Grand Theft Auto IV - Xbox 360

    Ah, the American dream. For years immigrants have moved to the United States with the hope of starting a new life. A new life where perseverance and  hard work pays off and can eventually allow even the poorest of people to become rich owners of fast cars and gigantic mansions. Where even the ugliest of men can find themselves surrounded by beautiful women, and where money can take care of any problems one might encounter.

    This may not be the exact version of the American dream held by immigrants landing in New York City, but it is certainly some of the main ideas held by Niko Bellic as he makes his way to Liberty City in Rockstar Games's open-world action game Grand Theft Auto IV.

    Released in 2008, Grant Theft Auto IV(GTA4) was one of the most looked forward to games ever released. The game is a mix of genres including racing/driving as well as a third-person shooter/action. GTA4 saw releases on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and eventually PC. This review is written based on the Xbox 360 version of the game.

    Grand Theft Auto IV centers around Niko Bellic, an eastern European veteran of war haunted by his past who is looking to start a new life in Liberty City. Luckily, Niko's cousin Roman Bellic has already made his way to the promising new land and vows to make a spot for Niko, touting his life of luxury in Liberty City as bait for Niko's immigration. Niko makes his way to the new city only to find that Roman was...embellishing his situation a bit. Before he knows it, Niko is waist deep into a life of crime in order to make the cash necessary to survive in his new surroundings. Niko's climb through the trash of Liberty City's crime underworld introduces him to a large number of people, some of whom come from very similar lives. It soon becomes apparent that Roman's exaggerated descriptions of life in Liberty City were not Niko's only reason for coming to the city. Something much more important to Niko drives him forward through the ranks of crime toward his ultimate goal, revenge.

Liberty City: great place to visit, extremely hard to stay alive in.

    Liberty City is an incredibly detailed area based on the real-life city of New York. The city is filled with storefronts, people going about their lives, and many other details which make the city seem alive. Most signs and buildings are comedic satire of real-world companies or ideas, such as the "Statue of Happiness", an obvious take on the Statue of Liberty hugging a tablet in one arm and holding an up-reached hand containing a coffee cup in the other.

    Gameplay takes two major forms in GTA4; on foot, and in vehicle. While on foot, Niko Bellic can run, jump, climb, and fight. Movement is a little awkward to get used to at first as Niko's turn radius doesn't seem to be as tight as it should be. Combat on foot plays out as a third-person shooter. New to GTA4, a cover mechanic adds a new level of strategy to fights. While a variety of increasingly powerful weapons become available, combat remains a challenge throughout the game. This difficulty is not due to overwhelming odds faced by Niko, but rather the problems posed to the player by the controls of the game itself. GTA4 features a pressure-sensitive aiming system. Pull the left trigger halfway, Niko will aim freely where you point him. Pull the left trigger completely, Niko will lock onto the nearest enemy. The system sounds great, but combined with the awkward movement controls and the tendency of players in the middle of a tense firefight to clench the controller, the system often results in Niko running awkwardly toward his enemies or in a circle while they pummel him with bullets. Once you get used to the system, however, combat is quite tolerable.

    Controlling vehicles plays out exactly how you would think it might. Niko will spend the majority of his time inside of automobiles of all sorts. Liberty City boasts a myriad of motor vehicles for Niko to choose from. With the ability to, erm, "borrow" cars from their owners, Niko has access to every type of vehicle in the city. GTA4 introduces a new physics engine to the game which causes the cars and trucks to handle much more realistically. In contrast to the easy to handle vehicles in past GTA games, GTA4's cars feel as though they actually have inertia based on their weight. This change requires strategic considerations when choosing a vehicle for any given job. In addition to automobiles; motorbikes, boats, and helicopters all appear in the game, fully pilotable.

Poor Charlie died in a shooting/boat/helicopter accident.

     Liberty City is a fully-open area which Niko can explore without limit. The city is made up of three major islands connected by bridges. At the outset, all but one island is closed due to heightened alert of a "terrorist threat". As the game's story progresses, all three islands become fully opened. Throughout the city Niko can find gun shops, safe houses, clothing stores, restaurants, bars, and various other locations in which a number of activities can be enjoyed. The majority of buildings in the city have no interior to explore, making the city somewhat more limited than it may first seem, though the task of creating interesting interiors for every single building would be a mind-blowing task for the developers.

    Along with the freedom to go anywhere and do anything in Liberty City comes the freedom to take out aggressions on the innocent populous of the city. Should Niko choose to do such things, the Liberty City Police Department is ready to take him down. Police respond violently to crimes committed in GTA4. Officers will chase Niko down and arrest him, resulting in Niko losing all weapons and a good chunk of cash to pay for lawyers. Niko can escape from the police's radar by evading their circle of awareness, represented by a flashing blue and red circle on the game's mini-map. Once outside of the circle, Niko's wanted level will slowly decay as long as he is not spotted by an officer in the interim. Niko's wanted level is represented by stars in the upper-right hand corner of the screen and increases based on the severity and quantity of illegal acts committed by the player and witnessed by police.

