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Red Guard  Posts: 871 Joined: 16 Dec 2007 | |
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Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1167 Joined: 5 Dec 2007 | Those of you who have torn yourself away from your Xbox during the last few days may have noticed that the Internet is being clogged by what at first seem like reviews but end up as unrelenting love letters to Rockstar. But what has these poor Scotsmen done to deserve this flood of overdone amorousness? Quite simple, they made a game called GTA IV. But is this a genuine show of affection or a result of the best hype parade of all time? Once again only a simple answer is necessary; both. The marketing of the game has been a work of art in itself but it doesn't matter anymore. We have it and we love it. You play as Niko Belic a Serbian war veteran coming to America. Fortunately everything you ever loved about GTA is featured in this game and it is a lot better then it used to be. Driving is sharp, the story is mindboggling, pop-culture references are hysterical, characters lovable, mini games wacky and so many cool details you will wet yourself. The game has nothing but minor flaws in any of these areas. All of this is proof that lots of really talented people working for a long time with a lot of money tend to make awesome games. The amount of details and how much polish is applied to them is astounding and only a minority of the people who play it will see everything. But alas, this is not Grand Theft Auto. You have been fooled dear friends. This impostor has entered your home disguised as your beloved lover returning home from a 4 year trip to Zambia. Let me elaborate, the game looks exactly like what you would expect from a high budget addition to such a brilliant series. But behind this brilliant masquerade lies something else. To see what that is we need to understand the soul of GTA. These games aren't just about living out a fantasy, they are about going completely bonkers and killing lots of people. And that was awesome! None of us really want to going around fighting of legions of police...right? Killing is fun because the people you kill aren't real, they have no identity. It's like mowing down bowling pins. This is were GTA IV stops being GTA. The people around you aren't faceless anymore, the city itself has personality and Niko is somehow human. You still progress thought the underworld and you still commit hideous crimes, but now a new emotion has crept up upon you: Guilt! Many times I wanted to yell at Nikos friends, telling them to pull their lives together. To stop dealing, to stop killing, to stop being so materialistic. This just shows how brilliant the game is, if it can turn a mindless crime simulator into a deep and emotionally moving experience that makes you genuinely care for characters then I too must dedicate this letter of love to the boys of Rockstar. Buy it. Now |
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Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2210 Joined: 2 Dec 2007 | There was a lot of chopping and watering down so I still hope it kept its buzz. So without further ado, Purple Rain shines his dimmly lit 500 word review (and not a word over or under Wilson) on GTA4: Lightning snaps across the sky! Surging down the steel conductor, a million volts of electricity pulse through the body, limp on the surgical table. The CEO of Rockstar looks menacingly upon the corpse, waiting for a sign of life. The creature twitches. Its eyes open! Finally GTA4 has been released onto the public like a group of wailing zombies to the prey. I must admit I tended to ignore the hype around GTA4 given that I scarcely enjoyed the others. With everyone hassling me to buy it I finally sat down and loaded the latest game into my white box of elegance. I was physically blown away by it... then stabbed and run over. GTA has always been an escape from the oppressive society that Joe Average lives, a form of un-PC world. Now the game is far from reality, as the 'breathing city' hype would have you believe. While the people of the city have some understanding of law and order the justice system seems just as broken as the last few GTA titles. Murder is frowned upon but quickly ignored by the fuzz if you run away far enough. Yet, on the other hand, driving your car 100k's over the limit on the wrong side of the road, shooting through red lights, only to plow into oncoming traffic is fine with old lady liberty. I drive 10k's over and I get failed for my driver's license in reality! Where's the justice? Rockstar obviously took after Henry Frankenstein; by taking the best parts from the dead to create a masterpiece. Getting into the game mechanics now, GTA4 is defiantly far more sophisticated then its eight predecessors. The graphics are beautiful with explosions more realistic then SA's red and yellow "smoke puffs". Everything is more beefy with more thought put in: you hang off cars in a failed jacking attempt. |
