Scott Tortorice
Senior Member
From the get-go, Grand Theft Auto IV promises to be something quite special. Niko Bellic arrives in Liberty City aboard a boat that carried him across the Atlantic, away from a horrifically scarred past and towards the hope of starting over. The supporting opening cinema is slick and brilliant, and captures the mood of an immigrant chasing after the American Dream.
Nothing is as it seems in GTA IV, and things are quickly turned around in the opposite direction. Niko was promised the good life by his cousin Roman, but Roman is hardly the successful entrepreneur: he runs an upstart cabbie business out of his dive garage and apartment. It’s not long before Niko gets involved with the various criminal underworld elements of Liberty City in order to make a living.
The GTA series has always featured over the top characters and a storyline that runs into total over-the-top ridiculousness, and this game is not so different. You’ll grow to love the spot-on voiced characters and their incredibly sharp, mature, witty and engaging dialogue.
But what’s different about GTA IV’s approach is its tendency to actually make you feel something, turning the whole idea of GTA’s wanton violence completely on its head. There are many elements strewn throughout the game that force you to make a choice regarding the fate of certain individuals, and those choices will have real consequences. As a result, you begin to care about how your decisions affect the characters you have become involved with.
Developing and maintaining friendships in GTA IV is a central aspect of the gameplay. Once you’ve met these oft-bizarre characters, they can be contacted via cell phone and engaged in any sort of activity, from shooting pool to going to see a comedy act. They will even become your drinking buddies. Each character has their own preferences and the activity you pick can help gain their trust and friendship.
Once you’ve acquired their fondness, they offer gameplay benefits. Brucie will allow you to enter into races with a just a call. Jacob will offer guns and ammo on the cheap. However, they may call on you at any time too. Turn them down, and you risk losing their friendship. This friendship system is very dynamic and allows for deep story development with some of the most moving dialogue occurring as you drive from place to place with a friend.
Niko may just be the deepest character ever envisioned for a videogame. A former soldier in an unspecified war, the horrific tragedies he witnessed are revealed in his recollections. When he reminisces on the nature of a God that would allow children to be brutalized in war, all the while grieving the loss of his innocence, it’s hard not to sympathise. While a tragic character, Niko’s background puts everything into an understandable context. He’s good at one thing: killing. So it’s no surprise he ends up working as a hired assassin or thug.
For all the missions there are to complete, and there are a lot, it’s remarkable that none ever get dull or boring. Despite the fact that you’re basically driving, running, and shooting, the mission structures are expertly done and keep things fresh.
The missions also serve a proper purpose: to take you all over the fantastically realised Liberty City. As you chase down characters either on foot or by wheels, the developers purposefully lead you to places you never would have thought of entering and reveal a tremendous amount of complexity to the city.
It helps that Liberty City is a site to behold. As with all GTA games, you’re placed into an open world that is very much another character in its own right. There are talk radio stations with blowhard pundits from the right and left, an internet where you can check your email and even engage in some online dating, even clothes stores to outfit Niko in appropriate apparel. Some incredibly funny laugh-out-loud moments come from these many elements: watch an episode of Republican Space Rangers, and you’ll agree completely.
Liberty City also looks fantastic. Although the game lacks the kind of high fidelity of other major releases, it does come with a painterly look to it. It is absolutely beautiful at times, especially when enhanced by a weather system that serves to create “moods” for Liberty city. Everything is soaked in miniscule details. And just when you think you have seen everything, you’re introduced to some new locale that looks entirely different from everything else you’ve seen so far.
But for all that GTA IV does brilliantly, it is hurt by clunky combat mechanics that still need a good measure of fine tuning. The shooting action features a welcome over-the-shoulder perspective and cover mechanic akin to Gears of War. They make the action manageable in a way that wasn’t possible before. That said, the cover mechanic is wonky and you’ll find yourself struggling with proper cover positions, randomly bouncing from one cover point to the other, and simply not experiencing a fluid transition between cover and shooting.
The lock-on system is also a convenient addition to combat but equally flawed. For starters, for a game that is at pains to remove HUD elements in an effort to better immerse you, locking onto a character results in a large reticule that accomplishes the opposite and draws you out of the experience. Furthermore, it does not feel natural: hand to hand combat is frustratingly unresponsive and will quickly end-up the least favourite element of gameplay.
Shooting whilst locked-on is a better option. However, you’ll frequently find yourself locking onto an unintended target despite directly facing the character you wish to dispatch.
The developers cleverly added a free aim option, activated by only pulling the trigger half way, but during tense situation you’ll spastically pull too far and end up locking onto whatever target the game deems fit.
Regardless, the game looks great during combat, the action visceral, and especially so when it comes to pyrotechnics. One sequence in an abandoned warehouse is particularly great, as is an escape from a bank heist. Watching pillars of concrete explode into dust and cop cars erupt in fireballs is beautifully thrilling. But these sequences work in spite of the combat mechanics, not because of them.
A final critique of GTA IV can be levelled against its sometimes plodding nature. Despite the remarkable amount of things to do, there are too many grinding moments. The main story will take you a good long while to finish, but a noticeable portion of that time is taken up in monotony.
With an additional online mode that takes place in the fully open Liberty City, there’s a tremendous amount of additional fun to be had. For example, there’s the standard multiplayer modes that offer tremendous replayability. Overall, with all there is to do in Liberty City, GTA IV often feels less like an action game and more like an epic MMORPG.
Closing Comments:
As an open world simulation, Grand Theft Auto IV is some kind of a revelation. As a narrative device, it is practically perfect. Judged on its gameplay merits alone, it stumbles, taking the sheen off of an otherwise engrossing experience. Nonetheless, creators Dan Houser and Rupert Humphries have produced what is ultimately one of the most convincing and scathing critique of American culture. I suspect this is not the last we’ve seen of Niko Bellic - and we’re all the better for it.
