Grand Theft Auto IV (35% Complete)

Grand Theft Auto IV (35%)

PUBLISHER: Rockstar
DEVELOPER: Rockstar
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Happiness is a Warm Gun, and a hot car.

Liked:
- Story (so far)
- Environment
- Mini-games

Disliked:
- Mission distances
- Friend/girlfriend maintenance
- Chase/Race missions


On The Fence:
- Combat system
- Driving skill curve

Niko Bellic is an off-the-boat Serbian immigrant to Liberty City, lured there by the tall tales of his cousin, Roman. As it turns out, of course, Roman was a big, fat liar. Instead of being a mega rich businessman with throngs of ladies at his feet an money flowing out all over, he's a low income taxi service owner with a somewhat steady girlfriend and a gambling addiction that has put him in such debt that the mob is threatening him. Ah, America...

You help get the mob off his back, but at a price. Roman introduces you to some acquaintances who in turn become your friends or employers. There is also someone you're looking for in Liberty - someone who was in your unit in the army. Someone who has answers to questions...

The story, whether it's the main plot or a friend's side plot, is very captivating. You'll have the urge to complete as many missions in a row as you can to keep it going, though at times you cannot. Each section of the tale is rich in emotion, with the dialog coming off as believable and sincere (as opposed to melodramatic, which is nearly anything from Roman). Each character is steeped in their own issues which present themselves in realistic fashion, with each person having their own accents to boot. Most characters are using you for your talents, whether that is stealing cars or killing rivals, though a scant few are genuinely above being mere plot point providers and that makes up for being a stooge.

The environment of Liberty City is large (though San Andreas felt much larger) and is a parody of a few New York City boroughs and part of New Jersey. It's definitely an 'active' place during most of the in-game day and into the night. Crowds and traffic seem to disperse sometime around 2 AM until about 9 AM. I bring that up because part of this game is about stealing cars, which is tough to do when none are around.

A big change from the last GTA is that you no longer have to eat to stay alive (you won't get hungry) nor do you need to watch your weight/physique (you never change). While that's cool, I kind of miss it because it helped kill a lot of downtime.

The mini-games are great, and could pass as a collection of games themselves. Bowling, darts, pool and some arcade games are a lot of fun. They are especially useful when you need to kill some time in-game. 1 second real-time is 1 minute in-game, and if you have a few hours to waste, a game of darts or pool will easily take a good chunk of that.

Among the things I can't stand in this game so far are the mission distances, the race or chase type of missions, and, even though I like the mini-games, the friend maintenance.

Distances and part of maintenance are the same gripe. You're given a task to do, and the destination is quite literally clear across town -- the direct opposite of where you currently are. If you're in the extreme North West, it's in the extreme south east, etc. Friends/girlfriends do this too. They wait until you're about as far away from them as possible, then call you up and want to hang out. Saying 'no' gives you a negative strike against your friendship. One good way out of that is to say yes, then call back and cancel. You lose nothing (though I hate blowing off Little Jacob. He's your only true friend.).

I know all about the silly "hot coffee" sex scandal from San Andreas, and found it hilarious that there's an achievement unlocked when the girl invites you into her apartment for the first time called "Warm Coffee". This eludes not only to the previous scandal, but how amazingly tame these scenes are. The screen tilts and shakes as it pans along the landscape outside her house, while some audio signifying her enjoyment fires off a few times. It's pretty funny.

Race and/or chase missions piss me off. I hate racing games to begin with (sorry Gran Turismo, you suck), and now this game's forcing me to play one to advance the plot. Yeah, yeah, I know - it's Grand Theft _AUTO_ ... I'm all for stealing cars and outrunning the cops, I just don't want to chase random scumbags through a city I don't know as well as they do so I can gun them down, nor do I want to engage in a street race whose path makes no sense.

The combat system has some serious issues in that an aimed gun tends to lock on to the wrong enemy for me from time to time. This has always resulted in death (for me, not the enemy). The cover system is decent, though unless you stick with the game you'll lose the edge needed to pull off some of the difficult missions. I put the game down for roughly 6 months before going back, and I got wrecked because my familiarity with the combat had seriously declined.

The driving skill curve is not at all like the last GTA I played. In San Andreas, you sucked at driving at first. The more you drove, the better you got. The turns became easier. The cars handled better. In GTA 4, this difficulty is reflected in the car itself. A luxury car doesn't handle the same as a two-seater sports car. A fat American-made motorcycle is sluggish compared to the import style crotch rockets. All that said you never get "better" at driving these unless you actually drive them. There's no universal handling skill that improves - it's all up to you. That said those 70's muscle cars handle like shit. They skid out of control at the slightest twitch of the wheel and fishtail even on dry pavement.

There's one last thing to note that's a like and a gripe all in one - the environmental media, music and TV. The in-game car radio stations are cool but at the same time horrible, and I find myself listening mostly to the same two stations. Sad thing is that there are only about 6 songs per station, so unless you REALLY like those few songs you're going to hate the radio. The same thing goes for the TV. There are only about 8 shows on 5 stations, and the commercials are exactly the same for both radio and TV. Now, I am aware these things are just background noise and that they don't even need to be there, but it's annoying to hear the same few things over and over. I've turned the in-game radio volume level down to about 25%.

So far I give it 8/10, but if you've never played ANY GTA before, go find GTA: San Andreas. It's a better 'first' experience, even with all the personal maintenance you have to endure.