The Pleasure of Red-headed Stepchildren named GTA
When the first Grand Theft Auto was released on PC over a decade ago, I celebrated with top-down-pixilated-gory-collateral-damage-text-dialog-cop-killing-too-young-to-play revelry. The release of GTA I was a day of days. When GTA II was released, I was first in line to play what was simply a graphically improved version of numero uno but was still a hella good time. Then came GTA III, which was refined into the masterpiece that was Vice City, and finally degraded into the still fun but not-quite-VC San Andreas. Everyone all caught up? So when GTA IV was announced and the first video posted, I strayed from the crowd and decided to not submit to the hype. I watched video after video with hesitation until suddenly I realized I had bought into it all. Suddenly April 29th was a few days away and I was telling friends how freaking sweet it was going to be. Well shucks. So go on. Yup, go ahead and scroll down to the review score you silly bastard. Let’s find out where my buying into the hype I so adamantly resisted for so long got us. That’s right, 8.2. Let me repeat that to show conviction: eight-point-two. Now before you go all Niko Bellic on me with your eastern euro accent and ak-47, let’s take a breather grab a cuppa and have a little chat.
While GTA IV is obviously not a complete failure, it is far from a perfect score. Slapping a 10 on this top budget project for “breakthrough innovation” is like saying a 300 pound heiress with pizza-grease-leaking-skin was just signed by Mattel as the next Barbie concept. It just ain’t right. So why has it taken so long for me to write a solid review for something I am so disappointed in? For that exact reason: I am so disappointed in something everyone else is raving about that I wanted to give it a chance. Since launch, I have spent a great deal of time building my in-game friendships, completing the single-player, kicking n00b ass in multiplayer, and finishing side missions. Every area that brought my review score down received multiple chances to change my opinion. I remained patient, and was rewarded with nothing more than more frustration. Two weeks ago, I would have given this title a 9.4. Every additional minute playing this game has dropped that score to the 8.2 you see now.
Where GTA IV fails the most is in how immersing the environment and game play is. That may come as a shock to some since the NYC-esque Liberty City is almost an exact copy, but let me explain. Liberty City (LC) is a fantastic achievement; between the level of variety in the pedestrians and the bustling nightlife, LC is a grand ol’ city. Whether walking down the street in Bohan or cruising through Middle Park a-la Die Hard 3, it’s all yippee-ki-yay. In fictional writing, they call it the “fictional dream”. So there I am with my RPG, ak-47, and bullet proof vest taking out helicopters and SWAT and little old ladies; you know, just living the fictional dream; when I get into a car and suddenly the pavement becomes ice and my fictional dream received a metaphorical C-4 explosion. Some of you may say, “SCP, they tweaked the physics to be more realistic you silly billy” to which I will respond, “Yes, and walking through Star Junction with an RPG on my shoulder and no one reacting is the 100% realistic”. We are playing GTA, people, not Project Gotham Racing. Remember how goddamn fun it was to corner in GTA I?
The issues run deeper than driving though. A good chunk through the game and you can “inherit” a playboy penthouse from an old friend. As I explored my newly acquired accommodations, I remembered Roman saying, “Don’t worrrrry, cousin! Before you know it, we will be living the life!” and I realized, “Yes Roman, we have finally made it”. Just then, I received a call from Roman to pick him up for some darts. “Come pick me up,” he says as a waypoint appears on my map at our old dingy apartment. When I pick him up, he continues to tell me how I have not had that much fun but that things will get better and that we will make it someday and get rich and bang all kinds of girls. Roman, I have $300k in my account and we own a penthouse in a nice area of LC. I kept looking for the “Update Roman” button. I became nostalgic for the days of Vice City when gaining a property filled it with all of your lackies and it came alive. The days when you were building an empire, and it actually felt like you were on the up and up. In GTA IV, finishing missions and earning money means nothing except for Euro-trash clothing from Pearrrr-see-ooose and more ammo than you will ever use. Besides the storyline and satisfaction of completion, there really is no actual point to GTA IV. If this was a decade ago, and you were playing GTA one then all would be kosher. The concept of GTA-as-pseudo-RPG had not been introduced yet and so one could get away with such a thing but this is gee-tee-ai-four, folks. This is a 6th generation GTA game, if you think about it, and so there should be more than just storyline and (annoying) friendships.
