Grand Theft
Auto IV xbox

Still trying to get into this franchise after playing all the Call of Duty stuff. The game kind of lulls if you don't actively follow the story line. It doesn't force the action like Call of Duty, you have to "find it". I guess that's ok and morre realistic but I'd rather walk into the action then to have to spend 15 or 20 minutes finding it!

I've played all the Grand Theft Auto games from GTA 2 on Playstation 1 up to now and I just don't get why people dislike this game.

You can choose clothes but not absurdly so like San Andreas, you don't have to worry about stupid stuff like collectables or going to the gym or getting fat from eating too much fast food - which I always thought was just too much in San Andreas.

There is a large amount of useful and cool weapons, only a couple I thought were just a waste of time. You can drive all sorts of cars and bikes, boats and choppers weren't as easy to come across in this game but still in existence. You can still have several safehouse and a girlfriend of course. Rockstar basically cut the fat from the steak and left all the meat in my opinion as far as variety and choices.

The missions are fun, vast, and full of variety. Some are a bit over the top challenging or just plain stupid but that was only 4 or 5 missions out of around 90.

The controls aren't all that clunky like most say, the only problem I had was getting in and out of boats and controlling choppers.

The graphics are great just like you'd expect, maybe not as good of Gears of War 2 or Assassin's Creed 2, but otherwise better than average.

The story and characters aren't going to rock your socks but it will suffice. After all, who really plays GTA for the cut scenes?

Most of what I liked about this game is that you can take a taxi and practically warp to most every location in the game for just a few bucks, the only locations you are restricted access from is if the bridges are blocked, but they all will be eventually cleared as you progress through the game and you will be able to take a cab there as well. It saves a lot of time and effort driving from one side of town to the next just to die in the first few minutes of the mission. Some said this made the game unchallenging or cheap but I don't know what they're talking about. Buyng a taxi for a few bucks versus driving around for five minutes - really?

Also, if you fail a mission you get a text on your cell phone that gives you the option to try it again. If you select yes you will instantly warp to the beginning of the mission. A lot less hassle in my opinion.

There are a few negatives to this game. There are no gang wars unless you buy Episodes and the multiplayer isn't anyting near the level of Modern Warfare 2 or Halo 3. However, I still believe GTA IV is way better than its respectable spin-offs like Saint's Row 2 and The Godfather 2.

In the end, everyone that says this game is the worst of the GTA series or is a step down from San Andreas needs to stop playing Xbox 360 and go back to Playstation 1 where you played the entire game from a hawk's point of view and your character looked like a freakin PEZ.

Revised version of IMMT 115, HP7

Unlike most professional reviews, I don't feel this game deserves the perfect, or near perfect scores it received across the board. The gameplay is repetitive, the graphics are above average at best, and certain gameplay functions are broken. I'll give this game an A for effort and a C+ in its content, execution, and fun factor.

While not up to the same extinction level media hype that Modern Warfare 2 received, the release of GTA IV was definitely the video game event of the year when released (I myself took four vacation days off from work to play it). Really the only reason it received such high scores is because of the fact that it was the next GTA game, and the first one of this console generation. Naturally, that means an upgrade in graphics. And while the graphical jump from San Andreas to GTA IV is obviously gigantic with this new generation, compared to other games released during (and even before) this time, the graphics are just not all that great. It's just a combination of greys and browns, and everything looks oversaturated. Also, the character models are about on part with other games released during this time, nothing too spectacular, although this is understandable, given the nature of a wide open game like this.

As far as the explorable world goes, I'll say that the level designers did a great job. Part of what gives this game the feeling of grandeur is its very real sense of scope. This is the most realistic depiction of New York City in a game, and that's no small feat. What would've been more interesting though is if they could've had more variety in the types of locations, and maybe different terrain, etc. Gameplay-wise, it becomes very boring driving around the city, or driving to your next mission destination because it all more or less looks the same- it's just building after building after building, with streets and sidewalks. This is a step down from its predecessor, San Andreas, where one moment you're deep in the hood driving past gangbangers, then next you're up in the hills of the suburbs, and next you could be in a wide open countryside going 80mph towards a mountain, a mountain you can climb no less. This design decision made it so that I'm constantly choosing to take a taxi to all of my destinations and use the "skip" option to instantly arrive at my destination.

