At times like this, I wish I had the intelligence to know how to edit videos correctly, and what to use. Because what I just went through (as Franklin) for the past 10 minutes… wow. So much fun. The kind of fun I would had never gotten in GTA IV.
Basically, it started with doing the side missions to sitting on a train with either a Minigun or a Railgun, sniping at cops and cars with a 5 star wanted level.. in the city.
What lead to that? Spawning in a Hydra and taking it on a joyride (and trying to learn for myself how to control a Hydra). Let me just say, it was fun. Plus I increased the wanted level to full, and acted like a evil “dragon” swooping in and “burning” everyone with homing missiles, while the “brave knights” in their metal machines try to stop me.
And the only rule I had, is I would have to completely lose control of the Hydra (have it upside down on the ground, in the ocean, etc..) to be considered “slain”.
Then I went to an area of Blane County, and started taking potshots at a close road with my Sniper Rifle and explosive ammo. It was another ‘game’ I had setup, that if you manage to avoid being blown up, you ‘win’ by not dying! And 3-4 cars actually got away. Kudos to those scared shitless drivers.
Turned cops on again, to give myself more of a challenge. Then I teleported to a random location when I got a bit bored, and found myself in the industrial district. I then whipped out my Minigun and went insane on the bastards, shooting cops left and right. I considered this rage revenge for all the times the cops pissed me off for being better than me.
Getting a tad bored with that, I discovered I was near one of the active train lines, and had an idea to ride the train through the city, while taking out helicopters. And it would be considered my “getaway car”.
Finally having the more realistic trains mod (will explain why it almost wasn’t later on after I’m all epic’d out from typing this), I waited while killing cops for a train to come. Using the Super Jump part of the Native Trainer, a really long train showed up, and I hopped on.
What followed was me going through the city while surfing on a train, minigun in hand, blowing up helicopters. This… this feels it should had been in the game (as one of the Single Player missions) for the epic value.
Riding the rails through the city, was a brand new perspective for me. And I loved it.
Finally after taking the entire route of the Fright Train, I hid in a tunnel to get the heat off me. And that.. as they say, is it.
.
Anyway, now to explain how this didn’t come to pass. It isn’t the ‘mod breaking’ patch, which thankfully was fixed. And thankfully I didn’t have to wait for it. Nah. My issue (and still is), is the updater. See, it checks to make sure all files are validated everytime you launch. And there’s no convenient way to disable it.
The ONLY way… is to literally unplug my cable modem during the pre-boot process of the game, and get it to go into Safe Mode. After it passes the updater (can’t force update, as the files are online), I can plug in my Cable Modem again and play normally. I’m actually shocked Rockstar has this Offline Mode option.
Seeing this.. maybe they aren’t EA, or even as bad as them. But that fucking stunt they pulled with the Steam “sale” they offered, they’re getting there. I’ll never forgive them for that, and I’m sure neither will their playerbase.
It sucks the fact I have to do that everytime, but as I said, it’s the only way to play. Yet I wonder if there’s a better way. I’ll get back to you on that.
EDIT: Got an email (author chose to remain anonymous) a few days after posting this, stating that I can block the executables (all three of them) through Windows Firewall. They have to be blocked both on the Inbound and Outbound to work. It worked for me, so I wanted to slap this on here to let you guys know what to do, if you don’t have the Steam version.