The Good
- Liberty City does feel alive.
- The combat and driving mechanics are improved.
- Terrific voice acting.
- Radio stations are good and well varied.
- Good, well written story with an excellent single-player experience.
- You can finally go spread choas with 16 other people via Live.
The Bad
- Some problems with friendly AI.
- Getting out of cover is annoying.
Back in 2001, Grand Theft Auto III totally blew our minds. It was the first game to give us radio stations with DJs and mixing, highly detailed graphics in a big open-world, cinematic storyline with dramatic cut scenes and terrific voice acting. Grand Theft Auto IV is no different from that. And that is not a bad thing. Rockstar built the engine from ground up (know as RAGE) and put some innovative features in it.
You play as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European man who just got out of a boat to Liberty City. Greeted by his cousin, Roman Bellic, the two expect to live a luxurious life blinded by the American dream but things will not go as expected. Roman’s gambling debts will put the two cousins in desperate situation and find themselves working for the different criminal factions in the city. You will get into a complex story that will end differently according to choices in the game. The story is well written and the complex characters each with their own unique background will totally blow your mind. The first thing you see in some mission is “choice”. Yes, choice. You get choose whether a man lives or not or killing one of your friends. Each has their own pros and cons. I don’t want to spoil it for you but most the choices don’t have a great impact on the story instead they provide side missions and more. The game has taken a realistic direction instead of the usual-sandbox gameplay that the other GTAs was a about.
As usual, the present time New York inspired city comes back again and even more detailed. The map is smaller than San Andreas’s but more detailed and alive. You won’t feel that this city is dead or looks like a ghost town. When roam around, you hear a woman talking on a phone, an old man sitting on a bench and reads a book, a beggar sleeps in the dark dirty allows and beg for money on the streets (and you can give it to them), or a man preaches about morals and political issues and city lights flashing brightly from a far, the sun casting shadows on the street. So yes, you will get blown but sometimes the shadows flicker but that is no problem because these little visual quirks won’t ruin the nice visuals. The character models look great also. Facial animation makes character’s emotion believable and the textures make it realistic. The animations are smooth; the strippers are a good example for that. The greatest part about the game is the physics. It uses Euphoria’s physic engine which allows for realistic animations. This can make you laugh out loud because it funny when you get thrown out of motorcycle and hit something. The frame rate is a little bit lower in the city than it is in beaches and oceans but it is still smooth. Effects are even better. The screen still blurs a little when drive fast around the city and it adds a feel of speed and the weather effects are great. Your car gets dirty with blood when you hit someone; your clothes get bloody when you get shot so yes it got bloodier.
he core free-roaming is still around but you will get emergency quests via your phone. Your phone is one of the most innovative features in GTA. You can call buddies to hang out with you, girlfriends to date, take pictures, check your organizer for appointments, customize your phone (themes, ring tones…etc), call 911 and accessing multiplayer. It is the most important thing in the game. The game provides new covering mechanics. Now, you can take cover behind a wall or almost any object. You can also switch from a cover to cover just like in Gears of War but getting out of cover is a little bit annoying. Locking on a target just got more fun. When you lock in to someone you can move the rectangular around the body. This provides a good way to hurt your enemies in many different ways. Shooting the head will cause and instant death, shooting the hand will stagger them for a while and shooting the legs will make them fall. It is really funny to shoot a guy’s privates. The Over-The-Shoulder camera makes the combat easy and fun. The melee combat has couple of tricks up its sleeve. Now, the B button is for standard punch, Y for alternative punch, X for kicks and hold A for block. You can also dodge someone melee attack. All you have to do is it to press A just before the enemy hits. Combining that dodge with B or Y will result in a powerful counter attack and it can disarm armed enemies.
The game focuses on the social aspect a lot. Now you can hang out with friends and improve your relationship with them. Befriending them has benefits not just a casual thing to do in GTA IV. You can go play pool, bowling, and darts. You can also go drinking, see a show and check some hot half naked strippers in Liberty City. Girlfriends have benefits too. Having a relationship with a lawyer will save you from the cops and a nurse will save your life. You get to sleep with them too but don’t expect some hardcore action. The camera will only show the exterior of your girlfriends and Niko and his lady will “ah and uh”.
To get away from crime for a while, you can now go watch TV or go to theater to watch many different performances. The TV shows are genuinely funny and there a decent array of shows to watch like the Men’s Room. The theater lets you watch magicians, actors and comedians either alone or with a friend. You can also browse the in-game's internet which can be used for e-mails, lol websites or e-dating. You can recieve missions via e-mail or just answer your contacts messages. In fact some missions will require you to go online and do a particular thing in it. So some sites are serious business.
Your missions just got more excited and various. Some of them include choices. Most of the mission circles around killing and stealing. Some of them maybe different but don’t think that kill n steal will all be the same. For example, you go to a park to kill someone but you don’t know who it is so you have to call him and see who is talking on the phone then kill him. There are side missions too. Most of them are stealing cars for a friend of yours, work as a taxi driver for your cousin, or be a duffle bag boy for a Jamaican friend of yours or meeting complete strangers on the street and do missions for them. The story mode can beaten under 30 hours (and there is an achievement for that too) but the side mission and getting all the achievements can lengthen the experience. There are no more Fire fighter mission nor or paramedic mission but the vigilant mission remain and will force to locate wanted criminals in the city. The game has little problems with AI, especially the friendly one. Your enemies are not so smart while in the same time not so stupid. But these flaws are passable and won’t ruin the experience
The Cop n Crook experience has changed a lot. When you do a crime, a flashing circle will appear on your GPS. This indicates the last known place of your whereabouts. To run from then you gotta out of the circle and wait ten seconds then here you are gone. The circle will get bigger when the stars increase and it will be easy until the FIB (just like GS said, it is not a typo) show up. You will get chased by helicopters, police cars and FIB Buffalos. There are no tanks or military when you get 6 stars because the game got more realistic instead of the regular sandbox style gameplay.
What about the voice? What will a game to without voice? Unlike previous GTAs, Rockstar didn’t hire AAA celebrities to do the job but the actors do a good job playing the characters and don’t fall flat. Niko has Eastern European accent and Little Jacob has Jamaican American accent which you won’t understand a word of what he says. The game’s mixed licensed soundtracks are the best you will see in a video game. There are plenty of radio stations to listen and each of them play specific genres like The Beat only plays hip hop. The radio stations features many know DJs instead of the AAA class celebrities and do great job mixing up the songs. The game feature many great artists like Swizz Beatz, Kayne West, Nas, Busta Rhymes, Ne-Yo, Lloyd and many more (sorry, I only recognize the hip hop singers). It is chilling to listen to Kayne’s Flashing Lights while driving at night on the Broker Bridge. The sound effects are also good. You will hear your footsteps in empty areas like beaches better than in the city. Your weapons' sound effects are well varied and doesn't sound dull or anything. So basicallty the sound is flawless.
Overall, GTA IV is a realistic masterpiece of this genre and it really improves the free-roaming experience with a dramatic story, terrific story, great mixed licensed soundtrack and stunning visuals. The only problems you will come across are the friendly AI issues and the flickering shadows. If you have any doubts about this game not being feature rich as SA, I recommend renting it because this is worth the try. The game is great and deserves to be on the best game of 2008.
Don’t care about the M rating, this game deserves to played.