Things GTA IV did better than GTA V

[Claude_Lib]

GTA IV did everything better than V, IMHO. I still sometimes launch the game, steal Manana or Virgo and just aimlessly drive around, listening to the radio. I just can't remember the last time I did it in V.

 

Maybe they will read the complaints about V and make another game like IV. It's really not their fault that a lot of people never learned how to appreciate IV until V came out or was well into development.

 

I seriously doubt that since the amount of 10 yos praising R* day and night is, sadly, way more than that of grown-ups who see things as they are.

[Femme Fatale]

Maybe they will read the complaints about V and make another game like IV. It's really not their fault that a lot of people never learned how to appreciate IV until V came out or was well into development.

Where do people get the idea that IV wasn't appreciated when it first came out? I loved it the minute I started playing it.

[Piggsy pls]

 

Maybe they will read the complaints about V and make another game like IV. It's really not their fault that a lot of people never learned how to appreciate IV until V came out or was well into development.

Where do people get the idea that IV wasn't appreciated when it first came out? I loved it the minute I started playing it.Because it got a lot of hate on the internet when it came out and still does sometimes. Just look at the comments on the facebook post Rockstar made about it being backwards compatible on Xbox One.

 

Well, at least there's some people defending it.

[TheRockfordGuy]

Well ... AI system in IV is much better .

[woggleman]

 

Maybe they will read the complaints about V and make another game like IV. It's really not their fault that a lot of people never learned how to appreciate IV until V came out or was well into development.

Where do people get the idea that IV wasn't appreciated when it first came out? I loved it the minute I started playing it.

 

It got a ton of hate from people who expected SA 2.0. Just because you felt a certain way does not mean the rest of the world did.

[Official General]

 

 

Maybe they will read the complaints about V and make another game like IV. It's really not their fault that a lot of people never learned how to appreciate IV until V came out or was well into development.

Where do people get the idea that IV wasn't appreciated when it first came out? I loved it the minute I started playing it.

 

It got a ton of hate from people who expected SA 2.0. Just because you felt a certain way does not mean the rest of the world did.

 

 

@ woggleman

 

I would exactly put it like that, that's exaggerated.

 

I'm very sure that most people didn't expect IV to be of a similar scale to SA, as it was made clear from the beginning that IV was only gonna mostly take place in NYC and a small part of NJ, but they certainly expected IV to have most or the same amount of popular small features that SA (and VC) had.

[jpm1]

i've gone away from V. i still do few races and few coop sometimes, but my life is in Liberty city. this is where i feel at home, and this for many years to come. because the game that will equal IV is not even born yet. each time i launch IV it's like i'm going to see my old friends , and my beloved city. i really hope some dude will update or create a new scripthook, so the dream continues

Edited February 11, 2017 by jpm1

[Megumi]

The body armor actually has some durability, unlike in V where the body armor gets immediately wiped out whether it's cheap or expensive.

[enjoyingorc6742]

vehicle handling is rewarding, soft body physics, free-roam multiplayer, knocking people down. GTA V did do weapon combat a little better with it being more fluid. and car customization. i am only realizing things since GTA IV became BC 2 days ago

[Payne Killer]

The body armor actually has some durability, unlike in V where the body armor gets immediately wiped out whether it's cheap or expensive.

Thats because the health and armor bars feel weaker in V.

[Mister Pink]

GTA IV did everything better than V, IMHO. I still sometimes launch the game, steal Manana or Virgo and just aimlessly drive around, listening to the radio. I just can't remember the last time I did it in V.

 

Because there's nothing else to do in IV.

 

I joke. V made a lot of improvements but IV's still has much better peds and combat. Getting in to fist fights can be fun.

[Niobium]

GTA IV has the best foreign radio station

 

 

 

also, GTA IV's minor antagonists (like Vlad) are far better than GTA V's major antags (like stretch and that chinese mob boss guy)

Edited February 12, 2017 by Niobium

[ViceBoy69]

Pedestrian reactions in GTAIV when you steal a car with them in it, they scream, some threaten to kill you, prostitutes reaction is hilarious when you pick her up and hit a police car " let me out you limp dicked maggot"

Now in V i was hoping for more of this especially when you nicked a bus full of passengers but no, all you get is the odd oooooooo and ahhhhhh, yep Rockstar f*cked this up in V too.

V will never be as good as IV and ive tried hard to like it.

[HaythamKenway]

Might as well drop this here, since V dialed Euphoria down anyway.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-02-12-one-thing-about-gta4-has-never-been-bettered

 

An interesting look into the development of Euphoria and its integration into IV and why it sadly never took off in the mainstream.

 

I think it really speaks for Rockstar's attention and dedication to making IV the best game they could, that they bothered so much and went above and beyond in their cooperation with NaturalMotion to make Euphoria work as astonishingly as it does.

