Grand Theft Auto IV

"One step forward, three steps back"

Let me preface this review with an introduction: I, like many others, am a pretty big GTA fan. I played the first GTA on the Playstation/PC and, admittedly, did not enjoy it very much. The overhead view was simply annoying to me. As you may guess, I had the same problem with GTA 2, though the game improved upon many problems.

Then, of course, there was GTA3. It changed the camera, turned the setting into a bustling city, and put in everything else that was known in the GTA series. Result? Complete success and massive influence on video game industry.

Several GTAs and series improvement later, we finally reached the next big installment: Grand Theft Auto IV.

And in all honesty, I'm rather disappointed.

Graphics

First thing's first, I want to talk about the graphics, which is what was on everyone's minds the first time they played this game. How will the graphics turn out? How bustling will the city be? What will the cars look like? And so on and so on. For some, the graphics will be everything they wanted and more. For others, it may be a disappointment, especially if you're playing on the PC. Me? I thought the graphics worked out fine.

Many other reviews expressed great amazement in the graphics, but I honestly do not see why. Yes, the game looks better than the previous installments, it has larger more detailed buildings, and etc. However, GTA4 was developed for an entire new generation of consoles/PCs. Wasn't all of this expected? Who out there expected GTA4 to resemble San Andreas?

From my perspective, GTA4 just wasn't that huge of a graphical upgrade from San Andreas. Character models, cars, buildings, and etc definitely have more detail and looks much better than San Andreas, but the difference just wasn't great enough to make a big impression on me.

Of course, that is not to say there is nothing impressive about the new GTA. One of the largest graphical improvements, if you could call it that, is also one of the more impressive things about GTA4. I'm referring to the new physics engine and the added realism. To begin, the physics engine in this game affects almost everything about how you play.

Just to present an example: Driving a car. When you are driving, if you hit a person, he or she will react depending on not only how fast you hit, but where you hit. It will be the difference between them falling down on their behind or flipping into the air over your car. Of course, this is if you hit the person at all. If you instead hit a pole, then it might mean YOU will come flying out of the car window. Doesn't sound like much on paper, but in action, it's fairly impressive.

Additionally, when I refer to the ‘added realism', what I'm referring to is the various little details that makes the game more alive. When you come out of your car, if you leave the door open, then you can still hear your radio blaring (as opposed to it stopping completely in the other installments). When you walk the street, you will hear people yelling on their cell phones, having arguments, getting into fights, road rage, and so on. GTA IV did a lot to improve upon the concept of the ‘living city' and it does a lot for the graphics of the game.

Enough about graphics, however, lets move on to the next most important features of the game: The missions.

Missions

This is one of the places the game begins to have big downfalls. Considering missions is one of the biggest parts of a GTA game; that is a huge problem. To elaborate, what exactly is the problem with the missions in the game? Well, lets start slow.

The missions are where a pattern began to emerge in GTA4 for. This pattern is roughly described as ‘taking a step backwards', but to describe in greater detail, it feels as if all the improvements made by San Andreas were taken away for something more similar to older installments in the series. In other words, one may say that GTA4 is more of a sequel to GTA3 than it is to San Andreas, and this bears a lot of truth which I will explain in more detail as we go on.

First off, there is a lack of variety in the missions. Throughout the game, you will encounter four types of missions: Assassination, Chasing, Rescuing, and Defending. The four types which generally makes up the missions in GTA games. The problem then is that these are the ONLY type of missions you'll get. There is little to no variation. I can't even remember the number of times I had to chase someone down in a car or run through a building killing everyone inside, but it seems as if I'm doing it constantly.

Of course, there are some memorable missions, such as using a helicopter to chase down someone while your partner launches rockets at them or when you pulled a massive bank heist and had to run away through tunnels. However, these are few and far in between.

This is an example of taking a step backwards. In San Andreas, there was an enormous amount of variety. Not only did you pull bank heists and chase down people in various vehicles, but you did things like use a toy car to blow up vehicles, parachute jump down to an assassination mission, use a construction vehicle to bury someone alive, and so on. GTA4 has nothing like that and it shows as you play through the game. The missions steadily become repetitive.