I really wish they could've implemented more indoor locations to explore. Sure you've got your occasional bar, bowling alley, and strip club, but that's it. The hundreds of other buildings in the game might as well be a flat 2D backdrop, similar to the background in Hill Valley in Back to the Future part 1. It feels shallow and empty with all these buildings you can drive past, with 99% of them being unexplorable. Going back to my previous paragraph about the lack of varied terrain, one may argue against me by saying "exactly how much variety can you give New York City, it's an urban location for god sake's." Well that's true, but had it not been for the lack unexplorable indoor locations, I wouldn't have a complaint about the repetitiveness of the graphics. In other words, my whole argument is saying that due to the lack of terrain, it's pointless to drive since all you see are the same streets and buildings; BUT, if some of these locations were more explorable, and able to be interacted with, then I wouldn't have a problem driving around, since at any given time, I might see a location that looks fun to play around in, and that would be my incentive to stop the car, and go explore the inside of that building.

Speaking more about the gameplay, the missions were repetitive. I can't complain too much, because fundamentally speaking, GTA is basically one big fetch mission: go to point A, drive to point B, murder person C, and extract item D. There's a culmination of reasons why I originally quit this game probably 20 hours into it, but the two major factors were: 1) the driving physics, and 2) the star system. These two things to me broke the gameplay, and made it feel like a task, instead of fun, number two primarily. First though, the driving; put simply, you CANNOT drive properly. You can't turn without completely slowing down, and everything about maneuvering the vehicle feels very unresponsive and very unintuitive. Just maybe, this is what all the physics and math equations work out to when implementing a 100% realistic engine, but you know what, it makes the game less fun, for the sake of realism. The second problem with driving is the fact that due to the camera being too close to the ground, whenever you're going up even a very slight incline, you can't see anything coming towards you. You HAVE to keep your right thumb on the right analog stick and manually keep the camera positioned in a slightly upward tilted angle, otherwise you're going to crash head first into cars or just trees on the sidewalk (trees being the one thing that's forbidden to run over in this game....). There's no excuse for this. What, did the beta-testers and quality assurance not DRIVE in the game so completely missed this flagrantly broken aspect of the game?

The second problem with the gameplay as I stated earlier was the star system. It's too easy to get stars, and there are way too many cops. In previous GTA games you could decide to be a little mischievous and maybe randomly fight people on the street, or even kill them. In this GTA, cops are seemingly everywhere, and anything you do will have them on your tail, even if you've previously made sure to check for patrolling cops on foot or in cars. I'm not speaking of full blown murdering sprees, OBVIOUSLY that's gonna get you stars, and I welcome that. I'm specifically just referring to randomly killing one harmless dude on the street, or just stabbing him or fist fighting him. These are the little things that made the game fun previously; little side distractions and diversions to break up the monotony of the missions. But now with the inclusion of invisible cops that pop out as soon as you commit a crime, out of the most impossible places, it becomes a CHORE to quickly hop in a car and elude their search radius. You're far better off simply not committing the crime in the first place, and just play the game straight. This right here ultimately killed the game to me. It was no longer GTA since I could no longer commit minor crimes for fun without having to immediately flee the scene.

Random points:

**I hate when a game makes a downgrade from its previous version, because it's "too hard" to implement these previous features into the new game. Why can't I swim underwater anymore? Why can't I purchase property anymore? How about a larger variety of clothing to buy? If any game needed the option for masks, it's this game. Niko Bellic is one ugly, unattractive mofo. I'm not gonna get into it here, but Metal Gear did the same thing with these unfortunate downgrades. Think of some of the gameplay functions and extra things you could do (and easter eggs) that were in Sons of Liberty, that completely got scrapped from parts 3 and 4. Just think about it.

**The walking is sooo weird in this game. The way you sort of swivel when you turn, feels like you're weighed down by some giant magnet. And I thought Resident Evil 5's walking/turning mechanics were stiff.

**The graphics on the strippers look very bad. When you go in the back for a private lap dance, the VIP booth you're walking into might as well be a time portal back to 2001, to the time of PS2 graphics.

At the end of the day, sometimes I need a game that I can just drive around shooting things and causing general mayhem, and GTA Iv fits that function perfectly.

The story based missions are a little monotonous as it always comes down to killing someone for someone else, but the character development is solid and the feel of the story is very immersive. It provided plenty of opportunities to increase you weapon cache and perfect your use of the game.

However, my real enjoyment of the game comes from running around the large cityscape, expending ammunition and playing with the physics engine. My friends and I have a great time finding new ways to destroy cars, chase down jaywalkers, and hold last stands in front of police stations. Best of all, when you run out of ammunition you can just load the game, replenishing your ammo and money.

This game is NOT for children, and should not be considered as such. However, for a responsible adult who needs to create a little fictitious destruction, it is the best game I have ever played.

Grand theft has came along way from when they first got started from the one on ps1 now this one when your going to fast in a car and hit somethin you fly out its realistic