[Cheatz/Trickz]

^ Just another thing that put the game ahead of its time. Honestly that's the major "problem" with GTA IV, people just weren't ready for it. I definitely wasn't, I remember disliking it quite a bit at first.

[ViceBoy69]

I never disliked it i thought it was brilliant from the moment i first played it, it blew me away with the way the game looked.

I admit its not perfect the port from console to pc is poor but it is still a better game than V will ever be.

[Official General]

I never disliked it i thought it was brilliant from the moment i first played it, it blew me away with the way the game looked.

I admit its not perfect the port from console to pc is poor but it is still a better game than V will ever be.

 

Thankfully the ENBs make the PC port a much better experience.

[Piggsy pls]

I really hope Euphoria is used properly in the next game. V is really lacking without it and even mods only restore (or simulate) it to a point.

[Pedinhuh]

Car washes and dirt.

 

In V your cars are regularly spotless, making the redudant.

 

In IV not only you have much more car washes spread around the city, but since we leave our cars in the streets, they understandbly get dirty from the exposure to the elements, so the washes are needed.

 

Also, I have just read on wikia that in IV the convertibles are washed by hand while in V they are not allowed to be washed at all.

Edited February 13, 2017 by pedinhuh

[Sonny_Black]

And whats up with all these shiny cars who look like plastic toy cars, even the reflections are ugly and weird sometimes; in GTA 4 they look and feel like real models. The world in GTA 5 feel so like a Saints Row game in a way.

 

It doesn't feel right to me:

 

Edited February 14, 2017 by yeahmantiptap

[thw111]

No doubt a better story. By the end of GTA 4 you just get the feels. Sad ending either way. And Niko f'ing Bellic is just wow. What a character, with endless depth

[Tonesta]

So I love both games.....but in playing IV again (after a couple of years and 4 playthroughs of V), one thing I notice is how linear the story is in V.

 

IV has a great story, but it's also clearly broken up into distinct mission groups and the player has a lot of freedom as to the order in which he/she tackles them. There's a handful of prerequisites, and obviously a few mission that unite plot strands, but you can do most of the second two thirds of the story in the order you choose. I believe it's possible to play the story in such a way that you have as many as 10 missions available to play at one time - this might not make the most thematic sense, but you can choose to do it.

 

V didn't allow that - the story proceeded in the order that the writers chose. At times there was a decision between a pair of missions here or there (and obviously the S&Fs could be done at any time), but for the most part this freedom - which has been a hallmark of almost all of the GTA series - was absent.

 

Which is why a lot of thought and effort went into putting a mission tree together for GTAs III through IV, for example - http://en.wikigta.org/wiki/Mission_tree_(GTA_IV)- but noone has ever bothered for V because it would just be a straight line with some occasional bumps.

 

Hopefully this is something Rockstar reverse if and when we ever get another game in the series.

Edited February 16, 2017 by Tonesta

[Algonquin Assassin]

So I love both games.....but in playing IV again (after a couple of years and 4 playthroughs of V), one thing I notice is how linear the story is in V.

 

IV has a great story, but it's also clearly broken up into distinct mission groups and the player has a lot of freedom as to the order in which he/she tackles them. There's a handful of prerequisites, and obviously a few mission that unite plot strands, but you can do most of the second two thirds of the story in the order you choose. I believe it's possible to play the story in such a way that you have as many as 10 missions available to play at one time - this might not make the most thematic sense, but you can choose to do it.

 

V didn't allow that - the story proceeded in the order that the writers chose. At times there was a decision between a pair of missions here or there (and obviously the S&Fs could be done at any time), but for the most part this freedom - which has been a hallmark of almost all of the GTA series - was absent.

 

Which is why a lot of thought and effort went into putting a mission tree together for GTAs III through IV, for example - http://en.wikigta.org/wiki/Mission_tree_(GTA_IV),but noone has ever bothered for V because it would just be a straight line with some occasional bumps.

 

Hopefully this is something Rockstar reverse if and when we ever get another game in the series.

 

GTA V's linearity can be summed up by the fact it requires the completion of a Strangers & Freak task (Tonya's first tow truck job) just to unlock more missions. That's right. GTA V's advancement of its whole "story" hinges on a completely unrelated task to the main story missions.

 

Sometimes it makes me cringe that the SAME people who wrote GTA IV wrote this tripe. What the f*ck were they thinking?

[Sonny_Black]

I just can't believe that is the same writers, its like watching Narc then a transition appear with the opening of The Fate of The Furious lmaoo

Edited February 16, 2017 by yeahmantiptap

[Eugene H. Krabs]

IV has better talk radio stations.