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Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1597 Joined: 13 Feb 2008 | GTA IV: The Root of All Evil reviews the Root of All Controversy Now I like open-world games, GTA:VC ranks as one of my favourites; so it was sort of difficult to get an unbiased view on this until I came across the main character of Nico. Then it hit me, I'd do the review by drinking Vodka. That would mellow me out. First impressions, I really don't like sequences that I can't skip through, so a quarter of vodka slipped past my lips as I watched Nico sail in past the Statue of Liberty. Nico is a Russian and he's given the task to find his boss some Borsht but being America, he can only find hot-dogs, so he gets sent on an increasingly strange set of missions to find it. Walking past exploding cars or something. Special mention must go to the Comedy Club. If you visit there at 5pm on any day, you can actually see Rick Astley performing "Never gonna give you up", so yes Rockstar, you rick-rolled me. All was going well in the final stage of the race to the Kremlin, I was holding first place against the giant dragon when a turtle shell dropped out of the sky and knocked me back. This sort of thing just annoys people. And finally when I reached the Kremlin, I found out that Princess Anastasia was in another Kremlin. I nearly stopped playing then, but there was a quarter of a bottle left and I'm no quitter. Staggering back into Red Square, I found the last lollipop and, lo and behold, I was able to access the mutant power to transform my body into steel. The rest of the KGB were easy after that. Graphics : They were very blurry. It's sort of hard to work out whether you plant the bomb at A or B at times.(5/10) Sound : Very realistic. Unfortunately I don't speak Russian, so the radio stations had to be turned off. Especially with Tatu playing.(7/10) Playability : Now let me get things straight here. Having the nunchuk used for the fitness regime is ok, but using it for fighting as well? My cat will never come near me again.(2/10) So I finished it in a night. It was a good ride overall and I'll give it IV out of V. P.S. No, I don't have an X-Box. Does that matter? |
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Red Guard  Posts: 742 Joined: 21 Feb 2008 | (ok, here's my effort) Hype, like many four letter words, carries a lot of negative connotations. Hype suggests that a product might not be as good as we have been lead to believe. Hype suggests that we are being lied to. Hype puts games on pedestals, creating fantasies that the reality often struggles to live up to. This was never going to bode well for Grand Theft Auto 4, as it is possibly the most hyped game in existence. In the eyes of many gamers, Grand Theft Auto 4 is some sort of holy treasure, like the Grail or the knucklebone of a saint. Most gamers seem to be asking themselves what they love most about GTA4 when the real question they should be asking is whether the game deserves such adulation. A worrying number of reviewers have thrown perfect scores at the game and if I hadn't been honest with myself, I suppose I might have joined them. I'm not immune to hype and it's a horrible feeling to have excitement turn to disappointment. I wanted to love this game; I queued up at midnight with my pre-order ticket in my hand hoping it would be everything people claimed it would. In the cold light of day, however, I only like this game, and after such high expectations, I'm not sure that that's enough. It's hard to put your finger on exactly what's wrong with the game; it's certainly nothing overt, but as they say, the devil's in the details. Rockstar North have created a sandbox without equal. Liberty City is a living, breathing place with sweeping urban vistas, glass monoliths that touch the clouds and quick flowing rivers of traffic, but the populous is jarringly low-res and driving isn't as much fun as it used to be; the cars don't handle well and are too eager to throw you through the windscreen at the slightest bump. The combat is much more sophisticated and deadly but now every shoot-out is a major engagement with a laboured and tedious pace and it's all too easy to be gunned down by some nameless 'gangsta' before you have a chance to react, forcing you to do the whole thing again. The characters are vibrant and rounded and the writing, freed from the constraints of the movie tributes of past games, has a depth and personality unprecedented in the Grand Theft Auto series; but each set of missions feels isolated and disjointed; the gameplay too nebulous and unfocused for the writing to really shine. Like many things, the myth is often much more attractive than the reality. The myth of Grand Theft Auto 4 is that it is a flawless, peerless piece of video game art, a thing to be revered and venerated, the pinnacle of gaming to date. The truth is that GTA4 is a well made, if flawed, game that has strayed away from the gleeful escapism I enjoyed most about the series, and replaced it with something I don't recognise anymore. |
