I decided to write this review a little differently than I normally do. Since GTA4 is rumored to be around a 100+ hours of gameplay I decided to write this one in pieces while certain parts were still fresh in my mind. So here it goes.
First thing you will notice is that there is about 3GB worth of game data (hey at least it doesn't take as long as DMC4) that has to download to your system before you get going. Another thing you will notice is that it autoloads and yes you have to watch those cut scenes every single time you play. The game starts off on a boat making its way to Liberty City, "land of opportunity". You, Niko Bellic, a Russian immigrant are on this boat having left home to try and make a new life and get away from your past. After a few seconds of waiting, your slick talking, gambling addicted cousin Roman shows up but he is to drunk to drive so you drive home and thus get your first feel for driving in GTA4. The driving mechanics from a technical standpoint are right on, the physics on the cars and the damage they can sustain are all spot on though brakes are well for most vehicles except the most expensive ok at best. You will notice that you are now driving with the triggers which takes a little getting used to but not a big deal.
GTA4 is a much darker game than either of its most recent predecessors Vice City or San Andreas. I mean in Vice City and San Andreas you could pretty much say that the goal was to get rich and take over everything, and while that is a component of this one you don't feel like its the main thing interestingly. You will notice that the game develops a lot slower than any of the others, by that I mean the story arcs. While I am thinking of it, man the story arcs are cool because you now have choices that you never had in GTA before. You have the opportunity to choose if you whack certain people and based on your choices the story arc diverges again, now its not all just based on which missions you do first. But back on track, you have a lot more side missions and you accumulate money much slower, well at least in the beginning. But that changes later.
Another new twist is your cellphone which is upgraded throughout the game. This allows you to interact with characters you have met during the game and not only get jobs from them but actually build friendships with them that will either help you or hurt you in the game. For instance, you will meet a Rasta named Little Jacob rather early in the game and do things or you may not. Depending on the order you do things, he will come along with you to have your back in certain situations. Same as with the rest of the characters, you will call them and suggest things to do and they will call you. Every choice you make affects the relationship, if someone calls and wants to go bowling and you say no that affects your friendship, you say no three times in a row and well you get the picture. Another thing is that the characters do remember you, what you do, girls will remember clothes you wear and cars you drive and make comments on them each time you see them. So to a degree its a lot like real life you have to balance your time and take care of your friendships, and watch your friends too. I learned the hard way what dealing with the wrong people will do and now at this point in the game I am paying for it (I knew they couldn't be trusted, darn Feds).
GTA4 introduces and all new cover system similar to what you see in Uncharted and the like. I like the cover system, and you definitely need it in some battles but it is not as polished as some of the others I have seen. Specifically, the fluidity with which you enter and exit cover. If you are in a doorway, you can spin across from one side to the other to avoid fire but coming out of cover is less than fluid. Of course the graphics are gorgeous, but in a rugged kind of way.
GTA4 ends the same way it plays, with a choice. Unfortunately, just like in Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, no good deed goes unpunished. With alternate endings depending on your final choice the game displays a depth and insight not often seen in a video game. The game is brilliantly architected and a success on so many levels. I commend Rockstar for breaking away from the molds of Vice City and San Andreas and doing a game that is unique in the franchise. One thing people will not say is that this is either over those games done over.
The one thing that I will leave you with about this game is take time to enjoy the little things. If you play straight through this game without digging into the full interactive web browsing experience by dating folks from Love meet or craplist, calling people about cars on the car site or going to the website where it tells you where all the secret stuff is hidden(www.whattheydontwantyoutoknow.com) then you are doing yourself an injustice. Make sure you go to the Caberet club a few times to see the acts and definitely make sure you check out the multiple comedy acts of Ricky Gervais and the pimp himself Katt Williams, yes Katt Williams is in the game with 4 or 5 3-5 minute performances which are hilarious.
In the end Grand Theft Auto 4 is one heck of way to start off the stream of big titles set to be released this year.
Huzaifa from eXputer: "2008 was home to the likes of Call of Duty: World at War, Dead Space, GTA 4, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, and many other hits, which is outright remarkable."
