Grand Theft Auto IV

The Good
I've never been a fan of the GTA franchise. Ever. I got sucked up into the hype of GTA IV, however, and sort of just went along for the ride.

I picked the game up on launch day and upon tossing it into the Xbox 360, I was immediately bombarded with game invites. I wasn't even allowed to watch the opening intro or credits. I joined a group (10-14 people) of LoadingReality.com folks and started off in a Cops 'n Crooks battle.

It was a blast. In my first two hours of play, there were at least five "holy crap" moments. Here's one that I remember:

Uncle Chase driving a pick-up truck straight at me, without wavering. I took my AK47 and popped two bursts into the driver's head, without locking on. He died and the truck kept coming. As gravity would have it, trucks don't stop moving just because the driver dies. I got squished.

I've spent about 15 hours or so in-game, and it's been nothing short of "very good." I can see the possibility of boredom from the game, but am impressed by the vast amount of things to do that keep it fresh.

I'll be playing this game for a while.

The Bad
The "good" section above was written 15 hours into the game. I haven't played it since that point, due to the level of boredom that set in after the flair of multiplayer ran out. Fans of the franchise will love it, but those of us that are used to non-stop action (a la COD4) will be left wondering what's next.

The Bottom Line
Presentation: Nice. The game is laid out as good as it can be, the UI is flawless, and the cell phone menu controls are a nice touch for immersion.

Gameplay: Nicer. The cover system is really well-implemented and the combat itself works nicely. Driving is realistic and once you become a master of the handbrake turn, you're in there like swim-wear.

Graphics/Sound: Nice. The graphics are decently strong and push the hardware quite a bit. I noticed a bit of popping and vehicle glitching, but only about 30 minutes into huge free play, multiplayer games. The audio is as good as any game, ever. It's one of the things that the franchise is know for. The radio is so good that it hurts.

Value Factor: Nicest. The multiplayer is surprisingly strong and when combined with a true open-world experience, there is incredible freedom and replayability in the game.

The Good
Liberty City looks and feels alive. Good story, graphics and voice-acting make for quite an experience. New covering system makes combat really fun.

The Bad
Buggy and unstable. Impossible system requirements make for performance issues even on high-end machines. Feels like a half-baked, rushed out PC port.

The Bottom Line
The Windows version of Grand Theft Auto IV arrives about eight months after the X360 and PS3 version, released in April 2008. But if you thought this long period of time was used by Rockstar to prepare and perfect the PC version – you couldn't be more wrong. GTAIV for PC is without doubt the most bugs ridden, unstable and sloppy made GTA ever released.

It starts with the game installation, which takes almost an hour. After you're done with the installation, you can reserve the next thirty minutes for installing Microsoft LIVE components and creating a LIVE account, as you must be logged on to the LIVE service in order to play the game. Setting the game graphics level so it'll run smoothly on your system will also take its share of time. Even high-edge machines, which are theoretically much stronger than the X360 and PS3, will have trouble running GTAIV smoothly.

Perhaps to protect the players or perhaps to hide their shame, Rockstar decided not to allow setting the graphics level past one's "resource usage" counter. This counter calculates the player's PC Video RAM and allows the player to set the graphics level accordingly. Funny thing is that even when I tested the game on an ATI-4870X2 I couldn't get past mediocre settings and medium performance. Even funnier is the fact that GTAIV doesn't look that good, and it's actually quite amazing how games which look far better requires far less.

Finally, after you've set your LIVE account, configured the graphics level to match your machine and got past random stabilty bugs which seem to pollute the game, you'll get your first dose of GTAIV.

The game begins with our hero Niko Bellic, arriving on a huge tanker to Liberty City, which is a New York City spoof, including the Statue of Liberty (here dubbed the Stature of Happiness), Time Square, etc. Niko came to America to join his cousin, Roman, in the pursuit of the American Dream. Needles to say the dream quickly fades away, and it's not too long before Niko finds himself stealing, shooting and killing in the name of various crime organizations.