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Beat Writer  Posts: 164 Joined: 4 Feb 2008 | Hype is really a funny thing. The hype behind Halo 3 was outstanding, and yet when the final copy arrived, it turned out that all that immense hype, all the line waiting, and all the novelty item buying was just wasted. I mean, it was all right, but no even close to what I was promised. |
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Paperboy Posts: 22 Joined: 12 Feb 2008 | Alright, so I was wondering whether I could make an unbiased review. I couldn't really pull it off but I tried. Note: this is below 500 words on Word 2007, so no bitching at that! :p Okay, for those of you poor souls completely clueless about GTA, go to Wikipedia and find out the past, present, and inevitable future of dead horse thwacking. The fourth release of the game (actually, about the seventh or eighth if you include the expansions) sees you in the shoes of one Niko Bellic. Our protagonist comes to Liberty City in search of a new life with his cousin Roman, which inexorably leads our hero into a life of crime and mayhem and death and destruction and police and strippers! While I've played GTA ever since Rockstar was known as DMA Design, I'm not one to apply nasal pressure to certain orifices. GTA IV is not the best game I've played. By no means does that mean it's a bad game, it's just not the game that everyone will undoubtedly try to make it out to be. Don't listen to the hype. Sure enough the game is visually superior to many others out there; and the level of detail in the environments, models, game mechanics, and even the content and pop culture references is almost too subtle to notice at first glance. This, however, does not make the game great by any stretch of the imagination. Let's tackle this a bit at a time. Controls: Good Visuals: Great Vehicles: Mediocre/Good Story: Average Realism: Good Features: Very Good Radio: Poor Conclusion: Worth a look. |
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Muckraker  Posts: 304 Joined: 2 Dec 2007 |
What if you change that into something new? A better version of GTA... well if you want that GTA then I present to you GTAIV. You play as Niko Bellic an immigrant to the shores of liberty city, the city of crime and deceit; Niko came to America because of his cousin Roman who was meant living the American dream. One thing leads to another and Niko becomes evolved with all sorts of criminal activities just to survive The new engine system euphoria, which for those who don't know mean that every object reacts like a human would. All NPC'S will have their own virtual skeleton, The targeting system works not so much better as in previous games to free aim you hold down the left trigger half way and to auto aim you hold it down all the way. Now trying to free aim really isn't something to try out on a regular basis. Another new feature introduce to the game is the cover system which will allow you to hide behind anything for cover. Most of the time Niko might not know were you mean and hide at the wrong side of a box for instance. The cover system works best in all missions but can get you killed if you don't be specific. All in all GTAIV is the best game on the market and is a definite must buy MGG=REVIEWS- 9.6 A must buy
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Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 710 Joined: 9 Jan 2008 | Crap_haT's half arsed review of GTAIV. I knocked this up at 1:13 in the morning after palying 5 hours of Gmod. ENJOY! "Swimming through the filth and grit of your average game Grand Theft Auto has always been one I could depend on. Ever since the first game for the Play station, I have been fixed on the series. Now with the new arrival of GTA IV I am not disappointed. Finally, mindless driven violence and desensitised teenagers can have their outlet. Let's jump straight to the story. The protagonist, a man always surrounded by backstabbing and violence; Niko Bellic. Who came to Liberty City for a new beginning but was only led in to the dreary fucked up mists of this wonderfully brilliant city. The gameplay is amazing. The Euphoria Engine and the car physics are astounding and only added to my first awe stuck look when I ran down an old lady to watch her body flail and flap in mid air. To watch the cars suspension rock from side to side, and have wheels buckle when you cunt up stunts. To actually knock someone over who is carrying shopping then they drop their bag and each individual item falls out and has it's own physics! This is just additional stuff, I completely forgot to talk about the revamped aiming system, which ROCKS! You can have freeaim or autoaim dependent on how far you press down the trigger. (over the shoulder) Half way is freeaim, hole way is autoaim. This makes everything so much easier when you want to shoot people in the legs just watch them stumble in front of a car or down a set of stairs. The AI on the police is pretty impressive, as with the civilians... to a certain extent. There is a cover system for a reason; this is so that you don't die easily when behind something. But it is so fucking difficult to get out from behind cover that when a policeman runs straight past you (What. The. Fuck?) and repeatedly shoots you in the back of the head you can pretty much assume you are going to die. Also, when you are firing repeatedly at the police civilians think it is a good idea to run in front of me. Odd, I would have run away from the crazy man firing randomly in the air. But I guess that's me. Even with those minor problem, this is still one of the best games I have ever played. If you can, get this game." 500 words. Edit: Something I'm not going to put in the review but is worth a mention, Massive B is the best radio station and Little Jacob is amazing. Also, I lost places to edit and Gigantor is going to win this when he gets here; You all know it. |
