Here it is.

[GritEngine]

 

Discuss.

[Nativedeem]

its a wall... with the names of the cities in san andreas and vice city

[vanishingpilot]

Those names could be there for several different reasons... (like for one; as we know Rockstar love to add references to other cities and that way messing around with people )

 

I wonder why are the cities in that specific order, though...

[gtamachine]

Often pondered this. But then just put it down to R* playing with us like the many other references in Liberty.

[adamcs]

Your point, caller?

[aaa11]

I wonder why are the cities in that specific order, though...

look how it goes, it goes liberty city up top then, vice city, los santos, san ferro, las venturas, the order in which the locations were presented to us in the III era, its probably just a reference like you said.

[ScotchMouth]

You are a valuable asset to this community OP

[AreXi]

What are we supposed to argue here?

[II Goonah II]

Meh, I doubt it means anything.

[AndyGanteks]

Does that say San Ferro?

[jnzooger]

As it currently stands, the III-era GTA cities all exist untouched in the IV universe except Liberty. In theory, and as far as Lazlow in concerned, the events of the III-era all happened in the IV-era as well. The only thing that changed is the layout of LC. (Lazlow even mentions that he used to know all the roads and back alleys back in the day but now he gets lost.)

 

So instead of Claude escaping the prison truck on the Callahan Bridge, maybe in the IV universe he escapes on the Broker Bridge. And instead of the final mission taking place at the Dam, maybe it takes place at Charge Island.

 

Either way, unless there is a new Vice City or San Andreas made, the current cities and events can still be considered canon to GTA IV and the Episodes. (After all, just watch the TV in game for an hour.)

 

@AndySerb: No, if you look close, there is an I in-between the F and the E... It's just real thin, like the I in Vice.

Edited July 28, 2010 by jnzooger

[Rucke]

 

Does that say San Ferro?

I was thinking the same thing. Either my eyes are messing with me or the person who put it there didn't know how to spell San Fierro.

[mad.man]

 

Does that say San Ferro?

No. It says San Fierro. Take a look at the letter I in Vice City.

[Drift-Kingz]

I guess they're just referencing cities thats all.

[Nativedeem]

i can barely see the I and the R looks more like a P in "Liberty City"

Edited July 28, 2010 by Nativedeem

[GritEngine]

 

Either way, unless there is a new Vice City or San Andreas made, the current cities and events can still be considered canon to GTA IV and the Episodes. (After all, just watch the TV in game for an hour.)

 

Technically, I am agreeing with you here, but they all can be considered cannon even When they are remade. They just get generational facelifts that are way more than just the generational facelift. Liberty grew and got more sophisticated and has more of the real stuff there, they can't let us down and not do vice and san too. Not to mention, it really is what the whole series revolves around. These three fictionalized locations based on the places we know from GTA 1. "Very Smart" development, iterating, growing with the hardware, and staying true to its roots - it is the mtv game. It is the TV game. Radio game. The idolist nation game, based in the three places every American must want to be, with how much they copy these three places and try to clone themselves after the people who come from them, amirite?

 

The gameplay stayed true. Each thing in IV is so much like III - and then some. And each thing that did come through, is like 4 times more complex than it was in III. This stuff that carried from III to VC to SA being expanded, just as the experience itself when all three of these wondrous and devious places were unlocked one by one in GTA1 got more expansive for the player.

 

These guys run this NY/Miami/CaliSide stuff. It's like, they are doing that game we all always wondered if one day would be possible, and they are basing it in all the places we all know the world over from the movies and tv shows we all see, which is why the parody is so good and well received and universally understood and connects the whole world in places like this.

 

They still can be considered canon. NYC has changed a lot since 2000, so has Liberty, you see what I mean? Same canon, same world, just more sophisticated

 

Am I still on the air?

 

This is all so very invigorating, because it is so much deeper than crackdown or saints row, so much more real than driver or true grime.

 

They did new york city - there is no way, in the world, that they did NYC to the cinematic extent that they have, and then waste the opportunity to do everything you remember wishing you could do in SA and Vice City when you thought about all the movies and tv shows it reminded you of while playing it - the technology is there now, I bet the jetpack is going to fly only 20 second bursts too It's going to be so epic, or I am going to be one very sad GTA/Rockstar fan boy eh guys?

Edited July 28, 2010 by GritEngine

[QwertyAAA]

mmm... no; the events of San Andreas and Vice City cannot be considered IV-canonical due to their association with the III canon, unless specifically referred to in an IV-canon game. The change in Liberty went beyond a simple facelift for a city. The events of III could not have transpired in IV-Liberty.

[GritEngine]

I do not agree with you *at all* on that due to how much still is referred to and how even Luis Fernandez came back, let alone Lazlow, writings on the wall, etc.

 

That is a rumor, and it is highly disputable, really. Doesn't Donald Love still exist too? Not sure. But I am sure: This is 10 years later, give or take. It is still all the same brands and all that - it is hard to think of anything in the old games NOT brought up in IV, so like, I don't know - equally viable, if not more so

 

To me, it is not that tommy etc did not exist - it is that they are *old news* and we are now seeing the places with new faces that probably never knew those people who as rockstar said "are probably all dead" - which doesn't mean they are, but that, they are old and possibly not heard of anymore.

 

edit: i could also be confusing canon for universe - it is definitely not a related STORY, but it is certainly all the same places - more sophisticated, but still the same places, brands, DJs on the radio as those do tend to stay the same for years on end.

