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Saturday, May 3, 2008

Grand Theft Auto (GTA) IV - xbox 360 multiplayer UNRELIABLE and SUCKS

Did you go and buy Grand Theft Auto 4 recently? I did for my xbox 360, and while the single player program is great, the MULTIPLAYER SUCKS!

Why does it suck?

First of all, it is not like the multiplayer setup operated by games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. In very rare cases, you might have some mulitplayer issues.

But in GTA IV... their multiplayer setup is absolutely unreliable. Sometimes you hear voices in your headset, and then you get kicked-off for no apparent reason and sent back to single player. The GTA program should have its own separate multiplayer area instead of being forced to go through single player and log-into the system every time you want to play online. With the loading time so long, it's just frustrating.

Odds of getting a multiplayer game on GTA IV: 1 in 10 (10 percent (or even lower) chance)
Odds of getting a multiplayer game on Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4: 1 in 1 (100% chance)

Second, when you are lucky to even get into the multiplayer system, there are SO FEW players playing at all. The system does not pack rooms to the maximum capacity of 16 people. Instead, you are more than likely playing with no more than six people at a time, which makes the game much less fun and less challenging. In many of my cases, I get sent to the game lobby where I am the ONLY PERSON waiting for more players and setting-up the game.

HERE'S A TIP FOR THOSE FOLKS AT ROCKSTAR GAMES: FIX THE DAMN SYSTEM! Why not just rewrite the entire multiplayer system to mimic what Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 does? You'll find that by having a separate multiplayer menu that does not force you back into single player mode when the game is over or when you get kicked by accident, you'll have much more happy fans.

Right now, I'm not happy.

Do you agree? Post a comment on my blog at http://www.akit.org/2008/05/grand-theft-auto-gta-iv-xbox-360.html

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree, there is no matchmaking, no browsing for games, and no online support from Rockstar for anything. I can't even get the shitty Social club website to work because is it in crappy flash and I never got a confirmation email.

Rockstar fail Multiplayer instantly!

Now Bungie on the other hand know how to run an online game and support it...

Gerard said...

I agree.

There are so many issues with Multiplayer it's not funny.

Anonymous said...

I do agree as well akit. Nice eval of the multiplayer. Your skills at playing and understanding the complexities of GTA IV are apparent.
Keep posting!

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's that bad. Sure not really a lot of choice where you're going but can always invite friends via LIVE. I have just gotten the priveledge of LIVE, as i've lived in a rural area forever and just figured out how to link LIVE thru my laptop and out my CellPhone card to the internet. Lag isn't terrible, better upload than DSL and sometimes Cable depending on where you are, server, traffic, etc.

Anonymous said...

i agree. its been "starting game" for 30 mins now!

Anonymous said...

Checkout the date of this post and I'm still have the same problems mentioned! I'm considering asking for a portion of my money back! This sucks. I'm gonna write to rockstar in fact. You would have though they would have patched the game by now and doubled it's pottential through online play!
Obviosuly they don't care at enough to do so!

Unknown said...

it's still sucks... Trying to get some simple multiplayer acheivements, but have only been able to play once, baa... Saint Rows 2 full co-op / multiplayer works like a charm, GTA team could learn something from them. I'm not going to download the next GTA 4 DLC, I stick to Saint rows until GTA created a new multiplayer layer thats works, we had et in GTA 1, GTA 2.. what happend to them? Come on.