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Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 701 Joined: 23 Dec 2007 | Just a little something I whipped up yesterday. ======================================================= Zdravo. It's been a long time, I'm sorry. Roman is well, although not as well as I hoped. Liberty City is...a contradiction. I hope I spelt that right. Some of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life I owe to this city. Sometimes I look up at all the lights, the way they reflect off the pavement and I am in awe. I have learned to appreciate the little things, the way the rain falls and even the beaten buildings of the city make me stand in wonder. I guess these small things are important in an ugly place. This place has a beauty that is all its own, sometimes I feel as if I am in a movie it is that beautiful, but Liberty City is a dangerous place. I am unsure whether I was safer back home or not. Ever since I got here, people have wanted me to do things. They seemed to be fun at first, but as I worked my way up the food chain, choices had to be made. I have never had to make choices like these before, except maybe during the war. I guess Liberty City is a war zone all of its own, but you do not want to hear such things. The police here are a lot more....zealous here than back home. The other day I got a speeding ticket, I do not have my papers yet, so I had to flee. Luckily, I was able to get far away enough from them in the end, but it was a wild ride while I did so. You'll be pleased to know that I have made some new friends while I am here. Liberty City is a big place, so it is nice that I can call them on the cellular phone anytime I want some company (I love Roman dearly but he can be grating). It makes my stay here bearable knowing that I can go bowling with one of my buddies. The city is full of places to take my mind off ugly things. I can go shoot pool, darts, or even just get drunk to name a few. The other day I even took a ride in a helicopter! Your letter asked me if I had met that special someone, but I have not. I will try until the end of my days to find someone, but what I do when I meet them, I still don't know. There is this one girl though, Kate. She's not like all the other girls in the city, you would like her. She's nice. It's early, but someday I hope to hold her in my arms at a church. I'll finish now, as I'm sure I'm boring you. Liberty City is a place that is full of interesting people, beautiful sites and full of things to do, but it is also dark. It is a beautiful world, but under the surface, you find that life is complicated. |
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Anonymous Source Posts: 1 Joined: 14 May 2008 | Hi all. Here's my entry: Grand Theft Auto 4 is a full-course meal on its own that will at least satisfy even the harshest of game connoisseurs. Let's begin with the appetizer. Rockstar North has done a commendable job in adding a sample of real human drama with characters that exude with an authentic sense of a "New York attitude". As you may have already seen from previews, they are down-to-earth and generally relatable. This is why the single player portion plays like a well written novel, with themes concerning the rich and famous vs. the poor and underprivileged, morality vs. survival and other deep themes. Visually, the game really is a true testament to the power of next generation consoles. Not only does the cityscape seem endless, but even the smallest of details have been brought to life to add an unprecedented amount of realism to the series. Details such as location-specific vehicular damage and bodily reactions to getting hit by one only add to the rich flavor of the experience. Now we come to our main course: gameplay. The familiar mission-based gameplay has returned, and this time around, the side missions involve dating (with a side of hot coffee), and building relationships with the game's characters. The bread and butter of driving and shooting have just had a slice of ham slapped on for good measure. The former has a tasty layer of realism, despite the slightly sour learning curve first timers may experience. Combat, on the other hand, introduces a spicy flavor of cover and blind fire ala Gears of War, resulting in a lovely gourmet meal. The bitter hair-pulling and controller-chucking only comes in when you are forced to start from scratch if an accident occurs