Grand Theft Auto IV – Review

The moral discomfort of Niko’s situation also influences your decision-making to some degree: take a life, save a life; choosing who to side with, and while it was hard to discern the impact of these things on first playthrough, the game promises to have repercussions. Once again, thanks to technical advances, particularly graphically, Rockstar handles more drama and interactive drama in these meaningful matchups, rather than resorting to bosses with large health bars.

This kind of attention to detail, exceeding your expectations, is evident throughout, with vast stretches of content in areas that even extensive research might not uncover. The comedy club has been followed before launch and features routines from Ricky Gervais and Katt Williams, but you can also catch TV shows; Police behavior has been reworked to rely on visual identification to maintain control over you, allowing you to sneak if you can lose sight of cars and helicopters, whatever your desired level (no small feat, as the police police will lock you up and try all kinds now); You can’t customize Niko’s physical attributes or enhance him, but you can change your clothes and buy anything you see in a clothing store, and the women you date will notice if you’re underdressed. They also scold.

And the things you do with your friends are activities in themselves. The bowling game is based on pitch speed and timed aftertouch; pool is complete billiards, albeit with simplistic cues and physics; the drink ends up tripping and it’s more fun than it should be; and strip clubs are, er, unchristian high definition. If you get tired of other people you can put your phone to sleep, take a slow taxi and turn on the radio, home to a nice variety of styles and some superstar DJs (Iggy Pop, Juliette Lewis etc.) with brilliant music shows. chat and radio announcements. The hybrid car ad, the health insurance debates, the Ikea provocation, Dragonbrain. There are also many secrets to discover; watch out for pigeons.

Then, picking up your mobile phone, you can select multiplayer. Through a lobby system that allows you to team up and check other players’ details, you set up games that apply old rules and skewed GTA derivatives to the game’s fabulous open world. In a world of lockdowns, with weapon spawn points on the minimap, normal and team deathmatches come down to knowledge of the terrain, which is only acquired through persistence, but team-based Cops n’ Crooks, where one team starts out on foot, escorting a VIP to an escape point while the cops show up in a squad car and try to chase them, it’s an instant hit, and others like GTA Race are more than meets the eye. With pistols and rocket launchers, sore losers make it more entertaining for the front of the pack. Then there’s Free Roam, which lets you do whatever you want in Liberty City with up to 15 other people, and leaderboards for everyone. (Look for fuller comments on the GTA multiplayer post post.)

However, like PS2 games before this one, some of this comes at a cost. By now we’ve all read about PS3 install time (keep an eye out for a special Face-Off feature next week), but frame rate takes a hit too, tainted by Rockstar’s shameless ambition, with pop -in noticeable in places. However, it never stopped me from having fun. The only thing that did that was the occasional stickiness of cover points when trying to maneuver quickly, the continued absence of mid-mission checkpoints (in itself just irritating when a mission starts with a long journey, which is rare ) and something clumsy on the stairs -Climbing and jumping objects. And perhaps Niko’s arsenal, which is quite basic, although versatile.

For the rest, GTA IV is the 10/10 you expected. Most everything you do in Liberty City would be good enough to drive its own game, and the best bits would be good enough to blow the competition away, but the reason it works so well is that Rockstar has created a game that does not require patience to play. . This, in addition to its usual consistency and the best script in the series, is what makes GTA IV the best open world game to date, and why it will take something miraculous to wrest it from Game of the Year status.