"Grand Theft Auto IV" review...

**Uberfuhrer** · 05-05-2008, 08:12 AM

Okay, I know that we're nearly a week into the much-anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto IV, and that my review for it is overdue, but wait no longer. Here it is.

* * * * *

In 2001, a Scottish company by the name of Rockstar Games released one of the most controversial video games of all time. Grand Theft Auto III spawned two sequels, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and each of which were composed of a free-roaming interactive digital world in which the protagonist was able to cause mischief. But behind all the gratuitousness was a highly clever satire on American lifestyle.

GTA III took place in Liberty City, a loose New York City lookalike. Being set in the present day (then 2001), it was a mockery of various events of that era. The game also payed homage to such films as The Godfather. A year later, Vice City was released, which took place in a 1986 Miami knockoff, also spoofing classic movies, namely Scarface. Come 2004, we have San Andreas, the most ambitious Grand Theft Auto game yet, titled after a fictitious state composed of three cities dubbed Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas, a mockery of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, respectively.

And now, for the new generation of consoles, the much anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto IV is here, returning to a much revamped Liberty City of the present day, which is an even more literal interpretation of a New York City that was sold to a generic product manufacturer. In place of the Statue of Liberty, for example, we have the Statue of Happiness. In place of the MetLife building, we have the Get-A-Life building. The list goes on. And the game even targets certain American television shows and websites as part of its grand scheme to make a mockery of the world. In place of America's Next Top Model, we have America's Next Top Hooker. GTA IV also targets the Internet, parodying MySpace, dating sites, blog sites, ringtone download sites (download ringtones for $100). The list goes on and on, and Rockstar's inventiveness is seemingly endless.

This time around, you play as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immigrant invited by his cousin Roman to stay in America in search of the American Dream. Niko realizes that the so-called "American Dream" isn't what he expected, considering America to be just a louder version of the rest of the world (surprise, surprise). Hence, Niko achieves this American Dream through unorthodox means, doing business with a variety of colorfully shady people -- from Russian mob lords to crooked cops, from Jamaican stoners to undercover government agents.

In true Rockstar fashion, Grand Theft Auto IV is littered with ethnic stereotypes. While the stereotypes against Italian Americans, Latino Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and White Americans remain ever present as they have in previous Grand Theft Auto installments, Grand Theft Auto IV has a set of new targets, including Eastern Europeans, Jamaicans, Irish Americans, among many others. The game is truly an equal-opportunity offender in terms of culture, religion, and profession.

Rockstar's new Liberty City actually feels like a real city. It's as if a piece of a major American city was taken and placed into a video game, through which the player is able to interact with it from behind a window. Where previous free-roaming crime games eventually spawned the same pedestrian designs, GTA IV's Liberty City has all different designs for pedestrians. I have yet to see a single pedestrian that is the same design. It makes the city feel alive.

The physics of the game are also very much improved, although the car handling is a tad bit more difficult from previous games. Still it's always fun to watch some ultra-realistic explosions and cause epic accidents, complete with realistic reactions from an ultra-smart civilian AI.

Also featured in the game's complex physics are subtle details such as flying through the windshield when crashing (which was featured in 2006's Saints Row, but never in a GTA game), along with blood splattered onto a car that runs you or a pedestrian over.

The graphics are equally amazing as far as consoles go (although a top-of-the-line PC game could easily smoke this game's graphics). There is much attention to detail to marvel over, including the watery glistening of the streets during and after a rainstorm, the glossy reflection of the environment against the chrome paint of a vehicle, the sunlight beaming against the streets of Liberty City, vividly creating both glow and shadow. There is so much to drool over.

Take that as a blessing or a curse, however, because I find that the more cartoony free-roaming crime shooters have more replay value, as is true with Volition's Saints Row, which was a great-looking next-gen game whose resemblance felt like an actual GTA game but with improved graphics that are not necessarily realistic, but fun and creative. GTA IV, by contrast, is much more gritty in terms of its visual style, and there are things missing in the game that were featured in previous GTA installments, such as the ability to pilot a jet plane (although Rockstar had political reasons not to feature such abilities in this game to avoid controversy). So while Liberty City is an astonishing achievement, you don't quite feel as if it's a city that would be fun to roam around in, as were Vice City, the trio of cities in San Andreas, and Saints Row's Stilwater.

