in the game) where you have to "dance" a car with hydrolics. I have yet to figure out how to do this with a keyboard and a penis - especially when it wants you to bounce the car in a SW direction. Do I press Left and Down at the same time? It always tells me that I'm too late.
I'm not going to buy a game pad just to play this game. Besides, aiming with the penis is a lot easier than trying to aim with a joystick.
So now I'm stuck on that mission as well as the one where OG Loc tries to escape on a motorcycle and you try to follow him through sharp alleys that result in you falling off your bike every two seconds.
I've been spending time just driving around the highways and countryside on a bike just to build up my motorcycle skill, and I've now taken to my own mini mission of exploring the city and painting over the rival gang signs to unlock new weapons and stuff. It's really hard to find weapons if you die or are arrested - so much so that if I fail a mission I just re-load from my saved game rather than try again from the hospital or police station.
And yes, there have been times where I had to go somewhere and needed to drive all the way back to CJ's crib just to save my game. The lack of being able to save anywhere is a little frustrating.
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Always make notes of where weapons are located. There are lots of them lying around if you know where to find them. It took me a surprisingly long time just to find all the weapons lying around the vicinity of CJ's house.
The gang tags are a good idea to do. The weapon pickups that spawn aren't amazing, but they're better than other stuff you'll get before leaving Los Santos. Iirc they also make your gangmates better-equipped.
Run and bicycle everywhere to build up your health and stamina. (Also, bicycle skill is fun because when you max it out you can bunny-hop onto rooftops.) Hitting a car's tire counts as a successful shot for building up your gun skills even if the tire is already popped and doesn't damage the car's body, so if it doesn't give you a feeling of being a cheater you can very quickly max out your gun skills on a parked car.
Buy every safehouse you can; as you say, it's a pain to have to drive a long way just to save, and saving restores your health and clears your wanted level. You can get enough money for this by killing drug dealers, which also slightly increases your respect and thus the number of gangmates you can recruit.
Anyhow, that's just my crappy advice. I learned it by playing around and seeing what works, so.. yeah. Do whatever.
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I've been spending time just driving around the highways and countryside on a bike just to build up my motorcycle skill, and I've now taken to my own mini mission of exploring the city and painting over the rival gang signs to unlock new weapons and stuff. It's really hard to find weapons if you die or are arrested - so much so that if I fail a mission I just re-load from my saved game rather than try again from the hospital or police station.
There is no shame in using a strategy guide or FAQ while finding all 100 gang signs etc. I did just that - even knowing where they all were, the process took literally hours, and, cynically, I wasn't too surprised to discover that some of the hidden items in this game are so completely fuck*ng obscure that they could only really be found with a strategy guide or a hardcore case of Asperger's. I think my enjoyment of San Andreas was greatly enhanced by having readily available weaponry (as an aside, there's conveniently located armor in the drainage canal behind Sweet's house) - the game is challenging enough as a game without the added tedium and frustration of making tedious, complex FedEx trips all over town to replenish weapons / ammo.
If you go around finding the signs on a motorbike or a bicycle (and you'll certainly need that manuverability), you can pretty much expect to max out your stats in those vehicles. I really did appreciate the way SA implemented the improvement mechanic - you really can feel a difference in both shooting and driving as time goes on.
Oh, and it's all just worth it for Woozie.
I feel the same way about Toreno. That was a wonderful piece of casting, and yet another reason why I wish I could replay old missions.
People who call GTA open-ended are dirty liars or do not know what the term means.
Yeah, you know how buzzwords get thrown around in the wild world of games journalism. Hell, remember blast processing? I think people were pretty much using "open-ended" as a synonym for words like "flexible" and "rich" - you can, as you pointed out, take a break from the plot to spend a week BMX racing or staging spectacular crashes or just about whatever else you can imagine* without being penalized. Hell, it's practically encouraged - in Jough's case, he'd be well-advised to forget about that irritating OG Loc mission until he built up some motorcycle skillzzz. Oh, and remember "Farewell, My Love"? Ugh.
In my ideal situation, the entire map with all non-story missions (schools, properties, etc) would be available right from the start. The deliberately inaccessible nature of a lot of things is almost mocking. That there is a PC version gives me hope that the game will eventually be modded to allow conceits like this.
I have to disagree about most of the murders being optional - even apart from the alarmingly frequent assassination / HOLY SHIT KILL ALL THESE GUYS missions (for a game all proud of having added "stealth elements", they sure didn't get a lot of mileage out of them), you've got the whole gang turf thing. This isn't Planescape: Torment - you're not going to talk the Ballas into giving up their territories.
The whole mass murder thing is fine when you're controlling what is more or less a cypher, like in, say, Time Crisis. But when you try to shoehorn a complex plot / character into that role, it feels weird, especially at certain dramatic points in the game in which CJ seems almost reluctant to and sheepish about simply pulling the trigger on his antagonists. Oh, earlier you popped the skull of some anonymous blowjob because you wanted to drive his Corolla into a river, but now you've got a Very Bad Dude dead to rights and suddenly you're Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
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Fair enough on the killings. Perhaps rather than 'optional' it would be fair to say 'extras'.. if he's not a named character with a credited voice actor, he doesn't count. And if someone dies and it's not in a cinematic, it also doesn't count.
And seconded on the gang tag map thing. I get the feeling that the gang tags are really intended to be an optional bonus that only the super hardcore will get, except that you will have giant headaches if you don't do it. It would be way less head-slamming-against-wall-inducing if you got one pickup every twenty or so tags like in previous games instead of a bunch when you finally get all 100. It would defuse some of the sense of futility you get while tagging before you give in and download a map of their locations.
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I found 52 of the tags just by wandering around the city and exploring on BMX or motorcycle (it's almost impossible to "sight see" in an auto).
I haven't used any cheats yet (actually, I tried a bunch of them and some are incredibly hilarious, like the clown town or ninja town cheats, and the Mega Punch cheat that sends people flying down the street is fun too) but I quickly quitted the game and restarted again to get to some serious playing.
I did download a map from GameFaqs to find the rest of the tags. Some of them are hard to find even when you're standing on top of where the map tells you they are. But I'm at about 70 now after spending a couple hours finding and tagging (and getting shot at a lot, and wasting a lot of gang members, and running from the police, and watching my motorcycle get stolen and having to find a new one, etc.).
I'll find all of the tags because I'm committed now, but then I hear that there are oysters, hossshoes, and photos to be taken? I don't know if I can go through another 250 of these things after the next 30, especially since there are no interim bonuses like in Vice City or III.
I like how fast the traffic is on the freeway, but the number of accidents is just astounding. And I'm also annoyed by how cars will just keep ramming you until your vehicle explodes (although it does seem to take a lot more to make a car explode as compared to Vice City).
I found the pimp mobile and am enjoying the long drives of the pimping mini-missions, and while I've only done two pickups I'm hoping it's not like the old ambulence or vigilante missions where you have to do ten IN A ROW without the car getting too damaged in order to get your pimpin' bonus. I also stored the Broadway (the pimpin' car) in my garage. I'll be a little annoyed again if I pull it out of the driveway, press 2 to start a pimpin' mission, and find that somehow it's been downgraded to a regular car because I didn't pick it up at a designated pimpin' location.
I'm not too worried about the other areas opening up as I'm still getting lost in the remarkably huge Los Santos. The level of playable land area, and the details that go into the various roadways, is incredible.
