Things GTA IV contributed to the franchise

[iiCriminnaaL]

So, when you think of what GTA IV introduced to the franchise or improved in it, whether they're trivial details or significant changes, what things would come into your minds?

 

Naming a bunch:

• Euphoria, obviously. A vast improvement from the 3D era's scripted animations when it comes to getting bumped by a vehicle, hit, killed, or even falling off buildings.
   
• More dynamic physics, including the addition of bullet holes. That makes you feel like you actually did harm to the NPCs and environment around you.
   
• Every single character of the game, including the NPCs, have far more facial expressions. They blink, move their eyes to look around, as well as their eyebrows depending on their emotional status: angry, while fighting, and sometimes scared or confused when they're hit or get bumped into, which also makes them keep their mouths open. Not to mention that in addition to the modeled eyes, they also have modeled fingers, which was only started with GTA Vice City Stories, the very last title of the 3D era, only for the cutscene models of the storyline characters.
   
• 360 degree drive-by. A vast improvement upon the 3D era's drive-by, where we can shoot only right and left, as well as front while driving bikes.
   
• Climbing ladders. Strangely enough, there were a lot of them in GTA San Andreas, but the ability to climb them wasn't introduced yet.
   
• Moving side to side while hanging up on ledges.
   
• Exhaustion of swimming. The ability to swim itself was introduced in GTA San Andreas, but getting exhausted of swimming and losing health still wasn't thing (unless we're talking about diving underwater). With GTA Vice City Stories, the protagonist dies as soon as he runs out of the meter, which doesn't take too much anyway. In GTA IV however, after swimming for constant five minutes, you'll start losing little doses of your health. You still have enough chance to avoid death and get back to the land as long as you're not that far away from it.

Edited July 26, 2019 by iiCriminnaaL 49

[Max.pain]

losing health after a long time of swimming never ever happened to me strangly

[Algonquin Assassin]

-A cover system: I don't care what anyone says about it being "clunky", but for me that was one of the biggest changes GTA IV made to gunfights and brought the series up to scratch with its contemporaries 

 

-More variety of drive by weapons: In the past we were only stuck with SMGs for drive bys. GTA IV not only lets us use them, but regular pistols, grenades and molotovs too. 

[Night walker]

1.First protagonist that feels like a real human
2.Storyline Dlc(freakin love TLAD)

[iiCriminnaaL]

1 hour ago, Max.pain said:

losing health after a long time of swimming never ever happened to me strangly

Did you try to swim for five minutes and further? I'm not sure, but I think that it starts over again once you leave the water even for less than a second.

[Max.pain]

12 minutes ago, iiCriminnaaL 49 said:

Did you try to swim for five minutes and further? I'm not sure, but I think that it starts over again once you leave the water even for less than a second.

i think i did swim for longer than five minutes, i like swimming around the city for long at night it looks amazing but i’m still not sure

[god speed]

-Reloading button

-Weapon shortcut buttons

-Grenade cooking

-Interactive phone

-Taxi trips as a passenger
-GPS

-Auto-save

-Mission retry feature

[billiejoearmstrong8]

22 hours ago, Max.pain said:

i think i did swim for longer than five minutes, i like swimming around the city for long at night it looks amazing but i’m still not sure

I thought the same because it had never happened to me either and I couldn't believe I'd never swum for more than five minutes. But then I realised there really isn't ever that far to swim between islands (since they're not far apart), and that I'd probably just taken breaks when swimming around the islands for a longer amount of time without thinking about it (climbing on buoys, rocks, stationary boats, surfaces under bridges, jetties or other surfaces at the edge of the water), which would reset it. In any case when I went and properly tried it, staying swimming in the water for a full five minutes with my eye on the clock, it did happen.

Edited July 27, 2019 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Alexlecj]

Introducing gang wars that are interesting to do.

