My Thoughts: GTAIV vs Saints Row 2

For this “My Thoughts” I'd like to compare two oft-compared games, released in the same year on the same platforms and with many, many similarities. I'll split it into several sections too. Grand Theft Auto IV, not the fourth in the series, is the numerical sequel to the game considered revolutionary in its popularisation of the entire 3D sandbox genre. Saints Row 2, the multiformat sequel to a 2006 Xbox 360-exclusive game, is a series that attempts to do pretty much the same thing.

Graphics

Both have good graphics, though they seem to take alternative directions. GTAIV's realistic graphics, Saints Row 2's cartooniness. Given GTA's fairly poor sixth-generation graphics it's a pleasant surprise that its graphics are so, so good. Although less colourful and slightly more dreary than Saints Row 2's graphics, GTAIV's to me are better.

Winner: GTAIV

Setting

Saints Row 2 features the city of Stilwater, upgraded but in many ways unchanged from its predecessor. It's a well-designed location with plenty of different locations. GTAIV features a renovated Liberty City, in the style of New York (with many familiar areas, including its own rendition of Times Square and the Statue of Liberty). Though GTAIV's location had to be researched thoroughly, costing millions of dollars, Stilwater's brighter atmosphere just about takes it.

Winner: SR2

Arsenal

An easy victory to Saints Row 2. While GTAIV's is more than adequate - a series of guns based on real life ones and the ability to throw things like coffee, hot dogs and other sidewalk debris, it's an overall step down from San Andreas' pool cues and brass knuckles. Saints Row 2 not only covers the realistic front, it also adds a fun factor to weaponry, with weapons such as defibulators, satchel charges (another item San Andreas had that IV didn't) and the "pimp slap", a big pink glove that sends its recipients flying into the air. Smashing.

Winner: SR2

Story

And an easy victory for GTAIV. SR2 was never about the storyline - it has some nice missions and a general story to go with - but GTAIV's is movie-worthy. It features twists, turns, user choices, and a real feeling of progression. Smashing stuff.

Winner: GTAIV

Online

Both games feature adequate online multiplayer minigames which are great fun to play, but SR2 also allows two people to play the entire story mode, and even wander entirely independently around the city, online together. Great stuff.

Winner: SR2

Cheats

Not the game-breaking health refillers, the ones which make playing about more fun. The PS2 GTA games were particularly brilliant at this, including cheats such as the ability to drive into other cars and watch them float away before your very eyes. Yet again though, GTAIV stripped a lot of these, leaving mainly the game breakers. SR2 has a number of funny cheats, including UFO spawning, low gravity, and pedestrian weather (where random civilians are spawned and subsequently drop from high in the sky, landing with a sickening thud). You can combine these with online two-player city exploration to create a number of unofficial minigames, including a personal favourite - low gravity grenade wars (low gravity + infinite health + give grenades + infinite ammo, find a nice high roof and chuck grenades at each other until someone falls off it).

Winner: SR2

Messing About

SR2 has an absolute plethora of outside-mission activities to do. These are generated from all the weapons you can toy with, the minigames, and all sorts. But GTAIV is slightly better thanks to its stunning physics engine. You can push people over things and watch them stumble/trip (even going so far as to pushing them down flights of stairs, Porrasturvat-style), into cliffs or anything of the sort. You can anger taxi drivers by slapping their car then run around toying with their angry selves, perhaps getting a few more, having them accidentally hit their angry companions and watching the ensuing fight. You can get yourself a helicopter, carefully back it into a building until its tail end falls off then try to land it as its damaged, smoking body rotates angrily in the air. You can go to the strip club and buy yourself a dance, or slightly more fun, jump onto their podiums and watch all the strippers become frightened and the guards become angry. You can log onto a computer, look up some child... naughtiness... only to be redirected to a police website and, off-computer, five stars added to your wanted level. You can get yourself a girlfriend on a dating site and take her for a booze-up, ending the date by drunkenly driving home and showing her what your interpretation of "coming in for coffee" is (hint - no sugars). Heck, you can even go and watch Ricky Gervais, voiced and motion-captured by the man himself, perform a genuinely funny stand up show!

