johng Blog

If you are not already excited about the imminent release of GTA 4 I highly recommend you checkout Edge’s in depth interview with Sam Houser that covers the development of the entire series and where Rockstar are headed in the future.

The one thing that hasn’t been covered to date by the official PR channels are the multiplayer portions of the game. Aside from magazine leaks much of the detail is going to be discovered when the game ships and gets into people’s hands. Make no mistake about it, 16 players in Liberty City is a huge deal

Thinking back to first 2D GTA games which had network multiplayer on PC I remember how fun it was due to the variety of ways you could take the fight to your enemies. Shoot a rocket at their car, car jack them and back over the splayed out body and so much more. Then the GTA 3 trilogy came about sans multiplayer but that didn’t stop enterprising modders from trying to get some kind of network play going. Through all the bugs and glitches I played Multi Theft Auto with many a university house mate and everytime it was clear - this could be a gem of an experience if done properly by Rockstar.

I am more intrigued by this than the main game in a lot of ways. Crackdown, while a great co-op experience, was unfortunately limited to 2 players leaving me a few times having to pick between friends. The technical challenge involved in getting 16 players synced up in an open word environment must have been hard to overcome and I will be blown away if the online experience is smooth.

The secondary issue is the split player base. My friends who know a lot about games own Xbox 360s. My friends who are less well informed own PS3s (or intend to). From everything published the 360 version is looking to be the best in terms of performance, online play and exclusive downloadable content. Those three facts won’t make a damn bit of difference in the UK as GTA is associated with Playstation very strongly over here. As such I won’t be able to play with everyone I know.

Hopefully some fresh information will come out in the next few weeks. Hard to believe it’s only a month away. This time things will be different!