28th October 2004, 8:31 PM
Let me ask the one question wherein the answer determines if I'm interested. Can you actually TALK to people? That is, can you walk up to random people and actually do MORE than just bludgeon them over the head this time around? The previous games just seemed like boring murder fests, and the missions just felt like the same only someone tells you to do it a certain way... Granted, I never played them all the way through, but I DID give both around 2 or 3 hours of my time, which I think should be more than enough to capture my interest if it's something I'm going to enjoy.
My main beef with it is this game of "full freedom" isn't that free if you can't act however you want to and are forced to just be a murdering stealing thug. I would LIKE to, for example, go on a quest of redemption, asking people for information regarding gang whereabouts and having multiple ways, from non-violent to The Punisher, methods to end that particular thing. Or, if I wanted to be evil, I would want to be so in more ways than just stealing cars and killing random people for no good reason. I would like to, for example, intimidate people and start up a bit of a legend about myself, or perhaps go completely undercover, finding the occasional bum in an alleyway and asking for information on secret areas, and actually INTERACT with these gangs in ways other than "do this, and you get payed, or a car, or a gun". Rather, the ability to walk in and either negotiate perhaps in a similar way to that, or, intimidate and just take over that group and slowly form a syndicate, and depending on how I do it, some strange plot points can develop. And then, as a result of me being weird, these story developments get all glitched and such :D, like, the Hello Kitty factory, which I somehow managed to make the outpost of a rival gang by my actions, suddenly takes the name of it, which would be one of the many mechanisms for gang naming, and so I'm accousted by the Hello Kitty gang of west side.
But enough of the big dream, the major question Geno is this. Can I truly interact with people? I can imagine that the majority of people would still have very default and mass reactions, but I'd like to do more than just stand in front of a car "stop", open the door, throw them out, and have the only reaction be yelling, or maybe one randomly pulls a gun. I'd like to actually talk to people in their car, maybe actually asking to buy it, maybe they aren't as innocent as they may seem and for a satchel of fire arms, I can get a ride, and later I find that was a big mistake because that particular random peon has joined some rival syndicate.
My main beef with it is this game of "full freedom" isn't that free if you can't act however you want to and are forced to just be a murdering stealing thug. I would LIKE to, for example, go on a quest of redemption, asking people for information regarding gang whereabouts and having multiple ways, from non-violent to The Punisher, methods to end that particular thing. Or, if I wanted to be evil, I would want to be so in more ways than just stealing cars and killing random people for no good reason. I would like to, for example, intimidate people and start up a bit of a legend about myself, or perhaps go completely undercover, finding the occasional bum in an alleyway and asking for information on secret areas, and actually INTERACT with these gangs in ways other than "do this, and you get payed, or a car, or a gun". Rather, the ability to walk in and either negotiate perhaps in a similar way to that, or, intimidate and just take over that group and slowly form a syndicate, and depending on how I do it, some strange plot points can develop. And then, as a result of me being weird, these story developments get all glitched and such :D, like, the Hello Kitty factory, which I somehow managed to make the outpost of a rival gang by my actions, suddenly takes the name of it, which would be one of the many mechanisms for gang naming, and so I'm accousted by the Hello Kitty gang of west side.
But enough of the big dream, the major question Geno is this. Can I truly interact with people? I can imagine that the majority of people would still have very default and mass reactions, but I'd like to do more than just stand in front of a car "stop", open the door, throw them out, and have the only reaction be yelling, or maybe one randomly pulls a gun. I'd like to actually talk to people in their car, maybe actually asking to buy it, maybe they aren't as innocent as they may seem and for a satchel of fire arms, I can get a ride, and later I find that was a big mistake because that particular random peon has joined some rival syndicate.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)