This is to add to other problems encountered in the game. For example, the newly implemented GPS system. In GTA4, Rockstar added GPS to all cars, which allows players to navigate to places easier. However, it seems to be as if they were too eager to get users to make use of this feature. Almost every mission starting point in the game is ridiculously far from each other and when you go to that spot to accept the mission, the location you have to go to is frequently in another island from you.

This problem pervades the entire game and it seems to me as if Rockstar realized it. This is why transportation issues were really tackled in the game. There are numerous ways to travel in the game. You can call a taxi (off the street or through a friend) to drive you wherever you need, use a train, and, if you fail a mission, you can use the cell phone to get you back to right where you were. It really makes completing the missions more tedious than it has to be.

As if all of that wasn't enough, there are also times in the game when taking missions become erratic. At some points, you may have missions from people all over the city to do, yet at other times, there may be absolutely no mission at all, and you have to drive around waiting for someone to call you in order to activate a new mission location. Argh!

San Andreas vs Grand Theft Auto IV?

Remember how I said before that it felt as if GTA4 was more a sequel to GTA3 than to San Andreas? Let me elaborate on it here.

Lets say that Vice City and San Andreas never existed and GTA4 came directly after GTA3. Well, if that was the case, then GTA4 would have been a phenomenal improvement. Almost everything would be better. There would be more vehicles, more things to do, more weapons to use, more mission variety, larger city to drive through, more diverse city to explore, and more and more and more. This goes on.

However, now lets go back to reality and acknowledge San Andreas existed, and compare it to GTA4. In this case, GTA4 becomes a step backwards. San Andreas had more vehicles, more weapons, more mission variety, an even larger city, a much more diverse city, and more and more and more. This goes on.

First off, what do I mean by more vehicles and more weapons? I mean exactly that. SA had so many vehicles and of such different variety that you had to go to different cities in the game just to get certain vehicles…and it would be worth it. Nothing matches the feeling of taking a plane from the desert and then flying it to your neighborhood and landing/crashing it into the middle of a road. Or going to the countryside to take a Monster Truck and driving it back to the city in order to drive over cars. Furthermore, SA had so many weapons that it came in sets; three sets to be exact. There was a civilian class (weak weapons), authority class (mid power weapons), and military class (high grade weaponry); this is ignoring the melee weapons, which can be a class of its own. Each class of weapons have their advantages and disadvantages; take your pick for what you need.

Now how does GTA4 compare? Well, in the department of vehicles, you get regular cars, motorcycles, and a helicopter. That's it. As for weapons, you have one set with some upgrades; I can't even describe them as two sets because only certain weapons have an alternative. For example, you can get a better version of the submachine gun, machine gun, sniper rifle, and shotgun, but that's pretty much it. Everything else will remain the same.

As for the larger and more diverse city? Why don't we take a stroll through the various locations available in San Andreas? First, we have Los Santos, the gang ridden city. Then we have San Fierro, a more business-like place with skyscrapers. Then we have colorful Las Venturas lined with casinos. Now then, moving outside those places, we also have the country with have various small towns, and we have the desert, which is most empty except for a few special places. And of course, each of the cities described above have their own little variety, such as wealthy suburbs, trollies, and etc.

Now lets stroll through GTA4: Everywhere is filled with skyscrapers and grimy alleyways. The end. Obviously, I'm exaggerating a bit, but it is largely based on the truth. Much of GTA4 really do look like each other and seeing something different can be a rare treat, but it is exactly just that: A rare treat.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh in this respect. After all, San Andreas is based on California while GTA4 is based on New York, so of course there's going to be significant locale differences. Still, I can't help but be bothered by the lack of variety as it's now essentially meaningless for me to go to any particular part of GTA4 since everywhere looks the same anyway. Nonetheless, I decided not to hold this against GTA4 as I understand the circumstances Rockstar was under.

Still, the problems I described above are pervasive throughout GTA4. Rarely will you encounter anything in GTA4 that is superior or even equivalent to what is available in San Andreas. As far as I can see, the only two things that qualify as superior are the graphics and physics engine, and the only equivalent things are the mini-games and the player capabilities (climbing, swimming, etc).

Even the stories between the two games aren't really comparable.

