Melee combat

[Secura]

Hand to hand combat in the GTA universe.... Let's face it has been primarily sh*t, I mean come on Niko in melee combat was as useless as a drunk amputee with brain haemorrhage. He couldn't even follow up with a second punch because he wouldn't reach out and hit the target who moved about four inches away from him, and yet this man is meant to be a Serbian war veteran, Niko could have been a much better character if R* had let him to characters what he did to brucie in a certain cut scene.

 

 

 

 

So what other free roam games have ok - good hand to hand combat, now excuse me for swearing but honestly saints row 3's main character could pull of a bunch of crazy bad ass stuff like flying punches, kill combos etcetera etcetera etcetera, now why couldn't Niko pull some of this stuff off? Surely he's had someone form of hand to hand combat training....Actually now that I think of it wasn't there some sort of instant KO punch Niko learned to do at some point early in the game? If so how come I lost that ability, was it mission specific because I thought the whole opening was a tutorial meant to unlock tools for you to play with later in the game?

 

 

When I ask these questions I get the feeling R* has been quite lazy with IV, I mean they have a much better animation engine than any other company out there and they don't even put it to good use. It makes me question the future of hand to hand combat in a game that focuses primarily on combat, RDR had a very clunky H2H system and LA Noire's seemed all jumbled up and quite jagged like they weren't really human.

 

 

 

An obviously huge part of melee combat is weaponry, so what can we expect baseball bats? Brass knuckles? and to much less likely extent Samurai swords? The first important question to ask is how would these weapons handle? Giving Niko these weapons would be useless as he'd never hit the bloody target, so the first thing that would need to happen is a complete overhaul of the weapon handling mechanics.

 

 

Next would be the damage weapons do to enemies for example having a samurai sword swung at your arm is going to hurt more then being hit by a pair of brass knuckles and obviously do much more visible damage as well. So amputation would definitely bring in more ways to immobilise your enemies but would they also add other ways of getting rid of your opponent non lethally? Such as disarming them or breaking there arms, throwing them back, grappling with them?

 

 

 

In another game when the player lowers an enemies health to a select level sometimes an execution is performed could that not be in some way implemented into V? Maybe it could be done in a similar way as to when a red flashing light appeared around the aiming reticule when Niko had a pistol equipped when he killed certain characters in the story or perhaps it could just happen randomly sort of like a dice rolling system?

 

 

 

Anyhow it doesn't matter how long I spend theorising about possibility of an improved melee combat system in GTA what does matter is whether they actually bother to change it or just forget it entirely? what do you think?

 

 

Discuss.

 

 

 

 

[EscoLehGo]

I'm not the biggest fan of gta iv but I don't have too many complaints about the fighting mechanics, they served their purpose considering gta is primarily a shoot em up type genre. If you're really that much into melée combat there's a video on YouTube that highlights all the counters and special moves niko could do if prompted correctly. I was surprised at how fluid it was since so many people complain about the fighting. I'm still more of a shoot people in the face kind of guy though

[Zee]

They hand to hand sucked in GTA4, it took you 10 seconds to kick or stab someone on the ground twice in a row. Absolutely shameful. If it's not improved in V I wont know what to say.

[IllnessGTA]

They hand to hand sucked in GTA4, it took you 10 seconds to kick or stab someone on the ground twice in a row. Absolutely shameful. If it's not improved in V I wont know what to say.

Who cares about the hand to hand combat?

[IBrahemoX1X]

combat in MAFIA 2 was awesome . ROCKSTAR . need to make combat in gta v like combat in mafia 2 maybe even BETTER .

 

[bscutajar]

As someone else mentioned in the forum, the combat system in Bully was excellent and would fit perfectly in a GTA game because it's simple yet much better than any of GTA's combat systems. For those who never played the game, in Bully you could do simple grapples and combos which you could learn from some guy and it was a lot of fun from what I remember.

[Zee]

They hand to hand sucked in GTA4, it took you 10 seconds to kick or stab someone on the ground twice in a row. Absolutely shameful. If it's not improved in V I wont know what to say.

Who cares about the hand to hand combat?

Right, so anything that sucks in the game just say "who carez"

[tenpennyisplainevil]

True Crime, please! In both they nailed it completely. You could choose a lot of fighting styles, use up to 4 of them at the same time, learn special melee weapon moves (do different move with katana, knife, etc.). True Crime was a true masterpiece in that department. Also firearms, you could choose out of 4 or 5 handguns! And then the rest of the guns are the same as GTA (AK47, M4, rocket launcher, flame thrower, etc.).

