It is certainly true that people have moved away from Usenet. But this
particular group was buzzing for quite some time after GTA IV's release.
I guess most people have finished it and moved on to other games.

I would recommend it to you. I didn't experience a major blocker in the
game like the flight school in SA that you mentioned.

Using a gamepad and first person view is pretty much essential for
flying in SA.

It kind of depends on what you liked about the series. For me GTA4 is
going back to GTA3, but a bit less fun than that was. It is an amazing
recreation of a virtual city, but it feels a bit dull compared to
GTA:SA.

Most of the contributors in here have an unjustified chip on their
shoulder about cross platform games.

Yeah, flying is hard. Even though I got to the point where I can
easily pass the flight school missions, most of my landings are still
crash landings. Let alone actually fighting effectively with the
gunship or harrier...

Well, that all depends on what the PC version will be like.
Traditionally, Rockstar has shown steady improvement with the PC
ports. GTA3 was pretty awful in my experience, but Vice City and SA
were great and the slightly clunky controls can be tuned with third
party tools.

Anyways, I'll probably get GTA4 for the PC when it comes out or maybe
later when it's cheaper. Depends on reviews. I don't have much time
for playing right now and there are other interesting PC games, like
Fallout 3, Red Alert 3, Dead Space. There's also Saints Row 2 which is
a GTA-like game and it's probably coming out on the PC as well,
although release has been pushed to January 5th now according to
Gamespot.

Probably both. I played GTA4 on Xbox 360. Finished the plot, haven't
touched it since. In comparison, I played GTA:SA about halfway through
this spring on both PS2 and PC while waiting for GTA4, i.e. it was
still fun four years after release.

I guess I just didn't get into GTA4 and that's because the driving
isn't fun, the story is too dark and most of the characters too
annoying. I haven't even bothered trying to fly anything.

A perspective from someone who has just bought GTA IV.  I only got it
yesterday, so these are first impressions only and things could
change.  Those first impressions, though, are good.  Very good.

...

Obviously I can't talk about the game's longevity but I can tell you
that two things I was worried about were blown away within minutes of
playing.

1. I've seen it said that GTA IV is not fun.  It is.  There is just as
much scope for random mayhem as ever and the humour, both in the story
cut scenes and in free play is superb.  The acting in the cut scenes
is the best I've seen in any game and I've only met the first four or
five characters.  Free play can generate some hilarious moments as
well (the first time you miss judge a jump and hit a wall at speed,
for example, as Niko shoots, screaming, through the windscreen over
the edge of the overpass into the traffic below.)

2. I've also heard that driving is crap.  It's not.  It's different,
sure, because it's more realistic and the new control scheme takes a
little getting used to*.  But the cars feel much better than they look
on Youtube.  In fact the whole game has a very "planted" solid feel to
it and everything crunches and squeals in a very realistic way.  The
only exception is the engine noises which are annoyingly sh.t in
comparison to everything else.

I love it.  In fact, working out how to divide my time between Fallout
3 and GTA IV is going to be the biggest challenge, I think.

Si

* I persevered with the new control scheme because I've defected from
Sony to MS so I'm using a different controller than I used for SA
anyway.