There are three initials at the center of our industry that automatically breed controversy wherever they go. These three initials, as you probably guessed are GTA. It has been both a pinnacle of accomplishment and prime target by parental rights groups ever since the series launched in the late 90s. After the launch and subsequent controversy following the preceding release of San Andreas almost four years ago, the series’ future had been a cloudy one. Would the next game be as potent as its predecessors and how would it take its place on next generation consoles? Fear not -- Grand Theft Auto IV has arrived and it has taken its rightful place at the top of the mountain.
"Grand Theft Auto IV has arrived and it has taken its rightful place at the top of the mountain."
|
What takes the rags to riches series up to gaming nirvana? It is the world and the story. The game world is deeper more expansive than anything we had experienced in prior GTA outings. I woke up today to play before writing this review and I walked a mile down the road in game. I not once saw the same person in the cookie cutter fashion we experienced before. Each class of citizen in this world acts differently. I watched this morning as a criminal, who was not yours truly, ran over a citizen. A group of onlookers stopped to check out the pandemonium happening nearby. A sure-footed police officer ran toward the scene as cruisers zoomed by. An officer who was more generous in stature attempted to do the same but just wasn’t cutting it. Once I got to the scene of the confrontation an explosion went off, scaring half the police away. After the arrest, one officer was leading the suspect to the back of the cruiser. A different officer wanted to dish out some street justice so he emptied a clip into the perp. I left laughing to myself (being the sadistic type I am) and witnessed a fender bender. The party at fault got out of the car to check if the others were OK as the wife in the front seat started panicking and talking on her cell phone. I then proceeded to walk into an Internet café and waste an hour-and-a-half on the game’s Internet before coming here to write. The world is without a doubt the deepest setting in a game with no monthly subscription.
The story puts the player in the shoes of Niko Belic, an eastern European immigrant who is coming to the United States to partake in his cousin’s vision of the American dream. What you soon find out is that the dream isn’t a given; it is one that has to be earned. Unlike the other games in the series, however, we actually see the price paid by all the characters that choose this path. The lesson isn’t "Get rich or die trying," it’s "Achieve the dream, don’t lose yourself." It’s the classic morality tale, but this time around the moral choices you make in game might finally cause media groups to realize "Hey, maybe it’s the parent’s fault that their child is a criminal, not the video game."
It’s not just a story either, everything you’ve come to love about the series in the past is here (sans planes and parachutes) and so much more. The new center of the mission structure is your cell phone. You call people to receive missions; you get invites from friends as to whether or not you want to go out that night, you go out drinking (beware of driving for a bit afterwards), you call 911 to report "disturbances", you go out on dates, you drive cars that handle like cars, and more. Even though the mission markers still exist by the character’s homes, the cell phone grounds us in a slightly skewered reality of our world. The best example for this would be a mission I had just recently gone on.
SPOILER PARAGRAPH
A corrupt police official is being black mailed by a number of different sources. Our hero being the great equalizer in this world is dispatched to well, dispatch the lawyer. For the first order of business I had to go on the internet and send my resume to the folks at the firm. During another mission later I received a call from the firm confirming my appointment in a few days for a job interview. This gets stored in my organizer which in turn will remind me an hour (game time) before my interview. I purchased a nice suit for the interview from a nearby clothing store and started driving. Wait a sec, I’m getting a call. Oh its Niko’s cousin, Roman, he wants to go drinking. Due to my severely lacking attention span I decided to forego my interview and partake in a little early morning alcohol consumption. It’s five o’clock somewhere right? Finally as I am drunkenly driving away from the cops in my SUV towards my GPS led destination moments later, I receive a text message rescheduling my interview at a later date. Isn’t technology grand?
END SPOILER PARAGRAPH
Amidst doing this you will come across another primary change in the game’s formula; the wanted system has been completely revamped. Do something illegal in the game’s world and the cops will come after you (of course). Instead of following you everywhere like they did in past outings, they look in a specific radius within the city. As you drive away in, lets say, a black SUV, they will pursue you. If you break their line of sight, however, and hop into a white sedan they won’t know you switched vehicles unless you bump into them. If you utilize the new cover system to hide behind a wall and blind fire out killing more cops and earn more stars, the radius gets bigger, and more resources are focused on your capture. If you can make it out of their searching circle, your goal is to avoid detection for a minute until they lose interest, at which point you’ll get off Scot-free. Thank you justice system!
" ... the wanted system has been completely revamped..."
|
The game is a visual feast -- the physics represented in the cars, in the pedestrians, and especially in the cars hitting pedestrians are breathtaking. During my aforementioned people-watching episode I noted some specifics. When the two cars collided, they touched opposite ends of each other’s bumpers, not exactly a full on impact. In other games this would cause the entire bumper to be destroyed. Not GTA IV, though. As I looked at the wreckage I could see how the metal was crinkled on the damaged end while the other end remained pristine. The game hasn’t perfected all the technical glitches the series is known for (slight pop in can sometimes be noticed), no game is perfect and it runs significantly better than prior iterations and series rip-offs cough Saints Row cough. There is a difference on the PS3, as the game can preload assets onto the internal hard drive to reduce load times and graphical pop-up, but the multiplayer edge goes to the awesome power of Xbox Live.
Speaking of multiplayer, have I mentioned the series has a great new online multiplayer element? For those people who just want to screw around, the lobby for parties is the entire map with everything open to you. For the blood-thirsty there’s a deathmatch mode; for the objective hungry, "Mafiya Work" has you racing to complete tasks for a mob boss, or there’s always "Car Jack City" where you race to grab ordered cars. Racing fans can try GTA Race, and for me specifically I enjoy "Cops and Crooks," where one team attempts to get their leader to the extraction point while an army of cops tries to run them down.
"... the series has a great new online multiplayer element..."
|
The audio is vastly improved as the dozens of canned pedestrian responses found in previous entries have turned into hundreds of lines of dialogue. It also helps that the acting is on par with A-list Hollywood movies. An added bonus is additional dialogue tracks for missions. Go on a mission once and you hear one set of conversation, go again and more becomes available for you to experience. Finally the GTA radio has outdone itself once again with over 200 songs and two talk radio stations.
If you will play one game this year, my endorsement goes to GTA IV. The story mode clocks in at 30-50 hours for a play-through depending on your gaming experience. The multiplayer is varied, the side missions plentiful, and the possibility of time wasting is infinite. Undoubtedly worth the 59.99 and then some.
