(This is a review I wrote for my blog and podcast.)
This review sits beneath a landslide of amassed praise and hyperbole surrounding this game. A title has not received such unanimously vaunting praise since Ocarina of Time on the N64. I could just repeat what everybody else has said and state that this is a strong contender for game of the year and virtually flawless, but in all honesty my experience seems to have varied. In the interests of journalistic integrity I can’t just say it’s perfect. It’s not and that’s fine, nothing really is. So if you need validation for your purchase or a collection of how many incredible new features there are then look elsewhere. If, however you would like to know what “not without its flaws” means (and it has been said by many) then read on.
Before I start, may I first echo the praise for GTA IV’s central character Niko Bellic. He is a prime example of depth in a central protagonist and I never felt frustrated with the way he acted. In fact, his forthright strength of character actively left me discouraged to go on the usual killing sprees, unlike the callous Tommy Vercetti from Vice City. Niko is definitely likable and compelling and many of the characters he meets (especially at the front end of the game) are multi-dimensional and interesting and only a little clichéd. The polish on the format is definitely apparent on start-up. The weight of the character and the vehicles he drives is palpable. The impact of hitting someone with a car or shooting them is amped up and the people behave a little more realistically. You can play for ages and still notice new things. It was only after about twenty hours that I started to see repetition, which gave way to cracks and flaws in the gameplay and eventually full-blown frustration at what eventually became apparent; polish is all that distinguishes this game from the previous iterations.
This is not to say that GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas are not superb games, but they were all based around the same engine, pioneered on the previous generation’s consoles and significantly here not replaced with a wholly new one. This is GTA as we know and love it, but also (if applicable) as we hate it. The old problems are still there. The refined mission system means that if you are (unfairly?) slaughtered on a first attempt you can reload the current task. What it doesn’t counter for are the often monumentally long and boring drives between the islands that you often have to take. The Taxi system is a masterstroke, allowing you to skip many of these for a small fee, but all too often a specific vehicle is needed, necessitating you sitting for five minutes each attempt, having the same (or at least similar) conversations with the same characters who quickly reveal their lack of dimension through the repetition of the odious things they say. Hearing it once would be fine, twice or six times is unbearable. Maybe I wasn’t a sharp enough player. Maybe I shouldn’t have died so often or lost track of my fleeing quarry, but many missions are so trial and error based that you need several attempts just to know what’s around each corner.
In the interests of constructive criticism, rather than picking at the holes in this (admittedly fantastically presented and well planned) game, I will suggest what I’d like to see in the next instalment. For instance I would genuinely like to see the old engine scrapped. It was great for the PS2, functional and fun, but for current gen consoles, with responsive and intuitive characters like Assassin’s Creed’s Altair stalking the bustling streets, we need a model that knows when not to plummet off a rooftop because the camera whipped round to an awkward angle at an inopportune moment. We need a man who knows to lock onto and shoot the thug who is three feet away and emptying a shotgun into him and not stubbornly keep aiming at the one three rooms away behind a crate despite numerous frantic button taps. These are simple things that Rockstar surely will contend with someday. I just wish it had been for this game.
A save system that would allow you to start at the warehouse full of goons at the end of a long drive, not before it, would be nice, along with the ability to get people to be quiet in the car so you can listen to the music. Speaking of which, the soundtrack needs a mention. Over a dozen radio stations and only one or two with anything good on: perhaps a little too much like real life. This is only remarkable because the previous two games have had two of the most outstanding collections of 80’s and 90’s period music in any video game ever, and what’s assembled here seems a little too much like the eclectic mix that would play in a smoky record shop run by a music elitist who loathes anything popular. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by Guitar Hero, but a handful of rock songs just isn’t good enough when swamped by a deluge of reggae, electro, funk and obscure hip hop. Hell, one station is entirely dedicated to Bob Marley and the Wailers. This saddens me as I was genuinely excited about the soundtrack, but the Chatterbox equivalent talk shows always seemed to be playing the same three segments, which meant that by hour thirty, I was switching off the radio and listening to the soundtrack to Layer Cake on my iPod. Next time, Rockstar, don’t be afraid to put on more songs that people know and/or like. Obscure is ok, but nostalgia has more power than novelty.
