A couple weeks back I read an article wherein Moby, the pint-sized electro funk genius mentioned that in and among a booze, drug and women addled binge some years back he counted GTA amongt his many vices, including a three-day binge on the Play tour bus. When he wasn't doing yoga.
Just this month I did exactly the same thing and I've never experienced anything like it in my time before. Granted, we've all had rip-roaring gaming marathon sessions when something ships, but when it's GTA, one month before the rest of the world plays it, it's an entirely different kind of beast, an entirely different kind of trip. There's a fizzle to it that doesn't come with any other game. Period.
As shamelessly whorish as it sounds, GTAIV is quite possibly the most breathtaking game of the last decade. It outdoes its predecessors in every sense of the word, while at the same time not forgetting its roots, you the fan, and what makes GTA games such an insanely funny and euphoric experience in the first place. Yes, this instalment is rooted far more in contemporary times than any other GTA to date, but it does feature the series' most enigmatic leading man: Niko Bellic, an Eastern European mission machine who shoots first and asks questions later all because he wants to get paid.
Mystery man Niko's history has been shrouded in secrecy, with our only knowledge of his coming to Liberty City being that he followed his hapless cousin Roman on account of countless emails promising riches, bitches and good times, none of which are anywhere to be seen when he arrives at Liberty's port and through the doors of Roman's cruddy apartment.
We also know that he's in Liberty looking for someone. Who's that? Well, I really don't want to ruin the experience, so I'm going to tickle you with - rather than spoil - some of the best story strands and key moments.
What is revealed is that Niko has done some bad things while serving in a war in Eastern Europe. Very bad things. And the reason why he's come to Liberty is to hunt down and snuff out two traitors who double-crossed him during the conflict.
Both surface during the course of the story but in true GTA fashion, entirely not in the way you'd expect at all. The script - penned by Dan Houser and Rupert Humphries - is tight, riddled with countless quotable lines, hilarious, nasty and has more memorable characters than Martin Scorsese's entire filmic back catalogue. Influences are worn on its sleeve (if Vice City was Miami Vice this is The Sopranos with an Eastern European sheen) and it seems Houser and Humphries drank from the same Kool-Aid as some of the greatest modern storytellers of our time. Even some of the best scribes in Hollywood would have a tough time cooking up an epic tale like this up. No wonder the Tinsel Town suits want it so bad.
It's good to talk When you arrive in Liberty and pull up the map, it's split into three islands and divided into boroughs. The first of which is Broker, Roman's home, base of operations for his taxi business and your first digs in the city.
What becomes immediately apparent is Roman's total ineptness. He's a dreamer, a man with an addictive personality, and debts up to his eyeballs and on the wrong side of some very nasty boys right from the moment the curtain is raised.
One of which is Vlad, a real bastard who you end up pulling jobs for and in turn meet some of the game's key characters that drive the all-consuming plot forward.
Even though the game saves automatically when you complete a mission, you can enter Roman's apartment and save there by way of crashing out on the bed like in Bully. Once settled in and after you get to grips with Niko's moves after a quick brawl in a basketball court (Rockstar North have worked in some stellar new moves including a swish disarm) Roman hands you a phone.
This is your lifeline. You can use the phone to fire-up multiplayer mode, call contacts and hang out with them, fish for work if you find you haven't got any jobs to do and even call in favours from friends.
Another timeless use is calling up the cops in the middle of a fire-fight to set them on your pursuer or even cold calling the boys in blue so you can steal a cop car to access the force's police records and track down targets during missions (as in an early mission for steroid monkey Brucie). You can do this by entering perps names or uploading photos you've been sent from a contact or taken yourself. It's one of GTAIV's most ingenious add-ons. Though relatively basic, it seems like a natural step forward for the series.
RAGE in the machine One of most impressionable additions to the universe is the use of Rockstar's own RAGE engine, which has done away with the straight-edged characters of yesteryear and cast aside the signature odd hand design. Everything within Liberty has a much more fluid movement to it. And with the added oomph of the Euphoria Engine everything has so much more weight to it both in and out of vehicles.