I'm most impressed with the highways and road structures of this game. I wonder if they hired city planners to help with the layout, because the roads in this game are better designed than the roads around Philly.
Anyway, right now I'm just ignoring the missions and finding tags, doing some pimping, and getting into minor skirmishes to bolster my gun fighting skills. I did the gym thing for a few "days" early on and now my stamina and muscle are maxed out. And I tend to just buy meals five or six at a time and just work off the fat through running or bicycling. It's better than having your muscle and stamina decrease because you haven't eaten.
I can see having to find food will become annoying after awhile, though. There really should be a way of either not making repetitive tasks tedious (through variety or something) or else mitigating the necessity of such things through completing an asset - like you complete the five "Burger Shot" missions and after that you don't have to eat anymore.
So basically I just want to have fun and blow stuff up. Some of the missions are really fun but I've found most of them I just want to "get through" so I can find new missions that may be more fun.
I'm sure I'll break down and use cheats after awhile, although there's no cheat that will make the Dance Dance Revolution type of car bopping work. So another nice feature would be to have a "mark this as done" feature so you could just be DONE with a mission that's obnoxious and move on.
I mean, the game shouldn't get in the way of your enjoyment.
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Oh, also, finding the Terminator 2-esque drainage ditch system (gloriously trafficless) has greatly enhanced my enjoyment of getting from place to place.
The tunnels aren't that complex, and you can get to and from any major area of the city through them in about 1/4th of the time it would take to drive through traffic, and the nice long stretches of nothing tend to be a good place to built up your driving skills, too, since the levelling-up for vehicles seems to be based on mileage and nothing else.
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Most of the cheats aren't actually all that helpful, I've found.
Saving the game removes your hunger; another reason to snap up safehouses.
I still haven't collected the oysters, hossshoes, and photos. I keep meaning to, although the oysters would be completely useless to me now.
The freeway accidents are just hilarious. I've taken to standing by the side of the road and watching the carnage.
Every Broadway is a pimpmobile, no matter where you find it. It's a lowrider, too, so you can get it tricked out at the lowrider place and even use it for the annoying DDRmobile mission if you like.
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Ben-San, are you playing the PC version or the PS2?
I'm amazed by people playing the PC version talking about things in the Las Vegas-esque city already - I mean, I don't know how many hours they must play the thing, but I'm in no hurry. I've been playing Vice City a little over the past year, and yes, I've played through the whole game thrice (well, not to 100% completion) but most of the time it's just driving around, blowing shit up.
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PS2 version. I admit I know nothing about any changes that may have been made in the PC version.
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As far as gameplay, pretty much nothing. The PC version has higher-res textures (not that I can take advantage of them on my PC anyway) and real-time dynamic shadows (the volumetric shadows beneath underpasses are really realistic and impressive looking - from afar it looks like a real city photo) but other than getting rid of the 2-player co-op mode (most people don't have two keyboards and mice and sitting around a 15" LCD isn't that much fun) there aren't too many other differences.
I actually like the look of the Xbox version the best - the anti-aliasing is a little better, although it may look that good on a non-laptop computer with a better video card too.
My machine isn't exactly a super gaming system.
Anyway, it's loads of fun but tomorrow I'm full-on with a number of projects and will have to limit my playtime to about an hour a day, which means I'll be playing this thing a little off and on all summer (and truth be told probably until the next GTA game is out - I still have Vice City installed on my machine).
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Anyway, it's loads of fun but tomorrow I'm full-on with a number of projects and will have to limit my playtime to about an hour a day, which means I'll be playing this thing a little off and on all summer (and truth be told probably until the next GTA game is out - I still have Vice City installed on my machine).
That's how the PC version always ends up for me. It's something that I can play on and off until the next one. Vice City only got uninstalled when I got San Andreas on PS2. I haven't managed to sort out the controller though. I use a DS2 for driving usually, but wasn't able to set it up just right yet, so have been using my driving force pro from GT4 on the PS2 for driving. It does actually mean I crash less often, although it's more hassle to set up...
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Oh, earlier you popped the skull of some anonymous blowjob because you wanted to drive his Corolla into a river, but now you've got a Very Bad Dude dead to rights and suddenly you're Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
that is an amazing sentence.
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I would have contributed to this thread by now if I still had my XBox. I sold it several months ago.
So, unlike some of you I'm guessing, I don't have a Super Computer. I do have that game Mafia and it plays OK, do you think this one will as well?
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I have a 2Ghz Athlon XP with 1280mb RAM, but a three year old video card (it's a laptop) that only supports DirectX 7 and only has 64mb RAM, and it plays just fine at lower resolution (it actually plays fine at higher resolutions for the most part, unless there is a lot of traffic or pedestrians or car crashes).
So you're probably good to go. But I'd DL a copy from somewhere first before you buy it. You know, to make sure, esp. since they don't offer a demo and because you're out $50 if it doesn't play on your PC since you can't return games.
Of course, if you have a PS2 or Xbox you could rent it first - but this is a game that is supposed to take about 80 hours to finish - so it may make renting a problem if you want to get past the first section.
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I've finished the PS2 version, 100% (ooo! get me!).
All the early stuff is worth it for the...
*spoiler*
Return to Los Santos.
It really does feel like a homecoming.
Easily the most epic game i've encountered in the sense that when I finished the story missions (40 hours plus!) I felt like i'd really been somewhere.
Los Santos felt like home, while Las Venturas was an unfamiliar place.
Cruising around the map would trigger weird sense memories, "ooh, that's where I smashed my jump-jet into a police car", "that's the final piece of turf I took over in that awesome gang war!", etc.
I don't play it much anymore but considering my total gameplay time is now 101 hours (don't laugh!) I think I can say i've had my fill.
Wait for the thunderstorms! Oh man!
And the sunsets in the desert. Awesome!
The scary thing is...the next generation version of GTA will likely be bigger and more detailed.
Enjoy!
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Return to Los Santos.
It really does feel like a homecoming.
Los Santos felt like home, while Las Venturas was an unfamiliar place.
First of all, congratulations on that 100%.
And you're right about the way LS feels like "home" compared to the other cities - I have two ideas about this. The cynical one is that the designers lavished the most attention on LS so as to put the best goods up front, or that the LS design team just had a better sense of synergy and urban design that the other two (which is not to say that the other two cities are failures - far from it - but LS does, at the end of the game, feel the most organic).
The other idea is that this was intentionally seeded. There's a lot to do in LS, and you can do it right from the start of the game. It's the first city you get to know, and if you're not just shooting through the story missions as quickly as possible, you get to know it quite well. LV, by comparison, is pretty much story missions and those fuck*ng hossshoes.
Another element that builds the "home" feeling in the player is the acquisition of safehouses - for a good while, your only safehouse in LS is the Johnson house. After a period of time, you will know the best way to haul ass back to the Johnson house from anywhere on the map. Plus, it's a unique interior that actually looks and feels like a home, in a real neighborhood, rather than an unfurnished rental. The player doesn't build up this sort of relationship - dependence and familiarity - with any other location in the game.
I'm playing the PC version now, and seriously considering springing for a PS2-style joypad. Keyboard players - HOW DO YOU DO IT. WHAT IS THE SECRET.
