May 9, 2008 -
Next Generation is reporting GTA IV glitches on the PlayStation 3 version.Joystiq notes that, despite Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick's assertion that the game has no glitches, a PS3 patch has been released.
Today's Mirror reports:
Internet forums dedicated to the game have been flooded with complaints from buyers.
Hundreds of posts claim the £44.99 game does not work properly on the Sony PlayStation 3 console or on Microsoft's Xbox 360. And a HMV stores spokesman said: "We have had people come back to us saying that their game has been freezing."
Others say they cannot play it on the net because online servers are jammed.
Personally, I've gotten to 16.05% through the game (GTA IV tracks this) and have had no problems in either single or multiplayer using the Xbox 360 version. But you can't discount so many glitch reports. As a consumer, it makes me wonder about some of those perfect review scores...
Comments
Re: Some GTA IV Buyers Troubled by Bugs
I have found a bug that will not allow me to date anyone on love-meet. i get a mail saying that i am a match with LAWCHICK, then it says sorry it cant help me further, only giving me the option to delete it. No date, no nothing.
Re: Some GTA IV Buyers Troubled by Bugs
I just got the 360 version - the disk was somewhat unreadable. you could see that the plastic covering the media was a bit couldy. Got to 28% and it became totally unusable. I returned it for a duplicate and have since had no trouble. I recently got onto Xbox-Live and received updates. I don't have a HDD so I guess it used the memory that came with the game. I belive it was this update that erased my save games. Seems some things have changed with the game as well. Oh well! Will have to start over. If I find it was another reason that I've lost my data I will report it here.
6 months on and not a single patch. all we get from eidso is locked threads and empty promises. I acnt get my money back from the store, and they wont give me it back so i have a £30 drinks coaster.
i wish companies would stop doing this. At least Rockstar got a ps3 patch out within a week. Ill give them credit for that.
So, it at least for me it doesn't seem to be a game issue, but a hardware issue. Since the game streams so much data from the DVD it super-amplifies any problems with the DVD drive.
and the forums are FULL of complaints to which no1 listens
ffs i need a 360 controller to play multiplayer on my pc... and in SPLIT SCREEN... none of which mentioned on box.
I remember playing SiN (known at the time for having a LOT of bugs) and I barely encountered any glitches (except VERY long loading times, who were (thank god) fixed in the Steam version).
6 million copies in a week. Over a half billion USD, according to the CNN News article here.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/05/08/gta.sales/index.html
My game was freezing on start up. I have a PS3 with 60GB.
Anyhow, I was able to fix the problem by turning off the 'Auto Save' function. I think what was happening was that the Auto Save was creating a second safe file and the CPU was getting confused on start up.
Online had major issues that Sony addressed in a recent patch, while the 360 multiplayer, for me, has been no more shaky than any other (I blame my router, and my inability to chnge its settings)
I also agree with the fact that some consoles could have been flawed in production from the start. Now that these users are using a game that uses the system differently they are encountering those problems.
Personally I am about 32% through the game and I have had my console lock up once during an incredible explosion online. 16 players, lots of particles, bound to hiccup.
I'm at around 15-16% complete, as well, and haven't had any glitches or bugs pop up. Hopefully I'll get some time to play this weekend.
(360 version)
Hell, as a matter of fact, I think Kotaku ran an article on the game freezing a while back ago.
The PS3 hardware is supposedly better, but both of them are really pushing the edge of what is possible to produce at that price. They could be done better, but in companies as large as MS and Sony you can't avoid politics creating bad engineering decisions.
I lost well over $1000 of in-game moneuy thanks to the brilliant saving system that only allows saving at your house and after missions. Thumbs up to R* for that!
It's no different than what happened after North America got Smash Bros. Brawl. Either you could get online and have a whole bunch of fucking lag, or not even get online at all due to the server being bogged down.
With all the copies sold it stands to reason that some would have problems, while the several dozen reviewers out there did not. I'd wager that millions of purchasers have had no issues to speak of, I know my brother in law plays the game several hours a day and has had absolutely no issues, but with Rock Band he's had to reboot several times because it didn't detect his mic.
When I first started the game, after a mission or two I went to the internet café, and discovered the dating site. I put in a request for every single girl on there, and a couple of days later they all came back negative. The date request button is blanked out and unclickable from that point on.
Then, later comes the mission where you actually have to date a girl (someone who was not on the list before then), so I request her, it's accepted, but from that point on, while the date request button came back for all the other girls, if I click on it, it doesn't actually register, and as soon as I go off the profile and back onto it, the date request button is back again, showing I haven't actually used it.
On top of this, I never get any emails from the girls, as obviously the date request doesn't "submit".
I wish there was community forums that the developers read for me to complain about this bug, because otherwise I can't see it being fixed.
My only grip with the game now is that the music selections seem weak compared to previous versions. Maybe they can work on a future patch that lets you play your own MP3s in-game.