in the latter part of a mission, but I guess that's what cheats and curb-stomping the flawed AI characters are for. For dessert, we have online multiplayer. Not everything has whipped cream and a cherry on top, however. Some modes are actually simple single missions that quickly lose their flavor after completion. Rockstar could have elaborated more in the multiplayer portion; it's a shame that there wasn't a way to implement Kane & Lynch style bank robberies in multiplayer co-op. The game isn't fancy and orgasmic as the previews made it out to be, despite several improvements. Fans of previous iterations decried the missing features; for example, altering physical fitness or buying properties i.e. save points. This leads to the dilemma of just what exactly we are supposed to do with all the money we earned with our virtual sweat and blood. To really fit the storyline and the theme of "struggling for your survival in a harsh urban city", Rockstar should have at least implemented a system of "money sinks" where you constantly need to pay rent, and basic survival needs. This way, players could actually have a sense of how desperate our protagonist's situation is. In the end, however, we're still left with a solid, hearty meal that shouldn't be missed. |
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Copy Clerk Posts: 55 Joined: 30 Apr 2008 | As a kid, when something amuses you it seems like a fun thing to do again. Rockstar North understands and exploits this natural tendency to repeat Fun Things, but there's only so much fun you can have on the water slide with your parents 10 years later. Grand Theft Auto IV is a third person shooter by developer Rockstar North. You may recognise Rockstar North as the developer of such classics as Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto II, Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. With such an arsenal of original games, it's hard to see how Rockstar could fault with their Totally new concept of Grand Theft Auto IV. The first three words of the previous titles aren't the only similarities between these games. Controls in GTA4 are pretty much the same. There's covermode now, but Gears still shits all over it. If you want an intuitive game, this is not it. The Graphics are decent at best, if you aren't playing on an HD-TV, the only difference between GTA4 and GTA:SA would be the inability to See at night time, present in GTA4. Rockstar seems to want realism, with a hint of fiction. They pull this off - flawlessly Of Course - by removing Moonlight. You know, that light that allows you to See things, yeah, that one. Alert, compliment warning. GTA4 has the most indepth storyline - of GTA games. End compliment. The characters are boring, when they double-cross it's expected. When you double cross, it's to get a new apartment or $25,000 - or some shit. There is no sence of remorse, especially since you will want to brutally murder most of the characters anyway. How anyone can like the main character is beyond me. Niko Bellic is Fat. He's voiced by a prepubescent Russian Girl, and he has the depth of a puddle of grease from a stale chip. Overall, the game was more of the same from Rockstar. The same game as San Andreas, just less black - peoplewise - and more dark - lightingwise. It wasn't worth the amount of money spent on it, seeing as how they didn't really change anything but the story. "Change anything" meaning "make better" because they sure made a lot of shit worse. Cars suck, taxis have a learning curve, theres no taxi or ambulance quests, you have to hold the trigger half way to aim properly, the list could go on. So it will. The policemen and police cars show up the same on the map, so trying to run over the pistol toting bastards at night time is impossible. Pretty much every mission has a spiritual successor, where you do basically the same thing again, which isn't surprising since there isn't all that much to do. |
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Genetically Different  Posts: 423 Joined: 26 Dec 2007 |
During the war, I did some bad things, and bad things happened to us. Some revolutions reinvent things; some destroy things. GTA IV is a good friend of yours, but he's had too much to drink-- you both know he's not a good drunk. Sitting in the corner, smiling as he handles a kitchen-knife, he can't decide if he wants to be your friend anymore. Maybe he doesn't want you showing him to your friends and parents, vindicating your hobby with his charm, with his wit. Maybe he just wants to destroy your hobby for his own amusement. Coffee, anyone? You can't show a skeptical onlooker what your friend is really like. You attract the attention of a layman by hitting them on the nose with a rolled-up Daily Mail and point them towards the corner: they see missions composed primarily of murdering people, stealing drugs, torturing sex-workers. It's easy to see violence in a person; it's harder to understand why they're violent. GTA IV knows where it stands in the cycle of violence: it knows that immoral, tasteless, funny and relevant things aren't always mutually exclusive.
