Making Money in GTA Online

In my previous post, I noted how a lot of the big issues in GTA online amount to one thing: the economy works against.  The death penalty can add up quick, ammo isn't cheap, and some of the most common things to do in the game offer little payout for the amount of time you can spend completing them.

If you are trying to move on up to the next luxury condo - here are few tips to get you along:

#1: Play Solo

You can enter into a solo session by joining GTA Online via the Pause menu instead of the quick character select.  Solo is effectively the passive mode that Rockstar describes in the main mode, except it actually works - even if by brute force.  It might seem counter-productive to play by yourself in an online game - but the advantages are huge.  Firstly, you completely remove the possibility of getting involved in the vengeance-fueled killing frenzies which aren't uncommon when playing with others in free mode.  It also means that you have free reign over events in free mode like Simeon's high priority vehicle and convenience stores to knock over.

It also means that bounties can't be claimed against you, and the AI will occasionally set one on your head.  Since after a period of time you get the bounty against you, this translates into random free money for stealing random cars.

#2: Franklin's Early Years

Two of the fastest ways to score cash in GTA Online include what Franklin described as his early years: knocking over convenience shops and stealing cars.  

Each store will net you around $1100 on an average, with the occasional spike into $2K or so.  While this isn't a huge amount, if you only hit two in a row - you only have to fight a two star chase.  Once you get used to where the stores are and the easy escape route associated with them, this means you can punctuate your play with cash that takes about half the time of doing a mission or race, while giving you the same payback.

That said - there's some misinformation going around about knocking over stores.  One is that you'll bag more money for killing the store owner.  That hasn't been my experience and you'll get three stars instead of two right away - which will usually make the chase go far longer than you really want.

As for stealing cars: there are a few select brands that are found around the Vinewood Boulevard area which can net $6 - $9K.  You can sell a car every game day, which is roughly once an hour.  I recommend looking for Ubermacht cars - they're fairly common compared to other high end cars and always net more than $6K.

#3: Easy Missions

After your second store theft you'll need to cool the cops down a bit (or risk a three star chase off the bat), you can hop into a mission and try to do it by yourself.  Setting the mission to easy will make it simpler for the solo run and only seems to reduce the amount of respect you get from the mission, not the cash.  If you're handy with a gun, many of Gerald's missions can be done fairly quickly and will net a decent haul.

#4: Higher Level Missions = Higher Level Rewards

This one is a no brainer, but one of the factors that works for the player when it comes to the game economy is that as you level up, you'll get more access to missions which net higher cash rewards.  Keep an eye on which missions give you the most cash for the time you spend in it and make those a priority.

#5: Earn it, Spend it, then go online

My recommendation would be to spend a couple days in solo mode, and then buy one of the luxury condos with a 10 car garage.  After that, these tips become somewhat obsolete as you've purchased one of the more expensive items in the game - and once you spend your cash on something big, it can't be stolen away from you.  We netted about $180K over the weekend with the above, bought one of the better apartments and now have a lot less concerns when it comes to playing in the normal session.

Of course, now we just hope that Rockstar isn't going to randomly delete our character.

Game Review: 5 Huge Problems with GTA Online

Preface

First note that this is for just the online portion of GTA V.  I may have another post on the main game at a later date.

Second, some may say it is unfair to review GTA Online since it has been out for less than a week and Rockstar had warned ahead of the launch that unexpected demand for the game was going to cause issues.  And yes, some issues - like the fact that I can't currently sign into the game ... are probably due just to demand and will be resolved as Rockstar throws hardware at the problem.

Others, however, like the incredibly bugged tutorial missions that blocked the game for a majority of users - were clearly not because of high demand.  You couldn't even get into the game in offline or "solo" mode (and in fact, oddly - I had 5 people show up to my solo mission...).  We're now a couple patches in and if the servers are up, you can play - but the experience still has many issues.  Many of them aren't bugs, but simply design.

This is clearly another beta being rolled out as a product.  Now, GTA Online is a free component to a game which is already larger in scope than most titles in its price range.  Still, it is a product - and while one that shows a lot of promise (and I've already spent many hours on) ... is still deeply flawed.

However, in fairness to Rockstar I'm not even mentioning huge outstanding bugs like your character simply disappearing - under the assumption they'll fix that in short order.

Quick Overview

GTA Online is where players of GTA V can create their own criminal and run around Los Santos (and the greater Los Santos area) with other criminals created by players.  A bevy of activities await: Deathmatch, Last Team Standing, Vehicle Deathmatches, Races of nearly every variety, Missions (more on that later) and what seem like the entire set of activities from the main game (Tennis, Parachuting, etc).  Some of these open slowly as the player levels up.

At its core, it is a lot of fun.  It brings the RPG/Customization angle from San Andreas (but with a complete character and not just making CJ fat) and mashes it into an expanded online offering that goes well beyond the already surprisingly fun online mode in GTAIV.

Problem #1: Dying

Dying is pretty much expected in a game like GTA Online.  And when you have a bunch of people on the server which think the game is mostly about crashing cars into players to steal the $100 that drops out of their pocket ... it can happen a lot.  Especially because the game seems to egg on revenge tactics by always dropping you near the person who killed you.  We've had people hunt us down repeatedly for seemingly no other reason than us being on the radar.

This would be fine if it wasn't for the 5% death tax, which appears to max out at 2K.  I believe this is the same tax as in the story mode, but the online mode currently lacks any major heists to have large sacks of money laying around where even though you're paying more ... you have plenty.  No, here once you have managed to stockpile a decent amount of cash (you'll want $75-100K to buy a decent apartment, for instance) ... your cash becomes a huge liability.  We had about $80K saved up over the course of hard playing all afternoon and night ... but about 10 minutes of getting caught in the middle of some crazed bounty hunt, we were back down to ~$53K.  About five hours of play were wiped out in a matter of minutes.

If Rockstar expects the offset to this to be players buying cash with real dollars, then GTA Online will go down as one of the largest missed opportunities in online gaming.  And it will join such modes as Mass Effect 3's online component as being sacrificed to the idiot blind god of microtransactions.

Problem #2: There is no Passive Mode

Rockstar will tell you that if you want to run around and not get capped, you can just go into passive mode.  Passive mode costs $100 to get into (for some bizarre reason never explained).  Passive mode is also completely worthless as other players (and AI) can still run you over, shoot you from their cars and we think still pull you from vehicles and punch you.  It basically just means they can't shoot you while outside their vehicle.  Which is really not worth the $100.

Whether this is a deeply bugged or simply horribly designed feature is difficult to tell.  Rockstar has not as of yet mentioned any changes or fixes to the mode.