[iiCriminnaaL]

A few more:

• The ability to aim while throwing grenades and molotovs.
• Ped injury system. After an NPC is beaten up, he falls down wounded instead of immediately dying. In case it wasn't too brutal, obviously.
• Since the ped injury system was introduced, paramedics are no longer able to 'treat' dead NPCs, and by "treat" I meant bringing them back to life. They can only treat injured people who're still alive.
• A more interactive interior system where all interiors (except the Middle Park penthouse) are available for any NPC to enter. It was the case with the cops in certain interiors in GTA Vice City, but that's because they weren't really enough separated from the overworld - simple buildings without doors, nor any different lighting from the general overworld's.
• More advanced police A.I. where cops don't only arrest the protagonist, but also NPCs, when crimes are committed.
• Pickup objects are no longer floating in the air. They're naturally laid on the ground.
• Speaking of pickup objects, weapons don't only fall off the NPCs' hands after getting shot, but they actually move away in case they are shot while laid on the ground (works only with weapons that fall of NPCs, not with the default spawned ones).

Edited July 27, 2019 by iiCriminnaaL 49

[god speed]

-Toggleable headlights
-Police line-of-sight based wanted level system
-Pedestrians using various items like phones, books, brooms and watering cans
-Pedestrian model appearance is randomized and police officers aren't clones of each other
-Zooming in with third-person aim weapons
-Third-person aiming with the rocket launcher
-Moral story decisions
-Stealing parked cars by breaking the door window and hotwiring

[billiejoearmstrong8]

- Being able to pick up and throw small objects. Knocking cigarettes out of people's hands and throwing them in their face, picking up the litter that people drop and throwing it back at them, starting a gang war by throwing dildos at Russian gangsters, breaking windows and exploding fuel containers with bricks and making cops fall down flights of stairs by throwing hotdogs at them ftw!

 

- Ability to shove people, hours of fun

 

- Awesome long death animation to properly show whatever amusing demise you came to

Edited July 31, 2019 by billiejoearmstrong8

[MrQuiche]

Going through the windscreen

[Cerega1827]

-Multiplayer mode

-Realistic vehicle damage system

-Detailed vehicle collision meshes

-swingsets

Edited August 2, 2019 by Cerega1827

[Excalibur Voltaire]

Gameplay that still hold up to this day

Edited August 2, 2019 by Legion of Hell
Move

[iiCriminnaaL]

1 hour ago, Legion of Hell said:

Gameplay that still hold up to this day

Definitely true, which is the main reason why it's my favorite title in the series.

 

Many people give it the credit of having the best story in the series, but to say that the story is all it has going for it is not correct. Before I got really sucked into its story, I fell in love with its gameplay mechanics. The driving and combat, as well as the addition of the cover system, 360 degrees drive-by, climbing ladders, and most importantly, the ragdoll! Let alone the atmosphere and the small and yet amazing details here and there. Such an intense experience, indeed.

[iiCriminnaaL]

• Random character encounters.
• Multiple mission completed tones that are noticeably different. As far as I recall, GTA San Andreas was the first to have more than one, two to be more specific, which were very similar, but GTA IV expanded on that more significantly.
• In addition to the longer death sequences, screen also turns grey, which also applies to the arrest sequence. The "Wasted" and "Busted" texts appearing on the screen were scrapped as well.
• Talking about screen text, "Mission Passed" and "Mission Failed" texts no longer exist. Passing a mission will be noticed by a music tone and/or a reward. In case of failing a mission, a small text with red color that mentions the reason will appear.

[Night walker]

Player choice spare/Kill.Its make storyline much more engaging.

[iiCriminnaaL]

• Turning off vehicle engines.
• Hearing the vehicle's radio while on foot.
• Hanging up into the door of a speeding vehicle while trying to steal it.
• A button to close the radio, rather than the previous way of switching the station to "Radio Off".

[Max.pain]

9 hours ago, iiCriminnaaL 49 said:

Hanging up into the door of a speeding vehicle while trying to steal it

why they don’t just leave it lol?

[god speed]

-Solid car doors when opened
-Disarming NPCs
-Drivers reacting to pointed guns

-Burnouts breaking the rear tires

-Grabbing a helmet from the motorcycle storage compartment

-Breakable helicopter rotors and tail

-Police helicopter gunners are visible and can be killed
-Car occupants leaning inside the car when taking turns or braking

 

2 hours ago, Max.pain said:

why they don’t just leave it lol?

