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What are your (minimum) expectations for GTA4's sandbox engine?

A

adelante

Member
AKA THE NEX-GEN SANDBOX GAMES APPRECIATION THREAD

So I just got off playing Saint's Row (finally managed to bring myself to actually complete the damn thing) and while I know there are those who question the game's shortcomings (let's try to leave those presentation/style issues out of this, shall we?), I'm actually pretty damn impressed by the visuals in many aspects, particularly how its a step-up from last-gen's GTA in these nitpicky areas:

- Environmental mapping for vehicles (right down to the freakin' side-view mirrors...and reflection of trees actually animate! *gasp*)...though poor reflections of skyline on what seems like murky sea = not so hot.

- Purely awesome physics (however glitchy in some cases, this, Just Cause and I'm sure Crackdown, have proved that no sandbox-style game should be without an actual physics engine)

- Unified lighting engine allows for practically every light-source to cast its own shadows (or at the very least, made objects properly lit...hell even those mission markers casts a proper glow on nearby objects)...objects casts shadows not only onto the scenery but itself as very well. (self-shadowing galore)

- Rain. You can actually see rainfall even when you're under shelter cos if I recall correctly, you had to step outside for the rainfall effects to suddenly appear in San Andreas.

- The city has a pretty amazingly-detailed infrastruture, with its convincingly-complex road/transportation layout...as someone's already mentioned in another thread, it feels more than just a game map (looking at you, GTA) and I can only imagine GTA4 taking this a step further...

Only thing that bothered me somewhat with Saint's Row is how buildings doesn't seem to have any real normal-mapping on them...they look particularly flat...and I hope they take page out of Just Cause cos that game has got some great-looking vegetation and water :p I'm probably going overboard with this but perhaps some of those cool volumetric clouds from Warhawk/Crysis as well (since we know there's more likely gonna be flying elements)?

Aside from taking the visuals to a higher level, I like that the NPCs in Saints Row are a tad more complicated than just roaming citizens...you'd come across firefights between the police and a gang every now and then...people reading newspapers on the sidewalk...hell, there are actually hobos sleeping on park benches at night...one thing missing that I thought they can easily implement in GTA4 is to have cars parked at roadsides. A feature that was highlighted in Shenmue back when it came out was the fact that some NPCs had a daily routine (running a shop, etc)...I'm not sure how prominent that was in the actual game but strangely enough, that feature never seem to have made its way into GTA or SR...NPCs are limited to just walking about and not even seen entering shops and/or getting out of their cars....I'd like to able to see someone flaggin down a cab and being able to beat him up before he's about to enter it; is it asking too much to have that complex an AI algorithm? :/
 
Agent Icebeezy said:
*Plays Rockstar's Table tennis* Hmm, R.A.G.E. is a nice engine indeed.
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Its ****ing table tennis with 2 people, GTA is a huge open world with a bunch of shit going on at once, GTA IV will not look as good as table tennis
 
I want a really good driving engine. To me, the absolute best thing about GTA has always been the ability to create real-time chase sequences that rival what you see in movies. It is great to be able to weave in and out of traffic, go up on the sidewalks, cut through parks, etc.

There is a real feeling of satisfaction when you pull a move that cause the police car to miss a turn and go flying off some jump and crash.

That is the most important thing to get right. GTA has never been the most technically savvy game . . . just one of the most fun. :)

Gameplay >>>>>>>>>>>> Pretty graphics
 
I dont care about graphics in this genre.. I want a more free natural feeling environment. GTA often feels like a game map that was designed.. this sort of game should feel like an organic city (Saints Row did a good job of this)..

Would also be nice if pop up and slow down werent issues. I would gladly trade graphical fidelity for this. Also, it would be great if cars didnt disapear when you turn a corner or if you turn around.

The critical thing for me is control.. GTA games are fun in spite of themselves. The shooting engine sucks, the driving engine sucks, most of the mechanics suck. Imagine if you could get a solid driving engine or a solid shooting engine into this sandbox gameplay as well.

Edit: I also want destructible environments as well. Not fully destructible, but physics based environments, not canned animations.
 
I dont care, just aslong as it has a stable framerate. It could just be San Andreas in HD for all I care.
 
tegdf said:
Its ****ing table tennis with 2 people, GTA is a huge open world with a bunch of shit going on at once, GTA IV will not look as good as table tennis
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I guess I was a bit too cryptic and vague. I know GTA will not look like that game, however, since it's a competent engine and their own to boot, they will probably put a nice amount of effort into the graphics side, in comparison to the games that were on renderware.
 
Oh yeah...arcade games ala Shenmue!