Speaking of transport, there's an insane selection of wheels on offer from Lowriders, sleek sports cars, pick up trucks, sports bikes, hogs, mopeds, eighteen wheelers, fire engines, taxis and ambulances. Every vehicle comes with Sat Nav, which can be turned off but serves a really solid aid around the city during your first few hours. While it points the way to you destination, it doesn't always show you the quickest route.
But let's be honest here, all the cars and kooky characters in the world don't detract from the fact that real star of the game is the city itself. It's completely overwhelming to begin with.
Cruising through it, Liberty denizens go about their daily business, bums warm themselves on makeshift fires in empty oil drums by street corners, accidents happen, and police respond to crimes (not committed by you). Head to the cliffs and you'll find someone practicing Tai Chai by the sea. It's unbelievable, a marvel that surpasses all other open-worlders.
I defy anything to come close to it. You'll have never seen nor experienced anything like it in a game before. Equally impressive is the massively improved weather system that simulates morning mist, stunning sunrises, showers and most memorable of all, jaw-dropping, pad rumbling thunderstorms that tear through the city at night and light it up like a Roman candle. Performing missions during one of these is simply unforgettable stuff.
Life in Liberty Missions are massively varied with plenty of plot twists, turns and sucker punches - some of which are real shockers - and a few nods to past GTAs woven in for nostalgic value. Now, if you fail a mission, you're sent a text message that lets you jump right back into the mission from the start. Despite being a blessing it can be infuriating from time to time if you have to drive a vehicle to the other side of the city. But if it's just you, or you and a criminal cohort, you can easily just jump in a cab.
Side missions and more I actually spent a lot of time riding around the city in cabs just to get through the main storyline, which accounts for 60 percent of the game. The other 40 percent is comprised of side missions for your buddies like Taxiing, performing contract kills, vigilante missions, looking for hidden packages, dating your girls and keeping your friends happy. Keeping your buddies on side is a lot of fun.
You'll need to keep friends happy, as they each have special abilities like Brucie's helicopter rides, Little Jacob's mobile gun store and Roman's free cab rides.
You can head to the bowling alley, play darts, visit the boozer (just try walking home after that), check out a strip joint or go for helicopter rides with the steroid monkey, Brucie, possibly the game's funniest character alongside the batshit crazy McCreary brothers - Packie, Gerry and Derek. With these guys you get to pull off the games best mission and possibly the most stunning shootout in GTA history.
I don't want to say too much at this stage in the review, but it's a bank robbery comprised of shootouts and an on-foot chases through Chinatown and the subway system. I defy you not to drop a sweat soaked pad once you've completed it.
Staying with shootouts, the new cover and targeting system works a treat both in and out of vehicles. Now, when you're high tailing it after crazy bikers down subway tracks on a hog, it's much easier to hit the bastards than in previous entries. Saying that, there is one thing that grated during some of the game's big chase setpieces.
No matter how much you try and shoot an enemy they will not die despite the blurb at the bottom of the screen saying 'Chase down and kill X'. What happens is the chase is scripted to finish at a particular point in either a shootout or head-on collision or whatever.
It's not a huge problem, but futile attempts to whack someone when you don't really need to, waste ammo and can be a bit of a long, drawn-out ballache.
One thing that should be noted is the addition of the decision-making process that sees Niko reach certain points in the storyline with particular characters and choose whether they live or die at your hands. These moments are yet another reason to revel at what Rockstar North has crafted here and can really offer up some tough choices that can split a man right down the middle. And the coup de grace is the sheer level of replay value derived from these decisions you end up making. It's genius.
Also, if you snag a car you like (the jazzed up Intruder, for example) you can now drive it to any of your safe houses and park it right outside in the reserved parking space - and it will be there for you every time you step out front.
When you save the game your health is fully replenished but, if you can't be bothered saving at all, then just head to a hotdog vendor or Cluck 'n' Bell or the nearest diner for a bite to eat and a dis from a pissed-off employee.
