Oh neat! I like all the little details in GTA IV like being able to ride the subway - and I imagine a ferry system would have done something similar, but to ‘Happiness Island’? Like the subway, I probably would’ve tried it once but just stolen a boat/helicopter to get there in future.
I remember the game really blowing my mind when I first played it, mostly in the sense of just how alive the world was. The only other games that have done so (blown my mind in the same way) would probably be Skyrim and Baldur’s Gate 3, which felt so ahead of their time.
Good memories of just driving around Liberty City, messing with the physics system (usually getting pedestrians arrested by pushing them over and waiting for them to retaliate in front of the cops lol)
People really don’t appreciate how much that game singlehandedly pushed open world gaming forward. I know it’s not perfect, and it looks sort of dated now, but holy hell did that game really push the bar up.
I loved the physics system in GTA IV as it felt so revolutionary back then. If I remember correctly, GTA V didn’t have as elaborate a physics system, likely because the developers wanted the game to run better on the Xbox 360 and PS3 (those machines struggled quite a bit with GTA IV). I guess the easiest way to improve the FPS on those machines was probably to tone down the physics…
Oh GTA V used the same physics system (Euphoria) - I think it was just a developer choice to dial it back a bit. Was that related to performance in some way? Potentially. GTA IV had a feeling of the NPC physics being ‘always on’ - you could shove into other characters and they’d stumble and fall. Whereas GTA V (and the Red Dead games I believe), the character physics only seemed to trigger when you punched, shot or ran over an NPC. It’s a shame, as I loved messing with that engine in a ‘non-violent’ way xD
Yeah, GTA V did use Euphoria as well, and you can still see traces of it here and there like you said (interacting certain way with an NPC). I remember Star Wars The Force Unleashed also using Euphoria and it felt as if it was just straight up bolted into the game’s engine, as it could cause absolute mayhem on screen. The mayhem came at a cost: my Xbox 360 couldn’t keep up with dozens of objects colliding, and the FPS would drop to single digits in some instances. The sequel (The Force Unleashed II) was technically more stable, but its physics were dialed down to a degree where multiple objects interacting with each other were disabled for the sake of stability. I think that generation of consoles just couldn’t handle Euphoria all that well when there were no restrictions applied. By the time GTA V came out, Rockstar likely knew how to optimize their games better overall so it wasn’t just a matter of disabling Euphoria’s extreme settings or anything like that.
I hope they decide to bring it back for GTA VI. Surely the current generation of consoles could handle it… though I suppose it may depend on what the devs want to prioritise - graphics or physics. I miss the fluidity of GTA IV!
Crazy to hear that about BG3, the world is absolutely static there. NPCs are just standing around waiting for the player and there isn’t even a day/night cycle! The game has its qualities but a living dynamic world really isn’t one of them.
Ah sorry I worded that badly - I meant BG3 was another game that blew my mind, not for the same reasons as GTA IV. BG3 impressed me with how interconnected all the systems were and how well the story comes together no matter which angle you come at it from. But yes like you say, the world in that sense isn’t very alive!
Oh neat! I like all the little details in GTA IV like being able to ride the subway - and I imagine a ferry system would have done something similar, but to ‘Happiness Island’? Like the subway, I probably would’ve tried it once but just stolen a boat/helicopter to get there in future.
I remember the game really blowing my mind when I first played it, mostly in the sense of just how alive the world was. The only other games that have done so (blown my mind in the same way) would probably be Skyrim and Baldur’s Gate 3, which felt so ahead of their time.
Good memories of just driving around Liberty City, messing with the physics system (usually getting pedestrians arrested by pushing them over and waiting for them to retaliate in front of the cops lol)
People really don’t appreciate how much that game singlehandedly pushed open world gaming forward. I know it’s not perfect, and it looks sort of dated now, but holy hell did that game really push the bar up.
I loved the amazing vehicle deformation physics.
Yeah, I loved that aspect! Trying to escape from a chase with the car half caved in, full of bullet holes. The driving was so fun.
I loved the physics system in GTA IV as it felt so revolutionary back then. If I remember correctly, GTA V didn’t have as elaborate a physics system, likely because the developers wanted the game to run better on the Xbox 360 and PS3 (those machines struggled quite a bit with GTA IV). I guess the easiest way to improve the FPS on those machines was probably to tone down the physics…
Oh GTA V used the same physics system (Euphoria) - I think it was just a developer choice to dial it back a bit. Was that related to performance in some way? Potentially. GTA IV had a feeling of the NPC physics being ‘always on’ - you could shove into other characters and they’d stumble and fall. Whereas GTA V (and the Red Dead games I believe), the character physics only seemed to trigger when you punched, shot or ran over an NPC. It’s a shame, as I loved messing with that engine in a ‘non-violent’ way xD
Yeah, GTA V did use Euphoria as well, and you can still see traces of it here and there like you said (interacting certain way with an NPC). I remember Star Wars The Force Unleashed also using Euphoria and it felt as if it was just straight up bolted into the game’s engine, as it could cause absolute mayhem on screen. The mayhem came at a cost: my Xbox 360 couldn’t keep up with dozens of objects colliding, and the FPS would drop to single digits in some instances. The sequel (The Force Unleashed II) was technically more stable, but its physics were dialed down to a degree where multiple objects interacting with each other were disabled for the sake of stability. I think that generation of consoles just couldn’t handle Euphoria all that well when there were no restrictions applied. By the time GTA V came out, Rockstar likely knew how to optimize their games better overall so it wasn’t just a matter of disabling Euphoria’s extreme settings or anything like that.
I hope they decide to bring it back for GTA VI. Surely the current generation of consoles could handle it… though I suppose it may depend on what the devs want to prioritise - graphics or physics. I miss the fluidity of GTA IV!
Crazy to hear that about BG3, the world is absolutely static there. NPCs are just standing around waiting for the player and there isn’t even a day/night cycle! The game has its qualities but a living dynamic world really isn’t one of them.
Ah sorry I worded that badly - I meant BG3 was another game that blew my mind, not for the same reasons as GTA IV. BG3 impressed me with how interconnected all the systems were and how well the story comes together no matter which angle you come at it from. But yes like you say, the world in that sense isn’t very alive!
Ah, gotcha! Yeah that makes more sense. BG3 is very impressive from a systems perspective and how flexible many of the encounters are for sure.