[360, PS3] Grand Theft Auto IV

[Graham]

I'd say play Lost & Damned first cause Ballads of Gay Tony is just so much better that you wont be able to go through Lost & Damned after playing it.

Pretty much. Get through lost' first. It's good, but it has it's problems.
All three stories overlap and often deal with the same situations, but it's done in such a way that it doesn't matter what order you play them in. It's fun hearing a report on the radio and thinking "I did that!" but in a different game.

Ballad of gay tony also significantly cleans up the graphics on the 360. The distant city is much sharper, and shadows are better filtered. Overall it's less jaggy.

I'm still blown away by GTA4's engine, and what they managed with Liberty city. Sometimes just standing on a street corner and watching it all unfold. The sheer detail (and unique detail) is remarkable. Sure you get occasional late fade-in, but really, considering you can travel at such speeds makes it all the more amazing. Often times it's the incidental details are fleshed out better than games where those details are key components.
A simple example is I stumbled upon the Liberty City underground system, complete with announcer, timetable etc.

 

[nightshade]

yea Ballads of Gay Tony looks a lot sharper & smooth cause,they removed the Blur Filter found in GTA4/L&D and also removed the odd Grain Filter & gray color palette found in L&D.

 

[infinity4]

So, DLCs are finally coming to PS3 and PC!

MS spending 50mil for time exclusive of 2 DLCs is a big waste.

 

[nightshade]

So, DLCs are finally coming to PS3 and PC!

MS spending 50mil for time exclusive of 2 DLCs is a big waste.

I thought the 50million part was a whole load of bullocks

 

[DJ12]

Lets hope they've done some engine improvements too, I'm sure they've learnt a great deal working on Agent.

 

[Archgamer]

50 million? MS paid that much?

Looks like it wasn't a good deal then, considering that GTA4 was suppose to leverage their hardware. With 50 million you could just use it to make a 100% forever exclusive. In fact most games don't even cost that much.

 

[obonicus]

I think the 50 million is official, didn't it show up in one of 2k's quarterly reports?

Still, they held onto the idea of exclusive DLC (since the DLC took so long to come out) for over two years.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Frankly i'm rather ecstatic as i've longed to play these on PS3 for ages. I remeber being rather annoyed when i heard these were MS exclusive, and even more so when i heard they were paid for by Microsoft and so would likely be exclusive forever.

I do think MS wasted their money though to be honest, especially considering the sales performance of the episodes on XBLA.... I do believe that had they released cross-platform, they'd have had a larger installed base anticipating the games and therefore more opportunity for "word of mouth marketing" for titles, which i believe would have done them a lot of good after the GTAIV backlash.

 

[assurdum]

Well I hope at least R improves the perfomances on the ps3...630p without AA and 26 fps of average vs 720p+2xAA & almost 30 fps today, it isn't exactly a good 'deal' in a multi.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

MS did NOT pay 50 million. They lended them 50 million. Big difference!

 

[obonicus]

How do they have to pay it back?

 

[dobwal]

How do they have to pay it back?

Off the revenue generated through sales.

 

[zed]

50 million? MS paid that much?

Looks like it wasn't a good deal then

as ostepop saiz they loaned it, (though from the DLC sales figures it looks like they wont get the money back fully)
Well it could of been a good deal, remember GTA3 was the game of last generation, many thought GTAIV had a good chance of being that this time, though ultimately COD has assumed GTA3's mantel.

Like I mentioned about a month after GTAIV released, It was surprising how quickly the hype about the game died down

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

GTA IV was still a huge game this generation and there's no telling how good it did for MS to get all that press, how many people would have waited to buy PS3s, 'jumped in' to buy 360s because of the GTA DLC.

What hurt GTA wasn't the game, nor the DLC, it was the time from the launch of the game to the DLC. If I remember correctly, GTA was one of the first this generation to really attempt to take advantage of DLC and they clearly didn't know how to do it.

Walking the line between what content is released with the original game, and how long to wait to release the additional content without people getting upset claiming it should have been included in the original game was something developers didn't know how to do very well.

Either way, as Ost said.. it was an interest-free loan. Major win for the 360, would have been huge had that DLC been released before everybody sold their copies of GTA IV!

 

[Scott_Arm]

as ostepop saiz they loaned it, (though from the DLC sales figures it looks like they wont get the money back fully)
Well it could of been a good deal, remember GTA3 was the game of last generation, many thought GTAIV had a good chance of being that this time, though ultimately COD has assumed GTA3's mantel.

Like I mentioned about a month after GTAIV released, It was surprising how quickly the hype about the game died down

I'm sure they got the money back. It was paid for with GTA4, not just the DLC. The money was loaned to them for the completion of GTA4, with the understanding that microsoft would get exclusive DLC. Basically, the $50M Microsoft loaned them also went into the production of the PS3 version. That is my understanding, at least.

GTA4 was a huge game that sold very very well.