I'm sorry? Just because people can't contain their own hype of an upcoming game doesn't make the game itself crappy..
I really digged GTAIV, but it looks like I'm one of the few because it's getting nothing but flak nowadays...

"We all know how GTA4 turned out" == Excellent, right? Because it is.

At least it wasn't multiplayer. Actual Intelligence(tm) ruins games.

Well you won't believe it but I also just finished TLaD on PC. Just started the BoGT and it's a great so far!
It's good to see Rockstar learned from their mistakes in GTAIV itself (like the whole "keep your friends happy" shit).

And by watching some of the online streams of RDR I really think we have another GOTY-contender on our hands here...

There's not really a difference. To him, the game did turn out bad. He just happens to be wrong.

No. If you don't like a game, it pretty clearly turned out poorly. This stuff is not objective.

I disagree personally, and think it's great, but that doesn't mean he can't just think it's a shitty game.You're buying RDR for MP? There's a big ass campaign. That was a crappy excuse for Battlefield, but it seems like the main draw in this.

I loved everything about GTA4 except pretty much all of its actual gameplay. Movement was sluggish and favoured animation over controls, cover system worked sporadically and was more of a nuisance than helpful, and wonky lock on targetting once more made GTA shooting into a rigid, awkward and unfulfilling prospect.

The fact that those things were the core "meat" of the experience meant that conflicts, narrative, missions, sub quests, etc, all eventually boiled down to engaging in those core mechanics, and if those annoy the shit out of you no amount of awesome characterization, witty writing or unique plot can really comfort you.

Knowing what games Raptor likes it's obvious that character movement and low level interaction is at the top of his list of priorities, and as such, GTA4 pretty much does suck. There's really no excuse for it playing as poorly as it does, per se, but it's also obvious that Rockstar don't care particularly about that stuff. Neither do the ones that have no problem with the aforementioned control quirks.

To a lot of players (most players?) the narrative and atmosphere and characters and stuff like that, all those things that wrap around GTA4 are the main attraction. (It was evident from the Alan Wake thread how utterly tiny concerns over gameplay were, that people were looking forward almost exclusively to the story and atmosphere)

The bits where it's a game is a method to interact with that atmosphere, those characters, and those interactions don't need to be mechanically fulfilling. Sorta like changing channels on a TV, the remote control doesn't need to feel like this rewarding meta game, the important stuff is what comes on when you change the channel. It's a difference in player psychology, really, and while I feel pretty flexible in that regard (not going apeshit over Heavy Rain for instance) I can't do that with GTA4, where it's not a lack of interactivity that bugs me, it's poor implementation.

Videos of RDR clearly showed that the GTA4 base is still in here, and on that, everything trips up and smashes its head into a coffee table for some of us. I've heard that there's an option for free aim in it though, and that ought to help with the shooting at least. Whether that's enough to enable me (us?) to appreciate all this appealing stuff built on top of the core gameplay remains to be seen.

That's, in no short terms, what I think Raptor is getting at. :)

Do you people not understand opinions? I disagree, therefor you are wrong. You don't need to preface every single statement you make in life with "in my opinion," when it's obvious that it's your opinion.Yeah, that's bullshit though. If you can't appreciate a game at all because the controls are quirky, than you're just going to miss out on some otherwise great games. I love action games too. I'm mostly an arcade and competitive sort of gamer. I can still see the greatness in GTA. I basically hope that RDR has all of GTA's problems, just so more people can cry about it and miss out on what might be one of the best games this year.