GTA Soapbox

[Dr Busta]

10 minutes ago, RenegadeAngel said:

I think GTA 3's Donald Love is one of the greatest side characters in the series. There's like 5 minutes of him in the entire game, but it's enough. It seems like he only speaks with his own made up aphorisms: "Nothing drives down real estate prices like a good old-fashioned gang war; apart from an outbreak of plague, but that may be going to far in this case." This is brilliant! They got Kyle MacLachlan to play him which adds to the confidence and mysteriousness. Shame the character doesn't exist in the GTA universe anymore. I'd most certainly take his story further if I could, but the ending of his journey seems suitable for the type of person he is.

In GTA 3 hearing him speaking makes me feel smart

Meanwhile in LCS hearing him speaking makes ME feel smart 

[String]

I really like Solomon Richards, one of my favorite characters in the series and yeah thought I'd show him some love here. 

[Americana]

I don't like this dude, he seems like another idiot. I don't know why Rockstar had to made everyone in this game so moronic?

[String]

To copy paste an old post of mine

 

I know Solomon isn't the most popular and doesn't even get that much screen time, but I liked the Michael-Solomon dynamic. The banter between the two in the post mission calls you can make to Solomon endeared me to him. And I like how in contrast of working for the usual dickhead characters, Michael genuinely enjoys working for Solomon, he basically makes Michaels dream life come true and I just like his character in general. 

 

Solomon kind of reminds me of Earnest Kelly in VC (both were father figures to Michael and Tommy respectively) , which is another character I liked so that's a bonus point for him. I wish there were more missions for him .

[Max Payne]

Quote

it has Maverick in garage! It's usable, but you have to push it out

Just not worth it. The thing gets damaged to hell and flips. Plus draw distance is horrible. Maybe it’s my device and the mobile version, or this game really is not designed for flying.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

On 2/2/2021 at 6:47 PM, Americana said:

I don't like this dude, he seems like another idiot. I don't know why Rockstar had to made everyone in this game so moronic?

 

There are a lot of idiots in GTA V but I don't think Solomon is one, he completely manipulates and uses Michael by stroking his ego to make him think he has his dream career as a movie producer when he's really just a hired thug lol. He makes him risk his life to get film back when really he had another copy and he didn't need to and even this apparently doesn't bother Michael, as long as his gets his name in the credits of a trash movie he's happy. Solomon is a ruthless businessman. Michael on the other hand....yeah I'd say he's comfortably the least intelligent GTA protagonist. How many times can one character fall for obvious bullsh*t in one game?

[String]

You know it's interesting how both GTA IV and V's plots were majorly influenced by women sleeping around in the beginning. 

 

In IV Mallorie cheating on Roman with Vlad caused a major shift in it's story with Niko ending up meeting Faustin and eventual villain Dimitri thanks to killing Vlad in retaliation. 

 

In V Amanda cheating on Michael with the tennis coach caused a major shift in V's story with Michael forced to come out of retirement after his actions chasing tennis dude thus causing V's story. 

[Americana]

That's true. Naturally, it's extremely exaggerated in Grand Theft Auto V, like everything else, but yeah.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Americana

[String]

This track Mike Tysoned me right in the feels

 

 

[Dr Busta]

The biggest downgrade in the series is Umberto Robina saying Balls instead of Cojones in GTA VCS

Edited February 6, 2021 by DR:BUSTA

[H-G]

I just made up and used a pretty retarded technique to pass "Paparazzi Purge" in III:

 

First off, as soon as the mission starts, ditch the target guy right where he is and glitch straight to Shoreside Vale by using whatever way you know.

Once you're there, get a car, get to the hospital, get an Ambulance, get to this house, use the Ambulance to get on the house's roof and collect the Rocket Launcher.

 

Once you have the Rocket Launcher, glitch straight back to Staunton Island, get to Asuka's condo, enter the pool area and hug the northern wall of the backyard.

Run to your right and tuck yourself in the corner of the balcony, now look east and out in the bay and aim at the target's guy boat.

 

Now you have to be really quick here, quickly tap the Fire button twice and put two shots into the boat. If done correctly, you should pass the mission easily.

The only downside to this trick is you can't leave the pool area without ending up starting "Payday for Ray", though...

[Dr Busta]

I can't unhear how Tenpenny's theme plays like Ten Ten Ten Ten Tenpenny Ten Ten Ten Tenpenny

Which is very awkward if you ask me 

Reminds me Batman 66 

Dananana batmaaan

[String]

Think Tenpenny is the only GTA character to have his own theme? That's rad, first this mofo so bad he has an entire city riot against him but then he had his own theme too? 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Wayne Kerr

[Dr Busta]

12 minutes ago, Wayne Kerr said:

Think Tenpenny is the only GTA character to have his own theme? That's rad, first this mofo so bad he has an entire city riot against him but then he had his own theme too? 

In GTA CTW every character had its own theme . All of them are great but these two are my favorites

They give me nostalgia vibes even though I played CTW for the first time 5 months ago

They remind me of flash games or something

Edit: Ryder also had his own theme but it's nowhere to be found all of the versions are remixes with the same two seconds repeated

Edited February 8, 2021 by DR:BUSTA

[Vercetti27]

loaded up an old San Andreas save on my PS4 and man flying feels so much harder than in GTA 5 - took the stunt plane out from Verdant Meadows, pretty much instantly crashed, then took the old fighter plane, made it just out of the grounds before crashing again - finally took the Hydra and somehow that felt like the easiest to pilot lol.

[String]

Some GTA V nostalgia, newest game or not its still been around long enough for nostalgia no? 

