R* Decisions You Couldn't Understand

[god speed]

^My most hated thing in the Stories games, lol.

 

46 minutes ago, Ronald Reagan said:

I don't trust anyone who says they seriously like Paramedic / Firefighter or Vigilante missions... like, come on. 

Vigilante missions are fun though, especially in GTA IV with the police computer. I don't understand why it was removed in GTA V, or at least they should have had more than 4 bail bond targets.

[Americana]

Oh yeah, I meant Vigilante missions in '3D Era', which are okay, but... yeah. 

 

---

Edited October 29, 2019 by Ronald Reagan

[Sunglasses]

17 hours ago, Vladistar_895 said:

The Stories still have a "storyline value".In the stories you find out lots of things happening before III and VC,and tou know more characters and find more about the ones who appeared in III and VC.Also new weapons and cars.Slash TV and Empire Building are amazing and never came back.

Sure I think some of the new missions are alright but I think story wise they ultimately did more wrong than good. Donald Love is a glaring example of this where he's completely out of character appearance and personality wise, so much so that he feels like an entirely different character. As well as wasting characters such as Avery. VCS doesn't handle characters too poorly like LCS but I'm not too big on Lance's portrayal in this game either.

I just think ultimately they weren't necessary. I honestly think it's ultimately more rewarding to create my own theories for things that aren't explained in the mainline trilogy, and I get that that option may not be everyone and they want conclusive answers, I just don't think prequels needed to be made for these titles.

Edited October 30, 2019 by LCLegend

[.Ryan.]

17 hours ago, Mister Pink said:

I can understand that. That's life. Doing the right thing isn't very monetarily rewarding most of the time, especially when you are vying for money.  I mean if you found a purse with ID in it and 2 Gs. You could try trace down the person and hope for a reward be it a morally gratifying reward or a monetary reward. And it's a gamble. Or.. you could keep the 2 grand and maybe you'll feel a little sh*t because you know it's an old granny's money by the ID you saw.  I think it's very realistic. 

I could understand it more if the game had a honour/fame system like Red Dead Redemption where good or bad deeds have a proper impact. For a normal person like you or I it's realistic, but considering these guys are always on about chasing money it's a little silly IMO they would play the knight in shining armour when realistically they would probably just take the money and run.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

8 hours ago, Ronald Reagan said:

Oh yeah, I meant Vigilante missions in '3D Era', which are okay, but... yeah. 

 

---

I'm a fan of the "Brown Thunder" version of Vigilante in VC. Taking the enemies out with the only decent attack helicopter in the history of GTA, being able to listen to the radio while doing it and possibly becoming a billionaire from it if you exploit it a certain way is cool. But otherwise yeah. Paramedic and Firefighter missions are horrendous *flashes back to VCS where they have 15 levels and there's additional helicopter paramedic and helicopter firefighter ones and shudders*

Edited October 30, 2019 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Lord Criminal]

9 hours ago, Ronald Reagan said:

I don't trust anyone who says they seriously like Paramedic / Firefighter or Vigilante missions... like, come on. 

 

---

Vigilante is fine, and it was even improved in GTA IV. But paramedic and firefighter... I agree, they're too tedious. Not the types of side-missions I expect from a crime game to be honest.

[Evil empire]

The paramedic sub-mission sucks and shouldn't exist this way but the other sub-missions are enjoyable and take part to the charm of the 3D GTA's.

[Mister Pink]

8 hours ago, SonOfLiberty said:

could understand it more if the game had a honour/fame system like Red Dead Redemption where good or bad deeds have a proper impact. For a normal person like you or I it's realistic, but considering these guys are always on about chasing money it's a little silly IMO they would play the knight in shining armour when realistically they would probably just take the money and run.

Yeah, would make more sense if there was an honour/fame system. I hear ya. 

[Evil empire]

I don't understand why Rockstar made the firefighter job automatically stop at level 12 in San Andreas. It would be much more enjoyable if I could play as long as I want like in the previous episodes.

