Gaming GTA IV: Episodes from Liberty City PC Review

Are the GTA IV Episodes are better port than the original PC version of GTA IV? Phil investigates.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2010/04/26/gta-iv-episodes-from-liberty-city-pc-revie/1

 

Now with 75% less rockstar social club!

 

love Brucie's return, his bigger brother is just as funny as he was.

 

Damn, i thought this was the full original game plus the 2 expansion packs sold as an all in one package..

But its just the 2 expansion packs that work without needing the full original game?....

Do they have plans to release a full all in one package?...

 

I Should point out that many GTA fans have discovered that the disc version of eflc has worse performance than the downloaded gfwl version, (the steam version is basically just the disc version with a no-cd crack, so that has the same poor performance compared top the GFWL version) I should also point out, if you download it from GFWL it uses less HDD space because it uses any GTA IV files that it can which is obviously a great way to save HDD space, and since the GFWL version uses the same exe, you can switch to the other games/DLC whenever you wan't without the need to exit the game!.

 

I have the steam version of GTA 4 and the disc version of EfLC and I don't notice anything different performance wise. Settings are exactly the same.

The disc version has additional music and radio stations which are imo much more important than being able to switch stories without quitting. Why you would want to do that anyway is beyond me.

 

@Eggy, Like I said, the steam version is basically the disc version with a no-cd crack, the GFWL version is the one with the better performance, and the advantage of jumping from game 2 game without the need to exit. And that can be useful when your mates wanna play online but they are in one of the other titles, you can just click, join session in progress, and everything else is done for you!.

 

I'm at work so can't read the article thoroughly, but does this need GTA 4 to work
or not? Is it just a standalone game?

 

Oddly the steam version has an install limit to which goes competely against the whole idea of steam. Really annoys me the way publishers do that. I might pick up the disc version as it doesn't seem to have such a stupid flaw.

Oh and Cgthomas it is a standalone and does not require the original game

 

Bought it, and I like it... I'm just thought that the game had a tweak or two to be more optimized (without us fiddling in it)...

 

Regarding performance the thing is that the game, if you push for the highest settings possible, will brutalise your system like some sort of Viking stag party. You can match how it looks on an Xbox on a fairly rudimentary system, a table tennis bat wired up to a lemon ought to manage it, but if you go for higher resolution, better texture quality and longer view distances, then opt for high resolution effects and draw those effects further away and then slap anti-aliasing on top of all that then the game will look amazing, as a slide show.

I found specifically with the Ballad of Gay Tony there are areas and times of day where performance really tanked, particularly by the waterfront at night, because of the lighting and reflections. Annoyingly the settings that I had in place for the rest of the city were fine, but in that area, at that time, it was a bit of a mare. But that's the inherent problem with trying to eke the highest graphics settings out of a game.

 

gta4 doesnt even allow you to set max settings last i checked unless you have 2gb of video ram

is this still in affect here

 

I still haven't installed GTAIV yet (see my sig for the reason)
Now that they've softened the rockstarclub regulations, is the original less strict as well?

 

completed both episodes, i think the story in tbogt is a lot more interesting than the original gta4

 

Really unimpressed by the performance 'improvements' on show in Episodes. I swear that Lost and Damned looks worse that the original, and gives lower frame rates. Also really annoying to have to force AA through Catalyst rather than in game (not that I can anyway given the hardware demands it makes). I do have the Steam version, but this story about the GFWL version running better sounds like a load of balls to me.

 

@battles_atlas: Just check out the GTAForums. and obviously TLAD gives you worse fps, but it gives me better fps thanx to me making the decision to buy it through GFWL.

 

I will pick this up when it gets cheap, getting the original in the Steam sales (about £4 I think) was a bargain!

Then I hit a problem with GfWL which screwed the whole thing up - I had an account but couldn't log in to it, it didn't recognise any of my email addresses in the forgotten password thing and I could use any of my old save games

 

Waiting for this to come on offer this week on Steam, Rockstar are doing flash sales (2hrs) on their titles it appears to be happening in the evening in the UK.. Or if you dont have many Rockstar games, you can get the lot for £30 on Steam right now, GTA4 & This expansion and their entire back catalogue.. Thats a total bargin.

 

I still haven't finished GTA San Andreas. I played about 30 minutes of it a couple years ago when I bought it. I went ahead and bought GTA 4 (on sale) and its been sitting since I bought it due to other games taken up my time. Should I even waste my time playing San Andreas at this point or jump right into GTA4?

 

I haven't played GTAIV yet, bur San Andreas was great