Winner: GTAIV

Overall

In short, GTAIV takes it. SR2 is still cracking fun, especially when you've an online friend to play it with. But GTAIV continues its sandbox crime game dominance by providing a game which, amidst all the controversy and media stupidity, is genuinely brilliant fun. Yes, you can park up to a prostitute and watch her bang you one off in animated splendour. Yes, you can go on killing sprees. But yes, ignore all the shit around it and you're left with something that, in one word, is stunning. Oh, not to mention, but Saints Row is totally a rip off of GTA. ;)

My Thoughts: GMIndie Magazine Issue 8

Welcome to a new segment I call "My Thoughts". Every now and then I'll post my thoughts, either in a little summary or, in this case, as a review, on a non-game item. This will be a little like my old website "Talast". Reviews of games made in Game Maker will continue to be posted on the Game Maker Blog instead.

Despite earlier statements that the magazine would be coming to an end to make way for one of a new purpose by the same team, GMIndie Issue 8 was released earlier to the public. At 18 pages it’s much larger than previous instalments, which have generally clocked in at around eight. Given a note at the start of the magazine claiming a new release schedule of “Every 3 weeks” it would appear the move is permanent.

The magazine contains reviews of RC Aerobatics and The Wizards Apprentice, which are kind of well written, though hold the occasional misspelling/grammar error. Oddly, the introduction to the review for “The Wizards Apprentice” is the same size as the rest of it, and contains no capital letters whatsoever. Something that made me giggle was Frederick’s statement embedded in that review: “My favorite is the snow level with the snowmen that throw snow balls and ice at you.”

Following the reviews comes a slightly poor full-page advertisement for self-rating system TIGRS, then a page devoted to an eBook called “Game Maker Geek”, which did nothing to catch my attention other than perhaps nicking the avatar YoYo Games moderators use for banned members.

Another review afterwards, for “Western Shootout”. Just noticed that there’s no mention on the page of who made the game, though it clearly states who wrote the review. Again, it’s a fairly simple affair that gets its point across with some unnecessary mild swearing and no conclusion.

Then comes the interview with Landon Podbielski (superjoebob on the GMC amongst other places). The interview is thorough and well written, which makes a change from some of the previous segments where all the interviewees’ text speak and misspellings were left unedited. It’s a two pager and covers a lot of interesting ground.

Following the interview is a massive seven page tutorial in learning online multiplayer. Knowing absolutely nothing about creating this I took a look at the tutorial – it seemed complicated but in general will surely benefit some people. What I didn’t like is the way they announced it would be continued in the following issue – they did it mid-sentence. The beginning of a chapter was just four lines before the cut off point so it would’ve made sense to end it a tad earlier.

A small segment comes after this, which is poorly written (whoever wrote it needs to learn that, being a name, “Game Maker” takes capitals, and that calling something a “nice cool feature” really doesn’t work). On the other half of the page is a fairly unfunny comic in which whoever is writing demonstrates exactly why emoticons have no place in a written publication. The final page is an outro where said emoticons become abundant (all but one of the paragraphs have one in) and a final statement “Much regards from the GMIndie team” before a nice chunky GMIndie logo is put in.

On the subject of the magazine’s design – although it’s generally consistent and looks good enough, I find the constant use of seemingly random WordArt effects for titles ugly and unprofessional. Although the magazine is very, very Calibri-heavy it’s superior to slapping fonts around like crazy. In my opinion, if they ditch the odd and inconsistent titles the design will be very pleasant.

On the whole, GMIndie Magazine Issue 8 is definitely an improvement over its predecessors. It appears to have greatly benefitted from the lengthened development time and, though still certainly holds room for further improvement (no emoticons, proper English at all times, fix the design of article/review titles) it’s a magazine worthy of your download. Hopefully in three weeks’ time Issue 9 will be released and take the torch from the seemingly finished bodies of GMTech and MarkUp.

