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donathos on 09 May 2008
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ssj12 said:
Xponent said:
MontanaHatchet said:
Xponent said:
In what way is GTA4 revolutionary?

Revolutionary in what way?

That's a very open-ended question. Revolutionary for the series? The genre? All games? All art forms?

 


I was responding to Roadkillers opinion that it is revolutionary. Maybe we should ask him.


The game is revolutionary due to what it has done in taking the franchise and genre to the next level.

From a technical standpoint the game is a marval all the things going on and happening at once. The amount of AI in the game is amazing. Each of the 700 different civilians have a different personality, movement, etc. Each car drives differently. All the weapons fire more realistically. Not having 1000 health pickups and having to make the player actually use his head in times of combat. After combat have it so the only way to heal is hunt for a randiom health pack or spend money on food.

Thats what is revolutionary about GTAIV.


Caveat: I haven't yet played GTA4.

But... based on what I've been hearing, maybe I just have a different definition for "revolutionary" than some other folks do. That the weapons fire more realistically is an improvement, but not a revolution. In my opinion, this is true for the other changes you cite.

Now, I want to make something clear: I do not insist that a game must be "revolutionary" to be great (which is good, because few are, or can be, by definition). Instead of revolutionizing a particular genre or franchise, I'm always open for attempts to perfect them, even according to traditional ways. GTA4 can be a more perfect GTA game without being a revolutionary one, and I suspect, based on your comments and those of others, that this is the case.

Can a game rate a '10' without being revolutionary? Sure, I think so. And I don't think that being a '10' is necessarily the same as being a "Perfect" game, which I think is something to be aimed at but never achieved. 10 is simply the highest rating. But if we were rating things on a scale of 1 to 2 (which some people do, as in the Siskel/Ebert "thumbs up/thumbs down" scale), we wouldn't ever complain that no game should ever get a '2' because a Perfect game doesn't exist. Many games would deserve a '2.' And, on a scale of 1 to 10, a few games should ultimately deserve a '10,' despite not being Perfect.

It is possible that GTA4 is such a game.