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I've been pretty addicted to GTA 4. Mostly following the main storyline missions but occasionally I'll do other things. I like being a taxi driver except for the screaming passengers who disagree with my driving style.

The missions themselves are getting harder. The most recent has you fighting off a warehouse full of enemies. And then, you're left with a 2 star wanted level and have to get away from the police to complete the mission. It took me about six tries to complete but I learned a lot about combat in that time. And retrying a mission is much faster than previous games. You get a text message on your phone that's basically: Retry Y/N?
You still have to get to the mission location, but you can use taxis (and make the ride instantaneous for an extra fee). I don't normally do that because I like driving, but you can see how my patience was wearing a bit thin after that many mission failures.

There's in-game internet and television. If I ever start booting this game up just to use it's fake internet and TV for hours, then Tweeter has permission to put me out of my misery.


Mario Kart Wii is really mediocre right now. I know it's intended as a multiplayer game but it's got the most boring single player of any series entry I've tried. And with more racers than ever, you're getting hit with items at a pretty ridiculous rate. I hear that 150cc is basically nightmarish and involves more luck than skill, though I haven't actually tried it yet. 50cc is stupidly boring regardless of how many times you get hit.

It's not terrible but I'm just not feeling it. I don't have wireless internet but maybe I'll plug the Wii into the modem later to see how multiplayer is.

Codie and I have almost all the posts in this one. I guess most folks aren't into any games at the moment.

Just some random stuff because I'm too tired to do anything else but make a post.

GTA 4 has a really good map and GPS system. You simply hit start to open the map, which shows icons for any place of interest, including mission objectives, stores, your house, etc. Nothing new there. But if you click on any of these points, your car's GPS will automatically plot the fastest route there. The fanciest cars have voice GPS but for the sake of the gameplay, even the junkers let you use the visual GPS feature. It's really a pleasure to use, though I've gotten in the occasional accident from keeping my eye on the map instead of on the road. It's a little hard to see the line you're following on the mini-map, sometimes, and I think it's because I'm using a smaller SDTV.

I've mentioned that you can retry a failed mission more easily than before. That's true, but it could still be better. Here's an explanation.

To start a mission, you have to drive over to see Bob at point A. He'll tell you to go to point B and kill some guys. You get a Game Over trying and end up at the hospital. In previous GTA games, you'd then have to drive back over to see Bob to start the cycle over. But in this one, you get the "Retry?" text message and if you agree, you're taken to the point right after you spoke to Bob. This saves you one trip, but you still have to drive over to Point B to get to the guys you have to kill. I wouldn't have minded a continue system that put you right outside the ultimate destination, but it's still a time saver.

Fortunately, all you really have to do is call your cousin to get a free taxi ride or hail one yourself. And they'll take you anywhere, instantly, so at least you don't have to drive across the whole city a dozen times for a hard mission. I can't remember if San Andreas and the other games had the "fast travel" option or not.

I can't remember all the details of losing your wanted level in the earlier games but I know I didn't enjoy it and that it's definitely easier in GTA 4. And I'm happy with that, since most of the time you get stars it's because you accidentally bumped a cop car or ran into someone rather than part of a mission. Now when you have one or more stars, there's a radius that the cops are searching for you in. All you have to do is get out of their direct line of sight by speeding off and making frequent turns. At that point, the stars turn gray and you just have to get to the edge of the search radius and wait a few seconds. If you happen to run into another cop car, the radius will center on you again and you'll have to repeat the process.

Combat now lets you choose between auto target or free aim. I expected to be doing a lot of manual aiming like I did in Saint's Row, but the auto aim is a lot smarter than before, and it's especially easy to use combined with the new cover system. You just hit one of the trigger buttons and you'll hide behind the nearest suitable object. Then you can pop out and fire a few shots or blindly fire from behind cover. I always hated the on-foot combat in the previous games but now it doesn't feel much different than something like Drake's Fortune or Gears of War.

The friendship system is a little bit annoying. People you meet as part of the story or choose to date will often call you asking to hang out. If you do, they'll like you more and offer you services like selling you weapons or reducing your wanted level. But if you turn them down because you want to do something else, they'll like you less. And hanging out with them is kind of annoying. You have to drive over and pick them up (they might be halfway across the city and I don't know if cabs are okay for this) then take them to a place they'd like to go. I've tried darts (tolerable), bowling (boring) and getting drunk (amusing for a few moments but ultimately pointless).

After I got used to the controls, I found driving really enjoyable. I was able to travel at very high speeds, weaving through heavy traffic like an expert. I was never especially good at it in the earlier GTA's. The cars feel like they have a lot more weight to them now. Motorcycles on the other hand seem absolutely awful. I can't use my preferred first person view or I crash in a matter of seconds. I don't last much longer in 3rd person, especially if I have to use any kind of speed. On one mission when I was supposed to chase some bikers with a motorcycle, I quickly ditched the bike and went after them in a sports car. It was the only way I was able to pass the mission and had the added benefit of letting me run them down when they got off the bikes and started shooting.

There's the usual assortment of optional things to do: Vigilante missions, stealing cars for a guy, being a taxi driver, etc. I've been interested enough in the main storyline threads that I haven't done too much of these and I'm not seeing any need for the extra money, so if I do them, it'll probably be to work towards 100% completion.

For Mario Kart, I've got (I think) six trophies in the 50cc cups and two in the 100cc cups.

The retro tracks are mostly very boring compared to the ones designed for this game. The new ones have more going on, like a volcano stage where parts of the track crumble away and fireballs land on the track. The retro ones have an occasional jump ramp or speed boost thrown in but for the most part don't fit well with the new tracks.

I'm liking the game enough to keep playing it for a while longer. When you first boot it up, it shows your license with an empty box for each trophy you can earn. It's kind of addictive watching it get filled in.

I'm getting better at drifting, and it's more intuitive in this game to begin with. For one of those cups, I got a Star rank (which is above the letter ranks) and I was a bit surprised. I think there are also double star and triple star ranks. I don't know the purpose of these rankings, if any.

...

I watched the rest of Drake's Fortune on Youtube. Man, it looked like absolute crap. Maybe the whole game was, and I was too bored to notice. The later parts had cheesy undead-type enemies, too. I'm glad I didn't keep playing it.

I spent much of my night getting sale signs ready for the store tomorrow. For no pay. Again.

I did put in some time with GTA. Couple of moderately interesting missions but nothing real special. To steal some files, I got to dress up to go for a job interview at a law firm, then kill the interviewer. That gave me a 3 star wanted level so I stole the only car available, which was a cop car, and tried to get away. Eventually I switched vehicles, planning to go to the Pay N Spray, which doesn't work with a police car. I had to cross a bridge, which was barricaded, and I smashed through it. There were vehicles lined up across the center of the bridge itself and defying the laws of reality, I kind of drove through and under one of them (which had to be MUCH heavier than the car I was driving). Eventually, I made it in there, and despite being followed by a helicopter and a thousand police cars, getting a new paint job was enough to fool everybody.

There was one where Nico has to pretend to be a gay guy on this online dating site and lure his target to a diner. You can attack whenever you feel like it, so I listened to the guy talk until it got annoying, then calmly stood up, pulled a shotgun from my giant invisible arsenal, blasted the guy, and walked out.

One mission had you pick one of two main characters to kill, who both hired you to kill the other guy.

Anyway, I think I'm around 13 hours of play and 25% completion. The main storyline makes up a relatively small percentage of the game, I think. 60% is what I'm thinking but that could be too high.