And how bout the ability to actually pick up anything (within a limit of cos) and throw them...like a trash can...at the police....mmmmmm
 
physics are what i care about. I can do cooler stuff in a sim game like GT than I can in GTA. Thats a big flaw imo. It's accessable and arcadey but there isn't a lot of fine control over the car.

in car/bumper cam that works. it bounces around too much and the feeling of size isn't there. lots of clipping objects with the side of the car.
 
What I want is some destructible environments, ala Mercenaries II. If I get that and the Saint's Row+ level of visual fidelity, along with the typical GTA style and satire, then I'll be happy.
 
Syb said:
I dont care, just aslong as it has a stable framerate. It could just be San Andreas in HD for all I care.
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+1

Good frame-rate and fun chase sequences. That is the key. Cut out anything that prevents those things.
 
mmlemay said:
How the hell aren't you perma-banned yet? Are there ANY mods alive today?!?!?
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lol all but one or two of his posts so far are indicative of why the banhammer needs to strike sooner than later...
 
Amir0x said:
What I want is some destructible environments, ala Mercenaries II. If I get that and the Saint's Row+ level of visual fidelity, along with the typical GTA style and satire, then I'll be happy.
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Your services are needed.
 
I'd hate to be Rockstar right now.
The expectations might be higher than any other production going on right now *sans Killzone PS3 of course*. Do you go with a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude and keep things the way they are, just add a new coat of paint, or do you realize other uninspired designers have ripped off your original creation *see: ScarFace, Saint's Row* and go for something completely different, trying to set a new benchmark for this generation?

I'd be anxious to see either one, but I think I'd prefer to see them take some risks and do something different with the series (what that would be I have no clue :D). I just keep thinking I've missed some screen releases or teaser trailer, but then I realized nothing has come out yet...
I mean, this game is scheduled for autumn of this year and we haven't even seen a single screen of it. I'm sure there are plenty of other games in the same situation, but this is one of the most highly anticipated games for the 360 and PS3.

I just hope eventually Rockstar makes a next gen Manhunt sequel. :)
 
I want the cities to feel BIG. Like...Skyscrapers and shit. Looking back at San Andreas...the biggest City feels like a lego town in terms of the highest buildings.

Crackdown for the 360 has really done the tall ass buildings thing really well, hopefully GTA4 does this also.

I also want the world to be however magnitudes larger than GTA:SA and make a Puerto Rican protagonist! Or at least anything Spanish!
 
Widfara said:
Getaway style realism. Leaning against walls is a quality aspect and could lend more strategy to gun fights.
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I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not because it is highly realistic for bullet wounds to heal while leaning against walls...

-----------------------------------------

Anyway, here are a few ideas:

1. Smaller, more detailed world ala Bully where every inch means something unlike the San Andreas sprawl

2. More paths to take in the storyline to encourage replayability not only of the sandbox bits, but also the main story

3. Better aiming/shooting controls (and no, Saints Row isn't the template, you need some aim assist) WITH the use of cover ala Gears

4. Build on Bully's decent hand-to-hand combat system

5. How about SOME AI?
 
They absolutely have to have an aiming/gunplay system as good as Saints Row's. Have to. That's the new standard for weapon aiming in sandbox games, so copy it, steal it, improve on it, come up with your own new but just as good system, whatever. But I will be seriously disappointed if GTAIV has the same old auto-aim mess as the last gen GTAs.
 
I want a game the size of san andreas, but you get a sountrack that's 30gb of music that can be sent from my 360 to my ipod
 
VALIS said:
They absolutely have to have an aiming/gunplay system as good as Saints Row's. Have to. That's the new standard for weapon aiming in sandbox games, so copy it, steal it, improve on it, come up with your own new but just as good system, whatever. But I will be seriously disappointed if GTAIV has the same one auto-aim mess as the last gen GTAs.
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I actually thought Saints Row's system was too clunky and unfriendly, ESPECIALLY when trying to shoot while driving. It's a tricky decision for Rockstar because you want the controls to be great not just for shooting, but also for running around and exploring the environment, and FPS controls aren't the best for that. Plus, Saints Row had no aim assist at all, something that is REQUIRED for console FPS-style controls.

I actually think they should take some inspiration from Ratchet and Clank 2/3, which absolutely nailed friendly controls for both shooting and platforming.
 
Graphicly, I do not expect much. GTA games were never ever about graphics, all about imersive urban, sandboxing, interaction, diversersity, story driven .. but never graphics

Sadly, I fear that they will make GTA4 too big. That was one of my biggest complaints for San Andreas, it was way too big and killed the fun for me. I was happier with Liberty City Stories.

