Grand Theft Auto IV is the eighth installment in the GTA franchise. Like its 3D predecessors, GTAIV brings the player into a big city with a deeper storyline and more activities to do.
Though it is set in Liberty City again, The Liberty City in GTAIV barely looks like the one seen 7 years earlier in GTAIII. Liberty City in GTAIV has been modeled after the real-life New York City, including some key sites such as the Statue of Liberty (called the Statue of Happiness in the game), the Empire State Building, and the MetLife building (called GetaLife in the game). In addition to the sites, every area in the city is modeled after 1 of the 5 boroughs in New York City.
The game opens up with Niko Bellic, an illegal immigrant from Russia who has come to visit his cousin Roman Bellic in Liberty City after hearing about his success in the free world. Niko soon finds out that Roman was lying about his success, and that he really runs a smalltime taxi business and lives in a run-down apartment. As you play through the game, you will see Niko and Roman move up in society, meet new friends (and enemies), and find a special person that Niko is looking for.
The most notable gameplay improvement is the new cover system. Like in Gears of War, Niko is able to hide behind almost anything in Liberty City. This makes for more dynamic gunfights. Another innovation is the new police radar, which brings up a flashing area the police are searching when you have a wanted level. The more stars you have, the larger the area. You are able to hide in the alleys to lose the police, but they will not give up searching until you are outside the flashing area on the map.
Another new item in the game, the cell phone, allows you to call people to do sub-missions, hang out, or help you during other missions. For example, you can call Roman to do taxi sub-missions, or you can call him to hang out, which improves your relationship with him, if you build your relationship up enough, you’ll be able to call him to get free taxi rides across the city. When hanging out with your friends, you can go to a variety of locations: a strip club, a cabaret club, a comedy club (with real life performers Katt Williams and Ricky Gervais), get drunk, or just go out to eat. If you choose to get drunk, you will gain a wanted level immediately if you get behind the wheel. You are only intoxicated for 3-4 minutes, but its funny to see how the characters act out. The screen begins to shake randomly, blurring out parts of the screen at times (which makes it difficult to drive, but that’s already obvious).
Most of the missions in GTA IV involve killing people, which sounds repetitive, but really never gets old because of the new cover system. The voice acting and dialogue is great, and it really feels like you get to know Niko as you progress through the game.
The soundtrack in GTA IV a wide variety of genres, including classic hip-hop, rap, jazz, rock, heavy metal, reggae, rnb, dance, and electronica, and more. Some notable tracks are 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins, Take The ‘A’ Train by Duke Ellington, Straight On by Heart, Top Down by Swizz Beats, and Vagabond by The Greenskeepers. GTA IV also features real-life DJ’s DJ Premier (Gang Starr) and DJ Green Lantern (NY mixtape and radio DJ) on the Hip-Hop stations in the game. The talk radio stations, however, are the best in the series. You have Integrity 2.0 featuring Lazlow from the previous games, Public Liberty Radio, and WKTT, a conservative talk radio station.
The biggest feature in GTA IV is the multiplayer. There are a lot of game modes available in GTA IV, including the standard Deathmatch / Team Deathmatch and Cops N Crooks (which were on the unofficial PC mods of GTA San Andreas), Bomb Da Base II (a multiplayer version of the popular GTA III mission), Turf Wars, and more.
Rockstar Games has certainly made another giant step in the series with GTA IV. It is simply a must-have game if you own an Xbox 360 or PS3. For $60, you get a lot of content (Xbox 360 owners can expect more exclusive DLC coming in the near future). There are barely any negative things about the game, like the inability to fly planes, or the lack of fire-truck and ambulance sub-missions, but the pluses outweigh the minuses.
Pros:
· A huge city to explore.
· You are able to shoot anywhere from inside your car (you are not constrained to shoot anymore.
· A new cover system (police shootouts never get old)
· A wanted level radar.
· No more RPG elements from San Andreas!
· A Physics engine (hit-and-runs never get old) coupled together with more realistic graphics (it makes the older GTA’s look like cartoons).
· Multiple endings to some missions that affect gameplay.
· A great soundtrack and good radio effects on the rap stations (ie scratching and mixing tracks in ala real rap stations).
Cons:
· Can’t fly planes or ride bicycles.
· No flame thrower or machine gun.
· No fire truck/ambulance sub-missions.