Problem #3: The Weird Bounty System

The other odd thing about having online players run around in free mode killing each other is ... there is very little point to doing it.  If you die, you lose ... some of your cash?  It is actually a little unclear - once you have $5K in walking money, Rockstar will warn you that players can steal your cash. Update: it sounds like it is $100 (always) + whatever you have over $5K. 

Course, there is no reason to run around with cash since you can deposit and withdraw money to your bank right from your phone.

However, none of that means anything since the death tax extends to your bank account.  So if I kill you, I'm unlikely to get any cash for it - but you'll lose 5% of everything you've got, or $2K, despite where it is.  After a certain level, you (and oddly, AI's) can put bounties on another player's head.  These seem to range from about $1K - $10K but are usually less than $5K.  

This is actually a horrible system, designed to do nothing but drain capital across the server.  Let's say you have a player with $80K in the bank.  They stand lose $2K just from dying once.  Someone puts a $3K bounty on their head.  Chances are players are going to die more than a couple times trying to kill them (especially since players often kill each other trying to get to the bounty).  So basically one player gets a slightly subsidized death and everyone else who participates loses out (potentially severely).

The only time I have ever profited from bounties is when I was lucky enough to get a $3K and $9K (which is very rare) bounty back to back.  Even then I died enough to eat up the $3K bonus.

So in short, one of the things players are most likely to do on the server - run around, cause mayhem and shoot at each other ... appears primarily designed to keep bank accounts low.

Problem #4: The Capital Throttle

This is all compounded by the fact that Rockstar has clearly made making cash a very slow process.  If you have a decent session going with lots of players, you can bounce from deathmatches to races relatively easily.  These will net you around $200 - $2000 depending on how well you do.  They can also take up a lot of time, especially some of the multiple lap races.

You can, as the title suggests you could, steal cars and sell them.  Without this being couched as a mission, you can only do this once an hour.  It is, however, one of the quickest ways to make money if you get the right car.  You can also holdup liquor stores, gas stations and the like - although time to completion there is highly dependent on how well you can evade the police.

There are a few choice missions which net a high profit, but you can't really select those voluntarily.  You have to hope one of your contacts hands them to you (more on that below).  The result is that activities that are the easiest to get to, but conversely can take up the most time ... actually offer the lowest profits (especially after you factor in buying ammo and armor).

Problem #5: Missions

All of the above compounds into the final huge issue: the mission structure.  Since deatchmatches and races are time consuming and not very profitable, it can be difficult to get players to actually play them. Worse, the goal based missions are easily the most entertaining and often offer higher rewards - but you can't select them.  After you do a goal based mission, you can vote on another session - but are limited to deathmatch and races (even though Last Team Standing sessions are labeled as Missions, which they really are not).  Most people just drop back into free mode.

This makes the best part of the game: performing goal based missions with a decent number of online players, something of a rarity.  You can call your contacts and hope for the best, but the result is something of a pot luck between who will respond to the Jobs text.

TLDR

GTA Online has a great core to it, but well beyond the issues of connectivity - it has some serious design issues.  Rockstar has currently turned off both the Stock Market and GTA$, so that players can't lose real money in the virtual game.  There are two unfortunate trend to all five problems: they all factor into keeping you bank account hard to grow and easy to deplete, and they're easily solved if you are willing to pony up some real cash to bankroll your virtual criminal.  

I really, sincerely, hope that this is not Rockstar's solution to the game.

Most of the Next Gen Console Rumors Are Probably Wrong

It's that time of the year again.  Or more specifically, that time of the gaming console cycle when it seems credible enough that the next generation of devices might be in some kind of hardware prototype form that it seems perfectly reasonable to float around rumors about how they'll play (pun intended) out.

Which also means it is time to go visit some old friends.  Take a quick glance back at the news reporting about the PlayStation 3 before it debuted.  We're going to see some similar themes: leaps to conclusion about disc storage and of course, the old ghost about playing used games.  Let's not even worry about these from a Microsoft or Sony or Nintendo stance, just as pure speculation.

No more used games!

We'll start with the real money-maker.  And when I say money-maker, I mean this is essentially the online equivalent of trolling for a news source.  There's no doubt that the concept of having a game console block used games will drive page views and comments - gamers love their used games.  The $40-60 price range of most new titles is painful enough to have many gamers think twice before purchasing and the so called "grey market" that keeps GameStop in business is a handy way to purchase for many gamers.

This was widely reported as pretty much factual for the PS3 before it arrived, with some news outlets even suggesting the PS3 would physically notch your disc to make your game its bitch.  But it just doesn't add up.

Problem is: The used games market hits publishers in the money belt, not console makers.

Probably the biggest problem with this meme is that it supposes that the big three have a huge financial stake in it.  However the real profit loss for the console makers is subsidizing the console hardware, not in licensing software.  While they would surely like to see the "white market" sales go up, even Microsoft managed to turn the 360 into a huge profit machine this generation.  Publishers and studios are the ones who potentially go into the red when they spend money on game development, not the hardware makers.

Worse, such a move could potentially hurt console makers where they are actually vulnerable - selling actual consoles.  Analyst Michael Pachter has guess that blocking the sale of used games would probably lead to a bricks and mortar lead, gamer followed revolt.  I think he's completely right (and I don't always think that about Pachter).

Finally, I still say that the technology isn't quite as solid to pull this off as some other people do.  If you accept that gamers will still have an offline, disc-based experience ... there's no real way to pull this off.

Course, that brings us to...

No more disc-based games!

This one has an awful lot of credence behind it, considering the number of people who are now used to buying games - be it for the PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, PS3, 360 or other abbreviation, via the Internet.  Steam, app stores, and console networks are big business these days and with some games only available via electronic means (think Minecraft), surely it makes sense that the next generation consoles would follow suit, right?

Problem is: many, if not most, living rooms are still not on the information highway

While wi-fi is largely domesticated and the concept of "high speed bandwidth" is becoming rapidly redundant - there's still a very healthy percentage of gamers who play 100% offline.  And we're not talking about the casual or senior citizen crowd here - we're talking normal if not hardcore gamers.  While  a decent percentages of gamers in 2011 use their console for online activities, it is by far not the majority.  I know it is anecdotal - but I'm constantly getting into conversations about gaming which quickly get confused because I assume they are playing the most recent patch (see Skyrim).

For more evidence check out the OnLive Console.  Did you even know there was such a thing?  While OnLive has exceeded my expectations for what can be done with streaming games - their hardware sales haven't exactly pegged them as "the fourth console maker" yet.  The truth is that the living room is still new frontier for certainly having high-speed access and many consumers don't yet associate their console as an online device.