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Also:
This (http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=194356) was taken out of the final game by Rockstar. I can't imagine why. Leave to our enterprising young Computer Operators (they are the future, after all), though, to discover and enable it. The user comments in this thread are fuck*ng gold. Picking out the best and quoting them here is, frankly, an exercise for someone else.
I don't use the word "tacky" a whole lot - despite being born and raised in southeast Texas - but goddamn is it ever tempting to deploy it here. LOOK AT THEIR BIG STUPID FACES.
Oh, yeah - it's not work-safe. I have never gotten to use that phrase before. LOOK OUT FARK HERE I COME
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Also:
This (http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=194356) was taken out of the final game by Rockstar. I can't imagine why. Leave to our enterprising young Computer Operators (they are the future, after all), though, to discover and enable it. The user comments in this thread are fuck*ng gold. Picking out the best and quoting them here is, frankly, an exercise for someone else.
I don't use the word "tacky" a whole lot - despite being born and raised in southeast Texas - but goddamn is it ever tempting to deploy it here. LOOK AT THEIR BIG STUPID FACES.
Oh, yeah - it's not work-safe. I have never gotten to use that phrase before. LOOK OUT FARK HERE I COME
You curiosity-piquing bastard!
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I finally got through getting all 100 of the graffiti tags done, and the easy availability of weapons at "home" was worth it, as was the big boost in respect.
I got to know the city fairly well by going EVERYWHERE to tag things, and maxed out my cycling skill (but sadly not my motorcycling skill) through it, increased my max health considerably (I hardly even bother finding armor anymore unless I happen to be going past one of the spawn points).
In the meantime, I end up getting the Broadway blown up when I'm at 9 out of 10 pimping missions, even if I stop at a Pay and Spray every couple missions to replenish the car's "health."
I haven't done a new mission in a few days. The mini-missions are keeping my hour or two a day of gaming to full busyness.
I must say that I love the city and a lot of the new features, but eating is just as annyone as I thought it would be, and the missions I'm finding are far far less fun than the Vice City missions were. I'm doing the "Robbing Uncle Sam" mission now and loading those damn crates while hopping off every five seconds to stop Ryder from getting killed is frustrating enough every time only to find that the damn van gets tipped over while I'm STARING AT THE fuck*ng RED MARKER nearly every damn time.
I haven't used any cheats yet, but if there was a "set the current vehicle upright" cheat I would be using it. Talk about frustration. I don't play games to be FURIOUS.
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Wow, those are some terrible graphics. I am reminded of the Morridin "naked patch" that made me glad that Morridin characters are usually thoroughly clothed.
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Well, I generally assume we're out of spoiler territory when talking about the "plot" of a video game, but this particular game has more story than most, with a BIG surprise that I'm a little annoyed about.
SPOILERS BELOW
Okay, so after finishing Sweet's missions I'm now LOCKED OUT of Los Santos. It would have been nice to know that going in, not that I'm not glad to play with the new territory (the mountain is AWESOME) but shit, I was in the middle of burglary missions, and just getting started taking over territories and making time with Denice. Did I go through the missions too quickly? It doesn't seem like it, after 25 hours of game play over the past ten days or so (I'm still only about 18% completed, although I think I "finished" Vice City's storyline after being only about 50% finished, so whatever).
Anyway, I would have liked a little warning before being thrown completely naked into a new environment after having bought properties, completed menial tasks to unlock new weapons, etc.
I know that there's a "return to Los Santos" section of the game, but still, just a little "Warning: You will not be able to return to Los Santos after this mission" would have been nice.
I also hope that at some point you get to kill OG Loc, Ryder, and Big Smoke. Fuckers.
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I know that they're all STAY OUT OF MALIBU, LEBOWSKI, but (on the PS2 version, anyway) I accidentally wandered back into Los Santos and - nothing happened. I was expecting the standard "you're off the path" set of wanted stars, but if I remember right, you should be fine to get right back in there and do whatever you want, except turf wars.
Angel Pine is an excellent place to do the ambulance missions, though, since it's such a small town. Pity about the constant stream of trucks.
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Well, I was able to sneak into San Fierro by going over the beach and I didn't get any wanted stars either.
Roads to Los Santos are blocked off, although I was able to get a plane and fly back to the old hood. It wouldn't let me do ANY missions though, nor enter CJ's house to reclaim weapons.
No big deal. Angel Pines is RICH with hidden weapons and ammo, especially for being such a small area.
And I found that a few of the early missions (mentioned earlier in the thread) were much harder than some of the later Los Santos missions, most of which I was able to complete in the first pass.
I think it's because after miserable defeat and getting stuck on say, the Drive-By or OG Loc mission (the first one with the bike) for so long I just spent time wandering the city, doing side missions, and building up my stats. I had maxed out the motorbike level-up and reached hitman status on the AK-47 and SMG before re-trying the OG Loc mission, and was able to beat it on the first try again after leaving it be for awhile.
So building up your character is essential. I'm glad I spent the four hours or so tagging the place up - not just for the gift weapons, but also because I was improving my stats and learning the layout of the city pretty well in the process (the graffiti is pretty much EVERYWHERE which means you have to visit every area of the city).
Great game, though. I do find the driving missions to be frustrating, especially when you fail because some cars just ram into you. The "I'm doing everything right but the game made me fail" thing is just hell of frustrating. I swear I almost broke my computer in rage a few times.
Oh, also, the "dancing" or low-rider hopping missions are IMPOSSIBLE with a keyboard, because the game requires SW, NW, NE, SE movements, but does NOT accept pressing "up" and "left" simultaneously to achieve it. You NEED a game pad to finish those (I borrowed one from someone).
Sounds like a bug, but at least they should list an eight-directional game pad as a REQUIREMENT.
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Is it possible to map the eight directions to the numpad? Sorry if this is a stupid question. Also, in the dancing missions (not the low-rider dance, though) the PS2 version uses only the four action buttons rather than directions.
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The eight directions are automatically mapped to the numpad (or, at least, four are, in addition to accepting multiple button inputs). I guess it's not a lot of help if you're playing on a laptop, though, but you can always reassign the keys.
Anyhow, I don't derive a single bit of pleasure from trying to beat the story missions in a legit fashion. Ever since the first GTA came out, I've just used cheats to instantly unlock all of the areas in the game. Most people I mention it to say that that's no fun, but I'm completely terrible at the story missions anyhow. It's way more fun to simply explore the entire game's map and set my own goals, really.
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I believe the "circles and arrows" missions were really meant to be used with a control pad. The vehicle direction controls *are* mapped to the number keys by default (laptop here) but I usually remap them to just the plain keys where I'd have to press the "Fn" key to use them (the keyboard has little numbers on them too so I can see what the hell I'm doing) but really, these missions are a SNAP with a control pad (the one I'm using is very NES-like).
I'm just happy that you can kill Catalina when you're on most of her missions. She was annoying in GTA III and she's still annoying.
It's nice to hear Carl tell her off, though, esp. since "Claude" from GTA3 was a mute.
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You do get access to Los Santon pretty quickly I'm sure. I don't recall ever feeling like I was locked out, but when I was in Angel Pines I felt it was a bit far to head back to.
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Yeah, right after the first mission in Angel Pines you can get back and get all of your old save points back again. It's just that the story really has moved North from there.
Thanks for the Ambulance Mission tip Zart. It was a piece of cake there. I may do the Vigilante missions there too since the town is so dang small.