Gameplay, I expect major changes in the shooting, aiming, targeting part. Since the competitors are out performing GTA in the shooting department, GTA4 has the job to out do them in the shooting.. no choice.
 
VALIS said:
They absolutely have to have an aiming/gunplay system as good as Saints Row's. Have to. That's the new standard for weapon aiming in sandbox games, so copy it, steal it, improve on it, come up with your own new but just as good system, whatever. But I will be seriously disappointed if GTAIV has the same old auto-aim mess as the last gen GTAs.
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Yeah....but I guess to some people the aiming system in Saints may come off as a bit tricky (too sensitive perhaps?)...its fine for me since I'm used to playing fpses but sometimes I find myself not being able to line up the reticule over an enemy in a frantic gunfight so I have it positioned anywhere beside the enemy instead and compensate by moving my character to get the reticule over the guy...haha :lol
 
Scarface shooting was pretty sweet.

You had the Lock-On target, and within that Lock-On, you could move the reticule to a certain body part for precision

2ndly, you could manually aim and you would get extra "Balls" points for targeting manually
 
i hope rockstar don't make the mistake of going for ultra-realistic graphics in GTA4. the quasi-realistic but mostly stylised look works best for such a game.
 
gutter_trash said:
Sadly, I fear that they will make GTA4 too big. That was one of my biggest complaints for San Andreas, it was way too big and killed the fun for me. I was happier with Liberty City Stories.
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I believe R* has said they were making GTA4 smaller then SA but more detailed.
 
Scrow said:
i hope rockstar don't make the mistake of going for ultra-realistic graphics in GTA4. the quasi-realistic but mostly stylised look works best for such a game.
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I agree, realistic but use stylizations to offset the downsides to making things hyper realistic.

Razoric said:
i also want to completely customize my character and have them go back to a 'mute' personality. (ala saints row)
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I wouldn't mind the character calling back to the main character of GTAIII
 
I'm expecting something that visually is on par with dead rising in terms of having tons of things on screen at once but with an entire city instead of just a mall. I'd wager cutscenes will have different models with higher poly talking heads and I'd hope they'd clean up the controls all around and add a physics engine of some kind to the game.
 
As mentioned by some other people...but my list would be:

1. Awesome next gen graphics (I dont need hyper realistic, but it should look damn good)
2. Physics, physics and more physics. I want to be be able to do whatever my twisted mind can think of inside a physics sandbox.
3. This relates to 2, but destructable sections of the city. Not all of it, especially story related, I can understand that, but some parts should be desctructable.
4. Varied quests/tasks. GTA has always been pretty good about this, but I feel that later in the game the quests/tasks start to all feel the same. I dunno, maybe its just me, but I need more stuff to do thats quest/task based.
5. I want to travel to different countries for objectives/tasks. I want the world to not 'seem' huge, but be huge.
 
Shabaz said:
I believe R* has said they were making GTA4 smaller then SA but more detailed.
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good to hear, I never got around to finishing SA because I found the RPG elements to slow down the pacing.
Your character was always poor up to end of San Fierro (not fun playing a GTA game where you are still poor half-way through).
The traveling distances between cities through the wilderness where too long and forced you to be even more careful with your good cars for the long woodsy rides in the country
 
Tokubetsu said:
I get the sick feeling that most of the people in this thread are going to be disappointed.
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Yeah, but who knows. Rockstar has been pretty good with innovating GTA (well I think so anyways). I really believe that they are going to make this one huge, especially with it being the first 'next-gen' GTA. Well I know if I was them I would dump money into making this game the best it can be, they are already gauranteed to make their money back :)
 
Razoric said:
i also want to completely customize my character and have them go back to a 'mute' personality. (ala saints row)
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I strongly disagree. I much prefer a character with "character." If you have a mute lead character, you are strongly limited with how you can tell the story and develop the main character. A good compromise between GTA3 (mute) and GTASA (too much "character" would be to have a Bioware-style conversation system for main events that can impact the overall storyline.
 
I'd like to see fingers, less triangulated boobs, more diversity in the A.I, and possibly less ugly crack ho's.

I would also like to see a Delorian with a flux capacitor, and the ability to travel back to the future. I'd also like to be able to record and playback my adventures.
 
Tokubetsu said:
I get the sick feeling that most of the people in this thread are going to be disappointed.
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Could go either way, R* seem to be the master at keeping a lid on the development of the games. All I know is that I've been pleasantly surprised with the series starting with III all the way up to SA
 
Tokubetsu said:
I get the sick feeling that most of the people in this thread are going to be disappointed.
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I doubt it. Bully was smaller and less ambitious than the GTA games, but still managed to be one of the best games of 2006. Rockstar still has it.
 
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