GTA IV also lacks major Hollywood stars to contribute to character voices, which makes it seem less like a movie. Instead, there are a bunch of no-name actors. With that said, however, the voice work remains top-notch. For example, the one-liners uttered by Niko when interacting with the people in Liberty City are in top form and often hilarious.

With all the shortcomings of the game, GTA IV has so much to be proud of. There are plenty of amusing minigames featured within, including, but not limited to, bowling, pool, and darts, along with amusing side missions. And the radio stations continue to have great music. This time, along with your typical rap, rock, and radio talk stations, with a few foreign stations scattered here and there, the game also includes trance, electronica, and big band stations. Songs by ELO, David Bowie, Smashing Pumpkins, and many more can be found as you hop into the car and play with the radio.

But while the Grand Theft Auto series was a milestone in free-roaming gaming, I have a feeling that the unique concept has turned more into a game genre to be expanded by other companies. The Saints Row games, for example, have expansive potential that the GTA games don't seem to be catching onto. And I must say that GTA IV lacks the real replay value that the other games had. I am actually looking even more forward to Saints Row 2, due out in August.

**Motor Jax** · 05-05-2008, 09:22 AM

sounds pretty good to play

before - kinda burnt myself out on GTA

now - i wanna know if it as good as you say it is

*looks into his wallet*

**Uberfuhrer** · 05-05-2008, 11:08 AM

	Originally Posted by Motor Jax To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	sounds pretty good to play before - kinda burnt myself out on GTA now - i wanna know if it as good as you say it is

Well, it isn't a 10/10 like Gamespot.com says it is. I gave it an 8.5/10.

Oh, and the Xbox 360 and the PS3 version both look equally great. So no console wars...

And I'm sure that the game will likely be ported to PC in a few months and will have DX10 features not included in the console versions. PC always wins.

Uberfuhrer added to this post, 95 minutes and 19 seconds later...

And the great thing about Saints Row 2 coming out in August is that I'll be able to create a bad-ass female character that I'm attracted to!

And apparently, Saints Row 2 will allow us to give our characters a distinct personality type...that would be cool if a game came out and you can give your characters an MBTI type (and not a cheap knockoff like Big 5).

**Double Victory** · 05-05-2008, 11:38 AM

It kind of seems that once you've driven ice cream trucks, hijacked tanks, and been shot down by the SWAT team that there isn't really much free-roaming left you could do. I liked Vice City, but I had no desire to be a "gangsta" in San Andreas, and this game seems just like an improved version of previous releases. Not that that's a horrible thing--I'll probably just wait to pick it up once it makes it's way to $20 in a couple of years.

**lordrrr** · 05-05-2008, 10:39 PM

Hated San Andreas because it took away what made GTA fun (being apart of the Mafia) and made it into some crap about being a gangbanger, which I had no tolerance for. I'm not racist or anything, but I just find Mafia and Yakuza atmospheres more interesting than gangster crap. The game was fun aside from the ridiculously lame storyline and characters however, mainly because there was so much crap to do. Only problem was the game itself was crappy, as all the GTA III games were, because the gameplay felt like a crappy shooting game and a crappy driving game mixed together. However, what I like about GTA IV is that it's a GOOD driving game and a GOOD shooting game combined. It definantly fell flat on some aspects, but I love the Russian take on everything- I found that VEEEEERY interesting.

**Uberfuhrer** · 05-06-2008, 11:38 AM

I liked the ragdoll physics in previous games and in Saints Row.

I think that the next GTA game should center around Germans or neo-Nazis.

**Vayate** · 05-06-2008, 05:29 PM

Eh, Grand Theft Auto got stale midway through Vice City. Got to the second large island and I just got tired of the whole premise.

**lordrrr** · 05-06-2008, 05:32 PM

	Originally Posted by Uberfuhrer To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I liked the ragdoll physics in previous games and in Saints Row. I think that the next GTA game should center around Germans or neo-Nazis.

I think it should be centered about the Yakuza.

**Uberfuhrer** · 05-06-2008, 08:32 PM

	Originally Posted by lordrrr To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I think it should be centered about the Yakuza.