 

 

[Dr Busta]

I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not but I love The quarry and Trucking sidemissions in SA .

[Americana]

I wish these side-missions weren't so arcade. 

[Dr Busta]

26 minutes ago, Americana said:

I wish these side-missions weren't so arcade. 

How would you improve them though?

For me I would make the mission giver appear while giving you the task to make it feel alive and make CJ actually have a reason to work as a quarry and not just say hey let's work in this place that I literally f*cking robbed five minutes ago.

Edited February 9, 2021 by DR:BUSTA

[Americana]

Yeah, that's a good idea. Also, truck driving mission could be more of a truck driving simulator.

[String]

I find fist fighting with multiple people in GTA IV pretty hard, I can handle one person fine but more than that and I'm forced to use a knife. In the 3d era games fist fighting even with multiple targets was a lot easier for me, but not in IV as I'm trying to counter or punch one dude a couple of other dudes get hits in on me and its hard to foucs on them all. Do y'all face the same issue or do I need to get gud hehe.

[Americana]

True, it's not that easy. Actually, I never try to engage in a fight with more than two people. In 3D Era Grand Theft Auto games all you have to do is smash, while in Grand Theft Auto IV I prefer to do some cool moves. 

[Carbonox]

Playing LCS before III, and having it be my first exposure to Liberty City save from a few hours of III gameplay with a friend, made for an interesting personal perspective. At the time, I would wind up missing pretty much all of the call-forwards, and found some parts about III weird once I did get around to playing it, like how there were no ferries in sight, how Phil's former gun store's interior still existed but was totally empty, how the lighthouse was gray rather than red (this was a glitch, I heard) and how the extreme south-eastern pier in Portland had no massive ship present, making it look strangely barren.

 

But my biggest confusion had everything to do with the out-of-bounds Shoreside Vale landmass. In LCS, you still see the eastern mountains from Portland and Staunton, just a lot more faintly, which made me question if I really was seeing land, in fact. While in Shoreside, instead of there being an impassable cliff to the north and east of the traversible woodlands, the cliffs just end abruptly, with nothing but a long drop down to the northern ocean in sight. (I don't think you could see the gaping blue hell entrance though from there, not very well at least)

 

The point is, why is it that way, when the eastern mountains can still be seen from the load zones of other islands, but not the one they're connected to? PSP limitations perhaps?

[H-G]

On 2/14/2021 at 7:26 AM, Carbonox said:

Playing LCS before III, and having it be my first exposure to Liberty City save from a few hours of III gameplay with a friend, made for an interesting personal perspective. At the time, I would wind up missing pretty much all of the call-forwards, and found some parts about III weird once I did get around to playing it, like how there were no ferries in sight, how Phil's former gun store's interior still existed but was totally empty, how the lighthouse was gray rather than red (this was a glitch, I heard) and how the extreme south-eastern pier in Portland had no massive ship present, making it look strangely barren.

 

But my biggest confusion had everything to do with the out-of-bounds Shoreside Vale landmass. In LCS, you still see the eastern mountains from Portland and Staunton, just a lot more faintly, which made me question if I really was seeing land, in fact. While in Shoreside, instead of there being an impassable cliff to the north and east of the traversible woodlands, the cliffs just end abruptly, with nothing but a long drop down to the northern ocean in sight. (I don't think you could see the gaping blue hell entrance though from there, not very well at least)

 

The point is, why is it that way, when the eastern mountains can still be seen from the load zones of other islands, but not the one they're connected to? PSP limitations perhaps?

Nope. It wasn't PSP (or PS2, LOL) limitations because if you take a boat and sail out really close to the hills, you can see those good old mountains from III:

 

 

If we look into "generic.ide", which contains the definition entry lines for the most commonly-used map objects in the game, this line turns out to be the culprit:

 

450, LODistancoast01, srv_ground, 1, 350, 0

 

Notice how the draw distance is set so lamely low compared to III, where it's this much:

 

1251, LODistancoast01, generic, 1, 3000, 0

 

If we pump up the draw distance of this LOD object (and preferably the draw distance of all weathers) appropriately to match III's draw distance values, it's possible to make the hills appear just like they do in III:

 

 

What is really interesting, though, is the obnoxiously different placement of the hills in LCS compared to III...

 

The screenshot-taking and the draw distance experiments were done on the Re: Liberty City Stories mod by @Ryadica926, by the way.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Staunton Assassin

[String]

Here is a medieval sounding version of GTA IV's Soviet Connection 

 

 

[Orthur]

On 2/17/2021 at 9:50 PM, Wayne Kerr said:

Here is a medieval sounding version of GTA IV's Soviet Connection 

 

 

Top comment : Ho cousin, alloweth us to wend thy bowl.

 

Lmfao.

[String]

17 minutes ago, Orthur The Boah said:

Top comment : Ho cousin, alloweth us to wend thy bowl.

 

Lmfao.

"where art thou, Madame Barbara with thine colossal bosom."

[Americana]

I remember back in the day when people thought that Rockstar would have to adjust Grand Theft Auto games to the audience, as it grows older.

 

Funny, because nowadays they do it in reverse.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Americana

[GhettoJesus]

I don't mean to stir up another war between IV lovers and IV haters but anyone else feel like the gangs in IV were a massively wasted potential? It's cool we finally got to work with the Russians and there were so many gangs but half of the game you are just working for the Italian mafia. Again. Just like in 2 previous games. I get it that a lot of these were ethnic gangs but come on, so is the mafia.

[Dr Busta]

Since GhettoJesus mentioned it 

I must say that rockstar f*cking sucks when it comes to writing for the Italian Mafia