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Thanks for the Ambulance Mission tip Zart. It was a piece of cake there. I may do the Vigilante missions there too since the town is so dang small.
I actually got up to level 9 on the ambulance missions in downtown Los Bloody Santos, and then only ended it because the, ahem, patient was standing on the other side of a bush underneath the dang tangle of overpasses in the middle of town. What an idiot. An unfortunately fragile idiot - I like the dudes that pop right back to their feet after you clip 'em with your bumper. Anyway -
Have you turned up your draw distance yet? I did and wow, what a difference. Seriously, I would advise anyone at all interested in this game - even if you've already played / beaten the PS2 version - to acquire a PC copy if your machine is at all muscly: what you're going to want to do is adjust that draw distance, steal one of those zippy little Shamal jets (You can get into the Los Santos airport without a pilot's license. Don't be retarded.), and just fly low over the city and surrounding landscape.
I did some flying on the PS2, yeah, but it was pretty much a utilitarian exercise - it's a joy, here (even if my plane mysteriously and suddenly exploded moments after I wagged my wings over the VINEWOOD sign - we shall never forget), and it looks great. I really appreciate San Andreas as a living space a whole lot more after navigating by air and seeing it as a gestalt, you dig? Check it out. It's neat.
EDIT: I sprung for a PS2-style joypad. Totally worth the $12.
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I've been too busy to play this week, but for a couple days I was (and still am) stuck on the first Woozie driving mission (and I've read that that one's a piece of cake compared to the one later that's the same race but backwards) - I just keep cliping the corner of some grass on one of the turns in the backwater areas and no matter what vehicle I'm driving my car just spins around until I have to come to a COMPLETE fuck*ng STOP and straighten out again, while in the meantime all three other cars zip past me and I can never catch up again.
So with that one frustration has overtaken enjoyment and so much for "open ended." Right now I have but ONE mission to do, and it's that one, and I can't seem to get past it. The other cars are indestructable, too, which seems to be cheating - I've gotten the lead, blocked the bridge, and blasted the other cars OFF THE ROAD AND INTO THE RIVER with a missle launcher that I *ahem* acquired through a cheat, and the damn cars just respawn on the other side of the river and start driving ahead of me again.
Talk about having the deck stacked against you...
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I really don't enjoy the racing missions all that much. It feels really nice to complete them, though. The secret to them - at least for me - can be expressed in the form of a cliche: slow but steady. Seriously: you will lose your races because you fucked up and crashed or spun out or whatever, not because there was some dude that was just obscenely fast. I don't think I remember a racing mission in this game in which you can be outrun.
Go back to Los Santos and play the 8-Track mission (demolition derby / circuit race) at the stadium until you finish it. This will (a) probably build up your driving skill and (b) give you a better feel for How to Win Races. (Oh, and you'll unlock a couple of nice vehicles.) 8-Track is about steadily going forward, not fuck*ng up, and - this is probably key - judicious use of the P.I.T. maneuver. Better to look it up than have me explain it - it's simple but doesn't really lend itself to verbals - and it's basically a way to spin out a car in front of you without you, yourself, spinning out. It takes the computer cars just as long to get back pointed the right direction as it does you, and as you know, that is enough time to pretty much lose the race.
While you're at it, do some taxi missions if you haven't already finished your fifty. Any driving you do builds towards better skill, and if you're driving, it might as well be With A Purpose, in the words of Highlights Magazine.
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Yeah, I did all six trucking missions that are allowed, after figuring out how the key to the ones where you automatically have three wanted stars is to not try to outrun the police (impossible without them dislodging your cargo from your trailer) but rather to drive somewhat slowly in the middle of the road, which lets traffic build up behind you and creates a buffer between you and the police.
I've tried slow and steady, but there's always some point where either the other racers blow by me or I miss a turn, spin out on something, etc. I've even tried it using the cheat that makes all vehicles have off-road traction, but alas.
I should pick up one of those $12 PS2-style game controllers.
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Well. Took today off work, as I have some random infection and feel like shit and can't sleep in a useful pattern, so I finally at least got some time to play San Andreas again. Catch up with my PS2 game of it.
That and some Pyschonauts which is erally so very cool.
I really dig the racing missions. All except the really long one in San Fierra (from Wang Cars) with the Bullet. That one I never managed on the console, but I reckon the penis look in vehicles may make it a lot easier. fuck*ng hills!
The rest of the races I did many, many times. I particularly enjoyed the Sanchez and erm, dirt buggy ones.
I just did the first race (where you meet Woozie), but am still only about 50% of where I was. Still, I always play the GTA's through multiple times, so it's no bad thing. And all the missions that I had real problems with on the console are a lot easier with PC controls. I am still considering hooking up one of my controllers (though I can't get the Dual Shock 2 set up right), but for now the penis look is just too valuable.
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And all the missions that I had real problems with on the console are a lot easier with PC controls. I am still considering hooking up one of my controllers (though I can't get the Dual Shock 2 set up right), but for now the penis look is just too valuable.
Yesterday was Let's Make a Difference day at Casa del Zartan. I completed the firetruck missions, the paramedic missions, took over all but two of the gang territories, and lifted a young woman up from a go-nowhere life of poverty and violence by getting her drunk and nailing her. Repeatedly.
I also realized that I was in no way capable of completing the vigilante missions. I know the baseline advice is "use a tank", but I want to finish them now. Any advice on how to shake wanted stars without scotching your mission / getting shot to pieces by five-o?
Anyway. I actually have preferred joypad / PS2-style controls in this game, everywhere except the fuck*ng firetruck. I cannot aim and fire that goddamned water cannon with an analog stick to save my life. Unfortunately, there's no provision for joypad + penis controls (at least that I know of), and going back to the keyboard was pretty painful.
And yeah, I'm really savoring this time through - I don't have a big boner to advance the plot, so I can really just play.
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It may not be the advice you want, but there is a bug in the PS2 version that makes the vigilante missions ridiculously easy and which may also exist in the PC version. If you enter an interior space (restaurant, safehouse, etc), the outside world Goes Away for a while but the targets do not. Suddenly lacking streets to stand or drive on, they plummet through black space to sudden and inescapable death. At least, this is how the bug has been explained to me. In any case, it seems to work; if you start a vigilante mission, go inside, and wait a few moments, your targets will suddenly die. Go outside, get back in the police car, and wait for new targets to be assigned. It is a very easy process but may leave one with a dirty feeling. Also it is possible for your police car to despawn while you are in a building.
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Zart: Any way to get rid of wanted stars other than cheats while on Vigilante missions? You *may* be able to save a game while doing them, but generally you'll run out of time before finishing.
It took me about thirty tries to finish the first Wu Zi race, but I got "Farewell, my love..." in only the third try (and almost beat it the second).
In the latter you really can't outrun the other cars since they're all the same cars and the computer drivers tend to stick to the track like slot cars.
I beat it by learning how to maximize the use of the on-road car they give you. Basically you can blow past the other cars right out of the gate if you slow down at first and instead of catching air on that first downhill like the others do drive slower and then gun it - you'll ride on the ground instead of soaring through the air and will pick up just enough speed to beat the other cars out of the first turn. After that it's just slow and steady until the fourth or fifth marker where there's a "shortcut" down a dirt road instead of going all the way around the paved road like the slot cars will do.