It points to a picture on the wall. Seurat, see? You flex your pretentiousness muscles: "Just as pointillist paintings are greater than the sum of their parts-- art at a distance which is just-strain up close-- so GTA IV's tapestry of unforeseen consequences combine to form a beautiful whole." Or your arts degree could be useless, and it's just a pragmatic programmer's trick for masking low detail scenery. GTA IV has divested itself of tanks; it lacks Jetpacks; the Dodo has gone the way of the...well, quite. Surrendering cartoon staples implies an urgent move toward realism, but the layer of Neo-Impressionist graphical filter smeared over GTA keeps realism at arm's length-- it retains its mystery. Try explaining how to interact with your friend to your layman. Give them a controller: "A is run, tap to sprint..." His quirks take some getting used to: his cojones make him worth the time and effort. He'll wait twenty-five hours before letting you play with the rocket launcher, not one to blurt out everything he's got to offer at the first opportunity, like your more nervous friends do. Now that he's popular he can save his best conversation for those willing to invest serious time in him- he won't demean himself clamouring for your attention. He'll make you choose between friends, and he won't colour code your options to tell you which is right or wrong. He'll let you do things you could never hope to do without him; he'll make you do things you'd never want to. And whatever he does, he'll do it with a smile...of some sort. |
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Beat Writer  Posts: 179 Joined: 14 May 2008 | Rockstar decided to make a smaller sandbox with prettier sand. Is that a fair trade off? Nah, not really. Grand Theft Auto will never be the best driving game or the best shooter on the market. The story won't be as logical as the best linear games, and the graphics will never be top notch. GTA always specialized in doing a LOT of things moderately well, and that's just fine. We don't really expect GTA to compete with games that focus all of their energy on doing one thing perfectly. As such, I want to see MORE on my plate every time I drag my ass the the GTA Buffet. This time Rockstar has decided to focus more on the quality of the product instead of the boosting the variety. Unfortunately, Grand Theft Auto is still far from being the greatest shooting game or the greatest driving game. The narrative is still silly. In light of these ongoing flaws, I can't overlook all the content that has been stripped away between San Andreas and IV. While some of the fat was trimmed off of the San Andreas steak, Rockstar took a lot of the meat off with it. I don't doubt that this was done intentionally to allow for a couple of incremental sequels before GTA V. I would bet a double cheeseburger that we will see airplanes, tanks, chainguns, deeper character customization, flamethrowers, and a less claustrophobic map thrown back into the Grand Theft Auto universe long before we see the roman numeral V. final thought: Nobody has ever improved anything by taking away jet packs. |
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Paperboy Posts: 38 Joined: 26 Feb 2008 | After navigating the last hairpin turn of Niko Bellic's Liberty City story, I took a walk. I came to the edge of the water and stared into the polluted, unforgiving depths that lapped against the side of Happiness Island. Niko had fought off the demons that had stalked him for years and laid his tumultuous history to rest, but the American Dream was no more real for him. He had lost so much, in the name of what? The right words did not come to mind--there was just nothing there. I stepped off the edge of the island and reveled in the icy water's ability to erode my heart's will to keep pumping. As the water draped silence and darkness over him like a black velvet curtain, Niko thought of the sweet, unassuming woman who was his mother. With his last seconds of consciousness, he forgave her for creating him. Niko coughed, hacked, and choked his way back to life to find himself lying in a hospital bed. There was no one around, no one watching over him. He found this unsurprising. Alone, he reflected on the world he had been born into. Increasingly ridiculous political attack ads fouled the air alongside the idiotic antics of a man named Lazlo. News programs were just another source of sensationalist entertainment, opting to report on murders and movies instead of the organized crime that had the city in its stranglehold and the volatile poverty that granted it a desperate army. Liberty City was schizophrenic. It was a city in which real people with real problems went unnoticed. Roman, Dwayne, Packie, Derrick, and even Pegorino were all but swallowed up by the grandeur of Liberty