GTA

I really like how games designers find new ways to do things. Take, for instance, GTA 4. Usually you get from one destination to the other through the in-built car GPS. That's nice, but what other ways could one innovate? For one, in a more expensive car, they have audio GPS - you know, the woman voice-over which would tell you how many yards/mile before your next turn.

Last night, in one particular mission, I picked up a guy and he instructed me how to get to the destination. That was refreshing. It's almost life like - he was unsure of his instruction, asked you to slow down so he could get his bearing better and would even make mistakes. That's innovation, IMO. I wish there were more of these innovations.

There was a couple of innovations in the game that I appreciate but it slipped my mind at the moment. I'll be updating this when I remember them.

Edit: the other innovation is one mission where someone would send me a MMS to my handphone. The MMS would have picture of a car. I need to look at the picture, figure out where it is and then drive around the city looking for the car.. it makes good use of the city environment and forced player to appreciate the details. Nice!