But if we must have discs, then...

This XYZ console will use XYZ format!

Will Sony keep Blu-Ray?  Will Microsoft adopt Blu-Ray?  Will Nintendo use flash cards?

The problem with this speculation is that it is probably one of the last decisions the console makers need to make.  While architectural decisions about memory, bus speeds, processors, GPU, and other tightly integrated board components have direct impact on how games are actually coded - storage format fairly uniformly decides two things: capacity and load times.  It makes a big impact, for sure, but certainly not as much as how much system memory can be dedicated to textures or the like.

My guesses are: Sony will keep Blu-Ray, as keeping the Orbis a Blu-Ray player fits in their living room strategy and is cost-effective for them.  Plus, Blu-Ray is probably still the best option technically for games thanks to the large capacity on the discs.  Nintendo and Microsoft will probably use some kind of mutated version of HD-DVD because they can own the experience outright without licensing anything to Sony and still rival the size of Blu-Ray.  They might miss out on being a DVD player (but also might not) - but I'm not sure being a DVD player will be a serious game player in the next generation outright.

The problem with the flash card rumor is cost.  Flash cards offer a lot of versatility to developers (and probably the best option if anyone really did want to kill the grey market of used games) but are really only viable for mobile games where the footprint is small enough to keep costs down.  Look at this way - solid state drives have gotten to a point where they are essentially superior to traditional drives, but expect the makers to opt for the latter so that they can sell a "300GB" model instead of a "150GB" one for less price.

Bottom line: the speculation here is fun, but it is way too early to guess right now.

So for those scoring at home - for the top rumors about the next gen of consoles it is: no way in hell, almost certainly not, and way too early to even care.

[Game Play] Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (vs. Skyrim)

Reckoning is, if not anything else, an excellent freshmen attempt from a freshmen studio.  Sure, it famously hails Ken Rolston of Elder Scrolls fame - and that is probably cheating on the "freshmen" front, but this doesn't change the fact that it is a brand new franchise with a brand new engine.

Partially thanks to the Rolston connection, many comparisons were lined up between Reckoning and Skyrim.  I first heard about Kingdoms of Amalur in the midst of forum chatter about Skyrim, the theory being that Reckoning might be a Skyrim experience without the numerous bugs of Skyrim (did I mention this was a PS3 forum?  Yeah....).

I've clocked about 10 hours into Reckoning, so this is probably not an overly comprehensive review - but I'm now walking down the path of thinking that the games are far more different than similar.  Skyrim strives for a dense, realistic world and favors a first person narrative.  Reckoning is a fast paced third person affair with cartoon-like graphics.  Despite their similarities, Skyrim reminds me of old school games like Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master, where Reckoning reminds me strongly of Diablo and World of Warcraft.

Reckoning also sports a storyline by R.A. Salvatore - a rather famous author in the Dungeons and Dragons line of fantasy.  Salvatore's backstory seems to give Reckoning a certain edge, but the familiarity of the world with immortal fae, kobolds, trolls, and the like ... does it no favors in making Amalur stand out or seem particularly gripping.  Some of the dialogue and characters are interesting, but largely lacks any emotional impact.

If anything, I think this highlights a very strong suit of Skyrim.  The player manages to feel connected to the NPC's and hence, to the story itself.  In that game, I joined the assassin's guild out of an attempt to betray them (which failed, because you apparently only get one chance to do that...) - which is a pretty complex plot for a computer game that had nothing to do with any of the code.  I don't see anything like that happening in Reckoning.

The world and the story is a solid backdop for the game, and the designs by comic artist Todd McFarlane likewise gives everything you look at an extremely competent feel to it ... but there are rare instances when the design will really give you that "wow" feeling.

At this point, Reckoning would be set for a solid B if it weren't for two factors.

The first is the combat.  It's been noted in every review for the game, but it can't be mentioned enough.  These combat mechanics are through the roof good.  It's not just the way the auto-lock system flows easily without any real user interaction or input.   It's not just the highly stylized combat moves and the pure joy of unlocking new moves and figuring out how to best incorporate them into your fighting strategies.  It's not just the well factored physics and NPC reactions to your moves - enemies "feel" like they go down when they should, and keep charging when they should.  It is how all of that works together.  Rolston, Salvatore and McFarlane made sure that this game had a solid base when it comes to design, but I think the most noteworthy aspect is that the real star of the game had nothing to do with those big names ... it's the technical brilliance behind the most core aspect - beating up monsters and taking their loot.

Back when I modded Unreal, I realized the most important thing to keep right was the quality of deathmatch itself.  Because deathmatch is still the core of any other FPS game.  The Reckoning team clearly understood this rule and have delivered possibly the most awesome action of any action RPG in the history of the genre.

The second factor is simply a credit to the Big Huge Engine.  After a demo which left some players wondering if the game would crash or be full of graphical glitches - the final product is remarkably solid.  I've had occasional frame rate glitches, but nothing which has impacted gameplay.

It's only been 10 hours, so I'll wait to see if things degenerate - but so far I feel no need to have multiple save games.  No need to save intermittently.  No worries about things locking up after clearing a dungeon.  No soldiers drinking beer in mid air or creatures suddenly returning to a default 3D model pose after being beheaded.  Everything just works.  And it works well.

This actually impacts my gameplay.  Since I don't have five old savegames around, I don't reverse time when something goes wrong.  Probably the best "RPG" moment I had in the game was when an NPC in a quest got killed - which doesn't normally happen, and I was supposed to defend him.  It kinda sucked, because I got that "Quest Failed" message - but it had some emotional weight.  Especially when I then got a follow up quest for his dead wife.

I wish Reckoning had more of that kind of complexity, but I'm more happy to play an expansive RPG without all the technical issues that Bethesda ships with their games.  I hope Reckoning can now be a counter-argument to the nonsensical "all big games ship with big bugs" theory defending titles like Skyrim and New Vegas.  It's really just big games shipped and developed by Bethesda.

So short version: a very solid A-.  It's not a dense world, and you aren't going to find a gripping storyline here.  There is much about Amalur which is pretty but kind of vapid, but if you're a Diablo type of RPG person where the storyline essentially just connects you between points of having a lot of fun hacking things apart, Amalur promises hours and hours and hours of doing just that.

Game Play: Kingdoms of Amalur Demo

It's been about a month, faithful reader (or both of you - if the other guy is still around) ... the holiday drag is now nearly officially over and the gaming hangover which has been the survival of all of those November releases is behind us.