1998 - the best year in gaming! Metal gear solid, crash bandicoot 3, medievil, half life, ocarina of time, thief, tenchu, resident evil 2, Spyro, tomb raider 3, oddworld abes exodus, banjo kazooie.
It was a different breed of a gaming era. You’ll never understand what it was like back then. The aura of gaming, it was different!
I second this. Gaming was a lot more varied and fun than it is today. I'm 35 so getting on compared to some here but I got to see all the changes from NES up to now but I've never felt so disappointed in any generation than I have this current gen. I was expecting more from this generation rather than prettier versions of games that came before it. Game mechanics have become so refined that alot of games feel the same and has done for a while now.
Maybe it's time to have a break for a while. I love gaming but I don't feel I get much fun in the traditional sense out of it anymore.
Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2, Abe’s Exodus, and Ocarina of Time are the only things from that list that I liked.
Here’s the 2023 game releases that I personally liked… and big releases that I didn’t care for:
- Dead Space Remake
- Wo Long Dynatsy
- Resident Evil 4 Remake
- Diablo 4
- Fire Emblem Engage
- Hogwarts Legcay
- Street Fighter 6
- Hi-Fi Rush
- Like a Dragon: Ishin
- Octopath Traveler 2
- Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters
- Final Fanatsy XVI (actually ended up not liking this, but it was still a big deal release)
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
- Lies of P
- Mortal Kombat 1
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Starfield (Ended up hating this one, but big release)
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder
- Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (I’m an old-school Zelda fan, but didn’t really enjoy this game)
- Alan Wake 2
I mean, honestly I’ve never seen a year of major IP releases like that, ever.
Isn't it just a generational thing realistically.
I've been gaming since way back and I some of my favourite games go as far back as the late 80s for me each generation has a year or two of game changing releases one after another before an inevitable dry spell.
I kind of agree gaming had a different feel games hit different because we didn't have the internet nothing got spoiled and you really had to put in the effort to beat a puzzle which could set entire groups of people looking for a solution. But most importantly games were experimental and not as cookie cutter as today even basics like controls were not universal today r2 is shoot l2 is ads garunteed you can't deviate from that in a shooter back then it could of been square, R1 or R1 and circle nothing was standard.
But as time moves on a new generation picks up their controller they are going to be interested in different things that PS1 demo disc with the t Rex blew our primitive 16 bit brains back on launch but to kids today it's laughable.
The new gen of kids coming into to hobby seem to value different things to us there seems to be a huge focus on online play, streamers, gaming personalities, and social experiences, convience of digital downloads. To me I value none of that but that's ok like my parents not liking the band's I would listen to its just the natural cycle.
Grand Theft Auto 4 is an important game for Rockstar, not least because it was the first title in the franchise to use the newly created RAGE engine.
There’s never a bad time to relive its magic, and with rumours of a potential Grand Theft Auto IV remaster making the rounds, why wouldn’t you?
Not sure tbh.. I'd say 3 was the most overrated. It's pretty rough to go back to, it was quite rough even trying it just after Vice City. Lack of humour and vehicles that had the weight of polystyrene with top speeds to match.
VC & the stories games (even LCS) were all fun. I remember there being a lot of praise for GTA 3 on TV and in game mags, saying it was a Dreamcast killer of a game or words to that effect, and honestly after playing it on PC I didn't think it was that special and kind of dull, had the odd moment of fun but hardly anything. I heard they cut online multiplayer at the last moment for PC, shame because it could've made all the difference.
Would've loved to have seen what kind of cartoony GTA style game they could've done on Dreamcast as a competitor, I bet something along the lines of Simpsons Hit & Run would've worked well.
@numberz How can the game that defined a generation and was copied by everyone be overrated? Was a asinine comment
For me 4 was better than 5 was more realistic and the physics was on another level! 5 was a major let down in that department!
@blacktar you have your opinion i have mine. I found the game dull, and it is for the most part. It set the foundation for the much superior SA and VC however.