[secksyjames]

Oh, boy.

 

V: Physics downgrade. Driving feels awful and unrewarding, any mouthbreather can top speed across the map in a hypnotic state. Cars either grip to the road like glue or fly the f*ck off like jets. Aerial controls are a joke. Motorcycles got the absolute worst of it.

V: Physics downgrade. Crashing your car and flying out of your windshield/off your motorcycle is now an instant kill to hide the fact that you would only fly an unremarkable 15 feet and land with a pitiful thud.

V: Physics downgrade. Ramming/pushing/touching a pedestrian with your car feels substantially toned down and weak. You would expect ramming into someone at 70MPH with a 2-ton moving metal block to do more.

V: Physics downgrade. Cars no longer can become extremely deformed and damaged like in IV, nor are the crashes nearly as impactful. You are far more stuck to the ground like your tires are magnets. As a result car crashes at top speed feel like bumper cars compared to IV.

V: Fighting downgrade. Why does everyone, and I mean every single living soul in San Andreas, fight the same exact way, in the same untrained boorish arms-by-your-side stance, with the same 3 punches and flailing limp sideways shin kick?

V: Fighting downgrade. Why do pedestrians/enemies immediately DIE upon being knocked out with fists? Paramedics arriving on scene are useless now. Every NPC is so fragile, like an egg. EVERY fistfight is a literal fight to the death, you have no option but to run or full on kill them. Stupid.

V: Atmospheric downgrade. I can never just mind my own business around any NPC, ever. They have a safety bubble with a 10 foot radius that if they detect me standing still in at all they give me less than 10 seconds to get away before I get a wanted level. WHY? WHY? WHY? I could understand maybe Trevor, but all 3 characters?!

V: Atmospheric downgrade. Hey R*, I know when I have depleted my health and died okay? I promise I don't need you to play an obnoxious picture snap noise, flash bright white, turn my screen grey with a film grain and throw a big red WASTED in my face with a bell ring on top to know I am dead. Jesus, who did you design this game for, exactly? Goldfish? What happened to the simple off tilt angle with the black and white filter and sometimes slow-mo in IV? It conveys so much more with so much less. Not to mention that no matter the circumstances of your death, that WASTED screen is gone in about 3 seconds flat. A big plus in IV was being able to watch your body flail about in slow motion after crashing a motorbike and flying 200 feet at an arc in the air, or flying back and away from an explosion, or watching the cops shoot at your freshly dead body, often for extended periods of time.

V: Atmospheric downgrade. This game CANNOT DECIDE if it wants to be hyper realistic or arcade-lite. It's a constant cacophonous clash of tone and style, and it's extremely jarring. Wow, look at those flip-flops flip and flop realistically! That's so neat! Now watch me drive straight up a mountain in a $1 million dollar armored chrome car and do 10 front flips even though I had no momentum to do that.

V: Explosions downgrade. Explosions in V are short-lived, ugly, small, dim, underwhelming and even sound cartoonish. For how they look, they have way too big of an instant kill radius. Again, toeing that arcade-realism line too recklessly. It's no fun when you can't even watch your body fly.

V: Enemy downgrade. As previously mentioned, downed enemies from fist or gunfights are all immediately dead bodies. No longer do some roll around on the ground and beg for mercy, or get up to run away injured, nor can they climb into an ambulance, nor can we finish them off for a mercy kill.

V: Enemy downgrade. Somehow, on a bumpy dirt road in a dense forest with giant trees and thick foliage, 100 yards away around a curve in a car going damn near 60MPH shooting at your car, enemies/AI have Arthur Morgan level dead-eye aim. Shootouts with police suffer the most from this. Given how they all have perfect marksmanship within 200 yards, the shootouts are very short lived and you are pelted to death by cops you don't even see most of the time.