After that you just have to be REALLY slow and careful around even the slightest curves, and then GUN IT on any straightaway, being sure to slam on the breaks before a turn comes up (even if it means coming to a complete stop first.
Also, I've found that in any street car that it helps to never push the accelerator (forward) and a turning direction at the same time when on a dirt road. Either pick one or the other, and you'll notice the car automatically breaks when you're just pushing the turn direction. Nice.
Anyway, as of early yesterday I'm back on non-frustrating missions and am back to having fun again doing the early San Fiero missions. I already learned my way around SF by doing the last 20 of my taxi missions there, so I'm just digging the story missions and acquiring property again.
I still haven't finished the firetruck missions, so I guess I'll do them soon too. I forget if you have to do them all in a row or not, but I believe you do.
The game is really hell of enjoyable most of the time, but there are maybe 1 in 5 missions that just drives me up the wall with frustration. More than Vice City or GTA3 you really need to strategize to beat even the racing missions. I read FAQs but most of them never give the real strategy that seems to actually work.
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I didn't have any trouble with Wu Zi Mu or Farewell my Love this evening. First time for both, although I did miss the turn and have to take the three guys back on the latter. But then by and large I still remember them fairly well.
As for things like the vigilante, fire and paramedic missions, I didn't actually attempt them yet on PS2, as they were a bitch (well, the fire one I managed first time on the third island) in Vice. I shall definitely take your advice and try the paramedic one now I'm in Angel Pine.
As for the Vigilante mission, in Vice I just waited 'til I had the insane helicopter. But then that made it all a bit easy. I didn't know what it would give me to complete it until after that though. Had I, I might have tried it the old fashioned way!
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I've never seen this game, yet I feel I know it by heart.
~Paul
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I'm considering buying the old ones and playing around with them before falling into the world-sized games of Vice City and San Andreas. Anyone play GTA, GTA:London or GTA 2? Are they any fun?
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I'm considering buying the old ones and playing around with them before falling into the world-sized games of Vice City and San Andreas. Anyone play GTA, GTA:London or GTA 2? Are they any fun?
I don't think you need to buy them - and no, this isn't another "Zartan makes really heavy-handed allusions to software piracy" post - because the GTA games you mentioned are available for free download via Rockstar's website (http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/). (Okay, two out of three ain't bad.) This is a very cool move on their part, especially since GTA is, these days, pretty much a license to print money - but 1 and 2 were never really popular, enjoying more of a cult following.
I really enjoyed them when they were new, but honestly, I couldn't see myself going back. The basic ideas are the same (steal / respray cars, do missions, avoid the law) but, in terms of execution, the series has come so far as to be more or less unrecognizable. The originals are straight-up and more or less constant action; none of this "screwing around with benign side missions" like slinging pizzas, spray painting walls, or saving lives in an ambulance.
GTA and GTA : London become punishingly difficult. I bitched about them earlier in the thread - high goalposts, scarce weapons, and harsh penalties for failure. The games convey all their trademark character / plot through text (I remember one mission in GTA in which it's heavily implied you're the getaway driver in "Reservoir Dogs", and another in London in which you help a certain notorious Lord (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Lucan) disappear) and squeaky babble. If someone ever cooked up a mod in which you can quicksave and / or mission select, they'd still be fun to pick up and play; there is potential for really satisfying mayhem. To a casual gamer, though, they're more of interest as historical curiosities. Have a prawn cracker.
Speaking of mayhem, GTA 2 was fuckin' rad. This one had constantly warring gangs that operated on a paper-rock-scissors "respect" mechanic; slaughter gang x, gain respect with and access to gang y. And so on. The best use of the top-down, arrow key control scheme, and a save game system that doesn't hate your guts. Definitely worth a try; you could easily develop a taste for this game and sink a lot of time into it.
Really, if you want to get into modern-day GTA, I'd start with Vice City. All the innovations and gameplay people associate with the GTA name really came into purest focus there. I'm pretty sure it's cheap as chips these days.
Am I the only old-school hardcore gamer on the board now that JL's got her hands full with a littl'un?
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Today was my first day in San Andreas. I stole a car and drove for about 10 minutes, finding myself in the middle of a small town in the country, Scared and confused, I stole a tractor and hauled it all the way back to my house to put in the garage.
I hear Bigfoot is lurking in the country. Is this true?
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Am I the only old-school hardcore gamer on the board now that JL's got her hands full with a littl'un?
Besides music, gaming is probably my second favourite thing. Always has been, since the speccy. Almost ended up in gaming full time, a few times over. What could have been...
I don't know I'd recommend getting the earlier GTA's over 3. They're great in their own way (although I never got into 2 so much), but like Zart says, don't really compare to the recent trilogy in that the execution is so very different. Then again, they are free so...
And, apparently Bigfoot is out there, but in all my hours of playing I've never seen him. Then again, there are still other things I haven't discovered.
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i "lost" my PS2 many moons ago Due To Punishment (or would it have been Due To Repreive?), but fondly played much GTAIII. Later, a roomate had Vice City and i enjoyed the motor bikes very much.
but this thread made me sadly nostalgic, and then i saw a copy of GTAIII at walmart for less than 10 dollars for PC.
what a sad, sad, sad computer i have to play games with. the good of it is that the lag makes play incredibly easy. i can practically go and make a pot of coffee in between shooting people if i pop adrenilin. yet, i managed to shoot 3 helicopters down with only an uzi.
i am torn between the possibility of 100%, which would be nice for my ego, or getting a less old video card in which to play less very old video games.
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Today was my first day in San Andreas. I stole a car and drove for about 10 minutes, finding myself in the middle of a small town in the country, Scared and confused, I stole a tractor and hauled it all the way back to my house to put in the garage.
That is such a great story. The only way it would be better is if it were raining, and you ended up locked out of the house.
Scared and confused, I stole a tractor
Oh, man. Perfect.
I hear Bigfoot is lurking in the country. Is this true?
Some swear yes, some say no. I think that if Bigfoot were there to be found in the PS2 version, he'd have been found and substantially documented by now. Apparently there is a GHOST CAR, though. If I remember right, it's more of a glitch than a deliberate spooky easter egg, so I never really could be bothered hunting it down.
It would massage my sense of mischief greatly to discover Rockstar had gone in and added the previously non-existent Bigfoot to the PC and Xbox versions, but alas - surely the people who are doing all the deep, hardcore, no-holes-barred, wall-to-wall modding would have stumbled upon the model and skin for M. Foot already.
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There's no big foot (other than the monster truck) or UFO in the desert (although they mention strange lights on the radio) and people with the PC version have completely broken down the game into every model, texture, etc. looking for stuff. They did find a white CJ, and the "hot coffee" fuck scenes that were stripped out of the game, though.
I'm finally in San Fierro and now have a choice of about five different missions to do (if you count the Valet sub-missions and Driving School as missions) and am actively enjoying the game again - at least, as much as my limited 30 minutes per day allows.
But that 4:30-5AM slot is just filled to the brim with glee now!
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That is such a great story. The only way it would be better is if it were raining, and you ended up locked out of the house.
It actually was raining.
Today was a much better day for me. I discovered the gym and worked out, got some gang colors, and found the gun hidden on the roof of the house next to mine and the brass knuckles under the overpass. Feeling powerful, I took to the streets, where my reign of terror lasted for about 5 minutes until I was gunned down by a hooker.