I could tell you about Uncharted 3 - which is simply one of the most technically impressive games on any platform to date.  It's just so ... so ... insanely solid.  The writing, the animation, the graphics, the inner mechanics - everything just clicks.

But you probably already knew that.  You might not have known about the Kingdoms of Amalur demo which just dropped on PSN and XBLA.  It's gotten some legs in the press because of Ken Rolston, of Morrowind and Oblivion fame, coming out of retirement to help retire it.

The main feeling on the net, even before playing it, is that the game is a mashup of Skyrim (or more generally, The Elder Scrolls in general) and Fable.  There's a little truth to that - but I think either comparison is dangerous.  Rolston's stamp is certainly all of this game - in the latter portion of the demo you can essentially go and do whatever you want.  So I tried to steal from a store, got caught, busted out of prison and went on a killing spree on the townsfolk as they tried to reign me in.  And that was all in like twenty minutes.

But the world design feels more like World of Warcraft, or I suppose Fable - if Fable was far less linear.  You don't quite get that "what is over that hill" feeling you get in Skyrim - but that doesn't mean the world isn't open to explore.  The combat mechanics are very difficult to describe - they easily transcend the usual button mash + power attack of most action RPG's by forcing players to dodge and defend themselves ... as well as pay close attention to the tactics of the enemy which change impressively from one type to the next, but I certainly wouldn't call it "strategic".

The thing is - Amalur is so clearly utilizing the playbooks of other games that describing it without making comparisons is difficult.  The problem is if you were honest - you would be making comparisons not just to Rolston's previous games, but WoW, Fable, God of War, most Bioware RPG's and probably wear yourself out by the time you remembered Nethack.

What Amalur has going for it is some excellent design and mechanics.  Unfortunately the demo appears to be plagued by more than a few bugs - I noticed a few "hall of mirrors" ... a graphics glitch when the rendering engine doesn't know what to render.  Other players have reported crash level gltiches.  As anyone who has read Cathode know, I've beaten on the rotting corpse of the horse which is Bethesda's miserable QA process in the past ... and hope Amalur won't have such issues.

One thing that I noted: I don't know if the lack of specific save is because it is a demo, or will be part of the game.  Not being able to have multiple save points would give the game a sort of permadeath like quality (not really, but actions would have consequences you can't take back ... like murdering a whole town).  I'll be curious to see what the full version has in the way of save game control.

Full version comes out Feb. 17th - very much looking forward to it, if it isn't too crash-laden.

Game Play: Skyrim

Update: Obviously I was a bit hasty, as several PS3 owners are reporting that after save files of a certain size, the game will start to increase in lag while playing until slowly becoming unplayable.

My own file size is about 9mb, and I have had a few issues like what is being reported - but can still make an afternoon out of it. Currently on a thumbs sideways kind of judgement. Bethesda has a patch coming out supposedly after Thanksgiving, but no confirmation that patch will fix it.

I'm still a big fan of the game in general, but feel for the PS3 players. And some of the player stories are of the kind I can't recommend it for the PS3 anymore. This is absurd, Bethesda, just absurd.

---

Faithful readers of Cathode Tan (and yes, I am referring to both of your) know that I have frequently felt that for the Fallout titles in particular frequently performed, shall we say, less than the standard amount of quality assurance.  I won't bore with a bunch of old links, but let us just say that the terms "buggiest" "game" and "ever" might have been used in regards with words like "New Vegas".

Seriously, a bug which can be fixed by wearing the right in-game hat?  Seriously?  A few months ago Bethesda released an update to New Vegas which reportedly fixed all the crashes, slowdowns, world holes, and other game breakers.  I tried it out for about five minutes before realizing that my experience with all the previous bugs had sucked every ounce of desire to ever play the game again out of my marrow.

So let us just say that I bought Skyrim with some trepidation.  Sure, I hadn't read any previews mentioning bugs - but it isn't like the gaming media has done a particularly good job calling Bethesda out on these issues, usually sidelining it to a paragraph in a review and then just giving the game a 9/10 anyway.

I've now spent many, many, many hours in Skyrim on the PS3.

Many hours.

And I haven't had a single serious technical problem.  I've run into the very rare temporary slowdown. There was one instance where the ground didn't load and I could fall into it.  Compared to the "grinding slowdown to a crash" of the previous games, Skyrim is quality assurance nirvana.  But more importantly, compared to most games out there - Skyrim is easily as stable if not slightly more so.

Why is this so important?  Why am I devoting several paragraphs starting out this review to it?  Simple.  I'm astonished with how utterly complete the experience is without all the glitches and crashes of the previous games.  That Skyrim is more graphically intense than the previous engine is nice, but being able to wander the Nord countryside without worrying about a crash was the real mission Bethesda needed to succeed.

Skyrim essentially takes some of the best concepts from the recent Fallout games, wraps them within the expansive RPG concepts of Elder Scrolls and delivers them in a very eye pleasing package.  Bethesda is declaring the Creation Engine a completely new engine, as opposed to the Gamebryo engine of the past titles.  How much is completely new I somewhat wonder - there is an awful lot about the game which has the identical feel from the Gamebryo titles ... but whatever is new, old or slightly updated - Bethesda has gotten this one right.

Elder Scrolls fans will be familiar with the core mechanics here.  Wander the countryside, stumble onto adventures, advance your skills by using them, and otherwise take in the open world RPG events of Skyrim.  The amount of content available to the player is insane.  I've currently got about twenty open quests, I think, and I don't know when I'll finish them because I'll stumble onto new ones while questing.

There's some streamlining at play here over the older games.  The crafting is simpler, and I feel as if magical items are more functional and useful than they were in Morrowind or Oblivion.  I find myself using the same strategy as I have before - a kind of mage/warrior/thief hybrid which works wonderfully with Skyrim's skill system.  I've seen YouTube videos of more "pure" builds and it seems that the game properly rewards you for either type of play.

My complaints are rather small.  Item management is still a burden, even once you get a faithful companion to offload some items.  Some missions feel a bit too linear, too hack and slash.  There have been a couple of the puzzles which honestly the solution was more annoying than entertaining.  But these are just tiny issues in an otherwise epic game.

Skyrim is simply one of the best RPG games to ever grace any console or PC.  It's the high watermark of the game design and philosophy of the Elder Scroll franchise.  I'm quite glad to now be in a camp where I can look forward to the future titles instead of dreading a soul crushing experience.

Highly recommend.

Unless you have a PS3. Sadly. Until Bethesda and PS3 gamers can confirm a proper fix.