It's not a glitch, it did the same to me you have to "unlock" the ability to use love-meet and crap list, it's unlocked after a mission with Brucie. Till then the use of the site is blocked for a few days.
While I do prefer PC gaming(well, up until HL2 like copy protection and "PC games made with consoles in mind" aka Deus Ex IW), I really dreaded them getting more PC problems like patch-hell.
agree'd. This was forseeable as soon as Sony released the 18th new PS3 with slightly different specs and firmware.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that Sony and Microsoft haven't provided programmers with updated dev kits so they can avoid problems like this in the future.
You need a 360 controller to play on your PC? GTA IV isn't out for PC. I can only assume you mean playing the game on your 360 but channeling the video through a VGA cable to your PC monitor, or through a TV card to your PC or something, in which case it's bloody obvious you'd need to use a console controller for a console game!
If you have read somewhere that the PC version will only support a 'Games for Windows' 360 controller, please supply a link, because that sounds outrageous.
There's split screen? Where's the split screen?
@ Walrus
I see, most people I've seen that have that problem haven't done Brucies misstion yet. Replying here since myspace won't load the messaging scripts.
Expect some fixes in late June I'd imagine.
If however it doesn't start freezing soon after the game has started off then I know I am in for a clear run.
I have an XBox 360 fwiiw.
Never encountered any freezing (I'm @ 60%) but I can hardly play in multiplayer. Most of the times it doesn't work and I get a "connection to one or more players lost. returning to single player" message while in the middle of the game creation process. Some rare times I can play, but my score ($) is never registered and when I come back to multiplayer, I'm back at 0 again... (Lost around 20k of multiplayer $)
I removed the problems by disconnecting the PS3's wireless internet access. I think there was a bug with the game in its connection with the PS3 network which was causing the freezing.
It works fine now. Course it means I can't update the thing without reconnecting, but I'm having too much fun with the game to even bother really :)
May 10th, 2008 at 6:16 am
NovaBlack:
You need a 360 controller to play on your PC? GTA IV isn’t out for PC. I can only assume you mean playing the game on your 360 but channeling the video through a VGA cable to your PC monitor, or through a TV card to your PC or something, in which case it’s bloody obvious you’d need to use a console controller for a console game!
If you have read somewhere that the PC version will only support a ‘Games for Windows’ 360 controller, please supply a link, because that sounds outrageous.
@ Ebonheart
There’s split screen? Where’s the split screen?
sorry, i was talking about kane and lynch for the pc. just saying 6 months on and absolutely no patch , not a single one, so im stuck with split screen multiplayer REQUIRING a 360 controller (yeah makes PERFECT sense) with no warning on the box.
Generally just a comment on the fact im sick of devs getting away with releasing some games that arent ready in any way, and then never repairing it, leaving me with NO way to get my money back for a broken game that wasnt as advertised
the forums are utterly useless, we have been TOLD BY DEVS a patch is 'nearing completion' or literally 'just about released' for about 6 months. n then they just stop responding, never give any concrete info when they do, and lock threads when anyone starts an angry (and completely justified) thread asking about the patch or ways to get money back.
The store wont accept it back.
Eidos wont refund me.
Im stuck with a coaster.
the thread was
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?p=729779#post729779
the most viewed thread on the forum! (almost 9,000 views) and 11 pages of responses. And then we got shafted as they said they didnt think we should be angry with eidos (after 6 months with no patch or official statement) and locked the thread. So i started a polite thread asking how exactly they suggest i get a refund as i am genuinely stuck, and once again.. locked. Writing to them also receives a similar response.
Its just not right that developers can do this. In ANY other walk of life (cars, electrical applicances etc) a consumer could simply take them to court (here in the uk the sale of goods act would cover it) as a product eg a car couldnt be sold a s road worthy and then they say after youve paid oh.. the wheels actually come as extras, another £200 please.
But in kane and lynch, and generally in games software, the same thing with a game and then a controller (not mentioned ANYWHERE on the box) is ok. Couple that with the fact the game literally DOES not run for thousands of people and surely we have a situation that just cant be fair.
From the sounds of things with GTAIV id be more than happy with one freee every 50 hours of gameplay lol. (although i havent had a single freeze yet and ive easily clocked up that!)
Bad idea dude the PS3 is curved your Wii is liable to fall off...
...yes it even fails as a Wii stand
I am bored of mine.
For most it was a server-side issue that seems to have been resolved, as I have been able to access multiplayer and play the game while logged on without a hitch since about May 2nd or 3rd. Before that I had also encountered the freeze bugs from April 29th.
And since the bugs were network related as opposed to faulty design or poor QA, I don't believe the bugs should have affected reviews and scores significantly. After all, I don't think anyone held the massive authentication meltdown of Steam following the release of Half-Life 2 against the game itself, did they? If they did, the true responsibility lay with Valve.