V: Police downgrade. Cops now know where you are 100% of the time and only pretend to not see you. Try getting a wanted level and hiding in an alley they have no earthly way of knowing you hid in outside of the radius. Watch how they manage to find your near-exact location, but just barely around the corner pretending not to see you. This game treats you like a toddler, and it's your parent playing hide and seek with you, taking pity as you've hidden poorly. "Gee, where did he go? I wonder!"

V: Police downgrade. Not only does it take easily 5 times as long for the cops to lose interest in you, they will perpetually spawn in front of you over and over as you outrun them one by one. DO NOT even get me started on how they rubberband to your bumper regardless of whatever top of the line tuned-up turbocharged V10 7.0L 3,000HP quantum space rocket Bugattighini supercar you have. They apparently have the best car tuner in the world working at LSPD and he swaps all the Crown Vic engines out with f*cking demon blood-powered Hadron colliders.

V: Police downgrade. To make their infinite respawning near your location and rubberbanding to your bumper worse, they have the magic ability to make your car attempt to spin itself out merely by tapping your back bumper. They don't even need to attempt the PIT maneuver, your car does it for them upon contact with the grille guard of an LSPD cruiser. Your steering wheel will instantly be jerked full stop to the left or right without you having any say so in the matter.

V: Combat downgrade. For the love of GOD can we stop with adding HITMARKERS? I'm not an asshole, I can tell when I shot something! I'm not an AC-130 gunship IR camera! This is not Call of Duty! How about you make your enemies/NPCs react to being shot appropriately so I don't need you to tell me when I have killed them with an annoying red and a screen flash/noise?

V: Combat downgrade. Every single firearm in this game feels and sounds like a Nerf gun. There is hardly any muzzle flash, there is hardly any gunshot report, there is zero recoil, the enemies react to being shot as if they are being blown over by strong winds, and the guns sound WEAK. There's no crack of a supersonic projectile being launched out of a steel barrel with a controlled explosion like a cannon, it sounds like a f*cking weedwhacker engine. Using these weapons feels like batting at people with foam swords. The non-functional scopes and vague/useless weapon stat bars were just frosting on the sh*t cake. Don't forget your choice of black, tan, or bright blue for every single gun! Are you kidding me?

V: Combat downgrade. Why did they add the weapon wheel from Max Payne 3? The time stopping function of it is cheesy and takes me out of the game. Same for the radio wheel. At least it gives me an option for the radio one...

V: Combat downgrade. Oh my God, all I want to do is crouch behind this low wall to stop from being shot, but every time I click the left stick, one of the 3 blank slate losers just hunches over a bit as if he's stalking his ex-wife in the library. WHAT THE F*CK WERE THEY THINKING? This is by far the most egregious example of short-sightedness on R* part. Replace a crouch function with a stealth function that doesn't even function 95% of the time for one mission near the start of the game? OKAY.

V: Combat downgrade. Body armor is entirely useless. 1,000%. Not only does falling from a building deplete it, it only absorbs what seems to be 3 bullets before going away entirely.

V: Story downgrade. I was misled by trailers and marketing into believing this game would be about doing heists, not endless wetwork for feds and the most unlikable characters to ever grace an entertainment medium (be it movies or books or videogames). Not to mention, having those said unlikable characters be around and do annoying sh*t for 9/10ths of the game and killing them off in the most unsatisfying and anticlimactic of ways. We don't even get to see Devon Weston die!

V: Story downgrade. Every single character was a caricature. An unfunny exaggeration of some form of stereotype that I did not enjoy being around. Trevor, his attitude, his demeanor, his wildly changing tone (is he supposed to be funny or scary because he is neither), his response to being called a hipster, his wild 'n' wacky wow omg s0 randomz! moments, his childish outbursts of violence that remind me of SpEd classes, it was all just way too juvenile for me. Michael was a pissbaby traitor who turned rat for reasons I felt were poorly explained, and who trapped us all into the unenjoyable prospect of being the FIB's bitch for most of the game. Paired with a special ability that was 100% useless as it drained way too fast and filled way too slow, even at max level. Franklin was as bland and uninspired as white rice and water. At least he wasn't ungodly annoying, like Trevor, or Michael's whole spoiled ungrateful and ugly family.