It was around this thirty-hour mark that the weight of the game began to press down on me. I knew I wasn’t far from the end but it just seemed to be going on forever, with each gruelling mission advancing my percentage of completion a fraction at a time. The fun began to ebb and a cold determination to finish rather than enjoy it began to set in. Again, perhaps if I had taken my time, it would have been better, but the repetitious waltz of chase/hide/shoot took such a hold that I could barely tell one mission from the next. It’s not just that all the missions in this single game follow the same handful of themes, it’s that this is all GTA has ever done and once again, to be constructive, perhaps the next should include more variation, even if this sacrifices the playing time of the core story. There is still plenty to do once you finish the final mission (indeed, this is the game’s key strength) with dozens of Taxi, vigilante and assassination missions, coupled with the usual treasure hunt. But once again, though they have swapped hidden packages for pigeons, it’s the same as it always was: drive/find (/shoot if necessary). The shooting system itself has indeed been refined, but after a time every single shootout became the same. Hide behind a wall or a box, wait for the hoods to show their faces, blast, repeat. I’d have appreciated either variation or simply less of the same. Five standout set pieces would stay with me longer than twenty identikit scuffles.
The much vaunted strong point of the game is the story. True, it starts out great with a thought-provoking series of tangled relationships, and much in the way of exposing the hypocrisy behind championing the American dream whilst despising outsiders who wish to join the party. There is musing on the nature of revenge and starting over and it truly holds your attention, but again it is only to a point. At some undetermined moment the clichés begin to appear until you find yourself sitting in a car with foul-mouthed Mafiosi thinking, “I have so done this before.” Rockstar run out of steam and leave you stranded in a limp reproduction of the Sopranos all too early. Once again, if they have to shorten the story for the next instalment in favour of consistent quality and depth then I certainly won’t be complaining.
The friend system initially is great fun. Spending time with your buddies shooting pool and the like is entertaining, but eventually you find yourself with twelve people calling up and badgering you to go to a strip club with them when it’s (really) three in the morning and all you want to do is sleep. Eventually you realise that the limp bonuses that keeping everybody happy offers simply isn’t worth the hours of your time and the ignore button becomes your new best friend.
Finally the real killer of this game for me, beyond the repetition, beyond the lame back-end characters and forgiving it the engine which still can’t seem to manage to keep the frame rate consistent and a far-off vehicle visible from moment to moment, no, the real killshot for my enjoyment of this game was the frustration factor. I lost count of the number of times I roared at the screen and writhed in my chair as Niko’s speeding car clipped a lamp-post and ground to a halt allowing whoever he was pursuing to escape within five seconds meaning I would have to jump through many hoops again just to get back to that same place and perhaps catch him. The illusion of freedom was never so present in a game. You may be able to go anywhere and do anything (weathering the consequences each time, usually involving a tedious police chase) but you still have to do a hell of a lot of things to the letter if you wish to actually play the game. You can’t cunningly set a trap for the dim-witted hoods you know are going to emerge from a certain door, you have to go in the front way and hit a certain spot. You often can’t shoot an enemy off the back of a motorbike because you must get to a certain place and kill him there and you certainly can’t let any of the core characters die, much less kill them. This leaves you prey to occasionally retarded A.I. both for allies and enemies, and performing the same tasks in the same ways to appease the game mechanic. When the cries of protest at an unfair death outweigh the smiles of joy at the clever digs at American culture and the occasional original mission you have to start questioning the validity of those multiple perfect scores. So this is the tallest order to Rockstar and requires them to go back to the drawing board. How about an open-world game where you really are free?
The saddest thing for me is that of course they won’t do this. The engine they polished may be from the last generation but it keeps the current gen happy. The next instalment will use the same one, the same problems will be present and of course I will buy it on day one, because I’m like that.
I don’t regret buying this. In fact despite the seeming negative tone of this review I would urge everybody with the corresponding console to go out, buy this and play it to death. It is more of an experience than most other games. I have barely mentioned the incredibly fun multiplayer setup, the pure joy of just cruising around the city on free mode with your two best mates in the car seeing what you can jump over and the mysterious downloadable content we’ve been promised for later this year. It is genuinely worth every penny of its price tag. It’s not perfect. We should not demand perfection from our games. But it could be better and to that end Rockstar can take on board what many people have said, and perhaps in years to come I can truly say that this time… it was different.