 

so, sorta like GTA 1 is to GTA III as GTA III is to GTA IV, hope that makes enough sense said like that.

Edited July 28, 2010 by GritEngine

[QwertyAAA]

Luis Fernando Lopez, you mean? He came back from IV to IV, meaning that his reappearance is entirely irrelevant. Lazlow is technically one of the game's writers, so that implies reasonable canon immunity. No, it's not disputable that III and IV are set in different universes. Cities change, but they don't change that much. No specific event within the III storylines was referred to in IV, and neither was any specific location within any of the non-Liberty cities that exist in the IV canon that would establish them as being similar to their III-canon appearances. Brands are not as significant as a completely [and thus unreasonably in-universe] different map layout, a completely different history, and no reference to any past characters that appear as NPCs beyond non-sequitur easter eggs.

 

A reasonable facelift can simply retcon a game's universe.

An unreasonable facelift implies a canon shift.

[GritEngine]

Fernando Martinez*

 

We will have to agree to disagree, but you really, really should think about it more...

 

They are not different universes, you'll have to let others decide - but what you are repeating, are fan generated

 

As I said, not the same story, but the same places, grown up, more sophisticated.

Edited July 28, 2010 by GritEngine

[Nativedeem]

not all brands are there. clothing brands are different such as modo and persues which dont exist in the III universe

[GritEngine]

Ah, but they do - only in ads and not clothing shops, which places them in the same universe in my book, seeing as how SA was the first place you could buy clothes, and IV seems to be about certain people's spots, not freedom of selections like CJ had. Perhaps IV just used some that they hadn't used yet. Because ads for those are around the city in SA

 

If I am wrong about that, there is no rule that new brands can't be made in a ten year span of time. Hell, Liberty Itself grew a lot, as even lazlow himself alludes to.

Edited July 28, 2010 by GritEngine

[SilentSeas]

The III and the IV universe are seperate IMO. The characters in the IV era LC don't excist in III's LC but IV's characters all have their own history and backgrounds.

[GritEngine]

Yes, the time and faces are different - it is still the same place, everything named the same, and all kinds of stuff like og loc albums, RIP all the other characters, and much, much more.

 

it is Not just a "nod" to the old games - there is NO REASON for all the other characters to "have" to be there to be the same place.

 

How many different movies with different characters take place in the same place? Exactly.

 

Same place. Same universe. Different time, thus different faces and stories and better developed, just as places do tend to do over the course of years.

 

Sincerely hope this helps.

[SammiiDoogles]

There's names of places all around that wall in the real life Empire State Building, I think it forms part of the map of America - being as GTA doesn't have an official world map for their cities they just listed the cities in their games so far. Simple as that. Not everything mentioning or showing one of the cities is a reference, I doubt they even think about the next game while making one.

[GritEngine]

What you point out tells me that THESE are the places that exist in the GTA universe to visit - and in the real world, those other places exist. You just supported it further if you look at it like that. GTA is LC, VC, SA

 

I don't doubt they think about it - I think the whole plan is planned out, since 1998, to be the first people to work their way into a living simulation of the three most popular areas in the world, and I think they are brilliant for it.

 

Hard to argue with that, with the further evidence you provide here.

Edited July 28, 2010 by GritEngine

[SammiiDoogles]

What you point out tells me that THESE are the places that exist in the GTA universe to visit - and in the real world, those other places exist. You just supported it further if you look at it like that. GTA is LC, VC, SA

Not everything has a pattern man, you read way too much into it. They make the games one at a time and they're all the better for it; if they had to follow a pattern just to feed speculators then the games would most likely turn out sh*t. I think all this speculation; not just this thread but pretty much all the ones I've seen is reading too much into it, it's just references and nods to other games or parodies of real life and doesn't indicate the next game at all.

[GritEngine]

Nah, and please anyone reading this, read it before refuting it, it is healthy to be a skeptic, but there is such a thing as denial too. It might have been okay to call things "nods" or "eggs" in the past, but now, after more and more piles up, people will eventually start to realize GTA is not what most of them think it is, and hopefully in that, see that it is much more awesome and formidable than once thought.

 

And I cannot bring myself to deny the credit rockstar deserves for inching toward the full iteration of the three most popular places on the planet,I just can't do it - it all makes way too much sense, and if you don't see it, I am willing to bet there is just a lot of things you don't notice, including in the humor and culture spoof aspects. With this much to notice in a game, it's not hard to overlook. I learn new things every time I visit this forum, and share new things I noticed, as well. And with as much opinions riding on it, it is impossible to reason, so we will agree to disagree, but I'm betting the farm: I am correct. Mainly because I intimately see beyond the controversy and the marketing, and I see pure genius and the first people to do it, will be them, as they have one major head start on the other developers in this realm.

 

The "clone" developers clone "crime sim" - and that is not what GTA is, it is a culture simulation. A satire of pop-culture. Those guys are making open world games, for all the GTA fans who don't know the difference. Rockstar is making something else. Something bigger. And more concrete.

 

We will agree to disagree, but these are the GTA locations, and Rockstar doesn't do it to please spectators. They do it because they are the only real choice and only real places worth spending this kind of the money on. The only places that sell enough to fund your bullworth, your rdr's, your manhunts, etc.

 

When SA comes out, they will say "The new liberty really showed us how small San Andreas really was for the huge state it is supposed to be"

 

I see through this stuff man, I see it, and see utter brilliance in it

 

haters gonna hate

Edited July 28, 2010 by GritEngine