According to the British Board of Film Classification's entry for Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV, the upcoming Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 title may have close to eight hours worth of cut-scenes. To be precise: "When submitted to the BBFC the work had a running time of 463m 0s." That's 7 hours and 43 minutes, folks.
Yesterday, Rockstar had Ron and I out to their New York City office to get some hands-on time with their highly-anticipated title. I'll be getting some hands-on impressions up before the weekend (along with some screenshots, which I believe to be "new"). For now, I must say that some of the pre-mission cut-scenes were pretty extraordinary. While we only saw a handful of pre-mission cinematics, the combination of believable animations and Rockstar's traditionally killer script writing helped me connect with the game characters in a way that I never had with those found in previous GTA titles.
So if there really do happen to be eight hours of cinematics (can I get a "holy crap"?), let's be glad that they seem to be shaping up to be so damned good. While you all wait patiently for my impressions, I've included one of the (possibly) new screens that Rockstar has provided us. Enjoy.
LAUNCH GALLERY (1 IMAGES)
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
47 comments | showing # 1 to 47
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
9:25 PM on 04.02.2008
| 
So, if the game, with those, is suppose to take around 100 hours to complete...
...7% of that being non-playable isn't that bad? I guess? *shrugs*
Impressions tomorrow? Kthx.
IMO people need to put more time into the GAMES and get rid of silly cut scenes, but I guess they're stuck with us...
Sometimes they're good, but most of the time I just find them annoying.
As soon as I can, man. I'm pretty busy this week, so I need to find some downtime to get it done. Soon, I promise.
@ Boolean:
I agree to an extent. But when you consider that the game may have 50 hours worth of gameplay, 8 hours of story-related cut-scenes doesn't seem that crazy. Think about it spread across the entire experience.
Anyway, I just reserved the collectors edition of GTA IV. Can't wait.
If I wanted a movie, I'd just rent a movie, but I buy a game to be interactive. 8 hours of non gameplay might not be a terrible thing, I just don’t see it as an awesome thing like the rest of you.
But GTA is going to haul ass anyway, so my points are probably invalid =P
Totally. If there's one thing i've learned being a gamer all my life, is that all of us play games for slightly different reasons. The breadth and depth of all our tastes makes me love the medium more than I would just listening to myself rant about Deus Ex and System Shock 2.
Maybe I'll rent it to see what it's like.
Maybe I'll rent it to see what it's like.
russian lead? crazy good looking trailers? hell yeah, I'm in.
8 hours of cutscenes is amazing, it shows us a glimpse of how massively large this game will be :-)
What a timedrain this'll be :-)
like By-tor said, for the price of a game, you get a game AND 4 feature length movies, its a bargain!
The more troubling part is the 5 hours of gameplay footage. That probably represents a straightwalkthrough, but I wonder how it compares to previous GTAs. My guess would be unfavourably.
Fara - http://www.pickmeuptoday.com
n/a GRAND THEFT AUTO IV
07:43:00:00 CUTSCENES
n/a (05:20:00:00) GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE
and the 7:43-long cut-scenes account for all the 463 minutes. But then where have the 5:20 gameplay parts gone?
When can you guys talk about all you've seen...you must be under non-disclosure agreements...!
As noted 100 hours of game play with roughly 8 hours of cut scenes is nothing. Do you people get pissed off when you watch cartoons?
Goddamnit, MGS4 needs to come out now.
Do you people realize that every GTA game has given you the option to skip them? If they bother you that much (possible hypocrite Final Fantasy fan), you can avoid them.
A cut-scene isn't meant to play the game for you. Cut-scenes in GTA are almost always just conversation between characters that set up a mission or push the story forward.