Alex Shaw
UK
This review sits beneath a landslide of amassed praise and hyperbole surrounding this game. A title has not received such unanimously vaunting praise since Ocarina of Time on the N64. I could just repeat what everybody else has said and state that this is a strong contender for game of the year and virtually flawless, but in all honesty my experience seems to have varied. In the interests of journalistic integrity I can’t just say it’s perfect. It’s not and that’s fine, nothing really is. So if you need validation for your purchase or a collection of how many incredible new features there are then look elsewhere. If, however you would like to know what “not without its flaws” means (and it has been said by many) then read on.
Before I start, may I first echo the praise for GTA IV’s central character Niko Bellic. He is a prime example of depth in a central protagonist and I never felt frustrated with the way he acted. In fact, his forthright strength of character actively left me discouraged to go on the usual killing sprees, unlike the callous Tommy Vercetti from Vice City. Niko is definitely likable and compelling and many of the characters he meets (especially at the front end of the game) are multi-dimensional and interesting and only a little clichéd. The polish on the format is definitely apparent on start-up. The weight of the character and the vehicles he drives is palpable. The impact of hitting someone with a car or shooting them is amped up and the people behave a little more realistically. You can play for ages and still notice new things. It was only after about twenty hours that I started to see repetition, which gave way to cracks and flaws in the gameplay and eventually full-blown frustration at what eventually became apparent; polish is all that distinguishes this game from the previous iterations.
This is not to say that GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas are not superb games, but they were all based around the same engine, pioneered on the previous generation’s consoles and significantly here not replaced with a wholly new one. This is GTA as we know and love it, but also (if applicable) as we hate it. The old problems are still there. The refined mission system means that if you are (unfairly?) slaughtered on a first attempt you can reload the current task. What it doesn’t counter for are the often monumentally long and boring drives between the islands that you often have to take. The Taxi system is a masterstroke, allowing you to skip many of these for a small fee, but all too often a specific vehicle is needed, necessitating you sitting for five minutes each attempt, having the same (or at least similar) conversations with the same characters who quickly reveal their lack of dimension through the repetition of the odious things they say. Hearing it once would be fine, twice or six times is unbearable. Maybe I wasn’t a sharp enough player. Maybe I shouldn’t have died so often or lost track of my fleeing quarry, but many missions are so trial and error based that you need several attempts just to know what’s around each corner.
In the interests of constructive criticism, rather than picking at the holes in this (admittedly fantastically presented and well planned) game, I will suggest what I’d like to see in the next instalment. For instance I would genuinely like to see the old engine scrapped. It was great for the PS2, functional and fun, but for current gen consoles, with responsive and intuitive characters like Assassin’s Creed’s Altair stalking the bustling streets, we need a model that knows when not to plummet off a rooftop because the camera whipped round to an awkward angle at an inopportune moment. We need a man who knows to lock onto and shoot the thug who is three feet away and emptying a shotgun into him and not stubbornly keep aiming at the one three rooms away behind a crate despite numerous frantic button taps. These are simple things that Rockstar surely will contend with someday. I just wish it had been for this game.
A save system that would allow you to start at the warehouse full of goons at the end of a long drive, not before it, would be nice, along with the ability to get people to be quiet in the car so you can listen to the music. Speaking of which, the soundtrack needs a mention. Over a dozen radio stations and only one or two with anything good on: perhaps a little too much like real life. This is only remarkable because the previous two games have had two of the most outstanding collections of 80’s and 90’s period music in any video game ever, and what’s assembled here seems a little too much like the eclectic mix that would play in a smoky record shop run by a music elitist who loathes anything popular. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by Guitar Hero, but a handful of rock songs just isn’t good enough when swamped by a deluge of reggae, electro, funk and obscure hip hop. Hell, one station is entirely dedicated to Bob Marley and the Wailers. This saddens me as I was genuinely excited about the soundtrack, but the Chatterbox equivalent talk shows always seemed to be playing the same three segments, which meant that by hour thirty, I was switching off the radio and listening to the soundtrack to Layer Cake on my iPod. Next time, Rockstar, don’t be afraid to put on more songs that people know and/or like. Obscure is ok, but nostalgia has more power than novelty.
