Grand Theft Auto IV

Written by Dan Moore in Xbox 360 Game Reviews, Tuesday 16 September, 2008

GTA IV is in fact about the eighth or ninth GTA game, depending on whether the one on the Gameboy is to be considered a remake or not. Or in fact, the sixth or seventh depending on whether or not Vice City Stories and Liberty City stories are considered “proper” games. That is quite a range, and as you can see, offers quite a choice of numbers that aren't four. Rockstar however, clearly isn't capable of even basic arithmetic and so we are left with the title “GTA IV”. Fortunately, the claims of it being the fastest selling game are true, as someone else took the figures.

Playing as an Eastern European immigrant criminal murderer, you would be forgiven for thinking the character was stolen from the Daily Mail, but I don't think they have the Daily Mail in Scotland. He, like every character you play in GTA, has the ability to steal cars, utilise a barrage of weaponry around that would make Bin Laden proud, run people over (but not dogs or cats or even children), get involved in gang warfare and do missions that involve the aforementioned.

Unlike previous games in the series though, Niko Bellic, as he is named, is much more integral to the plot and isn't just a random bloke whose only ambition is to have as much money and power as possible. Niko, an ex-people-trafficker from the Balkans has been invited over to live the American Dream by his cousin. However, his cousin, it turns out, is just as dodgy and has got himself involved in gang warfare, dragging Niko into it.

This all takes place in Liberty City, which is a remake of the Liberty city from GTA III, which in turn is a remake of Liberty City from the first GTA, which in turn is a remake of New York City from real life. Ironically for a remake of a remake of a remake, this is in fact the best and most accurate portrayal of New York yet from a GTA, although the one from real life is probably slightly more realistic. It features landmarks similar to those in New York, obviously, the sort that you would have seen from films and photos and such. That's the most obvious clue of it being New York. The city is also, for once, big enough to feel like a proper city. I remember Vice City, for example feeling ridiculously small, although I don't know anyone else who agrees with me. Perhaps I have a bigger and thus more capacious brain than them.

Of course, the real sense of a city is at a street level. The houses, the pedestrians, the cars and the piles of dog crap. In this respect IV is much more immersive than previous games and does, to someone who has only seen New York in films and news reports about terrorism, feel authentic. The pedestrians are the sort of people that you'd think were really boring and repetitive in real life, but considering they're just on the streets and could just be background noise, are very detailed and varied. Just not quite enough to make you feel guilty about their families when you run them down. So a good compromise there I feel. Having said that, there are some more unique characters around, such as the preacher outside one of the safehouses, but as I said, he is a preacher.

Of course, if I were cyber-paedophile who could listen in on you at your computer; assuming I wasn't overcome with lust and/or you weren't a child, then I might hear you shouting at this point “what about the gameplay you arse?!” I shall answer that now, and don't be so rude.

First of all; what the game is named after, the act of Grand Theft Auto. Stealing car is much as it is in previous games, although drivers do often attempt to reclaim their cars, which can lead to hilarious results if you time your driving away with their holding onto the door correctly. If however, you attempt to steal a parked car, you'll have to go through the agony of waiting about five seconds while Niko hotwires it. In a police chase involving SWAT teams, this is often the difference between life and getting shot in the head with a shotgun.

Once driving, you'll notice the cars handle much more realistically, although having driven real cars, not completely realistically. If cars handled like they do in GTA4, we wouldn't be able to pass a tree without seeing several cars rammed into the side. The camera when driving is fairly atrocious it has to be said; I constantly found myself adjusting the camera just as much as steering. So I just give up on the old third-person view and switched to the interior view, which in contrast is much better than the interior views thanks to two things; you can see the car's bonnet making it seem as though you are actually in a car, and the camera wobbling a bit, a characteristic of every real car that some astute Rockstar employee apparently noticed.

I have to say though on the upside, both the handling and the almost compulsory interior view make fancy stunt driving a lot more fun. The old J-turn being a favourite of mine. Just jam the car in reverse, accelerate to a speed that is just enough to flatten a child (there are no children in GTA IV, so this isn't an offensive comparison), apply full lock in one direction and engage forward drive, allowing you to quickly change direction without stopping. Handbrake turns only seem to work that well in massive saloon cars, but they're the most fun in the game anyway, being exactly average in every way. A fast car makes it too easy, and a slow car makes it too easy. To get shot in the head from 15 feet away. Which brings me neatly on to my next point: GUNS.