Web world Along with the inclusion of the phone GTAIV's second greatest addition is the internet. It's not just a piece of furniture. In fact nothing is furniture in GTAIV, it all serves a purpose and becomes part of the story at one point or another.
With the internet you can check out cars, places to eat, news, shopping and even buy ringtones (I went for the lesbian orgy one. As did everyone else who played it. How predictable a bunch we are) and background themes (Sprunk etc) for your mobile phone. Go on, you know you want to.
During one mission you're required to whack a high-powered suit for corrupt cop Francis McCreary, estranged brother of Packie, Derek and Gerry. First you have to upload your CV, and then wait until you're called by his office assistant for an interview the next day at noon. A quick drop by Pegasus' swish suitwear and you're ready for your interview, during which you drill the guy and gun your way through the building and into a getaway car. Pretty much business as usual then.
Another mission requires you to pull off a kidnapping and the only way to get close to your mark is to contact her through an online car sales website that she's advertising her pink set of wheels on.
What's really groovy about this mission is that when she realises you're not really there to buy the car, she tries to grab the wheel from you, sending you careening into walls and oncoming traffic while desperately trying to get the attention of any cop cars that pass by.
Oddly, escaping the cops seems to be a lot easier this time around than in previous GTA adventures when your star level is ramped up to three or four. What you need to do is break the line of sight by making some quick turns when the heat is on your tail and escape the hot zone.
Get spotted and the zone inflates, but you can hit up a Pay 'N' Spray - but you just need to make sure that nobody sees you going in, otherwise it won't happen.
Radio city As always, folk want to know about the radio stations on offer and who is behind them. Unfortunately, we can't give away too much information on this one because Rockstar want to keep a lot of the track names and vocal duties under wraps until you get your hands on the game.
We can confirm there are well over 100 tracks in the game and some familiar stars will be returning to the Liberty City air waves, including the one and only Lazlo.
There's a huge range of stations (eighteen in total) to choose from too ranging from funk (IF99), to Eastern European pop and dance (Vladivostok FM), disco (K109 - The Studio), electro, rock, talk radio and any kind of music you can think of to match the mood.
Strangely, in an earlier build of the game we played you could use your phone as an MP3 player but that seems to have been removed in this final review build. Rockstar did say that this was still not confirmed as we were over a month away from release date. Expect to hear plenty of celebrity voices on the waves too but again, we won't spoil them for you.
There's still so much to touch on and just not enough pages to do a game like GTAIV justice. We probably should have dedicated the entire review section to it. I didn't want to spoil the experience as it seems to be a different one for every person who plays it from talking to fellow reviewers. Rest assured, it's a technical marvel and the most exhilarating gaming experience you'll have all year. Hell, maybe even in the last decade.
Having now seen and played both versions of the game running side by side I can see very little difference between the two except for marginally faster loading times on PS3 because it's reading from the HD rather than disk... But it's a matter of 1 or 2 seconds at the most, so it's not a game breaking thing.
Both machines suffer from a certain amount of pop-in, with notable things being the city lights popping-in on the PS3 version when I was flying in a helecopter at midnight and a couple of times when I walked into Bellics safehouse in the 360 version his bed appeared a second later. Out on the street both versions looked nice and played really well with only slight pop-in on certain small objects like mailboxes and things like that. The graphics on both versions are pretty much identical with slightly better AA on the PS3 version, but an overall brighter and more vibrant look to the 360 version.
Gameplay wise there is no difference and it really comes down to what your preference in controllers is. I found the PS3 analog sticks better for driving, but I found the aiming on the 360 better.
I think choice of which console you buy this for really depends on which version your mates have got, so you can play against them online. Having said that both version seemed to have a few random connection issues and odd things like hosting swapping from one player to another... But then again it's nothing game breaking.
I didnt like this as much becuase of the same old boring missions, hardly any shops or stuff to do, awkward controls and shooting and killing enemys is so easy its boring.
