Grand Theft Auto 4

By: Robert Murphy

Hey everybody, since there is a gap between my next big game purchase I thought I might take a step back and review and older game and since the next big launch title I will be playing is Grand Theft Auto 5, I thought I’d give a review for Grand Theft Auto 4. Players follow the exploits of Niko Bellic, who has come to America (specifically the made up world of Liberty City) seeking all that America promises, namely wealth and a better life than the one Niko has known. From this point anybody who has played a GTA game before knows what is coming next and that is a car stealing, gun shooting and adrenaline fueled open world to be seen and explored, along with an extensive story mode and some great online action for you and your friends.

Heyyyyy! Niko!

Now Grand Theft Auto games have always tried to give players a world where they feel they can immerse themselves with the characters they are playing as, giving them the option to buy clothes, eat, sleep, do whatever your heart desires and GTA 4 does this as well but better than ever. This becomes ever the clearer once you step into the living organism that is Liberty City which has been incredibly designed and makes you feel as though you're in a real metropolitan city environment. People go about their day to day lives and make the city come to life as you play through the story or drive around seeing the sites. Although as soon as you start the game you’re compelled to dig right on into the games story mode as your cousin Roman (who has told you of the city and it’s riches to be had) is revealed to be in quite of a pickle with gambling debts. Niko, who despite not being shy to killing people, due to his military past, is a good man who doesn’t want to be a part of the tasks he must perform to help his cousin, still does them in the hopes of his own goals get realized along the way. But these goals can be accomplished rather quickly as the story mode won’t take up more than 30 to 40 hours of your time, however what makes it feel longer and more appealing are the upgrades to the gameplay and your character. In previous GTA games, characters were not as agile as Niko is, with the ability to take cover and a great lock on targeting system, completing missions becomes sleek and enjoyable. Speaking of missions, the ones in GTA 4 do not differ much from previous games where you go and kill someone or pick up a package for someone but there are a quite a few more enjoyable missions along the way too. For example, one mission involves a high stakes bank robbery where you must steal the money and get out of dodge and killing the unfortunate cops that try and stop you.

Liberty City is an amazing living breathing metropolis

But hey if 30 to 40 hours of story won’t do it for you then you can feel free to partake in any number of side activities among Liberty City’s borders. These can include anything from hanging with your friends or even going on dates with the beautiful ladies of this fine city, payment is wanted up front of course. But if you’re not seeing the appeal of going to hang out with your cousin at the bowling alley, then look at it this way, hanging out with any number of your friends leads you to getting bonuses from your mutual friendship with them. This can include a discount on guns or aiding you with missions later on in the game. There also various side quests, if you want to call them that, where you can do things such as go out and steal cars for a company and they in turn sell them illegally overseas for cash and along with this players can also take part in street races across the city for even more cash in your piggy bank. And of course players can do what every GTA fan must do and that is goof off and cause a large amount of chaos and destruction around this lovely and unsuspecting city.

Let’s do this!

Now we move on to our multiplayer, which takes all the fun and splendor of the regular game and adds you and your friends into the mix, as well as introducing some fun game modes for you all to compete or work together in. Once in multiplayer, you can either join a match of strangers or you and your friends can choose to select from over a dozen different game types, from free roam to team death match and other fun events like racing, cops and crooks and so much more. What makes things even more exciting is the size of the parties you get to have, GTA 4 allows for up to sixteen players in most of the game modes that are offered through online play. Each match that players take part in has a party leader and these people can add more spice to the game modes for you and your friends by doing things like increasing the amount of traffic in the game for harder maneuverability or adjusting the weapon set, vehicle set, police presence, along with much more. GTA 4 is truly a game that was meant for multiplayer I must say and it offers all the fun that you had it the single players and adding to it by including your friends into it and that makes things ten times more interesting.

Multiplayer goodness for you and your friends

Obviously you can all tell that I supremely love this game, as well as all the other GTA games I have had the opportunity to play over the years and GTA 4 had been a great addition to the long line of enjoyable and fun games of the franchise. The single player story was by far my favorite among all the GTA games that I have played before and with the introduction of better mechanics for the player it made for none stop action and enjoyment. This fact also carries over into the multiplayer aspect of the game too, players can either face off against players in matchmaking or you can play with your friends in a number of different game types in which you can wreak havoc in. I will say that there are minor issues that I had with the game, mainly technical problems and the fact that enjoyable features from past GTA games haven’t been incorporated into this one but I was able to overlook this in the wake of all that the GTA 4 had to offer for me and others who enjoyed the game as well.

Good:

-Immersive world, that brings you into it as you play

-Amazing single player campaign story

-Niko Bellic was a great main character to play as

-Multiplayer, that supports sixteen players and features multiple game modes and variation to those game types

-The much need game mechanic upgrade for players has been made

Bad:

-Minor technical difficulties that I don’t feel the need to be picked at due to all the game has to offer and all that it does right

-I wish things from past GTA games would have been incorporated into GTA 4

Scully Rating: 9.5 out of 10