R* can learn from 'True Grime' on fight stuff...

[JasonBrody]

As someone else mentioned in the forum, the combat system in Bully was excellent and would fit perfectly in a GTA game because it's simple yet much better than any of GTA's combat systems. For those who never played the game, in Bully you could do simple grapples and combos which you could learn from some guy and it was a lot of fun from what I remember.

That was meeeeeee ^_^

Bully has the best hand to hand combat ever seen in a game.

[Racecarlock]

They hand to hand sucked in GTA4, it took you 10 seconds to kick or stab someone on the ground twice in a row. Absolutely shameful. If it's not improved in V I wont know what to say.

Who cares about the hand to hand combat?

A lot of people you asshole. Hand to hand combat is fun when done right. GTA's feels kind of slow. They need to make it smoother, iron out some stuff. Maybe add in kung fu, because kung fu is awesome.

[JasonBrody]

They hand to hand sucked in GTA4, it took you 10 seconds to kick or stab someone on the ground twice in a row. Absolutely shameful. If it's not improved in V I wont know what to say.

Who cares about the hand to hand combat?

A lot of people you asshole. Hand to hand combat is fun when done right. GTA's feels kind of slow. They need to make it smoother, iron out some stuff. Maybe add in kung fu, because kung fu is awesome.

You remember San Andreas where you could utilize different fighting techiques? That was cool.

[GTAboyWonder]

As someone else mentioned in the forum, the combat system in Bully was excellent and would fit perfectly in a GTA game because it's simple yet much better than any of GTA's combat systems. For those who never played the game, in Bully you could do simple grapples and combos which you could learn from some guy and it was a lot of fun from what I remember.

Bully's combat was also similar to The Warriors, another awesome game made by Rockstar. The combat of that game was awesome, seeing as it was a Gang Fighting Game.

[MagzGTA]

What I never got bored of in IV was the fighting, I believe that IV had a perfect system, but just limited hand to hand weapons... For example:

 

1. The impact of the punches were perfect, but instead of just tapping triangle/Y or circle/B three times to perform a combo, you should be able to mix it up, for example if you press triangle-triangle-circle it performs a jab, right straight and left hook and if you press circle-circle-square it performs a jab, right straight combo finished with a kick to the body or head. Oh, and please Rockstar get rid of the nut kick and just leave the nut knee, I'd love if the kick button would throw a leg kick instead of a kick to the balls. Also the ability to do running strikes would be nice, for example if you were chasing someone down and while aiming at them you press square to do a jumping kick.

 

2. Where are the takedowns? You should be able to chase someone down and throw yourself at them to get them down, or even just walk up to someone and aim at them and then take them down. I think the ability to take someone down and do some ground and pound should feature in somewhere!

 

3. Maybe even a clinch system where you, it could be done by holding L2/LT to aim at them and pressing R3 to grab them, then you could throw them to the floor with the X/A button and choose wich direction you want to throw/take them down in by flicking the right stick. Also from this clinch position you should be able to throw knees with square, elbows with triangle, and dirty boxing uppercuts with circle.

 

4. When someone is KO'd on the ground you should be able to get on top of them and ground and pound their already unconscious face.

 

5. Lastly I want realistic damage to be shown on someone face after I've just kicked the sh*t out of them. And please R* no blood squirting from there face every time I punch someone!

 

This is all I want

 

[HOTMILFDAD]

They hand to hand sucked in GTA4, it took you 10 seconds to kick or stab someone on the ground twice in a row. Absolutely shameful. If it's not improved in V I wont know what to say.

Who cares about the hand to hand combat?

A lot of people you asshole. Hand to hand combat is fun when done right. GTA's feels kind of slow. They need to make it smoother, iron out some stuff. Maybe add in kung fu, because kung fu is awesome.

Ignore him.

He's just a user that when he sees a post by Zee he feels like he needs to defend the GTA series

 

Anyway, the combat system in GTA IV was a total joke to me.

Even though they taught you how to counter and all that, I found myself never using it and instead just mashing buttons until they fell.

 

In San Andreas, I at least tried to make a fight complex by utilizing the different techniques and such.

They should implement that into the game again

[Staten]

Hand to hand combat in the GTA universe.... Let's face it has been primarily sh*t, I mean come on Niko in melee combat was as useless as a drunk amputee with brain haemorrhage. He couldn't even follow up with a second punch because he wouldn't reach out and hit the target who moved about four inches away from him, and yet this man is meant to be a Serbian war veteran, Niko could have been a much better character if R* had let him to characters what he did to brucie in a certain cut scene.