Game Play: Blur (and a little Mod Nation Racers too)

A twist on an old joke: multiplayer would be a lot of fun, if not for all the people. Bringing a bunch of random people from the intertubes repeatedly to game together has had a pretty uneven history - with the addition of VOIP to online gaming resulting in a thunderous din of people singing, cursing and warbling.

That said, Blur manages it pretty well. I played the hell out of the online only demo and now haven't even bothered touching the single player of the full version. It's very pick up game oriented and since the action is pretty intense even when you're trying to catch up to the pack - uneven skill levels across player don't feel quite so bad because you can still wreck the hell out of other cars.

And it doesn't hurt that as kart racers go, Blur is very good. Driving feels tight and controlled, there isn't a dramatic emphasis on drifting and the power-ups, while mostly classic renditions of favorites from the genre, do the game justice to helping even the score. The graphics are great and the presentation is geared to getting you in a game, out, and back in again as swiftly as possible.

I'm light on complaint - I wish there were more powerups, and that the mods were more varied and arrived a little sooner. But it's hard to complain about a game I'm enjoying this much and yet haven't even played it's "other half". Definitely recommend.

A quick side note: Blur was actually a trade in for Mod Nation Racers, which I was somewhat looking forward to and yet found the racing itself, well, really frustrating. Seems to place a heavy, heavy emphasis on drifting and drafting and not so much on just pure driving. I get the modding aspects are pretty powerful, but if LittleBigPlanet was any indication, I won't have time to really get into it.

For Sunday: Brink Gameplay Video

This looks fairly cool, I haven't really played much online shootery since MAG (which I may dive back into with the beta). Anything with a Quake Wars pedigree is worth checking out in my book.

Some Notes On Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption is one of those games I don't think needs an outright review from the likes of me. All the reviews agree, and I agree with them - it's good. In fact, it may be Rockstar's best. It's interesting that the mechanics are nearly identical to the GTA series, but Red Dead avoids much of the overwrought GTA controversy simply by being a western.

Like the changes in Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar proves very capable at surgically altering their core gameplay for the better. While RDR is clearly the first cousin of that series, many small tweaks add up to much better overall game.

No health bar
Red Dead is the first Rockstar game that I can think of that employs the YAMS (Yet Another Military Shooter) style health system. You'll suffer quickly after repeated hits, but a respite will eventually heal all wounds. This saves the player from needlessly finding the wester equivalent of Burger Shots, saving the game or stealing ambulances just to move on to the next mission. This is quickly becoming the norm across all action titles, for not only this reason - but the fact that it also simplifies the interface required to explain things. Do I have 50% health? 20%? You don't really care, the feedback you have is that you are being shot and you will die if that doesn't stop. Not sure if it works for all scenarios (see the multiplayer notes below) - but it works here.

There's always a horse to be had...
This isn't really new, more of an adaptation of GTAIV's system - but it becomes a very important one. You can steal horses if you so wish, but early in the game it doesn't become necessary because you can always just whistle for a new horse. The RDR area is lousy with horses, and one seems always willing to come to your aid (if your horse dies, you just have to wait a bit before it "respawns").

Unrealistic? Yes, but RDR is a vast open area as opposed to the inner city of GTA. Rockstar wants you to ride, and be able to ride even if you were left alone in the middle of a prairie.

...or you can just camp it out.
If you don't feel like riding all the way from Armadillo to Mexico, you can always just set up camp and then quick travel to nearly any accessible point in the map. Again, this works well for the massive amount of open space that RDR offers.

Course, the real problem with these mechanics is that they override others like horse theft and the stagecoach. The stagecoach is particularly disappointing since the camera doesn't even offer much of a view and it is much slower than a horse.

Well that was a good shot
RDR offers players a fast auto-aim if you simply tap the aim button in the general vicinity of the target. It forces you to keep tapping to continue landing hits and to either slow down for fine targeting, or use Dead Eye. Dead Eye slows down time for the player, allowing for highly accurate shots.

The only real problem here is that the auto-aim nearly makes Dead Eye obsolete, except when the game insists that you use it. I think I can count on two fingers when I've used Dead Eye outside of when a mission required it - and neither time was particularly productive. Later in the game when you're trying to do some of the challenges, it has a brief interlude as an interesting mechanic and towards the end when the difficulty ramps up a little ... but you can easily play most of the game without it.

In general though, it does a good job - better than previous Rockstar titles - of making the player feel like a badass bounty hunter without being invincible.

Serious production value
While some of the assets in the game look simply like a westernized version of GTA, one has to give a tip of the hat to the landscape presented in Red Dead. It's ridiculous. My favorite part? The thunder. Whoever did the audio for the storms in RDR needs a medal and in general the environment effects are just outrageously good. And it's bone chillingly appropriate for this game - when your cowboy rides off into the sunset, you want a sunset this beautiful.

And the music? The music is awesome. Thematic and yet properly dynamic - you may find yourself dragging those bounty missions out just to hear the excellent bass line riding along with you.

An odd sense of justice
Where in GTA the concept of having a wanted level and escaping the police is baked right into the middle of your game session - Red Dead Redemption alters the setup a little where you rarely require a wanted level at all. In the place of trying to evade the cops, several missions will have gunmen trying to hunt you down and stopping you from reaching your destination. This is one of the chief dynamics with the bounty hunting side missions - do you rush back to the sheriff or wait for the droves of minions to fall and offer more loot?

In general, this works pretty well. What doesn't work is the more direct analog from GTA where you get a bounty for doing something wrong. The problem is that "wrong" is very loosely defined and so it is hard to tell what will get you in trouble. For instance, I went up to see if I could open a door and got a bounty for trespassing. I accidentally pointed my gun at a lawman and suddenly had five people on horseback chasing me.

Poker, side missions, and ambient design
Rockstar has always seemed to insist that being able to play games in random locations is part of the overall open world experience. If you want to be a completionist in RDR, you'll need to excel at playing poker, liar's dice and various other in-world mini-games. The design isn't bad, but can be haphazard. While I enjoyed liar's dice, the imposed strategy of arm wrestling, for instance, was simply annoying. You ignore them completely for the most part (there's a single mission I think where playing a little poker is required) - so they're mostly a plus.

Dueling is ... odd. For one thing, you can stumble on dueling before the game really introduces it and hence be completely lost. The mechanics are strange - while it is one part trigger finger it is mostly about timing and placing all of your shots on the target. Once you get the hang of it, it works - but the game does little service in getting the player up to speed with it.

