Recent reviews by Tek

I WILL NOT BE SUPPORTING THIS COMPANY FURTHER. I refuse to be nickel and dimed

So I dont normally write reviews... but this is a special case I feel.

I got this game when it first came out for ps3 then again for pc for mods like LSPDFR andadding cars etc. had a good bit of fun with friends on both versions. Then why do i not reccommend it? well... the first Issues I had were when they added microtransactions to the online. well doesnt sound too bad at first.... but look at the prices of them! at time of writing, $8,000,000 in game is currently $99. so basically if you just want to buy that floating fortress yacht in game that automatically shoots people approaching it basically closing off portions of the map to any players you dont like that particular day. gameplay issues aside, its not cheap (keep in mind... you can upgrade this yacht by painting it other colors and choose between 3 hull styles, naming it, putting a flag on it... all of which costs more money. the 8 mil is just the base cost).

ok lets look at some other examples. they added heists (which took forever for them to impliment) in where you would pay a setup fee and then with 2-4 players (cant solo these) attempt to complete a set of setup missions and then attempt to pull off the heist itself. thehost of these missions, does NOT get paid durring the setup missions. ONLY after completing the actual heist. meaning theres already less incentive to do heists. why spend the3 or so hours trying to do 1 heist and make a few hundred k for themain event as host when you can join some random guys setup and get 200k for every setup mission. which there are usually 2 or 4 of. so in short it isnt cost/time effective.

the next issue. is the ONLY expansions to the game have been to the online. by itself again doesnt sound like a big deal.... but not everyone likes playing with people who are just going to be jerks and try to kill you constantly for no reason.

"well what about passive mode?" behold my next issue... while a good concept it stops players from attacking you yes. however... italso stops you from drawing a weapon at all. which first thought is why do you want to draw a weapong if you cant attack players? AI. the police in this game are brutal. they will hunt you down across the map for just standing near a cop too long. you cant defend yourself from ANY attacks. its stupidly easy to gain wanted level. and if you start to get away, more just magically spawn in front of you often so close you cant even turn away before they spot you again. the only ways to escape are 1: use the alley ways to hide from them. after breaking line of sight duck into an alley to hide. its pretty obvious the devs made this intentionally the focused way to escape. 2: the other way is to high tail it to the airport and take a plane and start flying high out over the water. helicopters will spawn but can usually get away from those.

"well the other additions to the game have good ways to make money too!" and you arn't wrong. however. those other ways require a substantial startup cost. multiple millions often times to get going. andtheres a chance you dont succeed so a lot of the invested cash is just gone.

short version.... they make doing anything in game less profitable than just throwing obsurd ammounts of money at them.

if I recall NerdCubed and a friend of his had a contest... see who could make more money in a set ammount of time. that video more or less expresses my issues with this.

another thing I am not a fan of is the vehicle upgrades. I like the idea of upgrades however the only way to unlock those upgrades is by winning races in that type of vehicle. not everyone likes racing so this is just really annoying to the rest of us. I think the worst of it was you have to WIN 107 races to unlock some part.

so this game has more than plenty of flaws and issues.and overall it was a decent game especially since you could escape to single player and mod it to be silly and run around with a tornado chasing you or become a police officer and respond to calls, doing some roleplay in the game world like being a truck driver, firefighter, garbage collector.... it was a good change from the usual: run around and shoot this, shoot that, race here... it gave the game variety and gave it more replay value. now Take Two has in its infinite wisdom "made mods illegal" before. it was against TOS to use mods in multiplayer. ok thats fine, no problem. a few months later they released in an interview they feel they are UNDER monetising their users.... they feel there are NOT ENOUGH microtransactions in a 60$ game... GTA is in the top 5 best selling games of ALL TIME and they feel they arnt making enough from the users...

microtransactions aside....

as I said mods give a fun change of pace. for things as small as graphical tweaks to as big as basicall anything you can imagine. but now thats gone.

so if you like grinding for weeks at a time to get enough money to buy 2 OK cars and a motorbike (not even the big fancy yacht), go ahead and buy this. if you want to pay over $130 of your real money for a virtual yacht that takes away freedom of other players to explore the map, go have fun.

but if you are a player that believes in earning things IN GAME with in game methods I reccomend finding something else.

this is a real shame. the game has a good bit of potential to be fun. but when everything is aimed at making you feel so insignificant you have to give them MORE money to afford anything. its no longer a fun experience. and its getting shelved until some practices get changed. modding is the whole reason some games are as successful as they are. gta SA, IV, III all included. while yes by themselves the games are good. once you play the story once thats usually it. no new surprises or benefit from playing again. mods give reason to keep buying and playing older games. and squeezing every penny from your customers does not make us want to come and play more of your games.

recently Take Two put a Cease and Decist for OpenIV. Basically a program that allows you to change game models or install the majority of mods. it has been around since GTA 4 and opened doors to hundereds of hours of fun. now declared illegal. basically the Open IV devs have said it isnt worth the time to fight back, even though they could easily win this in court under fair use as similar cases have appeared in the recent past.

Take Two have made their position known.... "you can have fun as long as you give us more money. and no other way" is the gist of it. if you dont give in to the scheme you are in for a loooooong grind fest to get anywhere decent.

If you are a believer in fair use, mods, or having fun without microtransactions then stay away from this game and Take Two Interactive. I do not entirely blame R* for this but dont call them innocent either