alright, thank you. I'll give it another go and see how it feels to me. It's so wildly different in tone, and in basic game mechanics/physics, from V that it was just jarring to kind of go back in time to that one. It's strange I suppose that GTAIV is so much harder for me to travel back in time and play than San Andreas was, but maybe that all boils down to that arcade style that you touched upon. I want to like GTAIV so I'm definitely willing to be patient with it...but yeah, it has admittedly been a bit of a struggle for me so far.

Thanks for not taking my post as some kind of attack on the game. I've been shouted down a ton on reddit for not particularly enjoying X game or another, regardless of how mild my criticism might be. So it was nice to have a serious response that took my general criticism at face value and acknowledged that it's not just me not "getting" something, but could in fact be a valid reaction.