It was around this thirty-hour mark that the weight of the game began to press down on me. I knew I wasn’t far from the end but it just seemed to be going on forever, with each gruelling mission advancing my percentage of completion a fraction at a time. The fun began to ebb and a cold determination to finish rather than enjoy it began to set in. Again, perhaps if I had taken my time, it would have been better, but the repetitious waltz of chase/hide/shoot took such a hold that I could barely tell one mission from the next. It’s not just that all the missions in this single game follow the same handful of themes, it’s that this is all GTA has ever done and once again, to be constructive, perhaps the next should include more variation, even if this sacrifices the playing time of the core story. There is still plenty to do once you finish the final mission (indeed, this is the game’s key strength) with dozens of Taxi, vigilante and assassination missions, coupled with the usual treasure hunt. But once again, though they have swapped hidden packages for pigeons, it’s the same as it always was: drive/find (/shoot if necessary). The shooting system itself has indeed been refined, but after a time every single shootout became the same. Hide behind a wall or a box, wait for the hoods to show their faces, blast, repeat. I’d have appreciated either variation or simply less of the same. Five standout set pieces would stay with me longer than twenty identikit scuffles.
The much vaunted strong point of the game is the story. True, it starts out great with a thought-provoking series of tangled relationships, and much in the way of exposing the hypocrisy behind championing the American dream whilst despising outsiders who wish to join the party. There is musing on the nature of revenge and starting over and it truly holds your attention, but again it is only to a point. At some undetermined moment the clichés begin to appear until you find yourself sitting in a car with foul-mouthed Mafiosi thinking, “I have so done this before.” Rockstar run out of steam and leave you stranded in a limp reproduction of the Sopranos all too early. Once again, if they have to shorten the story for the next instalment in favour of consistent quality and depth then I certainly won’t be complaining.
The friend system initially is great fun. Spending time with your buddies shooting pool and the like is entertaining, but eventually you find yourself with twelve people calling up and badgering you to go to a strip club with them when it’s (really) three in the morning and all you want to do is sleep. Eventually you realise that the limp bonuses that keeping everybody happy offers simply isn’t worth the hours of your time and the ignore button becomes your new best friend.
Finally the real killer of this game for me, beyond the repetition, beyond the lame back-end characters and forgiving it the engine which still can’t seem to manage to keep the frame rate consistent and a far-off vehicle visible from moment to moment, no, the real killshot for my enjoyment of this game was the frustration factor. I lost count of the number of times I roared at the screen and writhed in my chair as Niko’s speeding car clipped a lamp-post and ground to a halt allowing whoever he was pursuing to escape within five seconds meaning I would have to jump through many hoops again just to get back to that same place and perhaps catch him. The illusion of freedom was never so present in a game. You may be able to go anywhere and do anything (weathering the consequences each time, usually involving a tedious police chase) but you still have to do a hell of a lot of things to the letter if you wish to actually play the game. You can’t cunningly set a trap for the dim-witted hoods you know are going to emerge from a certain door, you have to go in the front way and hit a certain spot. You often can’t shoot an enemy off the back of a motorbike because you must get to a certain place and kill him there and you certainly can’t let any of the core characters die, much less kill them. This leaves you prey to occasionally retarded A.I. both for allies and enemies, and performing the same tasks in the same ways to appease the game mechanic. When the cries of protest at an unfair death outweigh the smiles of joy at the clever digs at American culture and the occasional original mission you have to start questioning the validity of those multiple perfect scores. So this is the tallest order to Rockstar and requires them to go back to the drawing board. How about an open-world game where you really are free?
The saddest thing for me is that of course they won’t do this. The engine they polished may be from the last generation but it keeps the current gen happy. The next instalment will use the same one, the same problems will be present and of course I will buy it on day one, because I’m like that.
I don’t regret buying this. In fact despite the seeming negative tone of this review I would urge everybody with the corresponding console to go out, buy this and play it to death. It is more of an experience than most other games. I have barely mentioned the incredibly fun multiplayer setup, the pure joy of just cruising around the city on free mode with your two best mates in the car seeing what you can jump over and the mysterious downloadable content we’ve been promised for later this year. It is genuinely worth every penny of its price tag. It’s not perfect. We should not demand perfection from our games. But it could be better and to that end Rockstar can take on board what many people have said, and perhaps in years to come I can truly say that this time… it was different.
Alex Shaw
UK