Kosumo wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 17:27:
Of those saying "more like San Anddrasa", what did you think of GTA:IV EFLC - Ballard of Gay Tony?
When I say "More like San Andreas," I'm not referring to how the plot based missions work. I'm referring to the crazy freedom and other features it had: the hovering/rotating rocket launcher that I could get to always spawn outside the casino I owned (or ANY weapons I could get at my houses for free, none of this pay $$ every time crap), the lack of consequences (or at least smaller consequences) for setting up a traffic jam and destroying every car in site, the fact that I never got royally pissed off when I was arrested or died in San Andreas so I felt like I had the freedom to drive a motorcycle off the top of a mountain just to see the tricks and stuff I could do.
The WORLD of GTAIV (and consequently, Ballad of Gay Tony) is what was wrong. Sure, it was gorgeous and well mapped out. It felt like a living and breathing city. But it wasn't fun to live in. I felt like I had to get dozens of hours into the game before it was worth it to pull a crazy stunt simply because of the cost of death: losing all my weapons and ammo and having to pay a lot of money to buy it all again. There weren't crazy events/challenges that I could just run into in GTAIV. It just felt real to the point of not being fun after a while.
Of course, Saints Row 3 went the COMPLETE opposite direction, but in my mind it sacrificed a bit too much. Yeah, there weren't any consequences and I could do absolutely anything, but it stopped even feeling special and interesting after a while, unlike San Andreas where I still had to put in a little bit of work to find a flying vehicle or that perfect bike to do the stunt I wanted.