Grand Theft Auto 4: Part 1
May 7th 2008 10:37
Vitals:
Genre: Crime Sim, Action, Adventure
Players: Single, Multi
Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Platform: PS3, 360
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The moment was here, I had been waiting for this moment for a long time now. Grand Theft Auto 4 was delivered to my doorstep, as I have said before, I have been a long time fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, since the day i played the original. Now came the Fourth Generation of GTA games. GTA 3 has been my favourite thus far, with GTA 2 comming a close second, was this Fourth one going to meet all my expectations? Or was it going to be Too big and lose my attention like San Andreas had? I was about to find out.
It's been a week since i first played Grand Theft Auto 4, and to be honest i am still playing it, last time i checked i was only about halfway through the total completion of the game, and not too sure how far through the storyline. So keep this in mind for this first half of my review.
I opened the package that arrived at my doorstep by the courier, unfortunately i left pre-ordering the game a bit too late to get the Special Edition through the retail stores so i bought it online instead, even managed to save $20 dollars in the process. I ripped through the packaging, pulled out the game and placed the game gently into my playstation 3. I was as eager as a kid at christmas to play with my new toy, too bad i had to wait a few minutes for it to save some information on the Hard Drive, i didnt even bother reading the manual, i had played the others, i knew what i was doing.
HA! I was wrong, After an awesome Introduction Cutscene (that was worthy of being in a movie) I was thrown into the sandbox of Liberty City, take my cousin home, easy enough? I get into the car and find that Rockstar had changed the controls on me. They had all changed! I struggled with these new controls at first, but i slowly got used to them. But while searching through the options of the game i found i could set them back to classic mode of the other games. Now i was back on top of things.
Now to talk about the game, take Grand Theft Auto 3 (as stated above the best game In my opinion) and times the greatness by a hundred, thats how i see the game. I thought with all these things they were saying they were adding in to the game, it was going to be like San Andreas again, great, but somehow just not a great as GTA3. But i was wrong, sure they added in alot of new key elements, but everything just seems to blend in nicely. There are two words i like to describe this game: Realism and Depth. It's almost like Rockstar took Grand Theft Auto 3 and said "We need to give this game more realism and depth." Which is what they have done.
Characters? Just your main character alone is more believable and realistic then all the others put together (though the first three games didnt have much of a lead character). You can feel his personality, just see with the way he presents himself that he has a history. And it wouldnt be a GTA game without some larger than life characters.
Graphics? Superb, realistic with out losing the feel that its a Grand Theft Auto game.
City? Well thats just extraordinary, it feels like a real city. People walking around, then getting a phone call from someone and having a random conversation with them. You can still see in some parts of Liberty City the old Liberty City (From GTA3 and Liberty City Stories). But they, dare i say it, added more depth and realism.
So as you can see i like this game quite abit so far, but there are a few issues that have annoyed me while playing (apart from the random bugs that i have encountered.)
Night Time: While you cruise around the streets at night, the place is beautiful, as those lights that light up the street look realistic. But it's when you leave the streets into the back alleys that you find the realism gets abit annoying. Theres been a couple of missions where i have had to go into alleyways at night and you can't see a thing! I was supposed to be chasing someone and i couldnt see where i was going. They could of atleast given him Nightvision goggles or a torch!
Vehicles: Now this is something thats annoyed me since GTA3, and i think most people would agree, why is it when you are on foot you can only find the crap cars? And then as soon as you get into a Banshee everyone is driving a banshee or a tourismo or some other super car. No matter what car you get into, no matter how rare, as soon as you drive them on the streets, everyone is. But when you have a crap car, so does eveyone else.
Respawning: Now the things i do like about what they have done with respawing after dieing, is one you keep your weapons, and two you get a text message to take you back to the mission you died on (similar to how they did the Taxi's previously). But what i hate, is the rediculous amounts of money i have spent on hospital bills. At one point i had $70,000 and then i blew it all on a mission they i kept dieing on (The Mission then gave me $30,000 back). I like realism, but thats just plain annoying.
Overall, I love this game, its one hundred times better than GTA3 was, but it's still not perfect.
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Comment by GeekGrrl
Games Ramble
Science Fiction Ramble
I've been playing it on the 360 (the HD thing annoys me on the PS3!) and I am really enjoying it too. The only thing that really frustrates me is after dying you have to drive all the way back to the last mission, which is sometimes frakkin miles away!!!
Other than that and a few texture popping issues, really cool game so far.
GeekGrrl
xx
Comment by Mavryk
Proteus Gaming
Comment by Anonymous