The game overall is great, but does muliplayer live up to your expectations?

DRSpeed85 · 05-08-2008, 11:01 PM

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.

Andrew · 05-08-2008, 11:07 PM

It's a lot of fun, especially with friends...but I find myself playing COD4 more.

V2olcom · 05-08-2008, 11:14 PM

Yes, I love the MP. I never get the chance to play some though seeing as I can't find any matches to join,because my NAT setings are strict. But when I do, its great fun.

Justin Klemgold · 05-08-2008, 11:26 PM

I think the multiplayer has been a huge letdown. If you get killed in the first few minutes, you spend the next ten watching the rest of your team either die or win...the city is way too big for that stuff.

Nothing is going to beat COD4 MP IMHO. It's lightyears ahead of GTA4.

JKT84 · 05-09-2008, 12:17 AM

With friends (people I know outside of xbox live), it's GTA4. Free mode, team deathmatch or even racing is just good, clean, chaotic fun. Nothing beats landing a chopper on a skyscraper and doing synchronized suicides with your buddies-- especially if one of them fails to jump out of the chopper as it topples over the edge of the building

If none of my friends are on, then usually I'll fire up CoD4 or Gears.

matchstick · 05-09-2008, 02:24 AM

yea i was disappointed by the mp of gta. i find myself playing the single player, but switching to cod4 still when i wanna get on live.

Dan · 05-09-2008, 03:05 AM

It exceeds it, if I'm with friends. If not, It's "Okay".

Quagmire · 05-09-2008, 03:45 AM

I love MP, its great with friends.

Dan · 05-09-2008, 04:13 AM

Oh, and to comment on your original statement DRSpeed.

You can choose to cordon areas off, like, you can keep it to one island, or even small areas around the map etc.

Rbentley100 · 05-09-2008, 04:47 AM

its alright, fun for a litrtl bit with m8s, as you can gang up vs cops and do all sorts.

I found team deathmatch the best mode myself(very rare usually im tempted to the more exotic game types)

cops and crooks varies too much match to match, sometimes the cops spawn too close and the crooks spawn nowhere near guns or cars.

sometimes the crooks are gay and the boss swims off to sea while his team m8 gets the getaway veichle and goes and picks him up.

so all in all I found thimgs like this too anoying.

or long term playability cod4 still holds the crown ad sits waaaay higher than GTA4, but GTA makes a happy change if I am abit bored of cod