RSS
Rockstar won’t be happy. You can see the first ever screens of the GTA IV HUD here (thanks, Blerk). They’re part of a Zoo article from Australia, photos taken of a journalist playing the game. Looks as though the only thing on there’s a map. Look, quick, before Rockstar’s legal machine grinds into motion.
Viewing 23 responses
Blerk said:
Minimalist HUDs ftw, by the way!
/thumbs up
Harry said:
The radar/map thing works very well – once you’ve caused some problem with the cops their search area appears on the map, helping you work out how best to avoid them.
patlike said:
That chap seems to think it’s great. Check his thumb out!
Harry said:
I think the thumb is a mighty thing, it puts an end to the “should reviews have scores” debat.
Blerk said:
Have you played it then, Harry?
patlike said:
More thumbs in games, deffo.
Harry said:
Yeah I played it for a couple of hours at Rockstar last month. Played through four missions that Rockstar wanted me to see (sounds like the same as some the IGN interview talks about – the multiple conversations with the Irish mobster Packie) and was allowed to dick around to my heart’s content.
I was very impressed with the game. The implementation of the Europhoria physics and the way that results in entertaining gameplay is great, as is the new shooting/cover mechanic.
patlike said:
Didn’t they let you start any other missions apart from those four?
Harry said:
No. The four missions weren’t concecutive but from different parts of the game. My Rockstar host switched between them via the dev menu, then allowed me plenty of time to explore and play around after each mission.
Blerk said:
Supers. Anything you can tell us without incurring the wrath of Rockstar’s legal dept?
Harry said:
Well the NDA has expired so I can probably tell you anything if you ask. There are a few plot spoilers I saw that I won’t reveal though.
Tiger Walts said:
That thumb is equivalent to an A-. The full A+ requires both thumbs and a shit-eating grin. Of course this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the thumbs-up, if Julian Rignal ever raised the opposable digit you knew you had a ‘Sizzler’
Someone needs to do a full comparison chart for this shit.
Blerk said:
All I really want to know is what the soundtrack’s like and if mission restart after failure is still as irritating as it was before (having to reget all your weapons and armour and stuff before being able to go off an do the mission again).
patlike said:
Don’t forget the CVG “high five” scoring system. That was practically thumb-based. Ahead of its time, clearly.
Harry said:
The soundtrack is fantastic. When I saw the game though a lot of the licensing wasn’t finished and they told me some of the songs I heard might not be in the game.
I can’t remember specifically what happened when I failed a mission (the one with Packie actually), but I do remember all the dialogue on the way to the mission’s first location was completely different second time around.
Also you can call guys up on your mobile and get them to drive round to you with weapons (I was told about this rather than seeing it myself) in the back of their car.
You can take a taxi to locations and skip the ride if you don’t want to watch it again. So getting to places you’ve visited previously isn’t a hassle.
patlike said:
How big was the map? Manageable?
Harry said:
I only saw three of the city regions. But to me it seemed very large but with the space used well – doesn’t look like there will be too much wasted space and pointless travelling.
patlike said:
Last one. Is there anything else on the HUD apart from that map?
Blerk said:
And if there’s nothing else other than the map, how do you gauge stuff like health, ammo remaining, etc?
Interesting to hear about ‘phone a gun’ – that’d pretty much clear up my biggest GTA gripe. It wasn’t so much making your way back to retry as having to restock everything first.
When I (theoretically) get my spanky new next-gen beast at Christmas, I shall definitely pick this up along with it.
Harry said:
I’m sure there was more HUD info in the build I played compared to the screenshot.
Killerbee said:
Yeah, I read the bit on IGN about the conversations being different if you retry a mission and that was exactly my thought – I put up with it in GTA III and for about the first half of Vice City, but by the time I was playing San Andreas I’d learned that it was actually far quicker to reload my last save than to trudge to an ammu-nation to get guns and armour and then make my way back to the mission start to do it all over again.
The “Trip Skip” idea they used all of about once in San Andreas was a good one, so taxis to skip journeys and dial-a-weapon sound good to me.
scuz said:
how come fucking ZOO get to see the game before our games press thats fucking stupid.
patlike said:
Everyone’s seen it over here, innit. It’s just that no one was allowed to take pictures of it, I’m assuming.