Follow me guys! This way to the doughnut shop!

    Even when reviewing the game nearly five years after it came out the game still looks great. The cityscape is probably the most impressive against the night sky. Character models retain the cartoonish style from previous GTA games which can be mistaken for poor graphics, though it is clearly a design choice. In order to retain good performance while driving through the city at high speeds, a blurring effect is used to reduce the stress on the hardware. Unfortunately this effect seems to include a routine for choosing what items in the environment are necessary to load and which can be ignored while hurtling past in a car. I often ran into the problem that the game wouldn't load things in the middle of the road such as concrete road blocks until I got much too close to the objects to stop, ending in an unavoidable collision. Imagine a giant hole suddenly appearing out of thin air right in front of your car at 60MPH and you can see the problem this bug poses.

    Grand Theft Auto IV is a crime drama through and through. The game is extremely story-driven, and as with the greatest of crime dramas, the story is extremely well crafted. Twists and turns throughout Niko's quest for vengeance keep things interesting. The story plays out via missions which normally start by driving to a certain area and watching a cutscene as Niko converses with his potential employers. Niko meets many people throughout his journey, some of which are true friends, and others who use Niko simply to further their own needs until his usefulness runs out.

    Niko's actual friends will contact him throughout the game asking to hang out. Doing activities with friends increases their friendship with Niko which when a certain level is reached, will lead to friends offering special services such as a mobile weapons shop, or a free cab service.

    Missions range from driving characters from point A to point B, to all out assaults on gang strongholds. Many missions play out similarly though there is a good amount of variety in what the missions entail to keep things from getting too boring. There are around 90 story missions spread across the three islands of Liberty City with a large number of optional jobs and activities to do on the side as well. Car races, package delivery missions, car collections, and vigilante criminal hunting are just a few of the side-jobs that Niko can take on.

Niko walks a dark path indeed, then he turns and walks on a brown sidewalk before crossing a red bridge.

    In addition to the single player game, GTA4 offers a number of multiplayer modes as well. Both cooperative and deathmatch gametypes are present as well as a free roam mode in which players and their friends can run around Liberty City together, doing whatever wild things you can imagine. The non-private online modes are plagued with the usual annoyances of online multiplayer, though the worst is likely the players who unfairly modify their games to get an unfair advantage over other players.  

    The achievement list for GTA4 is a long one. Challenges include completing x number of side missions, successfully completing story missions, performing well in activities such as pool and bowling, raising all friendship levels to their maximum value, and much more. Most of the achievements are fun to pursue, though they may take quite an investment of time to complete. Other achievements actually seem to detract from the game, however. One achievement in particular, entitled "A Liberty City Minute", requires the player to complete the game's story in less than 30 hours. It is completely possible to finish the story missions in this amount of time, but it leaves very little time to enjoy the City's activities and leads to the player feeling rushed to push through the game rather than to savor the experience.   

    Clearly, Grand Theft Auto IV is a huge game. The story missions alone will last around 20 hours. Add in the numerous activities and side missions, the hidden pigeons to collect, the stunt jumps to find, the achievements unlock, and the multiplayer gameplay and you're easily looking at a game that will last at least 100 hours. That's not even counting the hours that players will likely spend simply driving different vehicles around the city messing around in the game world.

Barry unknowingly parachutes into a street war that started when xX1337sn1p3r called m@$terchief324's mother a cow.

     It is also worth mentioning that GTA4 boasts an amazing soundtrack which features over 200 songs including both licensed tracks from popular artists as well as some original content created just for the game. The majority of the music in the game comes from the 19 radio stations that players can switch freely between while inside of a vehicle. Each station is themed for a specific style of music, three of which are talk radio stations with humorous content created for the game. It is clear that a lot of work was put into the soundtrack and it really helps to make Liberty City feel like a real city somewhere in the United States.

    Grand Theft Auto 4 offers a huge amount of content for its price of admission. With only a few minor bugs and annoyances, the game really shows what a polished, well crafted game experience can be. Even if one were to dislike the great story of Niko's search for a new life there is still enough content in the game to make it worth playing for any fan of action or racing games. While GTA4 has done away with much of the sillyness presented in past entries to the series in lieu of a more serious storyline, it remains a prime example of what a free-roam game should be. Even as a five year old game, I would still highly recommend Grand Theft Auto 4 to fans of any of the previously mentioned genres.

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