While my frustrations with GTA IV run deep, I have to admit that Rockstar excelled in some key areas. The new targeting system is spot on, and with a simple flick on the thumb I found myself clearing out an entire room with naught but a scratch on my bulletproof vest. Adding to the targeting system was the cover system. Though flawed, and often frustrating as hell, the cover system helped tremendously in the intense firefights that permeate the storyline. Pop behind a vertical support column, flick the thumbstick, and off you go wiping out a room of cops. Jumping off of that is the new wanted level system which was an interesting twist to it all. I thought it fun that you could actually outrun the cops by ducking and dodging out of the search radius, but cops tend to talk on the radio and if one says, “We are looking for a red sedan that is all f-ed up because we ran into it a shitload”, chances are driving 10 blocks away does not make you any less hard to spot. I know, I know, I am basically going against my realism rant earlier in the review but my point is that if Rockstar wanted to revamp the wanted level system, they should have headed in the opposite direction. Less realistic would have simply increased the fantastical nature for which GTA is so well known.
Niko is absolutely one of the best GTA main characters so far and so that I must give Rockstar kudos. Brucie, Roman, Dwayne, and Patrick are all well acted and thoughtfully built out. My in mission time with each of them was far too short, and I found myself frustrated when Niko told Brucie, “I think we should end our working relationship”. The depth of Niko’s character was obviously very carefully planned and I was impressed with his level of internal conflict. While he wanted to make something of himself and make some (useless) money, he does not necessarily want to kill people and you can see this conflict when accepting difficult missions. Very well done indeed, but this success simply is not a large enough lypo-machine and scalpel to make GTA any less fat and ugly.
While overall I was happy to break out my GTA driving gloves, I was overall disappointed with this showing from Rockstar. I spent a great deal of time in this review highlighting where GTA IV dropped the ball, but this is only because you merely need to type “GTA IV Review” in Google to see where GTA IV was great. While I did not hit this game with a 6.0 since the successes make this an overall good game to play, GTA IV has some glaring imperfections that cannot be ignored. In the end, GTA IV is the redheaded stepchild of the GTA franchise: new and fun, good to have around, but just not the major progression of the family everyone had hoped it would be.
When the first Grand Theft Auto was released on PC over a decade ago, I celebrated with top-down-pixilated-gory-collateral-damage-text-dialog-cop-killing-too-young-to-play revelry. The release of GTA I was a day of days. When GTA II was released, I was first in line to play what was simply a graphically improved version of numero uno but was still a hella good time. Then came GTA III, which was refined into the masterpiece that was Vice City, and finally degraded into the still fun but not-quite-VC San Andreas. Everyone all caught up? So when GTA IV was announced and the first video posted, I strayed from the crowd and decided to not submit to the hype. I watched video after video with hesitation until suddenly I realized I had bought into it all. Suddenly April 29th was a few days away and I was telling friends how freaking sweet it was going to be. Well shucks. So go on. Yup, go ahead and scroll down to the review score you silly bastard. Let’s find out where my buying into the hype I so adamantly resisted for so long got us. That’s right, 8.2. Let me repeat that to show conviction: eight-point-two. Now before you go all Niko Bellic on me with your eastern euro accent and ak-47, let’s take a breather grab a cuppa and have a little chat.
While GTA IV is obviously not a complete failure, it is far from a perfect score. Slapping a 10 on this top budget project for “breakthrough innovation” is like saying a 300 pound heiress with pizza-grease-leaking-skin was just signed by Mattel as the next Barbie concept. It just ain’t right. So why has it taken so long for me to write a solid review for something I am so disappointed in? For that exact reason: I am so disappointed in something everyone else is raving about that I wanted to give it a chance. Since launch, I have spent a great deal of time building my in-game friendships, completing the single-player, kicking n00b ass in multiplayer, and finishing side missions. Every area that brought my review score down received multiple chances to change my opinion. I remained patient, and was rewarded with nothing more than more frustration. Two weeks ago, I would have given this title a 9.4. Every additional minute playing this game has dropped that score to the 8.2 you see now.
