deKay's Gaming Diary

Oh – I forgot this!

GTA Glitch Watch
Some great ones today. First up was when I was chasing after *spoiler* to kill him. I cornered him in an alley, and when I shot him, he collapsed and his head and top half of his body fell through a wall. He dropped his gun, but it too was “in” the wall (I could see the red glow, but not the gun).

I was driving across the main bridge from Broker to the middle island, when for no reason at all, the car slammed into something that wasn’t there and launched me through the windscreen. It was like hitting a low wall, but the was nothing in the way.

I went to buy some guns, and in the gun shop I picked up an assault rifle. Niko held it and swung it round a bit, then it vanished from his hands – but he was still doing the holding-it motions.

On the Three Leaf Clover mission, on one of my many attempts, I came across a completely indestructable policeman in one of the alleys you run down. He wasn’t behind cover, but simply refused to take damage. I ended up failing the mission as he killed Packie.

After making the difficult decision on whether to kill *spoiler* or *spoiler*, I ended up killing both via saving and reloading. My first choice (who was the one you meet earlier in the game than the other) was the one I stuck with. I got a new safehouse for my trouble.

Then I spent the best part of three hours attempting the same mission over and over and over and over again. “Three Leaf Clover”. You have to rob a bank with Packie, then eascape, make it into the underground, come back above ground, nick a car, and make it back to Packie’s house. Without Packie or his brother dying. Or you dying, obviously. And you have a five-star rating almost the entire time. It took loads of attempts to even get as far as the underground station, let alone the (more difficult) car journey home. As I posted on a forum:

…it took me six attempts to even get as far as having a car – got a police car, which blew up. Next go there were *no* cars for me to nick, so had to run home and got shot. Next go, got a van which was rammed into the river on the bridge. Next go, got another police car but was shot dead before I could pull away. Then got another van, made it over the bridge, but got my tyres shot out and drove into a wall, causing the van to stall, the police to carch up, and Packie to die. Then I got a normal sort of car, but neither Derrick or Packie would get in, and so one of them died. *Then* I got another van and *again* ended up in the river because a police car drove under me launching me off the bridge. Derrick wouldn’t get out of the van so drowned.

Frustrating, not least because there are absolutely no checkpoints, so you have to do the long, relatively easy, bits over and over just to get to the hard bit and die.

Thankfully, I finally managed it, through sheer fluke. Again, as I posted elsewhere:

I came back outside, and tried to get in the car placed by the exit, but got mown down by a police car. Killed the police and nicked their car, and made it to the first corner. Got stinger’d just past it, then made it to the next corner, and for some reason I lost all my stars. The police cars chasing me just drove on past! So I nicked a car hat didn’t have burst tyres and very carefully drove the boys home.

Hurrah!

After doing another mission for Packie, and then one for Ray, I was out of missions. Except one: the Dwayne one I can’t do. Or at least, I couldn’t do before, but on my first attempt today I managed it easily. The police didn’t turn up in the club, which really helped. Hurrah!

I then celebrated by smashing up lots of cars, and then went looking for nice cars to park outside my safehouse.

I really should get round to scanning more boxes in…

Anyway. Played a bit of this this evening, and I’m running out of open mission and am going to have to return to the kill-the-club-owners one for Dwayne soon, which I’m not looking forward to as it was hard.

I did, however, complete another mission for Francis. Then he went nuts at me because I spared the life of the guy I was supposed to kill. Tch.

Epic mission today – chase a helicopter, nick it when it lands, then fly it off somewhere. Then, a little later, use it again with Jacob in the passenger seat armed with a rocket launcher, and chase another helicopter and take it down. Amazing!

Also took Carmen on a date. Sadly, the helicopter I pulled up to her house in vanished when she came out the house (GTA Glitch Watch!) so I had to nick a car. Took her to a club (while Kanye West’s “Flash Lights” played on the radio) then drove her home drunk.

Completed a couple of missions for the Paper Company man, then went and stole a a helicopter and flew over to the island I’ve not unlocked yet. That gave me an instant 6-star rating, which I held onto for ages gaining me the “One Man Army” achievement.

Then I went on a date with Carmen, and after that tried to see how many cars I could blow up in one go. None, it seems. Bah.

Another busy week (it was my birthday!) so I’ve got a bit of catching up to do.

Wii Fit (Wii)
Haven’t played this much since Tuesday, but did fit in a couple of sessions in the week. Mainly just played step and ski jump, though.

