Edge writes: "Visiting Rockstar's HQ for a look at Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, we also felt duty bound to talk with vice president of creative Dan Houser about the wider world of Grand Theft Auto, and specifically the fourth instalment, on which he and the Rockstar North team are obviously still working as they prepare the first of two episodes of downloadable content, due for release over Xbox Live.
Q: Looking back at the launch of GTAIV, what was it like from your perspective?
A: Nerve-wracking, always nerve-wracking. The bigger the game, the more nerve-wracking. It was a smoother movement from GTAIII to Vice City to San Andreas, and then we hit various political roadbumps in the intervening years, and also we had to deal with a movement on to the new hardware, with technical roadbumps and so on.
The challenge in some ways was outside of the process of making a game, in terms of what we do using experts from Microsoft and Sony to come in and work with the hardware – there was the American government and the crap that went on through 2005 to 2007. So I suppose there was more pressure than there was even with San Andreas. So the sense of relief when it all went off was even greater."
Huzaifa from eXputer: "2008 was home to the likes of Call of Duty: World at War, Dead Space, GTA 4, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, and many other hits, which is outright remarkable."
1998 - the best year in gaming! Metal gear solid, crash bandicoot 3, medievil, half life, ocarina of time, thief, tenchu, resident evil 2, Spyro, tomb raider 3, oddworld abes exodus, banjo kazooie.
It was a different breed of a gaming era. You’ll never understand what it was like back then. The aura of gaming, it was different!
I second this. Gaming was a lot more varied and fun than it is today. I'm 35 so getting on compared to some here but I got to see all the changes from NES up to now but I've never felt so disappointed in any generation than I have this current gen. I was expecting more from this generation rather than prettier versions of games that came before it. Game mechanics have become so refined that alot of games feel the same and has done for a while now.
Maybe it's time to have a break for a while. I love gaming but I don't feel I get much fun in the traditional sense out of it anymore.
Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2, Abe’s Exodus, and Ocarina of Time are the only things from that list that I liked.
Here’s the 2023 game releases that I personally liked… and big releases that I didn’t care for:
- Dead Space Remake
- Wo Long Dynatsy
- Resident Evil 4 Remake
- Diablo 4
- Fire Emblem Engage
- Hogwarts Legcay
- Street Fighter 6
- Hi-Fi Rush
- Like a Dragon: Ishin
- Octopath Traveler 2
- Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters
- Final Fanatsy XVI (actually ended up not liking this, but it was still a big deal release)
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
- Lies of P
- Mortal Kombat 1
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Starfield (Ended up hating this one, but big release)
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder
- Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (I’m an old-school Zelda fan, but didn’t really enjoy this game)
- Alan Wake 2
I mean, honestly I’ve never seen a year of major IP releases like that, ever.
Isn't it just a generational thing realistically.
I've been gaming since way back and I some of my favourite games go as far back as the late 80s for me each generation has a year or two of game changing releases one after another before an inevitable dry spell.
I kind of agree gaming had a different feel games hit different because we didn't have the internet nothing got spoiled and you really had to put in the effort to beat a puzzle which could set entire groups of people looking for a solution. But most importantly games were experimental and not as cookie cutter as today even basics like controls were not universal today r2 is shoot l2 is ads garunteed you can't deviate from that in a shooter back then it could of been square, R1 or R1 and circle nothing was standard.
But as time moves on a new generation picks up their controller they are going to be interested in different things that PS1 demo disc with the t Rex blew our primitive 16 bit brains back on launch but to kids today it's laughable.
The new gen of kids coming into to hobby seem to value different things to us there seems to be a huge focus on online play, streamers, gaming personalities, and social experiences, convience of digital downloads. To me I value none of that but that's ok like my parents not liking the band's I would listen to its just the natural cycle.
Just about every year in the 7th generation was great and something we most likely won't experience again.
2009 for example had Assassin's Creed 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Dragon Age: Origins, Uncharted 2, Halo 3: ODST, Killzone 2, Borderlands, Bayonetta, and Demon's Souls to name a few.
As is they're coins down a sofa, some announced games seem to just disappear. So just where are these missing VR games?
The article is more concerned with where the announced games are. Not about VR demand.
Even with my thoughts on Facebook, they did supposedly sell over 20 million headsets. Not that I think that many are still using their Quest headsets. But even if it's only 10 million users and 5 million are interested and able to play GTA SA, that's still a lot of consumers and a lot of sales.
It just comes down to why these developers are taking so long. Is something like GTA canceled? Is it being held back for a future event? It's not like there's competition in the stand alone space. And now that I have a Quest 3 myself, I'm wondering as well what's the hold up.
For GTA SA
Meta made a lot of budget cuts and cancelled a fair few exclusive game contracts we don't know if this was cancelled but it's possible and this was announced prior to the release of GTA definitive edition which was slammed and eventually moved to be supported in house by Rockstar.
Since then we have just gotten the mobile versions a d they are actually the best way to play the definitive edition unfortunately the consoles never got a retrospective patch to implement the improvements they made in the mobile games.
But for VR we know a VR mode was found in the definitive editions game files thanks to data miners so seeming it was meant to be using the definitive edition as a base given its ue4 that makes sense. And the mode is there right now (some Polish may be required still) I would assume this is ready to go but meta got cold feet and cancelled it given the games reputation.
I do hope Rockstar forge ahead and still just launch it anyway on psvr2 as it's a game I've loved since day 1 on PS2 I'll even tolerate the de version to get it in VR
"Grand Theft Auto" publisher Take-Two Interactive is working on an "significant" cost reduction plan following mixed earnings results for its October-December 2023 quarter
Really good read.