Where GTA IV fails the most is in how immersing the environment and game play is. That may come as a shock to some since the NYC-esque Liberty City is almost an exact copy, but let me explain. Liberty City (LC) is a fantastic achievement; between the level of variety in the pedestrians and the bustling nightlife, LC is a grand ol’ city. Whether walking down the street in Bohan or cruising through Middle Park a-la Die Hard 3, it’s all yippee-ki-yay. In fictional writing, they call it the “fictional dream”. So there I am with my RPG, ak-47, and bullet proof vest taking out helicopters and SWAT and little old ladies; you know, just living the fictional dream; when I get into a car and suddenly the pavement becomes ice and my fictional dream received a metaphorical C-4 explosion. Some of you may say, “SCP, they tweaked the physics to be more realistic you silly billy” to which I will respond, “Yes, and walking through Star Junction with an RPG on my shoulder and no one reacting is the 100% realistic”. We are playing GTA, people, not Project Gotham Racing. Remember how goddamn fun it was to corner in GTA I?
The issues run deeper than driving though. A good chunk through the game and you can “inherit” a playboy penthouse from an old friend. As I explored my newly acquired accommodations, I remembered Roman saying, “Don’t worrrrry, cousin! Before you know it, we will be living the life!” and I realized, “Yes Roman, we have finally made it”. Just then, I received a call from Roman to pick him up for some darts. “Come pick me up,” he says as a waypoint appears on my map at our old dingy apartment. When I pick him up, he continues to tell me how I have not had that much fun but that things will get better and that we will make it someday and get rich and bang all kinds of girls. Roman, I have $300k in my account and we own a penthouse in a nice area of LC. I kept looking for the “Update Roman” button. I became nostalgic for the days of Vice City when gaining a property filled it with all of your lackies and it came alive. The days when you were building an empire, and it actually felt like you were on the up and up. In GTA IV, finishing missions and earning money means nothing except for Euro-trash clothing from Pearrrr-see-ooose and more ammo than you will ever use. Besides the storyline and satisfaction of completion, there really is no actual point to GTA IV. If this was a decade ago, and you were playing GTA one then all would be kosher. The concept of GTA-as-pseudo-RPG had not been introduced yet and so one could get away with such a thing but this is gee-tee-ai-four, folks. This is a 6th generation GTA game, if you think about it, and so there should be more than just storyline and (annoying) friendships.
While my frustrations with GTA IV run deep, I have to admit that Rockstar excelled in some key areas. The new targeting system is spot on, and with a simple flick on the thumb I found myself clearing out an entire room with naught but a scratch on my bulletproof vest. Adding to the targeting system was the cover system. Though flawed, and often frustrating as hell, the cover system helped tremendously in the intense firefights that permeate the storyline. Pop behind a vertical support column, flick the thumbstick, and off you go wiping out a room of cops. Jumping off of that is the new wanted level system which was an interesting twist to it all. I thought it fun that you could actually outrun the cops by ducking and dodging out of the search radius, but cops tend to talk on the radio and if one says, “We are looking for a red sedan that is all f-ed up because we ran into it a shitload”, chances are driving 10 blocks away does not make you any less hard to spot. I know, I know, I am basically going against my realism rant earlier in the review but my point is that if Rockstar wanted to revamp the wanted level system, they should have headed in the opposite direction. Less realistic would have simply increased the fantastical nature for which GTA is so well known.
Niko is absolutely one of the best GTA main characters so far and so that I must give Rockstar kudos. Brucie, Roman, Dwayne, and Patrick are all well acted and thoughtfully built out. My in mission time with each of them was far too short, and I found myself frustrated when Niko told Brucie, “I think we should end our working relationship”. The depth of Niko’s character was obviously very carefully planned and I was impressed with his level of internal conflict. While he wanted to make something of himself and make some (useless) money, he does not necessarily want to kill people and you can see this conflict when accepting difficult missions. Very well done indeed, but this success simply is not a large enough lypo-machine and scalpel to make GTA any less fat and ugly.
While overall I was happy to break out my GTA driving gloves, I was overall disappointed with this showing from Rockstar. I spent a great deal of time in this review highlighting where GTA IV dropped the ball, but this is only because you merely need to type “GTA IV Review” in Google to see where GTA IV was great. While I did not hit this game with a 6.0 since the successes make this an overall good game to play, GTA IV has some glaring imperfections that cannot be ignored. In the end, GTA IV is the redheaded stepchild of the GTA franchise: new and fun, good to have around, but just not the major progression of the family everyone had hoped it would be.
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