I have a confession to make; prior to GTA IV, I was not a Grand Theft Auto fan.  I played a few hours of GTA: San Andreas and a wee bit of Vice City and neither held my interest for more than an hour.  But when a game comes along that briefly usurps Ocarina of Time's #1 spot on game rankings.com, I take notice.  Though I wasn't a fan of the previous games in the franchise, I thought "maybe this'll be the one."  Despite hearing numerous reports of it being a revolution in videogames and possibly the greatest game ever, I kept my expectations realistic.  As long as it was fun, I'd be satisfied.

It all starts out promising enough with its oh-so-stylish credit sequence where your character, Nico, arrives fresh off the boat (literally) to stay with his cousin, Roman, and live out the, say it with me now "American Dream."  You'll hear that phrase a lot in the game and it gets more irritating each time.  But the basic premise shows promise.  Unlike other GTA games, Nico isn't trying to work his way up the ranks of organized crime, but rather he wants to make an honest living, though he keeps getting caught in the crossfire between Roman and his loan sharks.  It's a compelling starting point and does a lot to draw you into this world.



Of course, it's a little hard to buy Nico as a "good guy" when he has no problem accepting assassination jobs left and right.  I have no problem playing as a badass antihero (often I even prefer it), but it simply doesn't make sense with Nico's character.  Of course, there'd be no game if he wasn't willing to accept dangerous missions, but they could have made him a little meaner so it wouldn't be such a stretch to see this otherwise nice guy nonchalantly murdering people left and right.

But maybe I'm taking things all a wee bit too seriously.  The whole point of Grand Theft Auto is to wreck havoc upon an immense, highly interactive environment.  And in that regard, the game starts out rather fun.  Running over pedestrians in my car, then slowly backing up over them again and again while others react in horror had to be one of the funniest moments I've had in gaming in a long, long time.  Shooting pedestrians in the legs and watching them stumble away as you chase them down with a baseball bat is likewise hilarious.  Yes, I am a terrible person.  But none of this would be so satisfying if you had to watch the same canned animations and listen to the same few sound bytes ad infinitum, and that's something GTA 4 gets down pat.  The euphoria physics engine works great here as every NPC reacts differently and there's a wealth of audio, so recurring sound bytes are rarely an issue.  All in all, interacting with (i.e. attacking) NPCs in the game is a lot of fun.

The environments are probably the game's greatest achievement, creating an enormous virtual replica of New York where no two streets are the same.  With varying, realistic weather effects, various radio stations to listen to, and a complete working in-game internet, GTA IV is a staggering achievement in terms of detail.  The best in the medium by a country mile. And it's here that GTA IV will be remembered.



But all the detail in the world doesn't mean a thing if the game isn't fun to play, and that's where GTA IV loses much of its momentum. The game has extraordinarily uncreative mission designs that are comprised entirely of driving to a specific spot, killing a specific target, or both. That wouldn't be so bad if either of these mechanics were actually that fun.

The driving is a bit of a divisive issue. Rather than having the cars control like arcade videogame cars, they control like real cars. While it may be realistic, they're just not that much fun to drive as they all control so horribly. However, I can understand what they were going for here, so I can't really call it outright bad. I recall that I didn't like controlling the horse in Shadow of the Colossus at first until I came to grips with the fact that he controlled like a horse rather than a car, so this might be the same where you have to forget everything you know about driving in videogames and learn to cope with an all new mechanic. Some people like the driving here and that could easily make or break the game for you as a good half of the game is merely driving around. But I'm not here to report what other people thought about the game; I'm here to report what I thought about it. If you're good at driving in this game and you like it, more power to you! But after 20+ hours, I couldn't come to grips with it and I'm sure there are many who will buy the game based on hype and will be disappointed by the driving sections. I'd advise giving it a rent first just to see where you fall on that subject.

