GTA IV

Eldge

Xbox 360

It has been four years since I last slept with/ran over a prostitute while listening to old school hip hop, and by God was I excited to get back behind the wheel. So arriving at Liberty City, home of ultra violence, debauchery and more shady characters than you can fire an RPG at, it felt like coming home.

GTA is back.

This time around the game is set in a New York-esque city spanning three islands of hustling pedestrians and smoggy industrial estates.

And it looks gorgeous.

The weather changes from hour to hour, bright sunlight reflecting off puddles shifts to a full blown rainstorm that makes handling the vehicles like trying to control nausea whilst watching Hollyoaks. (A near impossibility)

The random citizens of Liberty City are just that, Citizens. They get out umbrellas if suddenly caught in a storm, the tramps chatter amongst themselves as they stumble up curbs, all while hassling you for change. The city's vehicles, snaking their way through traffic, break down. On occasions while hurtling along, minding your own business, you will see a person with upper body down under the bonnet of a smoking car. You almost feel guilty for shunting him and his car fifty foot off a bridge. Almost.

So it's beautiful, but what about the handling; the game play? Well it's much like San Andreas would be the answer. The jumping is improved, for now you can actually vault obstacles that are over knee height. This is quite a benefit when running away from an armed to the teeth SWAT chopper. No more scrabbling on the spot in front of a foot high wall whilst the army line up to have a pop at you. Likewise the handling of vehicles has been drastically improved too, no longer can you turn with your foot down, as this now results in you smashing straight into a wall and flying through the windscreen on your way to meet your maker. Mastering driving becomes an art, you know you have arrived in to a realm of excellence when you are able to pull off a J-turn to 360 spin off a ramp to land on an outdoor yoga class. Yeah, driving feels better than ever.

Moving with the times, Rockstar have done away with the 80's style pager from previous games and given you a fully customizable mobile phone. This enables you to call and text contacts you make along your way through the story, meaning you can go drinking with your cousin one night, then to a strip club with your girlfriend the next (recommended). It also means you can take your friends and girlfriends to the nearest bar and get blind drunk, stagger into the nearest vehicle and in turn the nearest wall. Drunk driving has never been so much fun (and luckily without consequences). The phone, really such a simple touch, gives this game a massive feeling of freedom. If you don't want to do any missions and just want to take your anger out on the poor citizens for half an hour, simply turn your phone off. It really is Liberty City.

The icing on the violence cake is the multi-player mode. Up to a 15 player online massacre spanning the whole map, or if you like things a bit more hectic, specifically cordoned off districts. There is a multitude of game modes; for instance, Cops n'Robbers, where you and four mates can pile into a police car and hunt down scum all while swearing at each other through garbled X-BoxLive chat that makes everyone sound like Steven Hawking. It's smooth, well thought out and ridiculously addictive, it will keep you playing well after you have completely worn down your thumbs. Here's hoping for the possibility of some thumb prosthetics, a GTA thumb add-on pack or something.

Maybe.

So it's all good?

Well almost, and here is where the criticism comes in, (you knew it would). I applauded when I heard there was a new cover system. Long gone are the days when you're running head on into a gang of thugs, firing blindly before clumsily aiming at the ground and generally dying. Or so I thought. The new cover system is in itself a good idea, at the touch of a button you can scoot along walls firing blind while wise cracking like John Maclane, or dive behind a car whilst shooting down the police chopper - things dreams are made of. But in reality (well Liberty City reality) it's a different story, occasionally it works, but trying to adjust your position whilst under cover is handing your fate to the gods. You could end up scooting along the wall as you planned, or, you could end up jogging casually into the middle of the road before trying to crouch behind a fire hydrant leaving you to die squatting like a tramp with diarrhoea.

Another major issue for me (apart from the lap dancers not being naked) were the missions. Now the STORY is amazing, you play as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European war veteran new to America's shores, but of that I will tell you no more, I wouldn't want to ruin it for you. The story is engaging and enthralling (even my girlfriend didn't complain during the cut scenes) but the missions let the side down. You quickly learn to know exactly what to expect. Drive somewhere, pick something up, shoot something. There were a few missions that stood out, Niko hanging onto the roof of a heroin truck for example, but they were few and far between. Missions can became repetitive and tedious, and for such a beautifully rendered game (for an example, take a night time helicopter ride over the city) it's unforgivable. Rumours have been floating around that the main bulk of production time was spent developing the new game engine, which would go a long way to explaining the excruciatingly samey missions.

So to sum up, the game is definitely beautiful and engaging. It's fun and addictive to play, just like the previous GTAs. Running over pedestrians is still joyous and the story is better than some films I have seen recently. Ignoring the missions and a few other glitches this would be a 10/10 review. However, despite this chapter in the Rockstar saga being wonderful, I can't help but feel just warmed-up, like it's just the toes in the water. The engine is set and the machine can handle it, bring on GTA 5.

9/10