You say GTA III is overrated because it's rough to go back to and rough to play after Vice City. Your entire opinion is in hindsight. Of course it's rough going back to it today. It came out over 20 years ago. That doesn't take away from the fact that it pioneered a lot and was a paradigm shift for a lot of trends in game development today. Vice City in a lot of ways is just a more refined version of III. It was San Andreas that took the big leap forward from a design perspective. If III doesn't release, who knows if the open world genre would be what it is now. How can that be overrated?
Not at all. My most played game of all time. Truly stunning accomplishment in gaming and with PC graphics mods it just took it to levels beyond anything that came before and possibly even after.
People who moan about it generally tend to be people who played it on under powered consoles and couldn’t handle the more realistic car physics. It was the slightly more realistic approach that made it stand out more. Absolutely love it. In fact I always said Vice city was my favourite of all time. But after going back to the remaster I realised 4 was actually the best.
I'm no critic and I consider it the best games in the franchise after recently replaying every entry it's story when paired in conjunction with it's DLC was and still is amazing.
Lol. Fun fact. That dlc cost a certain green colored console 50 million for exclusiveness. Un heard of back then. Just to point out the hypocrisy of the 3rd party exclusive agenda going on.
Anyway how the dlc better then the base game by a mile. Lol imo
San Andreas holds a special place in my heart. Honestly, I couldn't get into IV at all. Didn't even finish it. I had some pride in playing it at first because I'm originally a New Yorker, but it just didn't do it for me.
To each their own.
Gta sa for sure. To this day my favorite. My least fav is gta 4 easily. Gta 4 made me feel like the dude in next friday trying to take the cd back talking about i cant get jiggy wit this.
Maybe looking back it would be 3 but 3 did so damn much for gaming in general. . My first gta was of course the top downs so the series has came a long way.
Yeah I remembered falling asleep playing the last mission in GTA4.. the most boring protagonist (out of all the voiced protag), and the town is too small.
Not really
Overrated
Boring
Liberty City despite being a reimagined version for the HD era lacked any variety
Lacked the GTA fun charm overall
Niko was bland compared to past protagonists like Tommy, CJ or Victor
GTA 2 was the best, lol my only owned GTA game. Vice city was alright when I rented it back then. I cant really say which is the best cause those the only 2 games i played but GTA 2 was fun on PC back in the day. Closes game to it that I enjoyed was SR3 and I dont care what people say. That none serious tone was fun enjoyable.
Like hell it is. San Andreas was far better, much more fun and a better game overall.
Nah, it's a masterpiece in attention to detail and the amount of immersive systems at play. But it really isn't very fun, ESPECIALLY when compared to the previous games in the series. Like tons of things are just wonky and actively kneecap lots of experimentation, or is just lame. Like why do I take huge damage when falling into water, why can I only stand in very specific large trucks when they are moving but not smaller trucks and vehicles, why is the melee combat such a massive down grade from GTA SA and GTA IV, why is the euphoria nowhere near as reactive, why is being drunk using a rasterized animation of staggering rather than the far more entertaining euphoria GTAIV and RDR used when you were drunk, why do npc vehicles barely react to you popping there tires even at high speed, etc etc.
I've always loved playing around in GTA games world. Like the campaigns are great but the majority of my time was always spent just playing in the open world. Yet GTAV is the only game in the series I never really returned to after beating it, it just lacks that fun factor the others have, I spent more time in GTA SA remastered than GTAV
It's one of my least favourite GTA games. It's clunky, the ai is exploitable, it's far too long and the writing is absolutely awful.
Good review man. Yeah I'm a little surprised at all the people who say this game isn't that good and is "overrated". I'm playing it again (cuz i got 85% through it last time and then my ps3 broke wiping out my hard drive) and it is absolutely fantastic. I love how real the city and its interactions feel, and the story and characters are some of the best (only rivaled by MGS4). I also like how you said the graphics were good, because alot of people said they are bad, but they are very good considering how big the world is, and they followed the awesome concept art down to the dime. Anyway good review