One huge success is RDR's "ambient" missions, which are random encounters you'll run into around the frontier. This includes everything from running down thieves to getting in the middle of gunfights. They're impressively fluid and have a bare sheet of artificiality imposed on them. By the end of the game they can get somewhat redundant - but it takes some time to get there and they add a great layer of depth to the open world in general. This is a natural extension to the otherwise random events that take place in Rockstar's games (one example in RDR - I actually had a stranger save *me* from an animal attack instead of the other way around) and hopefully it evolves even more in the future.

Bottom Line
I think this is easily Rockstar's best work. The beauty of Rockstar's games is that they are always slightly flawed - but usually because they're tweaking their own formula. In the next iteration, those flaws are usually addressed and yet replaced by new ones as they experiment with new mechanics. If you're going to have flaws, that's probably the best way to do it.

Game Play: Godfather II

Godfather II is an interesting combination of a game. The short version is that despite some flaws, I played the hell out of the single player (haven't had a chance to try the multiplayer, partially since it was just released) and quite enjoyed it. For those who missed the previews, the game expands on the original by adding more strategy elements, but the core is the same - this is a sandbox gangster game where you try to own the town.

Some of the problems with the game are apparent from the start. The graphics are pretty average, with the occasional texture or model glitch around - although the cities in general are well constructed and period pieces are nice as well. There's the occasional interface glitch - like how the game will warn you that a new property has no guards on it, even if you added some right away. Level design is sketchy at times, too, with plenty of properties being confusing as to how to navigate or even enter. On the surface, at least, it seems hard to say that Godfather II holds up in a post GTA IV world.

But the strength of the game lies in the fact that it doesn't attempt to be a proper GTA clone in the first place. You'll spend time in the "Don's View" in order to marshal your forces, upgrade your made men and keep track of favors you either attempting to earn or have earned. The soldiers in your families have different abilities, which effect how you take down properties.

If your guys are up to it, you can always just send them on ahead to a property to attempt a takeover without you - and here's where the gameplay really takes hold. There's plenty of multitasking to be done in the game, determing which properties to send guys, what tasks you take on yourself, and how much you need to leave in your pocket for defense when one family decides to take that strip club back. By the end of the game, I was having the majority of my family taking over properties without me, a few left behind for defense, and myself out performing favors and attempting to assassinate the made men of other families.

If I had any real issues with the game, it wasn't in the graphics or the occasional glitches, but when these relatively innovative gameplay mechanics turned frustrating. I killed more than a few property owners by accident, although I could have sworn I was well below the bar to do so. Owning crime rings, which are a full set of like properties, give your men bonuses - but they seem to have negligible effect. You can only have a certain number of guys in your crew, and they have to be in your crew to perform their special abilities - so if you end trying to lend a hand to men you've sent automatically to a property, you might get stuck if the AI doesn't realize it should blow up that wall.

In the end though, these things grind against what is clearly an excellent attempt to make the sandbox gameplay more unique, more engaging and more interesting. When it works, it works really, really well. You get the impression that you're in control (or trying to take control) of a city, not just a random mob wandering around beating people up. It is very much strategy light, but it is also a bit of strategy fun.

I recommend the title, not strongly - but it is the kind of game I think should be rewarded for attempting, and often succedding, to break the mold. I'm hoping EA sees this game as a solid foundation to make more in the series to improve even further on the genre.

More On Fallout 3

I think the short version is this: I am freaking loving this game.

If you've played either Bethesda's previous Elder Scroll offerings (especially, obviously, Morrowind or Oblivion), or if you're a fan of the Fallout franchise in general - this is an easy recommendation. People, particular the Fallout fans, complained early on that it would be "Oblivion with guns" and I secretly thought to my self - like that would be a bad thing. And I wasn't wrong. VATS works brilliantly and is one of those rare successful blends of turn and real times based systems that complements rather than annoys. The most complicated combat I've gotten into required several retries until I finally flanked the guys behind me, bludgeoned the scout before he could cause too much of a racket and then tossed fragged grenades into the house before the Super Mutes could do too much damage to the caravan.

In terms of a story, this game approaches Deus Ex levels of good for me and honestly blows Bethesda's previous attempts away. This doesn't feel like the story about gates or a story about some weird messiah - but it feels like your story, about you entering a wasteland of a world in search of your father. While the main character is mute, you do control the conversations with the other characters and feel like you have a part to play in the world.

You can wander off on side missions or continue on the main quest, although I'm not sure how much the game allows you to just plow through the main plot without leveling up a little first. That said, I don't feel like I've embarked on any "kill five rats" type of missions. They feel like solid role playing adventures. Not that there isn't plenty of emphasis on combat - the vast majority of the game is spent trying to blow some crazy thing's head off.

Sure, there's a few foibles. The graphics are mostly great, but the character models are not the best in the world, comparatively speaking, and occasionally the animations are a bit off. A couple of times my dog has been floating about. When I nuked a massive beast, it stay aloft a bit longer than it should. This is still the Gamebryo engine, after all, and if you played Oblivion, you know what I'm talking about.

Also, navigation around the ruined parts of downtown can be a massive pain in the ass. The city is walled off by rubble, forcing you to use the underground systems. This is sometimes fine, and does encourage exploration - but can get frustrating when you pop out in a completely unexpected location, sometimes far past your goal.

There's a few other things, like the fact that herding your dog can get a bit tiresome ... but c'mon, you get a freaking dog - so who really cares.

A big thumbs up from me, can't wait to play the game all the way through. Easily one of my favorite games of the year, if not my favorite game of quite some time.

Game Play: Fallout 3 First Impressions

I didn't get a lot of time with Bethesda's latest, but I got through the tutorial and (I don't think this exactly constitutes a spoiler) out of the Vault. My impressions so far are almost universally positive, I think everything from the interface to the voice acting feels solid, VATS seems like a great concept for mixing up FPS and RPG style combat, and the world (sorry doubters) feels like Fallout to me.

I know there will always be some dissenting views on it, but just like there were people walking out of Jackson's Lord Of The Rings thinking it just wasn't exactly like the book, sometimes we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'm willing to guess that this will be Bethesda's best so far, but its still very early in the game for me, so give me a week or so to beat on it.

Game Play: Mirror's Edge Demo

With NaNo about, I don't have much time for either blogging or gaming, but I thought I'd get a quick note about EA's much anticipated Mirror's Edge based on the brief demo that came out recently.

In short - I found the tutorial portion of the demo to be incredibly frustrating. It's a toss up for me, actually, which was more of a pain in the ass - "balancing" on the stupid pipe or executing the run, turn, kick as specifically as the computer wanted. In the first example, the mechanic just seems insanely poorly tuned - for someone as capable and balanced as Faith seems to be, to fail repeatedly at the task felt like a break in immersion and a ridiculously tedious exercise. In the latter, I kept managing to make it to the point I was going for - only to have the game pull me back because I didn't get there in the prescribed arc or something.