Link’s Crossbow Training (Wii)
Excellent! I got this for my birthday, which was pretty amazing in itself since it’s impossible to buy pretty much everywhere. It’s pretty simplistic (it is basically “just” a lightgun game) but is brilliantly well done and the “Wii Zapper”, despite being a bit of a faff to assemble, works really well. I’ve completed it already, but that’s not really the point, so I’m not going to consider it finished just yet. I think you have to get a piece of Triforce on every level? Anyway, I have at least a Silver on every level bar one, with a couple of Golds and a Platinum too.

Sega Superstars Tennis (Wii)
In two-player mode. It’s pretty good fun, actually, although NiGHTS is rubbish (as I found out having picked him and then losing without scoring a single point). I need to unlock more minigames too, as none of the ones currently available are particularly good.

Race Driver GRID Demo (360)
Played this today. First impressions are: it’s very quick, the damage models are amazing, and it looks fantastic. But it’s too hard. I do like the rewind facility though.

Some Dragonball Z Thing Demo (360)
It looks great. But I’m not into Dragonball Z and I had no idea what I was doing. Not that it seemed to matter, as the demo is really easy and I completed both two levels with no problems at all simply by mashing buttons.

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)
And this is what I’ve played most this week. I’m now around 23 or 24 hours in, and the mission I’ve most recently completed is the one where you save Roman from the Russians. Again. I’ve spent a while taking Roman and Little Jacob out, completed a couple more missions (and my first race) for Brucie, and completed the first task for the paper company. Oh, and a job for Packie and another for the policeman guy who Niko seemed to know well but it was the first time I’d come across him. Very odd. I still have an outstanding mission for Dwayne but it’s too hard.

On Friday night I played online for the first time. First up was a game of Deathmatch with random people, and I’m just pleased I didn’t come last. After that, it was Turf War which I didn’t really like very much. Then, someone on my friends list invited me to a co-op game and we went and completed the three co-op missions together, which was pretty good.

GTA Glitch Watch
This morning, as I left my room in the flat in South Bohan, I managed to run up the flight of stairs before the stairs had been drawn-in. Very odd.

Also, every time I load the game, the door leading out of the flat flashes white briefly. Also very odd.

Gah. I’m stuck.

I spent ages trying the mission for Dwayne where you have to go to the strip club and kill the managers. I just can’t do it. Even with full health, body armour, and a pile of weapons, I still get mown down. There’s nowhere to stand where you’re not vulnerable – even if you find cover someone will come up behind you. Or the police will turn up.

So I gave up on that and nicked a car for Brucie instead. Hurrah!

A couple more missions for Playboy X today, and he gave me a new Whiz phone. Woo! Now I can have exciting themes and stuff for it. And it has a camera! Shame I can’t keep the photos I take with it.

I then met Dwayne, and completed a mission for him. And I drove round the island in the middle of the map a lot, and then took Little Jacob to see Ricky Gervais in a comedy club. He told a lot of jokes about fat Americans. Ace!

Quite a bit more play today. In no particular order, I had an encounter with Dimitri, have a new safehouse in Bohan, met and helped Elizabeta, met Playboy X and had a gunfight with a load of cops with him, and have now unlocked the next island.

Completed my first “vigilante” mission too, using the computer onboard a police car I, er, borrowed. And basically just spent ages doing nothing much bar explore and cause trouble. No glitches today either.

Oh, and I tried to play online, but couldn’t find anyone to play – and the one game I joined was just finishing so I was kicked out.

Lots (and lots) of play on this today. It’s one of those games where I can’t really explain too much about what I’m doing in case I spoil anything, as far as the main storyline goes anyway. I did a few missions for Mikhail, completing his bit of the story, a couple of jobs for Little Jacob (whose accent is bloody amazing), and a couple of jobs for Brucie.

Also dated Michelle a couple more times and, er, “made it” with her, drove round rather a lot doing nothing in particular (I came across an alleyway with a police car parked up in it, and the policeman up a fire escape, so I killed him and was chased for ages). I went to the airport, but was disappointed to find that 1) you couldn’t nick a plane, and 2) you got a 4-star wanted level just being there. I did manage to shake off the police though, gaining me an achievement.

Then I tried to get a car up onto the roller coaster at the fairground, but couldn’t find a way onto the tracks and ended up driving into a pond at the miniature golf course by accident. Tch.

GTA Glitch Watch:

1) Cutting a corner in a car dropped me into a front yard where they’d been digging up the pavement, and my car got stuck in a wall, then flipped upside down (even though I was stationary), the car fell through the floor, everything went black (bar the car), and then the car flipped up into the air, span a lot, and then landed right-side-up back in the wall. I had to get out.

2) I parked a car very close to a wall (next to the Russian clothing shop) with the driver side door hard up against the wall. Rather than do what he normally does in this situation and shuffle over to the passenger side to get out, he opened the door through the wall and ended up in the shop, where I instantly got a 1-star wanted level for no reason, and the police piled in and killed me.

