GTA IV Screens and Q&A - Weapons, Cover, and Combat

Grand Theft Auto IV is the game everyone wants. You know it, GameSpot knows it, and developer Rockstar Games knows it. And now that the highly anticipated action adventure game nears its release, GameSpot has sat down with Rockstar North associate producer Imran Sarwar to get new details on the game's weapon and cover system, and the various improvements that have been made to combat. Enjoy these new details and screenshots and gear up for the game's release at GameSpot's Grand Theft Auto IV launch center.

[joeyisback2585]

yaaaaaaaaaaaaa cool cant wait :-D

[joydestroy]

"The shotguns deserve a mention too--the damage they do at close range is really satisfying."

hell yeah, all i needed to know. the shotgun has become my weapon of choice in most games that carry them in the arsenal.

[The Closing]

bad aim?

; D

[joydestroy]

no, that's due to me enjoying seeing the bad guys' pearly white eyes before i blow their brains all over the wall. much more satisfying than a ranged kill.

plus, in games where you can use blind fire, like this one, it works much better versus an assault, LMG, or SMG type weapon. you just blast and their dead, haha.

[TrenchaunT]

Yeah--same here--gotta love the shotgun.

[computer]

I've been watching live gameplay of this on several sites and still can't get enough... might have to try my local game store to give it to me early...

[Tyler Durden]

15 weapons in total!?

[The Closing]

yeah, that's kinda weak sauce for a game of this proportion.

[joydestroy]

yeah, when i saw 15 i thought that was kinda weak as well. maybe some more will be released later on. one can only hope.

[NOTORIOUSzeke]

15 weapons could be enough...if the guns are balanced this time around.

[Nitrowolf2]

15 weapon? that not as much as i thought it would be

just 5 more days come on
why does it have to come out during my school time dammit, i think all great games should come out when there is no school
luckly i think tuesday a great day to predend im sick.

[sandip787]

15 weapons?
how does that stack up to previous GTAs?

[DownTheLine]

Hey guys, this is my first post so go easy on me.

I have been playing the PS3 version this evening, gta4 got delivered to my shop yesterday(20 PS3 & 70 Xbox 360) not sure why the big difference in platforms, but anyway so I sneaked a copy out today when I finished work to try it out, I'm taking it back in tomorrow though so I don't get caught.

Been playing since 6:30pm and it's now 3:10am, So far I've been impressed, took about 6/7mins for the mandatory install at the start, then the game is straight into it from the intro.

Graphics wise it's very good, odd texture pop-up here and there and on one(rare) occasion a whole buliding about 2 blocks away, but other than that the graphics are very solid, sound is spot on, weather effects are really good and so is the city and it's population, the only slight bad thing I would say is that the handling of the cars is a bit too sensitive at times causing you to spin out a bit too often for my liking, also trying to read the text on the phone is so small that even on my 40" Samsung I had to go right up to the screen to read it.

I reverted to the "classic" controller layout because it was a bit tricky getting used to the new layout, there was also a "vibration" option but i've only got a sixaxis so wasn't able to try it out.

Haven't tried the online part yet because I signed out of the PSN while I'm playing it just in case, don't want to get banned.

All in all a very good game, my rating 9/10

[Play B3yond]

hows the combat?

[DownTheLine]

It's ok, just like San Andreas in my opinion, the cover system is really good though and it works really well to. However the police are all eagle eyed sharpshooters they will shoot you dead from like 150-200 yards away, and when you have 5 stars it's pretty much death straight away, there is hardly any chance of getting away from them, god only knows what 6 stars would be like.

I've only used the pistol, shotgun, and some molotov's so far, but I'm only 7.53% into the game, but I'll be playing this probably till I start work at 9am lol.

[NOTORIOUSzeke]

How many weapons can you carry at a time and how do you switch guns?

[DownTheLine]

Not sure how many gun's you can carry at a time, but before I turned it off this morning I had the pistol, shotgun, M-16 machine gun, molotov's and a baseball bat, I had the "classic" controller layout so I pressed left & right on the d-pad to change weapon.