Download GMIndie Issue 8

Top Ten Music Videos

For something a little different, I'd like to post this to show you all what my top ten music videos are. Should probably have mentioned "favourites" but these are chosen because, to me, they enhance the music they're played to, and are very original.

#10 Beck : E-Pro
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Kicking off the list, a strange yet brilliantly done music video in which Beck is in a world full of vectors. Cue what must've been either incredibly embarrassing or freaking hilarious for him to film as he navigates the world, doing many different things such as digging and jumping atop a series of musical notes. The ending is fairly unexpected too.

#9 Gorillaz : Stylo
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The first of two Gorillaz music videos to make the list (they've always had excellent music videos), Stylo sees the crew in a newly CGIed form, which manages to stick amazingly faithful to their cartoon forms, being chased by first a large policeman, then a Bruce Willis. Amazing stuff.

#8 Fischerspooner : Get Confused
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There's always a brilliant quality to Fischerspooner music videos, I find. Unfortunately, some of them tamper with the songs a bit too much in the process (Emerge is particularly affected by this). Get Confused remains relatively intact, though, and the music video itself is great.

#7 The Prodigy : Out Of Space
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Some of The Prodigy's videos are kinda samey - Liam Howlett shouting at the camera and doing an odd dance, occasionally with added black & white. Out Of Space benefits from being an old song. The music video, which is about as '90s as '90s can get, is different... and a couple of dances performed in it are to die for!

#6 Gorillaz : 19/2000 (19-2000)
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The second of the two Gorillaz music videos in my top ten shares some stuff in common with the first - the band is in a vehicle on a single road. Yet this and Stylo are ten years apart. 19/2000, possibly Gorillaz's most well-known track and often misquoted as "Got the Cool Shoeshine", "Shoeshine" or similar thanks to its distinguishable Noodle-sung segment, has one of the most memorable music videos out there. It even has a flash game made after it!

#5 Fatboy Slim : Weapon Of Choice
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Christopher Walken dancing in a deserted hotel. Yeah. As a sidenote, "Right Here, Right Now", also by Fatboy Slim, would have made the list had it been a top 11. Had it been a top 12 "Praise You" would probably have also made it.

#4 Franz Ferdinand : Take Me Out
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AKA "how you make an entrance". Stupidly addictive song, stylistic, memorable music video. Obscure, yes, but brilliant nonetheless.

#3 OK Go : Here It Goes Again
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Single shots are always gonna be impressive. OK Go's "Here It Goes Again" is a music video filmed in a single shot in which the band do an impressive "dance" on a set of treadmills with alternating directions. Apparently it took them 17 takes to do right - a figure that's actually fairly good. Another one for the memorable pile.

#2 Röyksopp : Remind Me
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A video displaying a woman's average day in the style of an informative/instructional video/booklet/whatever. The video is done axonometrically and is, in general, fantastically made. Either a downside or upside depending on which you prefer, though - the version of the song is actually a remix, not the original tune. Whereas the album version of the song (and presumably the single version too) is a fairly downbeat, sad song, the video version is upbeat and jolly.

#1 Coldplay : The Scientist
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Sometimes when making lists I'll struggle to choose a #1. Not here. The Scientist is a saddening, perfectly-done look at how a couple, driving in their car, had to swerve to dodge oncoming traffic, were swept off a cliff, the woman killed in the accident and the journey of the man, played by Chris Martin, subsequently. The catch is that the entire thing is shown backwards. Martin learnt how to sing the entire song backwards so that, in the reversed video, he was still apparently singing along to the proper track. A beautiful song with a perfect, fitting video. For a slightly haunting take, but to also make full sense of what exactly is happening, here's a reversed version, which of course shows the actual shot footage the right way round.

Anyway, that's it. Feel free to comment on my choices, music videos you personally love etc. Until the next entry.