I also drove a car headlong into a gas station. I don't know why I was expecting a different result.
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White CJ (http://www.gtagarage.com/mods/show.php?id=53) looks ridiculous - I don't think it was "locked in the game" so much as a new skin someone whipped up at home. And I've seen children, young children, banging Barbie dolls together in more convincing simulations of romance and coitus than that dumb fuck*ng "hot coffee" mod. As long as they're modding skins, I'd like some sort of editor to create your own clothes and tattoos.
It's sort of a shame, the game being completely vivisected by its online fanbase - I wouldn't mind one or two PC-only gotchas.
Driving School, by the way, can suck my dick forever. If the tags and other tiny findables were put into the game to sell strategy guides, well, there's just no fuck*ng excuse for the various schools and the fuck*ngly insane level of luck and precision needed to "get golds". A friend and I did it on the PS2, but it wasn't fun, and I really don't see myself making the effort again. Do you like doing things over and over again? How about while listening to "Cult of Personality"? Well you will not believe what San Andreas has in store for you --
RRC, I am loving your updates; please keep them coming. I cannot wait until you (a) discover the magical world of eating and (b) take to the skies.
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I'll have to consult the guide to see if completing driving school gives you anything other than better driving skill (which you can get just by playing the game and, um, DRIVING) and some stupid unlocked car spawning somewhere (which I can spawn anywhere with a cheat code).
I did the tags, and it got my cycle and bike skills up while I really got to KNOW Los Santos. No big deal. It was kinda fun.
Oysters and Photos and hossshoes can suck my fuck*ng nuts, though, because four sets of repetitive tasks for one game is just too damn much. I also understand that some of the oysters are out in the middle of the damn ocean, so there's pretty much no way you could ever find them even if you were looking for them (without a guide). Fuck THAT action, Jack.
So I downloaded a "trainer" that will unlock all of this shit for me that wouldn't be fun anyway, without messing up my standings or showing any use of cheats in my stats. Where's your God NOW, CJ?
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I'll have to consult the guide to see if completing driving school gives you anything other than better driving skill
The biggy is, it lets you buy the car showroom across from your garage in San Fierro, and thus also take part in the street races, as far as I recall. I haven't managed the barrell roll on the PC version yet, dagnabbit.
The rest I silvered pretty easily, having golded all but one on the PS2. Stupid keys.
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Oysters and Photos and hossshoes can suck my fuck*ng nuts, though, because four sets of repetitive tasks for one game is just too damn much. I also understand that some of the oysters are out in the middle of the damn ocean, so there's pretty much no way you could ever find them even if you were looking for them (without a guide). Fuck THAT action, Jack.
The photos would not be objectionable if they were better-implemented. Ideally, every photo op would be near a unique and interesting landmark, and in such a position that if you were to take a photo of that landmark the photo op icon would be in frame as well. Some of them are (the one in front of the clock tower on City Hall) but too many of them are just "in the general vicinity of some skyscraper, in such a position that a photo that gets the icon is otherwise a random stretch of sky".
As for the oysters and hossshoes, they're an irritating afterthought. The tags were an interesting and in-flavor collection mechanic, and the photo ops had the potential to be, but these are more "go to random places, find the floating icon, grab it" stuff with no sensical purpose. As an extra bonus, the reward for collecting the oysters is outstandingly useless; sex appeal is easy to max out (or at least get high enough that you can do everything it allows) and you'll probably nearly max out your breath collecting the damn things anyway.
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The biggy is, it lets you buy the car showroom across from your garage in San Fierro, and thus also take part in the street races, as far as I recall.
It does? Whoops, I must have forgotten about that.
Collecting the various cars for export was one of my favorite ways to spend time in the mid-game. I can't put my finger on why, but it was just a lot of fun to drive around, listening to music and looking around and OH SHIT THERE IT IS GRAB THAT GUY
And that was before User Track Player. I am very much looking forward to doing that again.
Ben-San, once again you've taken the words right out of my mouth. I actually liked the photos in theory, and collecting them (with a guide, naturally) was an enjoyable enough exercise. You're 100% right that they should have been of Interesting Things, rather than a really long and needlessly complex scavenger hunt (the fuck*ng things are invisible except through the camera's viewfinder). I got thrown out of Los Santos last night, and due to Punishment (a really awesome motorcycle accident, actually) I found myself in San Fierro with no wanted stars and the ability to start collecting photos.
The oysters could have been neat. They look neat, and I like swimming around for some reason. Once again, fun with a guide. The hossshoes are basically a big fuck you; they raise a nearly worthless stat (at that point in the game, anyway) and most of the time can only be reached with a very special and specific means of conveyance. I liked having those guns handy, though.
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You're 100% right that they should have been of Interesting Things, rather than a really long and needlessly complex scavenger hunt (the fuck*ng things are invisible except through the camera's viewfinder).
As far as that goes, the invisibility wouldn't be a problem if they were, without exception, located right near things that you look at and think "If I were a tourist, possibly a slightly tacky one, I would take a snap of that". Good examples: the clock tower, the big "plane crashing through a billboard"-looking sign near the airport, the big memorial statue of General Somebody in a park, and even the battleship you need to snap while the military fires on you is interesting enough to make you think "hmm, photo op". Bad examples: Floating in a random spot on the wall of a skyscraper, Sort Of In The Sky Somewhere, Back Door Of City Hall, Random Chemical Tank, and the one on a broad featureless rooftop whose only distinguishing feature is that you need a helicopter to get to where you can take a picture.
Speaking of which, there is actually an alternate option to that and to the 'special means of transportation' you describe for those players crazy enough (me. I am such a player) to take it: Get a plane of some kind, preferably a stunt plane or Dodo for maximum craziness, and leap out when you're over the place you want to be. I did this for the photo op before I was entirely clear on how to use parachutes when bailing out, which added considerable enjoyment to the process as I had to buzz it rather closely. I don't think I'd try that stunt for all the hossshoes, but you could probably use a chopper for most of them.
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Have you turned up your draw distance yet? I did and wow, what a difference. Seriously, I would advise anyone at all interested in this game - even if you've already played / beaten the PS2 version - to acquire a PC copy if your machine is at all muscly: what you're going to want to do is adjust that draw distance, steal one of those zippy little Shamal jets (You can get into the Los Santos airport without a pilot's license. Don't be retarded.), and just fly low over the city and surrounding landscape.
I did some flying on the PS2, yeah, but it was pretty much a utilitarian exercise - it's a joy, here (even if my plane mysteriously and suddenly exploded moments after I wagged my wings over the VINEWOOD sign - we shall never forget), and it looks great. I really appreciate San Andreas as a living space a whole lot more after navigating by air and seeing it as a gestalt, you dig? Check it out. It's neat.
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"Oh how delightful," I thought. "Soaring above our petty gang differences, where only eagles dare! What a fantastic idea, St Zartan!"
So I hopped the fence to the airport. There I found a charming little jet. I climbed in, started the propeller and I soared, very magestically, into the side of a hangar. Fortunately I was close enough to the ground (actually I might not have even left it) to bail out.
So I decided to search for another plane. Instead, I stumbled upon one of the luggage cars. This delighted me to no end because it's my personal goal to drive only the finest of the totally retarded vehichles scattered around Los Santos. Previous highlights included the tractor I drove home and the riding mower I took on a turf war rampage, which went about as well as you'd imagine it did.