City, casting a shadow no larger than the infinitesimal specks of human dust they were. They were actors in an epic drama, but they had gracefully left Niko's life as if they had not just performed in the greatest theatrical production to ever bless the city. Grand Theft Auto IV is the only free-roam game that I have felt I "won," mainly because of the strength and central focus of the story. But, with that story completed, the utter lack of Niko's impact on Liberty City left me feeling strangely dissatisfied. It feels alien to say that the game does not benefit as well as it could from the cohesive story with its well-developed, sympathetic characters, but everything else--the minigames, rote relationship maintenance, side missions--felt like blank pages interspersed randomly throughout an otherwise enthralling book. At the end, it was as if there were dozens of blank pages, and the game was expecting me to fill them in--to continue Niko's story, to finally make something of him But I didn't know how. Niko was done. I wanted him to be done. I realized then that I didn't know whether I would prefer to have the book already written or to write it myself, and I see now that Rockstar didn't know either. |
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Copy Clerk Posts: 63 Joined: 5 Dec 2007 | GTA: IV It seems that all the other game reviewers in the world have put me in an akward position--bunch of cock eaters as it were. Most, if not all of them, seem to have played a jewel encrusted golden gift from the treasure vault of Rockstar but I played a game I probably would only have considered renting if it weren't for those suckers at the myself paying for all my games now. GTA is back in full stride, with style and a new outlook for the anti-hero series. The narrative tells the story of Niko Bellic who, in exchange for money and help finding the man that betrayed him, prostitutes his lead foot and trigger finger out to friends and mobsters alike. Liberty City itself is an oddity. Sure, the details everywhere, but where are the characters? Friends and enemies exist only in missions they're scripted into--they don't appear outside of this context. Nothing you do outside of a mission changes the story or Liberty. And for all of its tall buildings, it's vastly under populated as well. New York is a busy city; Times Square is crowded at 2AM on a Wednesday night--an ocean of people and cabs. Liberty City always feels empty by a factor of at least five and upwards of twenty. Having modeled Liberty after NYC, it's odd that the iconic masses of New Yorkers are missing. The most noticeable addition to the series is There are times during certain missions when you're presented with the (scripted) opportunity to *sigh* |
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Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 550 Joined: 25 Jan 2008 | GTA4 - Xbox 360 Review Before I begin, I'd like to make a confession: I didn't like GTA 3 or any of its spin-offs. The cheap thrills available in the past games - stunt jumps, prostitutes, drugs, movie references and parodies littered the game with entertaining elements. But because of the piss-poor combat, a frustrating save system and a niggling sense of emptiness, I could never truly devote my allegiance to the series the way so many others have. So, does GTA 4 manage to buck the trend? Does it finally manage to meet the potential it always had? And, most importantly, does it live up to the hype? The answer is a glorious, resounding, unequivocal yes. GTA 4 is set in the most engaging and immersive game world ever created, the awe inspiring Liberty City. Based on New York, Liberty City teems with life and activity - 15 minutes after beginning, I was walking through a thunderstorm, listening to a lonely sax solo whilst pedestrians clutched their briefcases over their heads, running for cover. It's the most fascinating gaming environment I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It's also gorgeous. Said thunderstorm featured the finest weather effects I've ever seen, rain lashing viciously across the street, much like it does in real life. Unfortunately this level of detail means that when the screen is busy you will see frame-rate drop. Though it's never game-breaking, it's a little disappointing since it does break the immersion somewhat. GTA's main flaw was always the combat system, so I'm overjoyed that they've finally decided to fix it. Clicking the right bumper slams you into cover you're facing, Gears Of War style, and you also have the option of free aim. The cover system works fairly well, though on a few occasions I found Niko would stick to the wrong wall, resulting in death. However, the frustration of this is redeemed by the fact that if you have to play through a mission more than