I'm tired of Mafia syndicates.

And I really wish that the games included kids as pedestrians that could be shot up just like anyone else.

I think Rockstar really chickened out with GTA IV, it wasn't nearly as provocative as previous installments.

I'm playing Saints Row again, now, though. It's got fun physics.

Uberfuhrer added to this post, 15 minutes and 42 seconds later...

I also think it would also be cool to have a GTA game set in the '40s, and I had an idea for how you can have NOS in the street races. The NOS would come from a mad German scientist enslaved by the government to build the atom bomb...but he still does things on the side -- like make NOS or something like it...

And now I got another idea. Since the Germans were always ahead of their time, I figured a '40s-themed GTA could have some radical car and building designs as if they were imagined by a futurist in the '40s.

And I think it would be cool to have a GTA game that took place in the future, somewhat like Crackdown, but with an actual story -- the lack thereof is what made Crackdown relatively shitty.

Back to Saints Row, though, I always tend to create an African American character as if he were a Josef Mengele experiment -- that is blond hair and blue eyes...I think that character looks bad-ass.

05-05-2008, 08:12 AM	#1
Uberfuhrer Member [39%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1,568	Okay, I know that we're nearly a week into the much-anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto IV, and that my review for it is overdue, but wait no longer. Here it is. * * * * * In 2001, a Scottish company by the name of Rockstar Games released one of the most controversial video games of all time. Grand Theft Auto III spawned two sequels, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and each of which were composed of a free-roaming interactive digital world in which the protagonist was able to cause mischief. But behind all the gratuitousness was a highly clever satire on American lifestyle. GTA III took place in Liberty City, a loose New York City lookalike. Being set in the present day (then 2001), it was a mockery of various events of that era. The game also payed homage to such films as The Godfather. A year later, Vice City was released, which took place in a 1986 Miami knockoff, also spoofing classic movies, namely Scarface. Come 2004, we have San Andreas, the most ambitious Grand Theft Auto game yet, titled after a fictitious state composed of three cities dubbed Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas, a mockery of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, respectively. And now, for the new generation of consoles, the much anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto IV is here, returning to a much revamped Liberty City of the present day, which is an even more literal interpretation of a New York City that was sold to a generic product manufacturer. In place of the Statue of Liberty, for example, we have the Statue of Happiness. In place of the MetLife building, we have the Get-A-Life building. The list goes on. And the game even targets certain American television shows and websites as part of its grand scheme to make a mockery of the world. In place of America's Next Top Model, we have America's Next Top Hooker. GTA IV also targets the Internet, parodying MySpace, dating sites, blog sites, ringtone download sites (download ringtones for $100). The list goes on and on, and Rockstar's inventiveness is seemingly endless. This time around, you play as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immigrant invited by his cousin Roman to stay in America in search of the American Dream. Niko realizes that the so-called "American Dream" isn't what he expected, considering America to be just a louder version of the rest of the world (surprise, surprise). Hence, Niko achieves this American Dream through unorthodox means, doing business with a variety of colorfully shady people -- from Russian mob lords to crooked cops, from Jamaican stoners to undercover government agents. In true Rockstar fashion, Grand Theft Auto IV is littered with ethnic stereotypes. While the stereotypes against Italian Americans, Latino Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and White Americans remain ever present as they have in previous Grand Theft Auto installments, Grand Theft Auto IV has a set of new targets, including Eastern Europeans, Jamaicans, Irish Americans, among many others. The game is truly an equal-opportunity offender in terms of culture, religion, and profession. Rockstar's new Liberty City actually feels like a real city. It's as if a piece of a major American city was taken and placed into a video game, through which the player is able to interact with it from behind a window. Where previous free-roaming crime games eventually spawned the same pedestrian designs, GTA IV's Liberty City has all different designs for pedestrians. I have yet to see a single pedestrian that is the same design. It makes the city feel alive. The physics of the game are also very much improved, although the car handling is a tad bit more difficult from previous games. Still it's always fun to watch some ultra-realistic explosions and cause epic accidents, complete with realistic reactions from an ultra-smart civilian AI. Also featured in the game's complex physics are subtle details such