I have a silly question.

I was buying new threads at the first shop you get too. There is a jacket hanging on the back wall, it is black with a checker-stripe in the middle. Is there a way to get to this style? i couldn't find it any place else in the store that I could get to.

I am tired of the beige jogging suit look.

Am I just not understanding the fighting controls? I've been locking onto a person, then pushing one of the attack buttons and then something either happens or doesn't. Usually the former. It's seems like every sixth time I hit one of the punch buttons I actually punch.

Yeah, because when I play GTA, I wants me some hardcore realism. And why stop there? Why not make the car underivable after just one crash? It's realistic...

Here is my issue with the game for my 360.

I can't get into single player. It doesn't recognize me as being signed in and it gives me the choice of Button A or Button B. Neither of which work when pressed.

I was able to accept some invites into multiplayer. Played a few games before being kicked to single player. Completed the first mission and got the Off the Boat achievement. This happened more than a few times where I would be kicked from multi-player to single player. But then, I could no longer get into multiplayer thru invites. And single player kept starting me from the beginning.

Exactly, I want the controls to be fun. It reminds of being in a dream where you're trying to punch, but you feel like you're stuck in molasses.

How do you get more missions? All I have is R and Michelle. I want to do the missions, but I have to wait for them to call me? I keep getting voicemail.

Go to Roman's cab depot. You will get into more missions that way.

Ya, sometimes people won't pick up their phones, but if you go to their letters (like R for Roman) they will give you missions any time of day.

[/QUOTE]Yeah, because when I play GTA, I wants me some hardcore realism. And why stop there? Why not make the car underivable after just one crash? It's realistic...
[QUOTE]

Exactly

I agree about the controls being terrible. It makes me scratch my head when developers allow their games to have these garbage controls. Did they all sit around and say "yeah, this is EXACTLY how we want the game to feel. We don't need to do a thing; this is perfect"? I simply can't believe that the reviewers didn't take this into account.

I wonder if a patch could tighten things up? I could barely steer the first car I jacked; the damn thing swerved all over the road like it was on ice. Not fun.

I've had trouble with hand to hand fighting as well. Of course, I'm hitting the buttons like in Smash Bros or some other fast moving fighting game, I have to make myself slow down.
Is the cell phone display hard to read for anyone else? I can read the highlighted item pretty well, but if I get a text message I have to work at reading it.

The cellphone is impossible to read. I have to squint and move closer to the TV.

Are you guys slamming the accelerator when you get in the car? You should ease onto the trigger, that will avoid a lot of spinouts when you first accelerate.

Yeah, I had trouble with the cell phone as well. I ended up just standing in front of my TV while playing. I changed the text size to large, which helped a little, but it was still way too dark. I guess since he never plugs in the phone he has to keep the screen illumination turned off.

I played last night for a couple of hours and just hated the controls. It really pissed me off when I was driving and all I would see is the back bumper of the car. I was ready to throw my controller down after I had to do one mission 8x's. I played some more today and I liked it a lot more, maybe it takes getting use to the controls scheme. My friend asked me if he should buy the game last night and I said no way. I may have to revise that answer to him after some more play time. I think the game got really fun for me when I met up with the Jamaican guy. I couldn't understand a word he said even with the subtitles on.

For those having trouble seeing the cell phone, are you using SDTVs or is it bad for you even on HDTV?

I'm having the same problem .. I could hear others when attempting to join, but it would just kick me back to single-player. However, when I was invited to join it worked fine.

I am told it may be the NAT settings. I'm going to check it when I get home.

PS. I love jumping out of the helicopter while hovering over Times Square. splat!

I'm on a HDTV and have the same issue. Also, the loading text at the bottom right of the screen is partly cut off when it shows up.

Same here. I'm on a CRT HDTV and it's quite dark. The rest of the game doesn't look excessively dark, though. And yeah, I have some text cut off on the bottom of the screen even though I have overscan at about 2.5%, which is as low as I can go without having geometry issues.

I have not had any problems. I am using a DLP HDTV fed 720P via component.

I did turn up the brightness a couple of notches within the game.



But I don't know if you can wait that long.

I personally find the controls to be near spot-on... The driving controls are especially good in my opinion. I like the way that the cars seem to have weight to them, and how the handling is as good as the specific car's should be. I had some issues early, mainly because I was attacking the roads at blazing speeds. Now, unless I'm in a chase, I've learned to take it a notch slower, and have really minimized my crashes. I must admit though, that the missions where you have to chase someone are difficult, because you have to go so fast, and make so many turns in a well populated and busy area. The cars you are chasing seem to have an unfair advantage in speed as well.

The only real drawback of the game so far has been the hand to hand combat. I really don't like the way that you have to time punches and kicks. Even worse, after you swing and miss, you are instantly vulnerable to your opponents swift hands. I've tried to use the block or dodge button, but it doesn't seem to work for shit.

Finally, these freezing issues sicken me. Admittedly, I haven't had a freeze so bad that I've had to restart my system (40GB PS3), but this game should have been more polished for its release. Even online is offline periodically! Rockstar went into overdrive trying to make sure that no gameplay or details were released beforehand, and this seems to have been extended to testers. These issues are too frequent, seemingly on both consoles, to have realistically slipped through the cracks of extensive scrutiny and testing. The longer Rockstar stays silent on these issues, the angrier I'm becoming.

If you are having trouble reading the phone, like I was, just hit start and adjust the brightness. It took care of it for me.

It's not just you guys. I'd be curious if after the more fights Noco gets into the more quickly his punching sequences get; thus an overall increase in his hand fighting abilities.

I mean, if you're in the middle of a group of three pissed off pedestrians and all Noco can manage to do is rattle off 1 punch combo between every other second or third push attempts, what's that going to do? Time to run away like a bitch and pull out the bat.

Also, does anyone know if similarly to San Andreas, increases in physical traits (size, stamina, appeal) etc. can be managed - for instance going to the gym? I've found no meters that track this.

That's the first thing I did when I started the game, hit the brightness up a notch or two. No trouble reading the cell.

Also, there are settings in your phone where you can change the text size to LARGE.

Little Jacob or Badman (or whatever his name is)? I thought Little Jacob was hard to understand, then Badman shows up...I think it's even funnier when you have subtitles on, because it displays it just as they are saying it, and you're trying to read it, going "WTF?!?"