Niko doesn't need to get the second punch when the enemy gets that far away since he only has to wait for them to throw a punch of their own so he can dodge and counter, which takes at least half of the enemy's energy away. Once you get the hang of timing the counter, Niko is insanely powerful in hand-to-hand.

 

Personally, I don't see the need in adapting a Bully-style upgradeable melee system, since it becomes pointless after a certainly part of a GTA game (y'know, guns), but I really like MagzGTA of a running takedown.

 

[Capricornus]

Hopefully it will improve greatly. It was ok in GTA IV, but the best parts about the GTA IV combat were Niko's counter attacks. The standard hand to hand combat was a little lame, but tolerable.

[Death2Drugs]

I want The Warriors combat! That was epic and awesome!

[Capricornus]

I want The Warriors combat! That was epic and awesome!

f*ck yes. I was just playing it earlier too. Look running toward a Destroyer and scooping/tackling his ass. That kind of take down would be excellent in GTA V.

[Grand_Theft_Peanut]

The Stun punch yeah we learnt that in the game and it never applied later on... was weird they gave us a tutorial as if we needed to learn this move when the only time i used it was when we had to steal that car back from that guy who was working on it

[.Ryan.]

 

Hand to hand combat in the GTA universe.... Let's face it has been primarily sh*t, I mean come on Niko in melee combat was as useless as a drunk amputee with brain haemorrhage. He couldn't even follow up with a second punch because he wouldn't reach out and hit the target who moved about four inches away from him, and yet this man is meant to be a Serbian war veteran, Niko could have been a much better character if R* had let him to characters what he did to brucie in a certain cut scene.

Niko doesn't need to get the second punch when the enemy gets that far away since he only has to wait for them to throw a punch of their own so he can dodge and counter, which takes at least half of the enemy's energy away. Once you get the hang of timing the counter, Niko is insanely powerful in hand-to-hand.

 

Personally, I don't see the need in adapting a Bully-style upgradeable melee system, since it becomes pointless after a certainly part of a GTA game (y'know, guns), but I really like MagzGTA of a running takedown.

Exactly. I really don't see the need either for fancy hand to hand combat. It was essential to Bully and The Warriors as those two games were heavily dependent on it as obviously they lacked guns. Do you see Infinity Ward/Treyarch making COD a first person street fighter?

 

GTA IV's while it wasn't perfect still served its intended purpose. If anything at all the most I would like to see is different fighting styles similar to SA. Nothing more. I would rather R* refine shooting as that's more essential to GTA's gameplay.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Miamivicecity

[cp1dell]

Something similar to Bully would be nice. I liked in GTA IV how you could pick up small objects and throw them. Hopefully you can pick up long objects as well like a broken park bench and swing it like a baseball bat, or anything else you find.

[gsbadreligion]

im probably one of the few people that really used to hand the hand combat feature after all the guns were unlocked. it was more fun to me than shooting people most of the time. i remember i used to go to the helicopter place and fight everyone there(if you locked onto anyone there they would fight you and you wouldn't usually get a wanted level for a while). people would constantly come and at the end there would be like 40 bodies that i beat up and knocked out. i did have to use the health cheat sometimes but i was really good at hand to hand combat.

 

i actually beat the cage fighting thing in tbogt without getting hit once and not stealing any weapons. unfazed and destroying everybody, granted it took me sometime to accomplish but i did it. another fun thing i used to do is kick people into the water at the helicopter place and they would climb up the ladder and i'd kick them in the face and they'd fall and i'd repeat until they were ko'd. one weird thing i noticed was that certain people in the streets were insanely good at fighting like they'd knock me out easily when i can pretty handily defeat 3 people at the same time.

 

one of my favorite people to fight were the bikers, firemen(multiple of them), policemen(usually died from gunfire), and the people at the strip clubs with a friend(usually brucie or packie). it was really a fun aspect to do and they should improve it to the point where it gets the credit it deserves. probably the coolest thing about this combat system was it was made with moves bas rutten(mma legend) did. he basically performed all the moves you see in the game.

 

but a few ways it could be improved is with combos, fighting styles, takedowns(clinch and wrestling), submissions, gnp

[kesta195]

Who cares about the hand to hand combat?

Everyone apart from you.