V: Story downgrade. 3 main characters was a gimmick that served only as a convenience for getting around a bigger map, in my mind. To its detriment, I believe it ended up simultaneously diluting and weakening the relationship of all 3 characters to the player. Instead of caring about all of them, I cared about none of them. They were detached, autonomous beings that went about doing sh*t while we weren't controlling them. We were momentary observers and participators in their uninteresting and unbelievable lives. It added nothing new or revolutionary to the series and I hope it stays in GTAV as an experimental one-off. It bloated and convoluted the story to a directionless mess. Michael and Franklin's meeting was contrived and their relationship was forced, at best. Their bond the game expects us to feel is nonexistent.

V: Story downgrade. Hanging out with Niko's friends in IV was a fantastic way to learn about the long, difficult and storied past of our tragic antihero given in bits and pieces. Hanging out with anyone in V is an absolute chore. Seriously? Jimmy DeSanta? I'd rather huff gas! IN REAL LIFE!

V: Story downgrade. From being a fresh off the boat Eastern European war veteran, experienced crook and tortured soul Niko just trying to scrape together a new life for himself and his cousin in a new country, to being 3 annoying and vapid evil selfish men who have no reason to be as vicious and cruel as they are (at least none that is explained to us) and who canonically kill hundreds of people indiscriminately for trite, plain, boring greed and love of money. All this killing and death so they can buy fancy cars and mansions and sh*t? It just feels repulsive and contributes to how unlikable these people are.

V: Story downgrade. Niko had reasons for being as good as he was at his criminal enterprises, at fighting/shooting/driving/piloting a helicopter. It's baked into his backstory, he's a former Yugoslav infantry heli pilot with weapons and hand to hand combat training. He's spent years in active warzones and did criminal work around Eastern Europe. Who knows what happened over there? In stark contrast, these 3 gormless jerk offs just go to a static gun range at Ammu-nation and shoot a bunch of targets and suddenly their stat bar is full so now they can kill hundreds of cops in a bank robbery with bomb suits and miniguns and pilot submarines to steal NUCLEAR BOMBS.

V: Story downgrade. That torture mission was so tone-deaf and the polar opposite of what I would consider something fun to do in a video game. What the f*ck was that about? WHAT were they even trying to get at with it? Whether it was some anti-torture political statement, some commentary on the way gov/feds do bad sh*t, a f*ck you to censor culture, or just cruelty for cruelty's sake and pushing the bar ''because we can'', I found it in extremely poor taste. A bumbling attempt at having Trevor appear even edgier.

V: Music downgrade. From the lush and vibrant cornucopia of Liberty City's widely varied, interesting, and damn near perfect radio stations with funny, likable DJ's and timeless songs from countless genres, to the sh*thole West coast's shallow, corporate and bland lowest common denominator focused popular music. It is rare that the same artist gets to appear two times in the long standing GTA series, but sure, of ALL PEOPLE who get to do that, let's throw TWO WHOLE KENDRICK LAMAR songs in the SAME GAME there for good measure. This game easily had the weakest radio by far, though there were some solid tunes in there somewhere. (This is more personal opinion so, make of that what you will).

V: Music downgrade. To add insult to injury, you add an obnoxious, repetitive, droning synth music score that plays during missions or cop chases with the radio off, and I have no way of muting it short of turning the volume for all music down altogether. I absolutely abhor the score in V. It's bad. It's annoying. Whoever made it should be jailed.

