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).