Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra :: Re: Maybe you were playing GTAIII but thought it was GTAIV?

[quote name="Ice Cream Jonsey"](I should probably list where I am coming from. I finished GTA. Got halfway through GTA2. Got less than halfway through with GTA3. Spent a lot of time with Vice City in "sandbox mode," but ignored many of the missions. Had SA for three hours and put it on eBay. Have not picked up GTA4. Each time I get one of their games I am utterly amazed by their ability to put new features in, and then disgusted with how little they think my time is worth.) [quote name="Fortinbras"]And so you threw up your hands and said "THEY HAVEN'T CHANGED ANYTHING!" and gave it a 0/10 =( [/quote] DID they change anything about the save system? It's pretty indefensible. When GTA3 came out it was fucking amazing, and it was really easy to ignore the (incorrect) decision to not allow saving or checkpoints. So one of three things is happening with GTA. - Nobody at Rockstar is technically able to put together check points. I very much doubt this. - Nobody at Rockstar is able to handle save states. I should be able to hit "F5" in the middle of a mission and save my progress. They were flushing the cars in RAM after they got about 50 yards out in Vice City and that's fine. There's really not a lot they have to keep track of. I don't believe they're incapable of this.* - There is a specific decision on the part of the designers to not have checkpoints or save-anywhere. This has to be the case, and this is what is so infuriating. There is someone very, very stupid making design decisions with GTA, and this person or persons can smugly point to sales. Like Madden, they won't ever do a shitty enough job to kill the golden goose. But there's room in the marketplace for a GTA-clone that has respect for a gamer's time and good writing. When I was frustrated with GTA after Vice City/SA, I picked up True Crime: Streets of LA and Crackdown, both of which were written so poorly it was actually embarrassing to have the sound up. GTA, in that respect, is okay for a video game, but miserable if ported to any other form of entertainment. Maybe GTA4 got better in that respect. *The basic argument for save-anywhere in GTA is because of the enormous inconsistency in mission quality. I don't completely blame them, because the thing honestly needs some hybrid controller that offers a steering wheel along with a keyboard and mouse, and the ability to instantly switch between this Chimera of input. LK mentioned that some characters have an invulnerability flag set, so a chase can start - this is not the right way to do it. In a perfect world, the writing, dialogue and story of GTA should be <i>so good</i> that the player won't headshot a plot-sensitive character (or whatever) until he's finished speaking. Chases should be so fun the player doesn't want to avoid them. This will never, ever be the case in a GTA game, since they've never and will never employ anyone good enough to make the game that way. ICJ[/quote]