Grand Theft Auto IV: Committing Every Sin, I’d Do It All Again

June 1, 2008 4:27 pm Sir Haxington Games for Fun, Gaming

Make no mistake, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is a good game. However, no game is perfect, and even the best games deserve a critical once-over.

Even if you’re not into open world games, you have to appreciate the excellent job Rockstar did with the overall quality of their game. There are plenty of reviews out for GTA IV, so I’ll try not to cover the obvious. I really only want to cover two things: where I think Rockstar made design improvements from previous games in the series, and where I think they need to make improvements in future titles.

I Came a Long Way to See You:

Taxis – You mean I don’t have to drive everywhere if I don’t want to? Being able to call taxis in GTA IV is a lot like using mounts in World of Warcraft, except that you can skip the ride. I’d like to personally thank the developer that came up with that idea. The taxi system has fundamentally changed the way I approach the series and I can’t imagine not having that feature from now on.

Cell Phone Interface – I think Rockstar has managed to make the best cell phone / text message interface in any game to date. EA has tried similar (smack talking emails from rival snowboarders in the SSX series, for example) virtual cell phone systems, but they always fall flat. In GTA IV, the cell phone is integrated into various missions where you must use the camera phone functionality, receive text messages to find car locations to steal and so on. Rockstar even included little details like that static-y interference buzz some phones make when you’re near speakers (I thought it was my real phone the first time I heard it). You can customize and upgrade your phone as well with new themes and ring tones, which really brings the phone to life.

Internet – It’s hard for me to believe it still: Rockstar managed to make a fully functioning mock internet as part of their game. Players can download new themes and ring tones for their phone, send and receive emails to and from other characters and even search through personal ads to go on dates. The amount of content contained on the GTA IV internet is staggering, including sites that contain all the hidden items, secret characters and car locations throughout the game.

Mission Variety – Rockstar did a great job with mission variety. GTA IV contains some of the more memorable missions from the series including:

• Driving a hearse with a coffin and body about to fall out the back during an intense cop chase
• A bank heist that escalates to the point where you’re forced to escape thorough subway tunnels
• Kidnapping a mob bosses daughter who grabs your steering wheel and jacks with your car while driving
• Killing a lawyer discreetly (or not) while in the middle of a job interview
• Driving a body to a black-market, organ harvesting doctor
• Calling an assassination target and picking him out of the crowd as he answers and talks on his cell phone
• Blocking a tunnel and hijacking a police convoy carrying a criminal you need to gain custody of
• Beating down homophobes guilty of hate crimes
• Disguising yourself as a doctor to gain entrance to a hospital room, then pulling the plug on a mafia thug’s life support machine so he can’t rat to the police

There are plenty of others, but all in all I found most of the GTA IV missions entertaining and interesting.

Moral Choices – I thoroughly enjoyed the moral choices presented in GTA IV. I think it’s great that there weren’t any real penalties for making those though choices (except that one safe house… you’ll know what I mean if you’ve played it), and my choices were driven purely on my attachment to various characters. Being able to decide which characters live and die is enough for me; I didn’t feel like I needed any extra reward.

Cutting Dead Weight – I’m glad Rockstar took GTA IV more seriously, and lost the jetpacks, owning an entire airfield with military jets, Area 51, swimming skill, getting fat, taxi driving missions, ambulance missions, fire truck missions, ice cream truck missions and so on. They alway felt like filler to me. I do miss buying houses, but I prefer to gain access to them through the story anyway. I’m glad they cut support for those features and gave me new stuff to experience instead.

Combat – Overall I feel like the combat in GTA IV is well done. The targeting system turns Nico in the ultimate-quick shot murdering bad ass, but I’m okay with that. Pressing up on the right stick while locked onto an AI in order to get a head shot was a rewarding mechanic I used often. I would venture to say that combat in GTA IV might be a little too easy though.

Now I Wish You Were Dead:

Getting Into Vehicles – Getting into cars can be really annoying sometimes, especially taxis. Every one and while, you’ll hail a taxi then hold Y, only to end up jacking a nearby car. Sometimes you’ll end up running around the taxi and into different taxi three car lengths away. While it’s not a huge deal, getting into cars is probably the most commonly used mechanic and I would have thought Rockstar they would have taken the time to make this feature as smooth as possible.

Pigeons – Players must kill all 200 pigeons hidden all over Liberty City. What’s the reward? A military helicopter that can be found elsewhere in the game. What ever happened to the incremental reward system from GTA III? I don’t really understand why Rockstar made the GTA IV collectible system so vastly unrewarding.

Worthless Paper – Money in GTA IV doesn’t have much value. Cash is very easy to obtain and you can spend it like a drunken sailor (using taxis everywhere, spending at the gun store nilly-willy) without any real repercussions. Acquiring an excess of cash also damages the story believability, since Nico’s primary motive for doing jobs is to get paid. To me, it doesn’t make sense that Nico is doing $5k hit jobs when he’s got $900k sitting in the bank. I think Rockstar balanced GTA IV’s money system towards people who have never played the series before and would probably be terrible at it.

Multiplayer – It felt like Rockstar didn’t focus or stress test the MP portion of their game. The party system is essentially worthless. Joining a game with your party will usually split the party up as not everyone will be able to join the match. Compared to Call of Duty 4 (the smoothest party implementation in any game thus far), GTA IV’s party system is a joke. In addition, about 1/3 of the matches I was able to join booted me back to single player. The worst part is that the load between the SP and MP parts of the game can take 20 – 30 seconds. The load itself isn’t that bad, but if you’re constantly getting disconnected from MP games and trying to go back, it’s extremely frustrating. The MP game modes are actually fun, but the process of getting into a match deters me from playing them.

Cover System – I hardly used the cover system in GTA IV and felt totally unchallenged by the AI. Once you’re able to access the AK-47 or the carbine, the game becomes a cake walk. I tried using the cover system and actually found it more difficult to be successful at killing enemies than simply staying back, walking around, locking onto AI and firing off a few rounds. I suppose it’s nice a nice option if you’re into cover systems, but I can’t recall any situations where using the cover system was necessary, or even useful.

When all is said and done, GTA IV is not a perfect game. However it is an amazing, well polished game with an unbelievable amount of content which deserves all of the accolades I’m sure it will receive.