GTA IV annoyances #2: Shooting from cars not as cracked up as it should be

I’ve always hated the tradeoff of using motorcycles versus cars in Grand Theft Auto games primarily because I can’t shoot from inside a car, and that chasing someone in high speeds while riding motorcycles is bad for your health. It was a vicious circle that made GTA more difficult than enjoyable.

GTA IV seems to have solved that problem now that shooting is allowed inside cars. All one has to do is press L1 (or perhaps a shoulder button on the Xbox 360) and Niko would start shooting. If the glass window is intact, our protagonist would proceed to break it. No, the windshield stays in one piece.

Niko can also shoot from inside taxis, but don’t expect your cab driver to stick around.

I originally intended to write this entry as a rave about shooting from inside cars but after some thinking, I remembered that there’s a problem: aiming the blasted cursor at your target is exasperating because the cursor is fixed at the middle of the screen. To move the cursor, you have to move the camera using the right analog stick, which brings us to another problem—the direction of the camera determines where the vehicle will steer.

This becomes a huge problem when you’re driving in breakneck speed since like real automobiles, sudden turns in your virtual car would cause you to careen wildly (i.e. lose control). Thing is—you need to make these sudden turns to keep a bead on your target. The result? An overwhelming urge to hurl the controller from the roof of a 72-storey building with the GTA IV disk right after.

Image of Grand Theft Auto IV is courtesy of Rockstar Games.