Some redemption kicks in when the story starts up and absolutely - the art design and use of first person perspective is unique and engaging. It's just that that jumping mechanic means that the game is in part at least a first person platformer and brings in some of the weight that genre implies.

I'll have to wait for a full review on this one to see if the "jumping, exploring and fighting" parts outweigh the "stupid balance beam, missed timing and potential jumping puzzles" parts, because as it is I'm not too sure.

Game Play: Dead Space, First Look

I'm a couple hours into Dead Space now and if I had one line to say about the game, it is this:

Someone did their homework.

I mean, really, when you start to pull the game apart you see components strewn from various parts of FPS and survival horror neatly and nicely geared to fit together. Clearly, there's Doom - not just the first but the third as well. One might wonders if this wasn't far more the game that Carmack intended with Doom III with its excellent use of lighting and sound in gameplay. There's enough Half-Life that Isaac might as well be a cousin of Gordon Freeman, with his stoic and shy nature (but more on that later).

Level design is a beautiful combination of System Shock and Resident Evil - although it is interesting that we are still strapped with some of the same "find blue key" mechanics from nearly every shooter ever made. The air sequences from Doom III have been refitted - and combined with zero gravity zones are quite a lot of fun.

Naturally we also see Max Payne and Half-Life 2 crop up with "stasis" and "kinetics" instead of "bullet time" and "grav gun" - and thankfully they feel more useful than cliche (although any usage of these mechanics runs the risk at this point). We get a dash, but only a dash, of Deus Ex style inventory and weapon upgrades.

The growing call for "HUDless" design in especially survival horror is near perfect here, combined with an improved Resident Evil 4 aiming convention and some impressive floating HUD components which appear when needed. I'm quite glad, though, that Isaac is not allowed to heal by leaning up against a wall. I'm half surprised we don't see more of the herb mechanic for healing, actually.

What's impressive for me, though, is that these don't feel like lifts from another playbook. They've been integrated very tightly and the game feels like it has been extremely well tuned for the mechanics at play.

My biggest complaint, actually, is that Dead Space follows the same narrative style as Half-Life 2. I actually find Issac's lack of speech somewhat jarring considering the situation. He doesn't scream, doesn't offer consolation or advice - Isaac feels cold to me. His search for Nicole, which I'm sure will have some kind of plot twists to come, seems silly and futile at this point. The last guy I ran into died while ramming his head into a wall - what hope should Isaac have that Nicole is still alive?

In general, though, two thumbs up. The game isn't just looks, but brains too. It manages to be one of the spookiest titles I've run across - which is a hard goal for any game. Highly recommend.

For Sunday: PURE Tricks Trailer

Looks like we're getting a review for PURE lined up, so here's a sneak peek at the title:

Takahashi's Red Ring Report

I can't recommend Dean Takahashi's Xbox 360 defects: an inside history of Microsoft’s video game console woes enough. It's an excellent overview of what is, I don't mean this in any sensational manner - Dean comes to the same conclusion, one of the biggest hardware blunders in gaming history.

Read his stuff for the rundown. I think the entire tale is interesting in hindsight. For one thing, it's an amazing testament to the brand loyalty of some, if not most, 360 gamers. I've pointed out previously the American media's ability to whip Sony repeatedly for things Microsoft was given a free pass on - specifically delays and supply problems. When Microsoft couldn't get units in the store priotr to the holidays the blogosphere mood was "wait till next year." Sony wasn't treated quite so kindly.

As Sony ramped up to launch, the amount of FUD the Internet was willing to dish out on the console was moderately astounding. I honestly think this is a cultural thing. Microsoft, even though geeks love to bash them, is an American company. They speak to us in a way we understand. Sony, on the other hand, has a hard time not coming off as arrogant and weird. Microsoft is extremely savvy about using this to their advantage.

But looking at the RROD problems - it's interesting to wonder how two of the key factors of console could have played out. Specifically how much should the 360 have cost and when should it have been released? Honestly I still shake my head that the console costs what it does and lacks WiFi. But imagine how much more it might cost if Microsoft had to confirm it would still work in a year.

And I'm sure you 360 fanboys are sharpening knives about now. You can save it. You can take some assurance that Microsoft has at least shored up one of the most impressive game libraries to help combat one of the worst hardware designs. If Dean's article proves anything else - it shows that great software will get people to deal with hardware woes.

I guess console gaming really has become more like PC gaming.

Edit: Just a side note. A lot of outlets are describing this as "a retrospective". Technically that's inaccurate as new 360's are still getting the old RROD.

360 Temptation

Friend Seth came and left in a rolling cloud of beer and console gaming. He packed his 360 along with him and so I was treated to a bit of Mass Effect and Gears of War (along with a touch of Assassin's Creed).

In actuality, if there's one title which really tempts me to getting a 360, it would probably be Fable 2. The Girl and I with two player offline RPG coop? Gah. I was really under the impression Mercenaries 2 had a similar setup, but apparently not. Reviewers and people who write info summaries need to be clear - there is a huuuuuuugggggeeee distinction between online and offline coop.

Don't get me wrong, this is no PS3 lament. I love the shiny black box. It really is a superb media machine, has a great stock of online games and plays our old PS2 games wonderfully. However, some of the 360 exclusives, both disc and online based, are pretty tempting in the long run - not to mention all those old Xbox games I never check out.

I said sometime ago that this might be the first generation of consoles where I owned all the current ones while that generation was still alive. Still, I'm not sure how willing I am to jump into the hardware revision jungle and roll the dice with the old red ring of death. I think Microsoft has gotten a incredible free pass on what has to be one of the great hardware blunders of gaming history. I wish they would come out with a revision in which they could clearly say - that was the problem, we fixed it, we're good. And while hints and accusations point to one purchase or another which might be safer - I don't see a clear statement from Redmond on that matter.

Noknownsurvivors.com = fun with floating body parts

EA sent word along about the Dead Space related online puzzle / story (I won't quite call it an ARG, but you can see the similarity) NoKnownSurvivors.com, to "tell two equally tragic four chapter stories" using interactive 3D elements and what appears to be some pretty decent voice acting as well. Props to "the hub" as they call it, which would be those floating body parts which will unlock the stories as they are released.

Sadly these are the kind of things I wish I had more time to toy around with - but generally don't. Worth a poke if you've got some free time, though. If I get a chance to actually get a feel for the stories, I'll post some more.

Game Play: Bad Company Multiplayer

Breaking radio silence. As aside, I haven't done that kind of concentrated coding in some time. It felt kinda good in that tiring don't want to do it again for some time kinda way.