Anyways, five planes later, I was in the air. And you were right. Los Santos is beautiful from the skies. I can't believe how alive it felt.
But then I pushed my luck when I decided to take my plane over the river. I saw the 4 stars as soon as I crossed. But in my hubris, I assumed THE MAN couldn't touch me in the sky. Turns out, they even had a bear in the air.
Long story short, stinger missiles, fiery death spiral, side of building. I think tomorrow I will stay earthbound and steal a semi to run over Ballas with. I earned it.
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So I decided to search for another plane. Instead, I stumbled upon one of the luggage cars. This delighted me to no end because it's my personal goal to drive only the finest of the totally retarded vehichles scattered around Los Santos. Previous highlights included the tractor I drove home and the riding mower I took on a turf war rampage, which went about as well as you'd imagine it did.
Wonderful. I knew from your very first post that someone, somewhere, had drawn a big heart in red crayon with "*****_roll_call" and "riding mower" in it. I was really looking forward to your finding it, although I didn't want to spoil what was no doubt a truly bizarre and fulfilling surprise by saying GO GET THE RIDING MOWER AND DO SOMETHING HILARIOUS. I am glad that you took it on turf wars. Did you try killing a dude and then riding over his body with the mower? That only just occurred to me. Maybe more cash will come flying out, or maybe a condom full of diamonds they'd swallowed earlier for export. The riding mower is pretty much the ne plus ultra of retarded vehicles in San Andreas, but hey - I suggest you beat the "8-Track" racing mission at Los Santos Stadium and have yourself a party. KEYWORD: magnetic ribbons
I didn't play too much this weekend - I mostly did the San Fierro snapshots (not nearly as tedious as I remembered, especially since (a) I used a map rather than one of those "now turn right" narratives that expects you to do it all in one go and (b) getting to some of them at this relatively early stage in the game was a real adventure), maxed out some stats, and got to 100% with Katie (yes, I'm getting to 100% with all the girlfriends this time through, which can be extremely tedious - is anyone else even bothering with this?), whose voice drives me right up the fuck*ng wall. BABY, CAN WE GO FOR A SPIN WHILE I TELL YOU ABOUT MY DUMB fuck*ng DOJO, PLEEEEEEEZE
OK. I gave in and chainsawed her once. The chainsaw is a delightful weapon. Rockstar pretty much designed it with sadistic jerks in mind, which, normally, I am not - but if you're already committed to the Murder Act, you might as well make absolutely certain you're not just doing the job halfway and condemning some dude to a lifetime of dialysis treatments or whatever.
Also: if you are going to make a Stunning Entrance to a date, go ahead and make sure you actually have your parachute before you get into the plane. Just saying.
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...maxed out some stats, and got to 100% with Katie (yes, I'm getting to 100% with all the girlfriends this time through, which can be extremely tedious - is anyone else even bothering with this?)... OK. I gave in and chainsawed her once. The chainsaw is a delightful weapon...
Holy Jesus. This is even worse than the time when I was in the common room at a friend's residence playing pool, and idly watched the soccer game some guys had on TV for about five minutes before I realized that they were playing it, with little controllers, because it was a video game, and not real life. I never even played any Mario type things growing up and this is all so far beyond anything I could ever understand.
What does it mean to get to 100 percent with a video game lady?
Please don't let me interrupt your nice conversation about using a computer to pretend to drive around, but my confusion has reached critical mass here and I am kind of interested to understand how all of this works.
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...maxed out some stats, and got to 100% with Katie (yes, I'm getting to 100% with all the girlfriends this time through, which can be extremely tedious - is anyone else even bothering with this?)... OK. I gave in and chainsawed her once. The chainsaw is a delightful weapon...
Holy Jesus. This is even worse than the time when I was in the common room at a friend's residence playing pool, and idly watched the soccer game some guys had on TV for about five minutes before I realized that they were playing it, with little controllers, because it was a video game, and not real life. I never even played any Mario type things growing up and this is all so far beyond anything I could ever understand.
What does it mean to get to 100 percent with a video game lady?
Please don't let me interrupt your nice conversation about using a computer to pretend to drive around, but my confusion has reached critical mass here and I am kind of interested to understand how all of this works.
I'm not a huge GTA person, but I think I can explain this:
GTA:SA allows you to "date" video game ladies as a way of unlocking new shiny bits and such. The way this works is that you go on dates, attempt to impress her, etc., and her overall opinion of you is represented by a percentage. Getting 100% basically means that you've totally pleased her (and thus gotten all of the unlockable shinies you possibly can). I think. Zart or Ben or Jough or someone else who can answer this more thoroughly, feel free to jump in.
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What does it mean to get to 100 percent with a video game lady?
Please don't let me interrupt your nice conversation about using a computer to pretend to drive around, but my confusion has reached critical mass here and I am kind of interested to understand how all of this works.
The quotes you selected made me realize, yes, to an outside observer, this is completely retarded. Let me explain :
For some reason, the developers of this game thought it would be a Fun Idea to allow the player to have various Girlfriends. Girlfriends that are difficult to please and actually harangue you for more face time via cell phone. Oh yes they do.
Once you start dating some lady, the game establishes a relationship stat for that lady; it begins at 15%. This basically indicates how much she likes you - if you take her on a shitty date (for example, a Fancy Lady will not like a "dinner date" consisting of malt liquor in a divey bar), this number will go down. If you give her flowers or put the Sexing to her, it will go up. Etc. 0% means you're dumped - if the nurse dumps you, for example, you can no longer get out of the hospital for free.
At 50%, you can borrow her car when she's home. The Ladies all usually have cars that are, otherwise, hard to find. At 100%, you get some sort of special, unique costume as a "gift" that is unavailable anywhere else.
"To get to 100 percent with a video game lady", then, means that you have gotten all the benefit possible from the relationship and you no longer have to take her out on those goddamned dates.
You have to believe me when I say that the Girlfriend Thing is ancillary to pretending to drive around and shoot things. That is a major part of the appeal of this game : everything apart from missions (set pieces in which you have to accomplish a specific goal within a specific setting) is pretty much optional and you can take it or leave it at your leisure. Look : it's fun. Maybe you should try it.
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This (http://www.thegtaplace.com/sastats/index.php) is a pretty neat little toy.
Basically, you export your stats from the (PC) game, upload them, et voila, they're formatted all nicely for viewing / showing off / whatever.
Here's mine. (http://www.thegtaplace.com/sastats/index.php?user=St_Zartan) (I know - I really need to work on my distance travelled by golf cart.) I'd be interested to see how you all are doing.
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EDIT: My GTA: SA Stats (http://www.thegtaplace.com/sastats/index.php?user=jough) (pitiful that they are)
My progress report:
Having gotten stuck on the "Burn and Lap" Driving School chore, I decided to skip the non-story advancing missions and just get to the desert.
So I was stuck on completing "Monster" for a while - then I decided that since the mission didn't start until I went through the first marker that I could install Nitrus on the Monster Truck and that made the mission a lot easier. Instead of 30 seconds to climb a few big hills it took only 2, and I beat it.
Then I had a couple of fun missions in the Desert before buying the airstrip and now having the Flying School to deal with. I did the takeoff and landing tests with no problem, but now am stuck on the "lap around the airport" one.
