I’ve been playing more GTA lately as just a nice way to cool down, and I am enjoying it as much as ever. Everytime I play, though, I start to think about improvements that could be made and things I’d love to see in the next big GTA game. I’m not talking about the PSP version or the PC/XBox releases. I’m thinking the next GTA will be a PS3 release first, following shortly to the next-gen XBox and PC’s. I don’t really know anything about the PS3, except that it will presumably be much better than the PS2, which means that the next GTA will be presumably much better than all others before it.
One of the biggest things I think needs to be addressed is scale. I am thrilled with SA’s massive map, but it still doesn’t seem quite right. Part of this deals with the clock in GTA – each realtime minute = one hour of game time. That works out fine for now, but it doesn’t take me half an hour to walk across a parking lot, does it? I’d like to see more of a shift toward realtime in this area – not always running time like Animal Crossing has, but you pick up where you left off, just like you do now. Maybe there could be some sort of time shift mode so you don’t have to actually wait for hours to do a mission, but I don’t know, because of the speed of the current clock things always feel pretty rushed.
The other part of scaling is actual size. I’d like to see whatever environments they develop be much, much more expansive. I want literal miles in the game, something where it actually *could* take you an hour to get from one city to another by car, which would really justify driving to the airport and getting a plane instead. With this there also needs to be a more definite feeling of different speeds for different cars. It’s very fun right now, but feels like I can hop in any car and pretty much get the same result.
Speaking of cars, let’s talk about traffic: calm it the hell down! Everything is so herky-jerky right now. Cars don’t move like that in real life – everything is more gradual. I think this deals with scale again, to make you feel like you’re moving faster than you are, but with a bigger and more realistic map, and different timing, the cars could finally move at a normal pace. Which is not “as fast as they possibly can” on the highway.
Those are the biggest concerns and you can see they all stem from one thing. Everything else I am hoping for (better character models, better car models with non-generic damage, etc) are things that I will not be surprised to see debut on the next-gen GTA. I am just hoping that R* can work on the scale issue because the franchise will become an even more immersive experience.