[TheOneLibertonian]

I liked the Random Encounters over the Strangers and Freaks from GTA V. The Random Encounters made much more sense and more thought were put into them. I loved how some of the characters in these encounters were people you have encountered through the story like Hossan and Mel. Also it wasn't just crazy, and mentally unstable people that you encounter. Some of them are just people trying and struggling to live their everyday life, and by chance stumbling into Niko's path. For Niko it reflects his journey in Liberty City, while for the trio in V, it didn't connect with how it reflected them. The S&F characters, I mean all of them are very one dimensional, and they are all just reflected by how fake, crazy, creepy and disillusioned they are. Nigel, and Mrs Thornhill, Beverly, Barry, Josh Bernstein, etc. are just prime examples of cardboard cutouts and tropes of stereptypical Southern Californian people, they are just there to provide comic relief just to be funny, and the sad truth is they aren't really funny at all, just annoying. On the other hand the characters in IV's Random Encounters felt like genuine human beings who cross paths with Niko, and him helping them in the process. These characters have development, they feel, they react, and they understand the hardships of living in a huge place like Liberty City. It's not just a city of sunshine and rainbows, and it absolutely compliments the feeling of Niko's struggle, and intolerance of living the American way of life.

 

Also the fact that the Random Encounters don't show on the Map, and only can be spotted on the mini map while walking or driving around the city also shows that IV's sense of isolation is a lot better than V's world is. V's world is more open, and larger than IV, but the feeling of getting lost I got from IV is completely gone in V, despite in IV where you can see the entire map from the start, and V's map will start to show more once you discover them. V just felt shallow as a whole, and that potential of a even more living, and breathing world in this beautiful place is completely wasted.

Edited February 17, 2017 by Diamond Dogs

[CometGT]

Just driving around LC has something unique about it, no matter how old the game as a whole gets, and no matter how many times you drive around LC. Yet LS, somehow feels more empty at times than LC.

[Official General]

One major thing that IV has over V for me, is that fact that it's map has another city with Alderney. Ok, it don't have countryside to separate the city like V does, but it still has another city to explore, which is a great thing for free roaming gameplay. Just having that feeling of being in a different city is enough to widen the appeal of free roam gameplay - IV gives you this feeling, even though it's map is not exactly huge.

Edited February 17, 2017 by Official General

[TrialzGTAS]

Vs map was big for almost no reason. It sounded good at the time before release because I though IV was a small map. But IV, after re examining the map after playing V for a while is that every spot feels unique. Even the apartments in Bohan, to the bars and the islands. You can really immerse yourself in the concrete jungle. Despite that 1 tone color pallet always was a gripe of mine (Kind of fixed in tBoGT).

 

The combat in IV was more realistic. You have you be within striking distance to actually hit someone. In V, you can Commando lunge someone from down the block. The Peds do not fight back, and get killed in one-two hits. Atleast in IV, you can have full out brawls with 10 plus people.

 

The missions were more emotional in IV. You can feel Nikos regret in his actions but we all understand its kill or be killed in LC. You can abhor the antagonists like Dmitri, Jimmy P due to the sh*t they do to Niko and his friends and family. In V, the missions are one dimensional, get no real feel or emotion when you break a certain point, kill an antagonist etc. IMO of course after playing Vs story 3 times and IV at least 10 times.

 

Last small point ill make is the multiplayer. V was stressful. I have to leave my real job after working 12 plus hours and have to grind my balls off just to get a decent vehicle. Low payouts prove it hard to obtain what you really want. Everything is more than millions of dollars. You work your balls off for 2ish hours and maybe get 220,000 from doing the exports, or grind out the heists which is still at least a fun and easy way to earn. Mean while in IV, you can collect weapons, armor, and have decent vehicles for free. Just have to spend a few minutes to collect everything scattered around town. The PD doesnt drain your health in 2 bullets and have a more realistic feel. You can actually freely run outside in LC and still have a blast running from the PD and not get rekt. Not too mention, a boat load of interiors with multiple extrances/exits. Makes way for more intense gun fights and safe havens when waiting for rides or weaponry. Personal favorites are the Lawyer office and trash place underneath the bridge to Broker which is so much fun run across, get your health and hide in the russian clothing shop for your crew.

[piospi]

I love how level designers of IV actually made an effort and created a reason (or excuse rather) for making certain interiors non-enterable: Burger Shot in Schottler (out of business), Cluckin Bell in East Holland (condemned by LC hygiene department) and Cluckin Bell in Alderney (construction/renovation). And it made sense for player not to question them, because those obstacles were created by enviroment itself. That's how you create believable world, and that's why LC feels more real than LS.

 

I know that in both cases there were locked out due to performance and optimization reasons, and in both cases those building are just cut-out/placeholders/decorations, but the way they were made shows just how much more heart LC has put into. When you stumble across those places in IV you get back-story told by the enviroment why you can't go there, while in V you go to Burger Shot, get frustrated and instantly blame lazy developers. And you should because they just said "f*ck it, nobody cares". But nobody would care if it wasn't for IV and it's outstanding attention to detail.

 

Edited February 18, 2017 by piospi