Of course, I understand that this is subjective, but GTA4's story really does seem lacking to me. While one can argue all day whether SA's ‘ghetto gangster' storyline is superior to GTA4's ‘European immigrant' or not, I felt that the biggest reason the story in GTA4 was lacking compared to SA was due to the lack of emotional impact, which may be a result of the game's lack of focus.

To illustrate further through comparison, in San Andreas, there were generally two bad primary ‘boss villains'; one of which is known right away while the other remains hidden until the latter part of the game. Furthermore, along the way, new villains are created, and old villains are killed in a really cinematic way. Finally, the ending of the game was incredibly cinematic; an intense, emotional confrontation followed by a chase towards the final villain.

GTA4's storyline, when viewed in 20/20, isn't really all that different. You come to a new place from another crime ridden city (similar to SA), then you eventually face the prospect of having to chase two primary villains, one of which is an old friend (similar to SA again). Even the ending is startlingly cinematic; the ending was a chase followed by an intense, emotional confrontation.

Alright then, since I claim they're uncannily similar in concept, why do I also say SA's storyline is superior? Simple. It's because of the presentation. The thing with the storyline in SA is that it really ingrains you into the characters before tossing you into an intense emotional event. When you meet characters, you do a series of mission with them, and learn to like them or hate them. Furthermore, whether you love them or hate them really makes a difference in the emotional impact of the game as the storyline progress, and you learn more.

By comparison, in GTA4, the character development either doesn't work or doesn't ingrain you enough. Just using an example, the first primary character you meet in the game is Niko's cousin, Roman. Throughout the story, it's blindingly obvious that Niko cares deeply about Roman, and Roman is supposed to come off as someone caring towards Niko too, but the storyline goes about it all wrong. It shows Roman as an awful gambler who consistently gets himself in trouble through his gambling, his own stupidity, or sheer cowardice.

Of course, by the time an event comes in the game which requires you to care about him, you have a hard time doing so just because he's such an idiot. It also doesn't help that Roman often blames you for any trouble that comes up even though part of the blame lies with him; it just works to make him that much more unlikable. Any attempt the game makes to try to get you to care about him or have an emotional scene concerning him comes off as not very emotional at all due to these issues.

And this is a problem that occurs with other characters in the game too. It seemed that Rockstar screwed up badly trying to get you to feel the right way about characters towards the game. Almost all of the characters, save for Roman, lack the necessary character development/story involvement to get you care at all about them, nonetheless like and dislike.

Later on in the game, an enormous glaring example of this issue became apparent through one of the characters. I won't say who it is to avoid spoilers, but I'll give a hint: it's a female.

I suspect that Rockstar knew about this, which may explain why so much of the story seems to be developed through cell phone conversations, which is a horrible way of storytelling. Most of the time, it really feels tacked on, especially when you're driving down the road trying to swerve away from cars when your cell phone suddenly goes off, and you decide to listen while driving.

Due to these various issues, the game has a distinct lack of emotional impact, and it really shows whenever one of the game's emotional events comes up.

Recommendation

Enough of these details, however. Ultimately, what is my recommendation concerning Grand Theft Auto IV? I can summarize it in a few words: Don't expect too much.

GTA4, as with most other GTAs, is a fun game to play. Doing the missions can be fun, driving around can be fun, mini-games are also fun, and so on. However, the biggest mistake you can make in regards to this game, at least from my perspective, is to expect the same level of or more features than San Andreas.

This was perhaps my primary mistake when I started playing GTA4. Of course, I knew before its release that it was not going to have as many features as San Andreas, but I got the impression that it was largely in the vehicle department. Truth is that GTA4, as I said above, is a huge step backwards in many ways, not just vehicles, and it's disappointing to say the least.

If you avoid my mistake and simply expect a better ‘GTA3', then GTA4 will definitely come out impressing. Improved graphics, much better physics engine, and just an overall more alive world to explore, there is a lot to be enjoyed about GTA4.

My recommendation is for everyone to at least play GTA4 and experience what it's like. On the other hand, if you truly want a new gen GTA experience, we may have to wait until the third iteration of GTA again (if it even comes since GTA4 took longer to develop this gen than GTA3 did for the previous gen).

Overall Score – 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/08/09

Game Release: Grand Theft Auto IV (US, 12/02/08)