It was "fixed" in GTA V, they only hang on for like a second before they give up but that is just boring compared to GTA IV.
 

Edited August 19, 2019 by perennial

[iiCriminnaaL]

- Running while shooting with heavy weapons.

- Running while crouching.

- Underground gun shops in behalf of Ammu-Nation.

- Various in-vehicle animations, including hitting the horn and looking around, as well as behind.

- Donating money to hobos and street musicians.

- Speaking of street musicians, now they're actually a thing in GTA.

- Dustmen that collect garbage in early morning.

- Visible food.

Edited August 25, 2019 by iiCriminnaaL 49

[god speed]

19 hours ago, iiCriminnaaL 49 said:

changing the radio station

San Andreas too has an animation for that, the rest is correct.

[B Dawg]

19 hours ago, iiCriminnaaL 49 said:

- Sprinting while shooting.

- Sprinting while crouching.

Wouldn't call it sprinting, but running instead (since there's just 2 states, walking or running when shooting or crouching).

Edited August 25, 2019 by B Dawg

[Max.pain]

21 hours ago, iiCriminnaaL 49 said:

Running while shooting

wait what, gta 3 had this already. if you mean running while shooting with an AK or assault rifle you’re right then. it’s still a mess to hold that A button though

[iiCriminnaaL]

7 minutes ago, Max.pain said:

wait what, gta 3 had this already. if you mean running while shooting with an AK or assault rifle you’re right then. it’s still a mess to hold that A button though

Oh, good point here. I didn't write it specifically enough.

[Maxxeine]

-Internet. IV had a meticulously detailed and well crafted interactive internet with plenty of websites to spend hours browsing through. It gave a sense that Liberty City was a real, living city.

-Brightness, contrast and saturation controls. You could now have complete control over the atmosphere of your experience. This was particularly well suited to the episodes.

-Real climbing controls and puppetteer mechanics. Honestly, Euphoria as a whole was one of the most important contributions IV brought.

-Random characters. Expanding on my point above, this made the city feel real with actual citizens that you could meet, with their own stories and missions. It was immersive and fun.

-Cell phone. Prior GTAs had phones, sure, but nothing like this. IV's use of the phone in gameplay was groundbreaking for the time. You could call emergency services if you needed a specific vehicle, change your ringtone, set a background, have functional contacts, etc.

-Friendship system. It may not be popular, but it added so much more depth to the characters Niko would meet throughout the story. Maintaining friendships could grant you perks, like Little Jacob's trunk arsenal. Adding on to this, IV also introduced a dating system - a first for the series, as far as I know.

-More ways to traverse the map. You have the subway, trams, boats, helicopter tours, elevators, etc. Using the subway could get you to a destination relatively quickly if you kept note of where the stops were.

-An in-game video editor! The precursor to the Rockstar Editor we got in V. It wasn't perfect, but a good start and was instrumental in the prevalence of machinimas.

 

There's a lot more but those seemed the most important to me.

Edited August 29, 2019 by The7thOne
Added another point to the list about the video editor

[Max.pain]

realistic car damage, i never judged them in 3d era much but they were never realistic other than a few things

[Algonquin Assassin]

1 hour ago, Max.pain said:

realistic car damage, i never judged them in 3d era much but they were never realistic other than a few things

I remember the first time crashing a car in GTA IV and being wow'ed by the damage model. In the 3D era damaging cars always looked like smashing up toy cars, but in GTA IV it resembled something real. Sometimes I just like to completely batter a car up to sh*t just to see how much damage it can withstand. 

[billiejoearmstrong8]

12 hours ago, SonOfLiberty said:

I remember the first time crashing a car in GTA IV and being wow'ed by the damage model. In the 3D era damaging cars always looked like smashing up toy cars, but in GTA IV it resembled something real. Sometimes I just like to completely batter a car up to sh*t just to see how much damage it can withstand. 

I have a memory of seeing my brother playing it when it came out and being blown away by seeing a damaged car with the engine dead and him trying to restart it, as well as smashing the window to break in to a parked car and hotwiring it. It's still cool now but at the time it was like nothing I'd seen before, it was so incredibly realistic compared to anything in previous GTA games.