V: Grand Theft Online. From connection and performance issues, to the response to hacking from R*, to the response to modding from R*, to the death-grip focus on the god in the bottom line with predatory shark card and literal casino gambling microtransactions, to the non-stop RDM 12 year old griefers, this was a giant mistake. Anyone who was around and remembers IV free roam knows it was like 2 different universes. Funnily enough, with the game giving us less to do, the more we had to make up stuff to do for ourselves, and had more fun doing it. Drag racing cars on the airport runway, exploring every nook and cranny finding every glitch and hidden interior, roleplaying and writing machinimas and ideas for setpieces in unused parts of the map, general messing around and having a good laugh with strangers and friends alike. All of that versus warring over K/D ratios, blowing up each other's cars and getting charged out the nose for it (insurance in videogames is so fun), stocking garages full of gaudy monstrosities courtesy of Los Santos Customs that look like a clown shat them out after eating a paint pallette, doing droll and overly long surface level repetitive missions with an ugly custom character for literal pennies a thousand times, it's just a hollow experience. Or at least it was when I played it long ago. Plus, NON-FRIENDLY FIRE LOBBIES in IV vs. a finnicky and ineptly applied "passive mode" that would switch off if you were in a car and wouldn't protect you from getting ran over or blown up etc. etc. etc.

 

 

WHY did they do all of this? What was behind these gameplay choices? Hardware limitations? What happened?! I don't understand any of these decisions, or how this came to pass. I still like the game but I was expecting something different.

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry. I did not mean for this to become a sh*t-all-over-V rant but man, they f*cked this game up so hard. I was beyond disappointed. I'm sure if I remember something I've left out I'll edit it back in here. I'm tired of holding it in.

Edited November 3, 2019 by secksyjames

[billiejoearmstrong8]

 

10 hours ago, secksyjames said:

 

Although I disagree slightly about the quality of the characters and story I couldn't agree more with most of this, eloquently put and entertaining to read! I do like V but the downgrades from IV are so painfully clear that the experience of playing it is always tainted. It's a real shame.

 

Another thing that comes to mind is the depressing lack of enterable interiors coupled with mile upon mile of useless underwater environment. Also parts of the city being ridiculously small (eg the hood area) while multiple completely barren mountains take up literally half the map. What a waste of space.

Edited November 3, 2019 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Guest]

R* did not add "Remember The Time" by Micheal Jackson into San Andreas, even though the song was released in 1991. One year prior to the game's story. Damn, man, it would have fit into CSR 103.9 so perfectly...

[Max.pain]

@secksyjames ahh reading that made me sad...cuz...i’m a gta fan ya know

[billiejoearmstrong8]

1 hour ago, The Eddo said:

R* did not add "Remember The Time" by Micheal Jackson into San Andreas, even though the song was released in 1991. One year prior to the game's story. Damn, man, it would have fit into CSR 103.9 so perfectly...

Probably just too expensive or couldn't get permission. I'm sure they also would've had a Nirvana song on Radio X if they could, always seems like a glaring omission that there's no Nirvana on an early 90s grunge station. I think it can be very expensive and/or difficult to secure all the songs they want for the game.

Edited November 3, 2019 by billiejoearmstrong8

[secksyjames]

On 11/3/2019 at 8:17 AM, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

Probably just too expensive or couldn't get permission. I'm sure they also would've had a Nirvana song on Radio X if they could, always seems like a glaring omission that there's no Nirvana on an early 90s grunge station. I think it can be very expensive and/or difficult to secure all the songs they want for the game.

You know, I'm willing to wager some of these record label executive cunts want to/try to charge R* outrageous sums of money for licensing their songs, given that they know they have the money. You would think it would be the opposite and that the song being in GTA would be free and extremely massive exposure to hundreds of millions of people, but they don't think like normal people.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

57 minutes ago, secksyjames said:

You know, I'm willing to wager some of these record label executive cunts want to/try to charge R* outrageous sums of money for licensing their songs, given that they know they have the money. You would think it would be the opposite and that the song being in GTA would be free and extremely massive exposure to hundreds of millions of people, but they don't think like normal people.

