The game area is massive. The area I have the right to visit now seems as big as all of vice city, and according to the map it's maybe a fifth of the area I will be able to unlock. Granted, most of that area is countryside between cities, but it's still awesome. Bicycles are awesome. Police get motorcycles. You can now swim. You can burgle houses (at night with the right type of van). There are so many more cars. Combat has been enhanced. Now you can block, and you have two punches, a power punch (which is what you had last time) which is a little slow, and a fast bunch. You can also alter your attacks by your actions while hitting them. You can now target people when you carry a melee weapon, and civilians are a bit more aggressive then they used to be. Now they are aften packing weapons, and if you damage someone's car, it isn't rare that they will hop out and begin beating on yours. I have had people roof riding on my while beating my windshield with various weapons (golf club, baseball bat, shovel) a number of times.
One of my favorite new features is the respect meter. As you kill enemy gang members, complete missions, and kill police, your respect slowly (very slowly) goes up. when you get enough respect you can recruit ally gang members to follow you and fight with you. If you get in a vehicle, they hop in too. This allows you to perform fun driveby's while cruising through enemy territory. They won't hesitate to attack anyone who attacks you, including police that are chasing you.
There are actually a number of personal statistic meters. There is a stamina meter that determines how long you can sprint, pedal fast, or speed swim. There is a muscle meter that determines damage during combat as well as alter how you look. There is a fat meter, if it gets too low, you lose all stamina but if it gets too high you get fat, clumsy and slow. There is the respect meter, and there is a sex appeal meter, which seems to alter based on clothing, hairstyle, tattoo, and possibly fat and muscle meters. Stamina and muscle can be improved at the gym, as well as through consistent running and combat, but the gym is faster. You can also lower fat at the gym and learn new combat moves.
The plot seems alright. Pretty typical ghetto gangster movie. Violet swears that your family gang is modeled after NWA. I don't know enough about the rap group to say yay or nay. But one charecter does remind me of Ice Cube's performance in "Boyz in the Hood."
I discovered a neat thing yesterday when I was causing destruction and stealing people's cash. If you grab the right type of vehicle you can have "pimping" missions. You drive hookers to clients and protect them when clients get rough, and in exchange you get a share of the money. The more missions you do in a row, the more cash you get (300 x number of missions completed in a row). I went from not being able to afford a haircut, to comfortably wealthy pretty fast.
-Brandon
PS and one off topic thing I found. Apparently Matt Stone, in an interview with salon, has been quoted as saying that the uninformed and undecided should not vote or feel obligated to vote. Good for him, I'm happy someone else is arguing my point, especially someone as cool as Matt Stone.
