Well, I didn't like that game when it came out, it has interesting ideas and I respect the heavy simulation that is going on in this game, but the game content and map compared to other entries in the series is one of the worst. It doesn't feel like an open world game where you can explore everywhere in a free way like GTA 3 or San Andreas, it feels like a succession of linear corridors put in a grid pattern to create a "city". It's difficult to explain but people that played 3 and SA knows exactly what I'm talking about. Plus, the game takes itself way too seriously and lacks that "raw fun" of the previous games which doesn't help the case.

But well, that was back in the days, so I wanted to give it an other shot with my much more powerful modern PC, to enjoy the story and the cinematic presentation and dialogues.

And here we go: DRMs, removed content, bugs, downgrades, horrible CPU performance (apparently the game is multi threaded up to 4 cores so I guess there is that) I get sub 40 FPS in the city at max settings (but normal car traffic) on a Ryzen 3800X !! I know the simulation is complex in that game, but Kingdom Come is MUCH more complex and runs better !! Same goes for Flight Simulator 2020.

Visually it holds up pretty well, and the dialogues are still good. But the game just feels horrible to play by modern standards, it has horrible native non tweakable FOV, insane mouse acceleration on and that can't be disabled in the options, and cutscenes stutters like crazy despite RTSS showing high framerates.

I know all of those problems can be fixed by mods, but I don't care, Rockstar is a very very wealthy developer, and they actually updated the game last year only to make it worse! They have 100x the resources to update the game in a way that benefits the game!

So... well... maybe GTA 4 was great when it came out, and on consoles (because the PC version always had horrible performance no matter the hardware) but as an open world game it has aged horribly in everything but the dialogues, the graphics and the complexity of it's world simulation. There are just much better games to play today in the same style, even older ones in the same series. Except for historic/cultural reasons, I don't see why anyone should play this today.

Well, I didn't like that game when it came out, it has interesting ideas and I respect the heavy simulation that is going on in this game, but the game content and map compared to other entries in the series is one of the worst. It doesn't feel like an open world game where you can explore everywhere in a free way like GTA 3 or San Andreas, it feels like a succession of linear corridors put in a grid pattern to create a "city". It's difficult to explain but people that played 3 and SA knows exactly what I'm talking about. Plus, the game takes itself way too seriously and lacks that "raw fun" of the previous games which doesn't help the case. But well, that was back in the days, so I wanted to give it an other shot with my much more powerful modern PC, to enjoy the story and the cinematic presentation and dialogues. And here we go: DRMs, removed content, bugs, downgrades, horrible CPU performance (apparently the game is multi threaded up to 4 cores so I guess there is that) I get sub 40 FPS in the city at max settings (but normal car traffic) on a Ryzen 3800X !! I know the simulation is complex in that game, but Kingdom Come is MUCH more complex and runs better !! Same goes for Flight Simulator 2020. Visually it holds up pretty well, and the dialogues are still good. But the game just feels horrible to play by modern standards, it has horrible native non tweakable FOV, insane mouse acceleration on and that can't be disabled in the options, and cutscenes stutters like crazy despite RTSS showing high framerates. I know all of those problems can be fixed by mods, but I don't care, Rockstar is a very very wealthy developer, and they actually updated the game last year only to make it worse! They have 100x the resources to update the game in a way that benefits the game! So... well... maybe GTA 4 was great when it came out, and on consoles (because the PC version always had horrible performance no matter the hardware) but as an open world game it has aged horribly in everything but the dialogues, the graphics and the complexity of it's world simulation. There are just much better games to play today in the same style, even older ones in the same series. Except for historic/cultural reasons, I don't see why anyone should play this today.