[DRSpeed85]

I tend to consider halo 3 as having the most perfect xbox live experience with GOW and COD4 coming in very close second and thirds. When waiting for GTA4 I was salivating of the thought of waging open warfare within the streets of manhatten.

I imagined being chased down by an escalade full of opposing game members while somebody from my gang rockets off a helicopter that just happens to pass by that exact moment in which case the exploding helicopter would drop right in front of the pursuing escalade that crashes into it. Then I get off my car, hunker behind it and throw three grenades. Totally obliterating the area. Dead bodies and vehicle components flying everywhere. Then someone camping on some rooftop snipes my head off.

Such intense moments are fairly easily replicated in Halo 3 and COD4. It isn't uncommon to dodge a sticky grenade that sticks into a passing warhog instead and kills all of it's occupants. Games like Halo 3, GOW, COD4 and RB6V are absolutely brilliant because the environment plays such a big influence over the game itself.

On GTA4 however, I found 16 players utterly lost within the sheer scale of liberty city. I have to drive around half the city to find two guys pistoling the hell out of each other. The gameplay isn't as intense as I hoped and the cityscape ironically, offers very little verticality. Just a massive horizontal environment. Strategies involving the environment is totally demolished as soon as somebody puts down the effort to drive off to some obscure place to find a "hidden" rocket lawnchwar. lol

Simply put, the intensity is low because the map is too big with little to no weapon balancing. Plus its way too easy to flank one another. Holding position just doesn't mean the same in GTA4.

Maybe its just that I'm not used to the style of this kind of multiplayer. It isn't Halo3 or COD4 in a massive citywide war. Not much more than a gangfight. I think rockstar should impose more constrained map barriers and let more people play in it. 30~40 people fighting over 3~6 city blocks? Now that would be intense.