3) At the burger shop place near the fairground, I bought a burger, Niko turned to face the camera, and then… nothing. He didn’t get given a burger, he didn’t eat anything, I couldn’t move, use my phone, use my weapons, change the camera or anything. A bystander started walking on the spot, and I could do nothing bar reload a saved game.

4) I jacked a car, and the owner ran after me and grabbed the door handle. I drove along for a bit dragging them, and eventually they let go. I then realised I was going the wrong way, u-turned, and saw them in the road with no legs. I ran them over, and they got pushed through the road (presumably to drop out underneath).

5) On one of the missions, the camera got stuck in a wall giving me a view through the back of Niko’s head, showing his eyeballs from the inside. Eurgh.

OK, final mission involving Vlad completed! Also dated Michelle again, and did the first mission for Little Jacob too.

Found a Burger Shot full of bikers, and accidentally pushed one of them (who looked like a pirate). He stood up, was twice as tall as me, and then a huge fight kicked off. I managed to escape, barely, by stealing one of their bikes.

No graphical issues today, and I’m getting used to the camera, but it did hang on the loading screen at one point and I had to quit to the Xbox dashboard and reload the game. That was annoying.

I dated Michelle again, played pool with Roman (and lost, even though neither of us potted the black at all), played Qubed (the arcade game, which is hard), and completed a couple of missions for Vlad.

Lolz! Not really!

But see this post.

Anyway, I’m not far in, having played for two hours. Run a few missions for Roman, dated Michelle once, and spooked a Korean for Vlad.

It’s crap.

By selecting the best weapon prior to mounting the on-foot attack of the Martinez Building after the chopper assault, I found it much easier this time around. The Spaz shotgun is most excellent when many baddies are in close range as it takes them all out at once.

After that, I had to shoot down another helicopter, and finally there was a three-way showdown on the roof – the remaining Mendez brother, Martinez, and me. And it was easy, they died, and I won. Hurrahs!

After the credits, I spent a while taking over businesses, but that got dull in the end. I’ve got about 85% of them or something though now.

I’m pretty certain I’m on the last mission now. All the other storylines in the game are getting wrapped up – Phil Collins had his gig (during which I had to run round the lighting rigging and stop people cutting through it – shame), Reni went from he/she to just she and flew back to Europe, Gonzales has left Vice City (and I had to protect him on the way to the airport), and one of the Mendez brothers is dead. And so is someone on “my side” (but I won’t say who as it’s a spoiler).

So Diaz suggested I go and nick a Hunter (i.e. Apache) helicopter from the army base, so I did. And then I used that to blow up lots of people in “The Martinez Building” (gosh – I wonder who might be there?) but then died on the next bit because the stupid controls prevented me from selecting the right weapon. The fact the mission is called “The Last Stand” kind of implies I’m at the end, yes?

Done loads today, including: protected Phil Collins (no, really) from gangs, built up more of my empire, found out Lance and Louise have been nicking all the drugs, killed a load of people who wanted to blow up Phil Collins (again, but it’s understandable), taken part in more stunt driving (on a jetski) for Reni at the studio, played golf (sort of), collected all the remaining required cars for the impound, chased Lance’s helicopter in a hovercraft, saved Louise from Martinez (the army bloke), and all sorts of other things.

It’s growing on me now, but I still keep thinking – “It’s not as good as San Andreas“.

Eventually, I managed to take down the antennae. It wasn’t all that difficult once I’d figured out where the stairs to the roof of each police station were, so I could park my car as close as possible.

However, I then spent the best part of an hour finishing that mission, as I had a 5 Star rating upon escaping from the last station, and to complete the mission I had to drop that down to zero. Whilst being chased by another helicopter which seemed to cause my helicopter to veer all over the place.

I knew where one (and only one!) police bribe pickup was (near the very first safehouse you get), but couldn’t remember where any others were. Flying around didn’t really help too much either, as low down you get shot at by the police, and high up you can’t see any pickups. And I didn’t want to land as then the chasing helicopter would shoot me down. Luckily, I remembered there was a bribe outside the golf course, and managed to pick that up, and then remembered there was another near the airport. I snatched that just in time too – my helicopter blew up almost as soon as I landed it and the drop to just two stars and a pipe to hide in meant the police chopper flew off.

Finally, I ran back to my safe house and changed clothes to drop to no stars. Hurrah!

I now seem to be working for Gonzales, as well as still doing some missions with Lance to try to recover where all the drugs we had have gone. It would appear that they’ve mostly gone up his nose. Anyway.

Also expanded the “empire” a bit, and now I’m stuck trying to blow up antennae on the tops of police stations. With a rocket launcher.