once, the dialogue changes, making it seem far less repetitive than... well, every game. Autosaves after missions also helped relieve frustrations and the new wanted system helps to create more dynamic police chases. I'm glad to see that it's now possible to escape from the higher wanted levels without using a Pay N' Spray. The mobile phone is also a great little device, allowing plot and gameplay to be merged seamlessly, complementing the usual Rockstar cut-scenes very well. 500 words is nowhere near enough for me to tell you why you really need to play this game. There's still so much I haven't told you, like the way news broadcasts reference your actions, the story, the comedy clubs, the internet, the way NPCs react to you... I want to tell you everything, dear reader, [i]but I can't. The word limit won't let me.[i/] Suffice to say, it's everything I'd hoped for. It is everything GTA should be, a glorious world to lose yourself in. The greatest shining diamond in today's gaming market. |
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Beat Writer  Posts: 159 Joined: 30 Nov 2007 | Grand Theft Auto IV: A Review I have seen this puppet show before. This much is clear as I watch Niko and his cousin, those marionettes, stumble through their world of supposed verisimilitude. Occasionally their movements convey something interesting, but mostly they just flail about, arms akimbo, desperately trying to make some connection with their audience. The script, brimming with protrusive cultural references and clichés, tries its hardest to breathe authenticity into these horrible mannequins, but only serves to make the whole damn enterprise a little more pathetic. This is too bad, because the series was developing into a nearly significant exercise in camp sensibility. But pretensions of serious art entered the fray and Grand Theft Auto IV emerged - a kitschy mess if I have ever seen one. |
Welcome to The Escapist review arena. Gladiators sharpen your wit, it's time for The Escapist review contest. So come all ye reviewers,
Contest rules: This month's contest is to review GTA IV in under 500 words. Contestants must abide by a few simple rules. Your review must be under 500 words. Reviews must not include spoilers and all entries must be submitted by May 24th.(UPDATE:This was changed from the 31st to give a short break between contests.) Only one entry per person. To enter you must post your review in this thread.
Judging: The Escapist staff will scientifically eliminate users by throwing darts at their computer monitor until only three entries remain. At that point we will let the community decide the winner, and who will be fed to the lions.
Prizes: Aside from the undying respect of the community at large you will also receive a custom title, lovingly crafted by a veteran team of Escapists.
FAQ
Q. Why are we having a contest?
A. It's fun to compete against strangers for the respect of persons you've never met.
Q. Why 500 words, can I have 501 words?
A. Limiting the number of words forces you to be creative and self edit. Stick to the limit if you really want to participate.
Q. May I have less than 500 words?
A. By all means.
Q. Do I have to count each word by hand?
A. No, most major word processors have a built in word count feature.
Q. I don't have a word processor, do I really need one?
A. Word processors come highly recommended. Aside from the basic features like word count, and spell check a word processor can even help with some basic grammar. If you don't feel like buying one you can find an excellent free word processor at: openoffice.org.
Q. Seriously, how are you picking the finalists?
A. Finalists are judged on creativity, context and content. Several unnamed judges will be picking the winners, and it is my hope that in the future we can enlist previous winners to judge the entries.
Q. I noticed you mentioned "no spoilers" what does that mean?
A. A spoiler is anything reveals details of the story to include but not limited to; script, plot developments, and pretty much anything you think someone wouldn't know about the story by watching previews and reading the manual. When in doubt, leave it out.
Q. Do I have to finish the game before I write my review?
A. That is up to you. If you feel that you can give a fair opinion without having finished it then feel free to play as much or as little as you like.
Please post any questions you may have in this thread, I will add them to this FAQ as I get them.
P.S. This thread is heavily moderated. As this isn't a GTA IV discussion thread some posts may be removed to keep this clean for contest entries.
In the spirit of keeping people from coming back and re-editing over and over again we will save a copy of your post as it is posted in the secret vault, along with Jimmy Hoffa, and the real Michael Jackson.