The formula which made the previous games so popular wasn't changed and remained pretty much the same in GTAIV too, although many new features were added. The cellular phone, for example, is probably the coolest and allows the player to call friends and business associates met throughout the game and invite them to various activities such as bowling, darts and pool whenever he wants. Each of these activities will start up a fun mini-game.

You can also invite your friends to various shows and stand-up acts. Going to one of these will actually let the player watch a hilarious comical act. Another fun thing to past the time is the TV. In GTAIV you can actually sit back and watch a Poker contest, cartoons, documentaries, stand-up acts and more. And, of course, in the tradition of the series you can also date and get lucky with girls.

Combats were changed from previous games in the series. You can now lock on your enemies in melee fight and take cover behind a wall during a shoot-out. You can jump buildings while chasing thugs and climb on fences and ladders. The freedom of movement in the game is indeed impressive, and allows for great action sequences.

There is a lot to enjoy in GTAIV. Liberty City really feels alive, and is without doubt the most impressive settings ever seen in a GTA game, thanks to new and impressive graphics and physical engines. The story is interesting and the characters feel reliable, mostly because of the excellent voice acting. In some points of the game you can even change the story a bit by making different decisions. There is also a multiplayer feature that allow up to 32 players to play together online and a PC-only movie editor, which allows the player to save clips of his in-game action.

Playing GTAIV will require you nerves of steel, and not necessary because of its high difficulty level. Looking past its bugs and broken features is a task of its own. Now it's true, Rockstar are working hard on patching the game and a first patch (which actually fixes a few issues but adds a bunch of new ones) is out and available for download, but the damage was already done - Rockstar lost a lot of its creditability and PC players' faith with this release. And these, well, are impossible to patch-up.

The Good
At the core of it, GTA is basically an okay game, as far as gameplay design goes. A huge city with places to see and people to be in, decorated with some of the finest graphics ever. Lots and lots to do, and an illusion of choice to gamers. Others can concentrate on the mission tree, others can release their inner psychopath and wreak havoc around Liberty City.

The game's world is entertaining, not really because of the story but because of the characters. With great writing and voice acting, especially characters like Brucie and Dwayne, feel interesting and three-dimensional. There is a lot of humor and sharp dialogue in the game, and the hilarious radio advertisements and great soundtrack add up to the experience.

The Bad
As far as the GTA series go, though, GTA IV might just be the worst, and it is weird to see how Rockstar just ignores all criticism their games have faced over the years. The shooting is still awkward, but for different reasons. The fact that almost every mission involves shooting hundreds of nameless criminals makes the shooting segments feel really dull.

The mission design isn't too great, either. It seems that every mission is either shooting a bunch of criminals or chasing a criminal through the city. And, of course, if you die or just otherwise fail the mission, you have to start all over again, which is infuriating because the game and the missions are too scripted. Sometimes the car you're supposed to chase is immune to all damage until you reach a certain point, but there's no way to know that.

The hand-to-hand combat is even worse due to the way our "hero" Niko moves - even trucks are more agile than him. Just walking on the street might cause you to take damage if you trip on something, due to the game's physics engine.

The biggest flaw of the game is that Rockstar, for some reason, tries to inject "realism" in the GTA word, which is an exercise in futility. The story is "darker" and "grittier" and the creative insanity from the earlier GTA titles is almost gone. Of course, there is a ton of funny moments, but a lot of time, the "edgy" humor feels forced. The game feels way too cynical and joyless from time to time, like you're playing the video game equivalent to Family Guy our South Park.

And then there's the "friend system" just about everyone seems to hate, and for good reason. For the last time, Roman, I don't want to go bowling with you! You're the most annoying character in the game!

The Bottom Line
Even if you're into GTA, you might have to think twice before deciding to get GTA IV. The game feels like a chore more often that it should, and while the production values of the game might be high, they mostly just succeed in hiding the fact that the gameplay is very underwhelming.