At this point in the game, completing the flying school is the ONLY mission and there is no way to advance the story without completing it. I'll try it again later, but I'm pretty sure that if I can't complete it I'll just use a cheat/trainer to unlock everything and just play around with it. But I like some of the missions and am looking forward to missions in Las Venturas.
So I don't know. I wish there was a way to skip certain missions that you got stuck on. I mean, whose game is it, anyway?
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so i had been playing gta3 on pc and didn't realize the saved games get saved in $user\my documents.
that's not as much of a pisser since after i formatted the pc and redid all pimped out gta3 crashes.
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Having gotten stuck on the "Burn and Lap" Driving School chore, I decided to skip the non-story advancing missions and just get to the desert.
Burn and Lap : never let off the gas, tight handbrake turns only, pretty much tighten that sphincter and pray you don't fuck it all up in the last lap. There are two tests at Driving School off the top of my head that I hate more than the Burn and Lap; save your ire. Seriously. Just be sure and do finish Driving School - the missions / opportunities it opens up are really fun and satisfying.
Wait - you're still using a dual-analog joypad, right? Because finishing D.S. with a keyboard is about as likely as, I don't know, playing Mortal Kombat on a Speak 'N Spell.
Then I had a couple of fun missions in the Desert
If Rockstar has any sense, they will give James Woods like a million dollars and make a GTA-alike / spinoff based entirely around working for Mike Toreno.
But I like some of the missions and am looking forward to missions in Las Venturas.
There is an entirely optional chain of missions in Las Venturas that, taken as a whole, might be the straight-up most rollicking fun in the entire game. So, yeah, it's worth it. In the meantime, though, since Flight School is kicking your ass, you could always work on side missions (especially since the entire map is open to you at this point) - a little extra bonus is the series of increasingly threatening phone calls you get from Toreno if you put off completing Flight School...
Go do Boat School. It's easy to get all golds, and it will renew your vigor.
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I am doing boat school (I've gotten a number of calls from Toreno already - just GOLD) and that's going well. I'm also dating the cop, Barbara, and figure I'll do the bike school next since I have only a keyboard and flight school is just impossible.
There's a guy on one of the GTA forums who'll do the schools for me for a fee. It may be worth it. I am just not enjoying the chore aspects of the game. Tedious and frustrating is what I get from DATING, not paying $50 for a game.
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I am doing boat school (I've gotten a number of calls from Toreno already - just GOLD) and that's going well. I'm also dating the cop, Barbara, and figure I'll do the bike school next since I have only a keyboard and flight school is just impossible.
There's a guy on one of the GTA forums who'll do the schools for me for a fee. It may be worth it. I am just not enjoying the chore aspects of the game. Tedious and frustrating is what I get from DATING, not paying $50 for a game.
Don't pay money for that. Come on.
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The allure of this game just quintupled for me with the appearance of two stat types 'mongst those you'nses posted.
Fires started
Prostitutes Visited
Dammit!
My favorite is Luck:0
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Zartan:
This is a pretty neat little toy.
Ohh man, I concidered posting my real-life stats from the chart, but balls, thats just too depressing, and i´m not too sure if im acquainted enought with you guys yet to reveal how many money i´ve made in a truck or how many times I have cheated.
so... nothing really.
Yeahh ok, i´m being a tease; I will share with you, that my best time in Little Loop was when I was 8, I remember i was wearing the Optimus Prime cardigan my mother knitted for me. It was swell.
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....I remember i was wearing the Optimus Prime cardigan my mother knitted for me. It was swell.
I....I.....SHIT, man. SHIT. You had an Optimus Prime cardigan?
SHIT! That is EXCELLENT!
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Ohh man, I concidered posting my real-life stats from the chart, but balls, thats just too depressing, and i´m not too sure if im acquainted enought with you guys yet to reveal how many money i´ve made in a truck or how many times I have cheated.
(http://img304.imageshack.us/img304/7829/joeygreco20wj.jpg) (http://www.imageshack.us)
I know how many times you've cheated.
COMING UP...
THE CONFRONTATION
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About every five missions there's one that just kills me and frustrates me to no end. Luckily now that Las Venturas is open to me I have a choice of about four missions at any one time.
However...
I'm doing the "Stowaway" mission where you have to ride your bike up the ramp of a plane, but the bike is not fast enough to catch the plane! I even tried not even trying to go up the ramp and just tried to catch up to the plane going as fast as possible, and I didn't even come CLOSE.
WTF?
In the meantime, I did get all Gold in the cycling school, usually on the first try. And the speedy reward there was worth it. Love that NRG-500.
Anyway, the Las Venturas missions are fun (except for the Madd Dogg mission, which was another of those "hell" missions I had to do two dozen times to finally get it).
But overall I am enjoying the game again now that I am done with the schools.
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I'm doing the "Stowaway" mission where you have to ride your bike up the ramp of a plane, but the bike is not fast enough to catch the plane! I even tried not even trying to go up the ramp and just tried to catch up to the plane going as fast as possible, and I didn't even come CLOSE.
You need to lean forwards. On keys, repeatedly tap the lean forwards key, and swerve well to the left of the ramp at first to avoid the barrels. Doing it that way, you'll probably nail it second time.
One of my favourite missions, just due to how cool it was.
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You need to lean forwards. On keys, repeatedly tap the lean forwards key, and swerve well to the left of the ramp at first to avoid the barrels. Doing it that way, you'll probably nail it second time.
Yeah, I was doing that - I have a guide that I turn to when I've tried a mission a few times and am ready to chuck the laptop out the window.
I tried it maybe 50 times and could never get even close to the plane, and the couple times I did it LUNGED away from me as soon as I approached.
Then I read something on a forum where someone suggested turning down the display quality to make the gameplay faster. So I turned down the resolution, texture quality, and turned off aliasing, and then tried Stowaway again and got it without even having to lean forward. Actually, the first time I went REALLY fast and actually overshot the plane.
Anyway, I inched up the display quality again using Stowaway as my barometer. If I could get on the plane, I turned up the juice until I couldn't catch it anymore, then brought it back down.
Now EVERY mission is easier. I even went back through the flight school and got golds on a number of tests there were simply IMPOSSIBLE before.
Of course, now that I've finished the desert missions and most of the Las Venturas missions I'm now stuck on Freefall (the one where you have to go past the really fast jet, swing around instantly and fly through the corona?) and again it is seemingly impossible. I modified the handling.cfg file (when in doubt, change physics) but now I have the opposite problem - overshooting the thing and/or crashing into it and blowing up in midair. I'll have to tweak it I guess.
Yeah, stowaway was a fun mission after it ceased being IMPOSSIBLE.
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Okay, making progress:
http://www.thegtaplace.com/sastats/index.php?user=jough
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Verdant Meadows? (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.150899,-110.834026&spn=0.009034,0.015192&t=k&hl=en)
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Yeah, just about everything in the game is based on SOMETHING in CA or NV.
Also, having now completed all of the story missions, I feel a sense of... ennui. I'm still not at 100%, and I will continue to play the game as I played Vice City - and I'm sure there are still places in LV that I still haven't explored yet, but it was a good and frustrating run of difficult missions and I'm mostly glad to be over them.
I'm also loving that I've souped up every vehicle in handling.cfg and now my golf cart goes 240mph.
Also, I am working on getting miles on every vehicle in the stats.
And hunting for cars for Export.