Yeah I'm sure. I always wonder how much of the budget they had to blow to get a song like Only Girl In the World by Rihanna in V. Considering some of the odd filler on what's supposed to be a modern pop station (eg a Misteeq song from 2003 and an All Saints song from 2000) I would imagine a lot. I think sometimes they work out deals with artists as well though, like by having songs exclusive to the game as they did with quite a few songs (mostly rap) in IV and V, or featuring more up-and-coming artists (eg Kendrick Lamar or a bunch of the Radio Mirror Park acts in V) so it's more of a mutual promotion thing. Be interesting to know more about it.

[Guest Billy Russo]

On 10/30/2019 at 10:33 AM, Evil empire said:

The paramedic sub-mission sucks and shouldn't exist this way but the other sub-missions are enjoyable and take part to the charm of the 3D GTA's.

I honestly enjoyed Paramedic and I feel like I'm one of the only people that did. I thought it was challenging and fun. Last time I did the Paramedic missions was on PS4 and I put some music on and found it surprisingly chill. Especially because I did it in Angel Pine which isn't stressful.

 

I don't disagree that it probably doesn't fit in with the type of game GTA is, but I always enjoyed all the side missions. Very much in the minority it seems.

[Americana]

Yeah, Paramedic in Angel Pine is easy, but Paramedic in Liberty City.. or even Vice City - it's just nuts!

 

---

[Guest Billy Russo]

Not bringing back Cops & Crooks to GTA Online. A highly popular mode, very replayable and fun. It's not even that hard to implement. They have no excuses.

[B Dawg]

9 hours ago, Billy Russo said:

Not bringing back Cops & Crooks to GTA Online. A highly popular mode, very replayable and fun. It's not even that hard to implement. They have no excuses.

I always found Cops & Crooks overrated and poorly designed imo, and it plays even worse on PC thanks to the gunplay downgrade. One For All version is okay provided you don't have any dummies in your game or the game picks one as the driver.

Mafiya Work on the other hand, is the real deal. Now that I would say, is the best mode ever made.

Edited November 12, 2019 by B Dawg

[Guest Billy Russo]

10 hours ago, B Dawg said:

I always found Cops & Crooks overrated and poorly designed imo, and it plays even worse on PC thanks to the gunplay downgrade. One For All version is okay provided you don't have any dummies in your game or the game picks one as the driver.

Mafiya Work on the other hand, is the real deal. Now that I would say, is the best mode ever made.

It probably was a bit rough around the edges, but younger me just remembers all the fun I had with that mode. It was just simple and that's what made it really fun. Definitely agree on Mafiya Work though, that was a really fun mode as well. I think a lot of IV's multiplayer was really damn awesome, it was limited but not lacking on the fun factor. Even the missions felt more fun to replay from memory.

 

I could be looking at it with rose tinted glasses, but I have way more fond memories of playing IV's multiplayer at launch compared to GTAO.

[Patrizio]

On 10/4/2019 at 1:21 AM, SonOfLiberty said:

Vigilante is still present in GTA IV, but honestly I don't see what's so great about paramedic, firefighting missions etc. Besides not fitting with the context of being a criminal they're just not very fun and/or engaging IMO and I guess R* saw no point anymore flogging a dead horse. 

I don't know if I agree here Miami.

 

Vigilante in IV was fantastic. I was pretty livid it was removed in V. I was hoping they'd give paramedic and firefighter the same treatment as vigilante got in IV. For example, a new version of paramedic could invovle taking shot criminals to a backstreet doctor.

[Lord Criminal]

1 hour ago, PaddsterG2k3 said:

For example, a new version of paramedic could invovle taking shot criminals to a backstreet doctor.

Now that would've been interesting, and not so out of place in a crime game.

[Patrizio]

I'm certain there's ways Rockstar could embed it and still make it interesting and fit into the crime genre. 