9.0 out of 10
Nothing is as it seems in GTA IV, and things are quickly turned around in the opposite direction. Niko was promised the good life by his cousin Roman, but Roman is hardly the successful entrepreneur: he runs an upstart cabbie business out of his dive garage and apartment. It’s not long before Niko gets involved with the various criminal underworld elements of Liberty City in order to make a living.
The GTA series has always featured over the top characters and a storyline that runs into total over-the-top ridiculousness, and this game is not so different. You’ll grow to love the spot-on voiced characters and their incredibly sharp, mature, witty and engaging dialogue.
But what’s different about GTA IV’s approach is its tendency to actually make you feel something, turning the whole idea of GTA’s wanton violence completely on its head. There are many elements strewn throughout the game that force you to make a choice regarding the fate of certain individuals, and those choices will have real consequences. As a result, you begin to care about how your decisions affect the characters you have become involved with.
Developing and maintaining friendships in GTA IV is a central aspect of the gameplay. Once you’ve met these oft-bizarre characters, they can be contacted via cell phone and engaged in any sort of activity, from shooting pool to going to see a comedy act. They will even become your drinking buddies. Each character has their own preferences and the activity you pick can help gain their trust and friendship.
Once you’ve acquired their fondness, they offer gameplay benefits. Brucie will allow you to enter into races with a just a call. Jacob will offer guns and ammo on the cheap. However, they may call on you at any time too. Turn them down, and you risk losing their friendship. This friendship system is very dynamic and allows for deep story development with some of the most moving dialogue occurring as you drive from place to place with a friend.
Niko may just be the deepest character ever envisioned for a videogame. A former soldier in an unspecified war, the horrific tragedies he witnessed are revealed in his recollections. When he reminisces on the nature of a God that would allow children to be brutalized in war, all the while grieving the loss of his innocence, it’s hard not to sympathise. While a tragic character, Niko’s background puts everything into an understandable context. He’s good at one thing: killing. So it’s no surprise he ends up working as a hired assassin or thug.
For all the missions there are to complete, and there are a lot, it’s remarkable that none ever get dull or boring. Despite the fact that you’re basically driving, running, and shooting, the mission structures are expertly done and keep things fresh.
The missions also serve a proper purpose: to take you all over the fantastically realised Liberty City. As you chase down characters either on foot or by wheels, the developers purposefully lead you to places you never would have thought of entering and reveal a tremendous amount of complexity to the city.
It helps that Liberty City is a site to behold. As with all GTA games, you’re placed into an open world that is very much another character in its own right. There are talk radio stations with blowhard pundits from the right and left, an internet where you can check your email and even engage in some online dating, even clothes stores to outfit Niko in appropriate apparel. Some incredibly funny laugh-out-loud moments come from these many elements: watch an episode of Republican Space Rangers, and you’ll agree completely.
Liberty City also looks fantastic. Although the game lacks the kind of high fidelity of other major releases, it does come with a painterly look to it. It is absolutely beautiful at times, especially when enhanced by a weather system that serves to create “moods” for Liberty city. Everything is soaked in miniscule details. And just when you think you have seen everything, you’re introduced to some new locale that looks entirely different from everything else you’ve seen so far.
But for all that GTA IV does brilliantly, it is hurt by clunky combat mechanics that still need a good measure of fine tuning. The shooting action features a welcome over-the-shoulder perspective and cover mechanic akin to Gears of War. They make the action manageable in a way that wasn’t possible before. That said, the cover mechanic is wonky and you’ll find yourself struggling with proper cover positions, randomly bouncing from one cover point to the other, and simply not experiencing a fluid transition between cover and shooting.
The lock-on system is also a convenient addition to combat but equally flawed. For starters, for a game that is at pains to remove HUD elements in an effort to better immerse you, locking onto a character results in a large reticule that accomplishes the opposite and draws you out of the experience. Furthermore, it does not feel natural: hand to hand combat is frustratingly unresponsive and will quickly end-up the least favourite element of gameplay.
Shooting whilst locked-on is a better option. However, you’ll frequently find yourself locking onto an unintended target despite directly facing the character you wish to dispatch.
The developers cleverly added a free aim option, activated by only pulling the trigger half way, but during tense situation you’ll spastically pull too far and end up locking onto whatever target the game deems fit.
Regardless, the game looks great during combat, the action visceral, and especially so when it comes to pyrotechnics. One sequence in an abandoned warehouse is particularly great, as is an escape from a bank heist. Watching pillars of concrete explode into dust and cop cars erupt in fireballs is beautifully thrilling. But these sequences work in spite of the combat mechanics, not because of them.
A final critique of GTA IV can be levelled against its sometimes plodding nature. Despite the remarkable amount of things to do, there are too many grinding moments. The main story will take you a good long while to finish, but a noticeable portion of that time is taken up in monotony.
With an additional online mode that takes place in the fully open Liberty City, there’s a tremendous amount of additional fun to be had. For example, there’s the standard multiplayer modes that offer tremendous replayability. Overall, with all there is to do in Liberty City, GTA IV often feels less like an action game and more like an epic MMORPG.
Closing Comments:
As an open world simulation, Grand Theft Auto IV is some kind of a revelation. As a narrative device, it is practically perfect. Judged on its gameplay merits alone, it stumbles, taking the sheen off of an otherwise engrossing experience. Nonetheless, creators Dan Houser and Rupert Humphries have produced what is ultimately one of the most convincing and scathing critique of American culture. I suspect this is not the last we’ve seen of Niko Bellic - and we’re all the better for it.
9.0 out of 10