Grand Theft Auto IV

Added May 22nd, 2008 by Artie Augustyn

“How can we advance the video game industry?” is a question that plagues many developers’ minds. The goal with most blockbuster games is to make an extraordinarily fantastic game that’s fun to play and appeals to a wide audience. Up to this point, all of these attempts have done pretty good jobs. Back in 1997 Nintendo showed everyone how single player adventures would be handled with Zelda: Ocarina of Time. A year later Valve released Half Life, a game that could tell a storyline without having any cut scenes or long dialogue portions and would make the player feel like part of the story. Since then various other games, such as Battlefield 1942, Counter Strike, and Halo 2 have shown that a strong multiplayer aspect in a game will keep people coming back, again and again to play. And in 2008, near the very beginning of the year, a game has been released that combines all three elements, perfected single player gameplay, and story, along with a strong multiplayer. That game is Grand Theft Auto IV.

In Grand Theft Auto IV you play as Niko Belic, fresh off the boat from Serbia, a new arrival in Liberty City. But before I get into why the game’s narrative and story makes it a clear game of the year contender, there’s a lot of obvious things that need to be talked about. Previous GTAs haven’t really pioneered the gameplay aspect of the industry. But everything from previous installments has been revamped and redone. The most obvious change is how cars handle. It’s sort of strange that Rockstar North has decided to redo the car physics, seeing as how that was the only part of Grand Theft Auto that worked perfectly fine. But the new change isn’t a bad thing; it just takes some time to become accustomed to. Cars are much heavier now; you can’t power slide around every corner; and car accidents are a little more brutal than before, especially since the car damage has been redone as well to look more realistic. Once you get used to breaking slowly before turns and taking your time with high speed chases instead of eagerly trying to cutoff your target at every turn, you’ll be right at home.

When you leave your car you’ll notice that on-foot controls have also changed quite a bit. Niko walks on default, changing the tone of the game from “crazy wacky run everywhere as fast as you can” to a more leisurely and controlled type of tone. Holding A will have him sprint, if you’re in a rush.  But the more important change is the gunplay. Niko can take cover on almost every piece of land in Liberty City, including cars, telephone poles, walls, fences, car doors, blown up vehicles, hotdog stands, and practically everything you would actually want to use, you can. When in cover Niko can choose to aim, pop his head up, and cap a few guys or blind fire from behind his safety zone and try to hit some bad guys that way. The upgrade in tactics for the gunplay is a welcome addition to the game, and you’ll need to use it from start to finish.

With the weak-gameplay worries put to rest the only other criticism GTA games have received are their abysmal graphics. Similarly to the gameplay, the graphics are also brand new. Running off Rockstar’s RAGE engine, Liberty City has never looked so beautiful. The streets transition from night to day seamlessly, with the streetlights casting shadows around the world like a painting. The citizens of the streets all look different. You could spend a few hours on a busy street and not find two look-alikes. This really helps make the city feel alive. Along with those additions car damage has procured an overhaul. There are so many different ways your car can crash, you’ll continue to see new damage displays long after you’ve beaten the game’s storyline.

Speaking of the story, it’s actually pretty long compared to most games. It’s possible to complete in less than 30 hours if you blow through it without spending time on the other copious amounts of features provided to you. But if you take your time, take a helicopter tour around the city, race against other cars, go out drinking with your friend, or maybe just a stroll in the park, it’s easy to get the gameplay timer up to 60 hours. When in comes to the actual story itself, that’s when the true genius of this game is revealed.

As mentioned before, you play as Niko Belic, fresh off the boat from Serbia. You’ve decided to come to Liberty City because your cousin Roman has told you stories of mansions, cars, and women, all begging to be with you. Upon arrival you realize that Roman is full of lies, and he actually needs some help getting out of the myriad of problems he’s caused for himself. Niko reluctantly decides to help Roman with his debt problems, but whilst doing this Niko gets caught up in things himself. The narrative of Niko’s struggle as an immigrant is one of the more interesting stories told in today’s gaming, with many themes and subtexts sprinkled throughout. What makes GTA4’s story different from other games such as Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy is when the game takes advantage of its strongest facet, it’s interactive.

On multiple occasions Niko will be given a choice between two actions. Whether it’s killing your boss’ cheating girlfriend, or deciding to spare her, or choosing a certain alliance to affiliate yourself with, your actions have long-term affects on your character. In reality, most of these decisions do not change the storyline, but your decisions change how you view Niko and his situation. Maybe he’s just a troubled immigrant who got caught up in the wrong line of work, or maybe he’s just a sociopath who would’ve ended up killing people regardless of his history. Niko’s character is ambiguous enough to have actual discussions on whether or not he’s crazy, or just troubled. Although the decisions the game gives you don’t have any tangible effect on the gameplay itself, this is the first time I’ve ever chosen to do something in a game, and actually regretted my decision. The game immerses you to such a high degree it’s astounding Rockstar has been able to pull it off.

If you’re not a fan of the single player for some reason, the multiplayer is a reasonable substitute. With around eight different game modes, and various changes you can make to those modes, there’s a good portion of content to experience on the online side of things. The genre defying part of the multiplayer is the maps, or should I say map. With any of the game modes, you can choose to fight over the entire Liberty City, or just one of the five islands. You can have cops on, pedestrians on, traffic on, and change the setting of the frequency you’ll see those three variables. The only problem is the unavoidable lag. Most full 16 player games tend to chop up significantly. If you just have three other friends, and want to travel around the city in free-roam blowing cops up, you should be able to do that just fine, without the worry of lag. The highlight of the multiplayer is when you get a full, lag-free game of Cops N Crooks, the police against the criminals, one side trying to take the other down, before they get in their escape helicopter. When everyone in the game knows what they’re doing, you can have a lot of fun with the multiplayer for a very long time.

There’s obviously a lot more content in the game than what I mentioned here in this long-winded review. But that just shows how massive this game is. Liberty City is amazing and full of detail, the missions are entertaining, the voice acting is fantastic, the story is flawless, and the gameplay is fun the entire time. There’s a constant debate on whether or not video games will enter the realm of movies and literature as narrative pieces. When a game like Grand Theft Auto IV comes out, it’s hard to argue otherwise. This game is getting a perfect score, not because every aspect is perfect (I’m looking at you Mr.I’mInChargeOfTheSoundtrack) but because the storytelling immerses you in the game to such a high degree, every flaw in the game is forgivable. Grand Theft Auto IV is a must buy if you like video games.