as flying through the windshield when crashing (which was featured in 2006's Saints Row, but never in a GTA game), along with blood splattered onto a car that runs you or a pedestrian over. The graphics are equally amazing as far as consoles go (although a top-of-the-line PC game could easily smoke this game's graphics). There is much attention to detail to marvel over, including the watery glistening of the streets during and after a rainstorm, the glossy reflection of the environment against the chrome paint of a vehicle, the sunlight beaming against the streets of Liberty City, vividly creating both glow and shadow. There is so much to drool over. Take that as a blessing or a curse, however, because I find that the more cartoony free-roaming crime shooters have more replay value, as is true with Volition's Saints Row, which was a great-looking next-gen game whose resemblance felt like an actual GTA game but with improved graphics that are not necessarily realistic, but fun and creative. GTA IV, by contrast, is much more gritty in terms of its visual style, and there are things missing in the game that were featured in previous GTA installments, such as the ability to pilot a jet plane (although Rockstar had political reasons not to feature such abilities in this game to avoid controversy). So while Liberty City is an astonishing achievement, you don't quite feel as if it's a city that would be fun to roam around in, as were Vice City, the trio of cities in San Andreas, and Saints Row's Stilwater. GTA IV also lacks major Hollywood stars to contribute to character voices, which makes it seem less like a movie. Instead, there are a bunch of no-name actors. With that said, however, the voice work remains top-notch. For example, the one-liners uttered by Niko when interacting with the people in Liberty City are in top form and often hilarious. With all the shortcomings of the game, GTA IV has so much to be proud of. There are plenty of amusing minigames featured within, including, but not limited to, bowling, pool, and darts, along with amusing side missions. And the radio stations continue to have great music. This time, along with your typical rap, rock, and radio talk stations, with a few foreign stations scattered here and there, the game also includes trance, electronica, and big band stations. Songs by ELO, David Bowie, Smashing Pumpkins, and many more can be found as you hop into the car and play with the radio. But while the Grand Theft Auto series was a milestone in free-roaming gaming, I have a feeling that the unique concept has turned more into a game genre to be expanded by other companies. The Saints Row games, for example, have expansive potential that the GTA games don't seem to be catching onto. And I must say that GTA IV lacks the real replay value that the other games had. I am actually looking even more forward to Saints Row 2, due out in August.
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05-05-2008, 09:22 AM	#2
Motor Jax Veteran Member [52%] MBTI: INFJ Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 2,105	sounds pretty good to play before - kinda burnt myself out on GTA now - i wanna know if it as good as you say it is looks into his wallet
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05-05-2008, 11:38 AM	#4
Double Victory Member [14%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 592	It kind of seems that once you've driven ice cream trucks, hijacked tanks, and been shot down by the SWAT team that there isn't really much free-roaming left you could do. I liked Vice City, but I had no desire to be a "gangsta" in San Andreas, and this game seems just like an improved version of previous releases. Not that that's a horrible thing--I'll probably just wait to pick it up once it makes it's way to $20 in a couple of years.
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05-05-2008, 10:39 PM	#5
lordrrr Banned MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 723	Hated San Andreas because it took away what made GTA fun (being apart of the Mafia) and made it into some crap about being a gangbanger, which I had no tolerance for. I'm not racist or anything, but I just find Mafia and Yakuza atmospheres more interesting than gangster crap. The game was fun aside from the ridiculously lame storyline and characters however, mainly because there was so much crap to do. Only problem was the game itself was crappy, as all the GTA III games were, because the gameplay felt like a crappy shooting game and a crappy driving game mixed together. However, what I like about GTA IV is that it's a GOOD driving game and a GOOD shooting game combined. It definantly fell flat on some aspects, but I love the Russian take on everything- I found that VEEEEERY interesting.
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05-06-2008, 11:38 AM	#6
Uberfuhrer Member [39%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1,568	I liked the ragdoll physics in previous games and in Saints Row. I think that the next GTA game should center around Germans or neo-Nazis.
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05-06-2008, 05:29 PM	#7
Vayate Member [03%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 146	Eh, Grand Theft Auto got stale midway through Vice City. Got to the second large island and I just got tired of the whole premise.
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