Much of today’s play on this was spent on expanding my empire a bit, to earn a bit more money each day. Sadly, this wasn’t easy. In order to take over businesses, you have to destroy the vehicle outside them. But, since you can’t manually aim any of your weapons, this means you can only do it by smacking them with something like a baseball bat or golf club (which takes aaaaages), unless you happen to have some (wildly inaccurate) grenades.

Anyway. I did further the story a bit by taking photos of the army bloke and making out he was working with the police, in order to persude some drugs barons that I’m not the reason the drugs went missing. Or something. To be honest, the story is crap.

What isn’t crap, though, is the fact that I found a helicopter! Hurrah!

Gay bikers killed! I’m still not sure why they tried to kill me, but anyway. Then Forbes tried to escape, so I ran him down, then nicked a load more drugs and escaped to… the other island! Hurrah!

Lance, however, has spent all our money (again) on swish apartments. But then, he is an idiot. I’d kill him, but Tommy Vercetti will do that for me in Vice City a few years later.

The story in this game really isn’t anywhere near as good as other GTA games. Everything you do seems to be for some tenuous reason. Vic isn’t into drugs, doesn’t want to deal in drugs, and yet almost every mission has him stealing drugs or lining up a drugs heist or something else to do with drugs. And if it isn’t drugs, it’s guns. All to earn money (which Lance seems to be spending faster than you can get it) on your other brother’s hospital care.

Today’s missions included kidnapping Forbes (who, it turns out, was a cop) and locking him in a flat tied to a chair. And then I infiltrated a gay bar full of bikers who decided to kill me. Because everyone knows that gay bikers instantly want to kill people who just happen to have entered their bar by mistake. I died a few times on that bit and gave up for the day.

I hope I get to the other island soon.

You know, with “trails” turned off in the graphics options, suddenly everything is a lot better looking. But sadly, still awful.

Problems I had today:

In one mission, you have to use a fire engine to put out a fire. Controls for the fire engine’s water cannon are circle to fire, and the right stick to aim. So you need two right thumbs.

Near the first safehouse you get access to (just south of it, in fact) there’s a motorbike. If you get on it, a “collect shiny things” (or something) mini-game starts. But won’t actually start the clock until you collect the first shiny thing. However, having gotten on the bike, you can no longer start any other missions, even if you get off again. I found this out having driven miles away, and the only way I could “cancel” the mini-game was to destroy the bike, which was easier said than done. I pushed it into the sea using a taxi in the end.

Louise asked me to take over Marty’s business (after Marty became a bit dead), and for a mission I had to go and pick up two goons. Who really were goons, as they did nothing. I couldn’t recruit them, speak to them, or anything. They just stood there. So I ran them down and got Mission Failed.

The mission where you pick up Lance from the airport and then escape from the cholos, then get caught in an alley and have to shoot them? Bloody hell. The driving bit was fine (aside from the crap analogue sticks providing no accuracy on the targetting), but the alleyway was almost impossible due to the crap targetting and the way it kept locking on to already dead people instead of those people in my face, kicking my shins. It didn’t help that the next bit (get a car and escape the police to get to a hotel) was bloody hard too as the police kept blowing up my car mere inches from the hotel front door.

Aside from all them, though, it was “great”.

Or rather, Vice City Stories of Blur and Brown. The game looks horrific. I mean, Canis Canem Edit didn’t look great, but this? Awful. It’s like someone took the original Vice City and smeared it with dirty hands. I suppose that’s what you get for porting a PSP game back to the PS2. Anyway.

So I’m Vic Vance, Lance Vance’s (from the original) brother, and this seems to be set a while before the original. I’m a corporal in the army, or rather, was, until my crack-head sergeant send me on drugs and gun running errands and I got the blame.

I then fell in with a few hicks who sent me off blowing up cholo vans and nicking cars and stuff, and then I won a quad-bike race. Oh, and then I did my usual trick of finding the airport and spending ages doing stoppies and wheelies, and jumping over things.

So far, so GTA. Complete with even worse controls than I recall. Despite being the same game engine as Canis Canem Edit, and being the same sort of game, they’ve switched the target button from L1 to R1, shoot from R1 to a face button, and taken away the ability to crouch. And the graphics… I’m not usually bothered by graphics, but when they’re a step behind previous games in the series, and they’re bad to the point where they’re affecting gameplay, I do have a right to moan a bit. I’ve hit a bug already too – all of the vehicles vanished. Every single one, even the moped I’d stashed in my garage – gone. All the people vanished too. Thankfully, starting a mission restored them all.

I’ll give it a bit longer, but I think San Andreas and Saints Row may have spoilt it for me already.