The game's shooting is probably its weakest aspect. This is a shame as next to driving, it's probably the game's second largest aspect. The combat allows you to take cover, though the cover doesn't always work. And when it does work, the game lets you both blind-fire around corners and lock on to enemies while blind-firing. Where's the skill in that? You may take an occasional shot to the arm, but nothing more. The enemy AI seems to be non-existent at times as I never once encountered an enemy try to flank me or run me out of my hiding spot behind a pillar. The combat isn't always easy though as you don't automatically regenerate health ala Gears of War, and there's no quick-turn, so if an enemy comes up at you from behind, you'll likely take a lot of damage before you can get a good shot at them. It's either really easy and boring or really hard and cheap. Rarely ever is it balanced and fun.



There is one aspect of GTA IV that is really, truly awful and which I feel needs to be addressed; and that is the games sadistic checkpointing. When you die, rather than start the mission over where it begins, you'll respawn at the place where you first accepted the mission, which is often across town from where the mission actually takes place. For example, let's say you accept a mission to go racing. This mission starts at a garage, but you'll have to drive around town until you can get to where your buddy's racing car is stashed, get in the car, then drive to where the race actually begins. Then you try the race, and supposing you fail (as you probably will at first. Those things are hard), you'll start all the way back at the garage and have to do it all over again just to take another stab at the race. Apparently this is series tradition, but it's still awful.

Worse was a mission where I had to follow some guy and kill him. As soon as you get to the mission marker, a cutscene will play of you meeting your target and him taking off on his motorcycle. You'll immediately be told to chase after him. Since you start the mission on foot, I immediately went in the opposite direction because I wanted to steal a car first. But after about 5 seconds of that I got a response that I failed the mission. So the next time I parked my car right next to where the mission began, so I wouldn't have to waste time wandering about, looking for a car. But much to my dismay, my car would disappear after the cutscene had ended. So I failed again after only a few seconds. And every time I'd fail this mission through route trial and error, I'd have to make my way all the way across town for another stab at it. Even the inevitable chase was less fun than it should have been as I was dreading the idea of having to make my way to the mission start again for the umpteenth time.



Still, despite all my bitching and moaning, GTA IV is not without its strengths.  When you're not succumbing to the sadistic checkpoint system or uncreative mission objectives, there's a lot of fun to be had just messing about.  My favorite experience with the game came when I was on a date.  I'd pick up my date, Michelle, then proceed to mow down as many pedestrians as I could with my car.  Michelle would say things like "Nico, watch the road!"  But it was never a deal breaker for her.  What a gal! After taking her out I got the urge to shoot her in the head just to see what would happen (kids, don't try this at home), but wanted to wait until I drove her back home, so I wouldn't have to redo the entire mission. I was dismayed that upon bringing her back to the magical glowing checkpoint, a cutscene was triggered and it ended with her going inside. I still wanted to shoot her in the head, so I called her up on my cell phone to see if she'd like to go out on another date. She'd consistently rebuke me saying that we just went out and that she needed her space. I decided to play the stalker and called her back numerous times and she'd say something new each time (though eventually her responses would repeat). It was a pretty cool detail as I've never been rejected by a girl for being too clingy in a videogame before. Also, I did later get an opportunity to shoot her in the head. It doesn't hurt her, but she gets offended by it and doesn't want to see me anymore. What a hypocrite! So it's fine when I run other people over, but you don't like it when I shoot you in the head? Good riddance!



Flaws and all, GTA IV works best as virtual tourism of New York and as a pedestrian murdering simulator, but not so much as an action-adventure game. Depending on what you're trying to get out of it, you'll have a vastly different experience. The actual things that make it a game; the goals, missions, objectives, etc. are all rather pedestrian and unpolished. It's still all good fun for awhile though, and it shows great promise as far as what game designers can do when crafting a virtual city. There's lots to see and lots to do, but once the novelty wears off, the core game underneath really shows its weaknesses. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments section below. But please, no death threats. Unless death threats are a sign that I'm starting to make it as a games journalist. In that case, please, send death threats. Lots of them.

7/10

Pros:
+AMAZING level of detail. Liberty City looks great!
+Lots to see and do outside the main missions.
+Killing people is fun!

Cons:
-Awkward driving controls.
-Poor shooting mechanics.
-Rubbish checkpointing.