According to NRA nutters, guns are an important part of everyday life. I disagree, guns are a FUN part of everyday life, if by life you mean video games, and if by everyday you mean every day. Frankly, guns in previous GTA games were a bit fiddly to use. Thinking back to the 2D games, actually getting the gun to fire within the same two compass directions as the target was a bit of a challenge. GTA3 improved it slightly, although it wasn't great; if you wanted to aim properly, you had to stand still. And by properly, I mean "a bit less shit than not doing it".

The next games offered moderate improvement. San Andreas, for example had colour-coded rings displayed around enemies so you could see exactly how crap your aim was. In IV, like previous GTAs, you can either auto-aim or aim manually. Either switches to a semi-FPS mode which makes it a lot easier to gauge your surroundings and in neither do you have to stand still. Auto-aim doesn't always default to aiming on pedestrians instead of any of the six police officers shooting at you. You can also cycle targets on auto-aim, which is an improvement on both not having it in some previous games and it being fairly crap when they did. Switching between the two modes is as easy as pressing a button, although thanks to foibles of the 360 controller isn't actually pressing a button.

I've covered two main tenets of the game, namely stealing cars and shooting people. It's now time to combine the two. Drive-bys have never really been an integral part of GTA games, even though they have been there since GTA3, but have a much more central role in IV, with several missions calling for their use. For reasons of practicality, you are limited to just small weapons that can be fired with one hand. And grenades. Unlike GTA3 to San Andreas, and like real life, it is possible to aim these guns, although as anyone who has attempted to aim at an innocent bystander whilst driving at 40mph with the other hand will attest, it's not the easiest thing. Personally I wouldn't know, but I'm happy to take their word for it.

Of course, you can't get away with this mindless destruction without attracting the law. At first you'll just get a one “star” wanted level, involving just bog standard patrol cars driven by officers who may have seen a gun but are only vaguely aware of which end to point at you. As you are deemed more of a threat, your wanted level will raise, leading to more skilled officers and more of them, then roadblocks, then SWAT teams, the FBI and finally, the bits of the army that haven't shot each other in friendly fire incidents yet. The higher wanted level, the bigger the area they can track you in and the harder it is to escape that area. Dumping the vehicle out of their direct sight has the same effect of losing the wanted level.

You might be wondering why I haven't talked that much about the missions, which in most games are the central focus, the meat 'n' potatoes, the bit of the hammer that actually bangs nails in. Well, most of the missions involve mixes of the above, combined with having to ferry someone around, protect them or chase after someone and then finish him. So I've covered more or less everything as it is. With over 90 main storyline missions, very few of which last for longer than five minutes, and essentially only three or four main ingredients, they can get repetitive after a while. But the ingredients are very good ingredients.

What goes on in between missions is often more fun. Apart from mindless violence and police chases, you can go on dates, play pool, listen to the radio, browse the Internet, watch TV and, unfortunately, see Ricky Gervais's stand-up comedy. All of which, apart from Gervais, are highly amusing, and in the case of the spoof Internet in particular, often hilarious. It all means that what could be a half a mile, one minute drive to get to the next mission can take half an hour.

In summary, I would recommend GTA IV if you like mindless violence, car chases and indiscriminate shooting, but aren't deranged or high enough up Republican party ranks to consider doing it in real life. And I haven't even mentioned the multiplayer modes of the game, which even at the most basic level allow you to enjoy said mindless violence with dozens of people. Just don't buy it solely to rush through and then put it down, having completed the story missions.

And it turns out Rockstar's complete lack of mathematical skill does have one advantage. If anyone described the game as 1-dimensional, this would clearly be taken as a compliment. Describing that sentiment would probably involve going into minus figures, rending this cliché null thanks to current theories on fundamental physics. However, I shall leave the drunken arguments with Stephen Hawking to the professionals.

2 Comments

1. James Allison said on September 27th, 2008 at 12:01pm

   After having read your duel review i was slightly worried about a review for GTA 4. Sure enough your views are more controversial than the game, very funny comments had me laughing like a mule on heat. Could have done more info on the missions a bit brief but overall a very good alternative review not one your going to find in magazines these days.

2. Tom Clare said on September 28th, 2008 at 8:16am

   LOL yeah, but what's with the last paragraph Dan? You're generally meant to summarise whether its a good game or not rather than talking dimensions, clichés and Stephen Hawking ;-)

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