 

One thing I think we fail to remember on here is that the game is Grand Theft Auto. The logic with stealing an emergency is vehicle is > put the siren on > roleplay.

 

Now, I think they're right to get rid of it going up to L12, but they can modify it to fit and feel fresh - I'm sure of that.

[.Ryan.]

9 hours ago, PaddsterG2k3 said:

I don't know if I agree here Miami.

 

Vigilante in IV was fantastic. I was pretty livid it was removed in V. I was hoping they'd give paramedic and firefighter the same treatment as vigilante got in IV. For example, a new version of paramedic could invovle taking shot criminals to a backstreet doctor.

Fair points, but even ignoring the whole context thing I just don't like the way they're structured. Pick up patient in ambulance, drop them off at the hospital rinse and repeat with more patients at each level. I do like the idea of taking injured criminals to a backstreet doctor, but really that's just giving it a new coat of more than anything to fit in with the game's theme instead of addressing its fundamentals.

 

Atleast with Vigilante it introduced the police computer which made them more interesting and varied and being a predominately combat based side mission made them more enticing. I just don't see how you could do that with paramedic and firefighting missions beyond just moving a few things around so it doesn't seem as silly as the 3D era variants where you literally just jumped into any ambulance or firetruck and started to save people or fire fires out of the blue. Structurally they're very limited and this is obviously something R* couldn't even figure out in the 3D era as they remained largely unchanged from GTA III up to VCS, but like I said to me they just were't very fun or engaging anyway so I didn't lose any sleep when they weren't put into GTA IV.

[Americana]

Simulator games became so popular  Rockstar would want to implement some of these, I'm not sure they would, though.

 

Imagine being an Ambulance driver, it's actually kind of possible to implement... maybe player would have to pass some examinations.. that would be terrible and would resemble Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, when it comes to some unnecessary things, but you know.. bold new direction?

 

---

[Patrizio]

@secksyjames great post. Hard to disagree! Which is frustrating as we waited 5 years for it.

 

Why did they do it? I guess they took a number of risks or “trialled” things they didn’t before - a lot more than they usually would. They do read these forums and I’m sure it won’t happen again - at least as much. Arthur Morgan is a testament to return to tradition.

[Evil empire]

I don't understand why the Ocean Drive hotel and the Starfish island mansion are the only GTA Vice City safehouses Rockstar gave an interior to. I know the GTA's aren't life simulators but being able to visit a safehouse makes the game more immersive and R* showed it has a great potential to create nice interiors. It's a bit frustrating.

 

 

I don't understand why Rockstar didn't automatically maim the pedestrians when you use explosives against them in GTA 3. Seeing a victim's corpse remain entire after you shot it using the bazooka is not only frustrating it's also very immersion-breaking especially when you know you can maim people with much less powerful weapons like the M4.

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Evil empire

[Lord Criminal]

3 minutes ago, Evil empire said:

I don't understand why the Ocean Drive hotel and the Starfish island mansion are the only GTA Vice City safehouses Rockstar gave an interior to. I know the GTA's aren't life simulators but being able to visit a safehouse makes the game more immersive and R* showed it has a greeat potential to create nice interiors. It's a bit frustrating.

 

I believe that has to do with the fact that Vice City was the first title to have a remarkable amount of interiors (and it is the case with other basic features, such as crouching and changing outfits), as GTA III had only Ammu-Nation interiors, which aren't really a big deal compared to interiors like the Malibu club or even Ammu-Nation interiors that were introduced in Vice City.

[god speed]

The two safehouse interiors in Vice City have a great importance in the story and are connected to the rest of the map in Vice City. San Andreas took a (lazy) shortcut with the "walk into a triangle" approach, but I believe having to handcraft a unique interior for every purchasable safehouse in VC would have been laborious for little gain in an already innovative game.

Edited November 26, 2019 by perennial