I've managed to spend a little more time with the full version of Bad Company's online mode. I stated earlier that the single player stacks up well, not exactly a AAA shooter but certainly worth some attention. The online mode, however, feels like the kind of evolution I would have wanted from the Battlefield series when I first tried it and put it down so many years ago. This iteration feels less spawn point obsessed, less vehicle obsessed and far more balanced.

Bad Company's multiplayer is a slight twist on domination point style play where attackers are trying to destroy a pair of crates (full of tasty gold bars) in succession until they clear the map. The defenders are trying to stop them. It's simple enough for people to learn the basics in a few rounds and the sandbox mechanics from the single player allow for plenty of variation.

This is a solid recipe for online games these days. While I appreciate more complicated dynamics - they require more time for players to master and increase the amount of frustrated noobs crashing tanks into walls. While everyone would like to see tighter squad mechanics - it's often hard enough to get two people to work together than four.

Instead, Bad Company keeps players working in tandem by allowing spawns to occur wherever your squad happens to be. Provided that the whole squad doesn't get wiped out right away, this means that you press the line consistently without a lot of guesswork. In addition to this, as you spot enemy soldiers and vehicles - they'll show up on your mates' HUDs as well.

Add in the tight weapon mechanics, unlockable ranks and weapons, and some great vehicle physics and you have a game which is fun even when you're team is falling behind. Unlike previous incarnations of the subgenre, there's little risk of a handful of players camping vehicle spawns and dominating the game (or simply crashing repeatedly).

It's not all wonderful, though. The invite method (at least for the PlayStation 3) leaves much to be desired. There doesn't seem to be a very friendly way to leave the game in between rounds. The PlayStation 3's support for VOIP seems to result in a series of ghostly burbles coming through your speakers.

And while the current squad mechanics work fairly well, there's still a feeling that it could be more. Whether it lacks a commander role that could paint onto the squad's HUD or bark commands, I'm not sure - but I'm willing to wait for the next version to see how it evolves.

Easily recommend.

Some GTA IV Mechanics In Brief

One thing that keeps impressing me about Rockstar is their ability to evolve their GTA franchise by removing old mechanics, adding new ones and updating some that remain. While this was certainly notable with San Andreas (and not nearly as much with the various side stories, with GTA IV they've taken the game to a whole new paradigm.

The next gen graphics, for instance, allow the game to have a more "realistic" feel. Powerups no longer float and rotate (as they have in about 80% of every 3D game to come before) - but sit and glow on the ground. The mission markers no longer glow with huge circles but rather small yellow errors. And of course, we have the waypoint path finder - which marks the "shortest legal path" between you and your driving goal.

And oddly, except for that last one, these are probably the least successful updates in the game. It's nearly impossible to distinguish weapons until you've picked them up and it's much easier to miss the mission markers from a distance now.

Of course we have next gen hardware now which means we get next gen physics now. This is easily my favorite as launching a SUV over a railing, rolling three cars over as you careen and then bouncing off a building is fun.

Anyone who just read that and thought "what's fun about a car accident simulator" - wait til the end.

With the new physics we also get more complicated driving mechanics. Keep cars from fishtailing and turning at high speeds certainly takes more practice than any previous edition of the game but in the long run I'm willing to put it down as a plus. Car chases remind me of the classic Driver chases more than any game thus far.

The new wanted systems has gotten a lot of talk at first blush. What's interesting I think is that for all the changes - the end result is about the same. Sure, you can avoid one star easily by driving real fast in a straight line. Is that any different than just being able to jump into a pizza joint? One star was always a joke to shake off, and two stars not much more so. Avoiding three stars and above can be a subgame on its own, as it should be.

We also get the most vastly expanded set of combat controls in the history of the franchise. Niko is far more capable of using cover, blind firing, moving and aiming, aiming at body parts, etc., than any of his predecessors. The end result here is that Niko feels a lot more the badass everyone seems willing to hire.

And everyone wants a piece of Niko. While typing this, The Girl got three text messages and two phone calls. The whole social networking can be overbearing at times (Roman especially seems to enjoy calling when you're in the middle of a high speed chase) - but also quite hilarious. Just watching how different character react to getting drunk with Niko is a comedy show on its own.

The fact that Niko can then turn around and drive drunk has turned the "murder simulator" fight into "drunk driving simulator" fight (partly because I think people outside the gaming culture are realizing the joke that Jack Thompson really is as a lawyer and "expert"). The thing is that this argument is just as ignorant as the previous one. The game doesn't reward you for driving drunk any more than it rewards you for flipping cars over or running down pedestrians. The fact that you can do something in a game doesn't mean that the game encourages, trains or gives you point for doing it. Especially in a game like GTA IV where you can do all those thing and pick up a hooker without it having anything to do with the main game itself.

In this way, GTA IV resembles its protagonist Niko Bellic - who in the words of his cousin is a "miserable sociopath". You can bring your ethics to the table if you want, but they're just your ethics and the game doesn't really give a damn. It didn't ask you to bring anything at all. But if you do so, make sure you take everything into account. Like that the game warns you about driving drunk, that you can take a cab and even a miserable sociopath like Niko seems to remember helmet laws for the most part. The truth is that the detractors of the game seem mostly to wring their hands over the fact that the game doesn't punish you enough for these acts - but unable to verbalize in any way that doesn't make them look ridiculous that what they want is a big alert window saying "Driving Drunk Is Bad".

If playing a PSA was in any way fun, I might even see their point. But it isn't, and I don't. Being a miserable sociopath, on the other hand, clearly has some entertainment value because otherwise GTA IV wouldn't have the financial pull of Fort Knox.

And more to the point - no GTA game has ever harmed anyone. Sorry there, BatJack, but you had your day (days in fact) to prove your point and now you're getting disbarred. This case is closed and it's time to move on.

To finish up that note though, I think Niko might be the best character the series has ever produced. CJ from San Andreas was something of a hip hop action hero. Despite being a thug, thief and overall gang lord - you still got the impression the CJ loved his mom, hung with his homies and was generally a good guy with which you could share a forty.

Niko, on the other hand, is a broken down soldier who thinks everything is crap and meets his enemies and friends the same sly grin that insists he could snap you in half. Roman pegs him - he is a miserable sociopath but in being so it makes him feel more realistic and three dimensional than a lot of previous entries into the field. Niko has a past and that past clearly haunts him even when he's not talking about it.

Time to go - The Girl just lifted an armored van to take Little Jacob home again. She might just have to call that lawyer chick for a favor again before the day is through.