Revisiting Liberty City: Grand Theft Auto IV - Part One

I've owned GTAIV now for about 4 months. The game has been out since, what, April of last year? And only now have I felt a legit desire to dive in the sprawling open world of it's re-vamped Liberty City. The hype surrounding it's initial release was maddening. Multiple sources calling the the game of the year, and the "best game since The Ocarina of Time" set it up with massive expectations from gamers around the globe. We could all barely wait to meet the game's protagonist Niko Bellic, and discover Liberty City through his FOB eyes.



Now, let me say, that I would consider myself a GTA fan. I absolutely loved GTA3, with it's groundbreaking open world gameplay, fun voice acting, and it's admittedly gleeful way of diving into deprivation with no morals whatsoever. You could kill/rob/cheat/and steal from anyone, at any time, and when you did it right, you won MONEY! Amazing. They really tapped into a whole new part of the collective gamer's brain.


When Rockstar followed it with GTA: Vice City, I loved it even more. At the time of it's release, I was really into the 80's, so I adored the soundtrack, and it brought back all the aspects that made GTA3 so great, but just bigger, with a few new additions.



Then, came along GTA: San Andreas, and and it was with this effort that Rockstar and I fell out of touch. I'm not sure what I expected from San Andreas, but, for everything I loved about the game, they'd throw in two more quirks at me to turn me off. The gameplay was generally the same, but the world was just too big this time. It would take forever to get somewhere, only to die during your mission, and start all over again. And there was just too much to do in the game that seemed perfunctory. Did anyone really find it fun to work out in a video game? I get the idea of immersion, but this time, they gave you so much to do, that it was overbearing, and just kind of boring overall. I never finished it.



Which brings us, finally, to Grand Theft Auto IV. To their credit, Rockstar really achieved something great here. To have built a city so deep and detailed as the revamped Liberty City is truly remarkable.


Except, well, when you think about it, it didn't really take THAT much thought. It's just New York City....literally. You have Times Square, Ellis Island, Coney Island, the 5 boroughs, Central Park, Chinatown, etc...Now, I'm not saying it didn't take incredible skill to re-create it so authentically as they did. A lot of care went into the details here, and to make it work and flow so smoothly is what makes it such a great achievement by the developers and engineers behind the game. I just wish that at the beginning, they decided to be a little more imaginative, and create an entire city on their own. The Liberty City of GTA3 was still reminiscent of NYC, but it was original enough to make you feel like you're discovering a brand new city.



The gameplay is tighter this time, with a new cover mechanic that's really a great and crucial addition. The gunplay was always weak in the series, but with IV, they've definitely made an improvement. It's not perfect yet, though. Sometimes, while you're aim is locked onto an enemy, and you want to move the cursor to another enemy who's shooting at you, you'll still lock on the first guy, even if you move the cursor away. Also, sometimes when you hit the cover button, Niko will take cover on a different wall than you thought, leaving him wide open to attack. But, while these new controls are a bit sticky, they are definitely a good step in the right direction.



Of course, us currently being in the "next-gen," the graphics are much improved from previous GTA titles. The city itself is gorgeous, and you get to see it go through all types of weather. Rockstar have really captured the feeling of a living, breathing city such as NYC, where something new is always going on around every corner. However, with a lot of the character models, it starts to look like a previous-gen game. In the cut scenes, we get solid animations, but even then, the characters still look really awkward. In an era of Metal Gear Solid 4, and Uncharted, we're getting closer to really capturing convincing facial expressions. Outside of the city itself, the graphics in GTAIV are always just "almost there". There are also occasional pop-up problems which are particularly annoying when you're driving down the road, and go to make a turn on an open road, and then there's a segue that appears right in time for you to smash into it. The sound in the game is very good. Each car and gun have a different, specific sound. The sounds of a rumbling city consistently permeate through every moment. Nothing about the sound is particularly noteworthy, but it's just very well done.



All of these issues aside, perhaps the most interesting part of GTAIV is the story. This time, Rockstar decided to give us a character who might actually have a moral dilemna when it comes to running over cops in the street and going on a killing spree. Niko Bellic, is an immigrant from some slavic nation (him being Russian is heavily implied). Niko's come to America in search of the "American Dream" that his cousin, Roman has been bragging about living out. Only, Niko finds out it's a sham, and Roman is living off pennies, in a lousy apartment, and now Niko must make his own living, chasing the dream around every corner, contemplating all the job offers he gets. Niko also brought along some serious mental baggage, that at this point in the game is still unclear. Something bad happened in the old country, and he's come for revenge.



With this story, Rockstar have finally given us a story worth following and being interested in. You're not just killing everyone to make it to the top. You're making choices. You're contemplating consequences. You're making friends, love interests, and enemies. You're really living there.



But the almost fatal flaw in this idea, is that, around this story, everything else is still the old GTA we already know. So, while you watch a cut scene where Niko goes into a deep soliloquy about a grave mistake he made, and how sincerely he regrets his past sins, once that scene is over, and you take control, you could potentially just get in a car, and run over 80 people on the way to your next mission, completely breaking the immersion of the story, and ruining the character. It's a shame because they seemed to really take their time constructing this character, giving him dimension and layers, only to have all of that pulled out from under him when you go on a mission that makes him look like a raving lunatic.



There are also issues regarding things they added to the game. Rockstar was definitely going for a more realistic GTA this time around, and so far, I'd say they achieved about half and half. For one example, yeah, it's cute and all that you have to pay tolls now when crossing bridges, but is that really enhancing anyone's enjoyment of the game? Who played Vice City and thought "you know, this is great, but what it REALLY needs are toll booths"? And once again, like San Andreas (but not as bad) the city is almost too huge. Driving from mission to mission gets to be a chore, especially if you fail the mission and have to start at the beginning, often times in another borough.

I would imagine I'm about halfway through the game's major storyline now. It's taken me a couple tries to finally begin appreciating this game, and this time, I think I'm in it to end it. Overall, I'm definitely enjoying it a lot more now than I was before, and I think people (like me) who may have been initially turned off by the more serious tone or the epic scale of Grand Theft Auto IV should perhaps try it again now that the hype is all but dead, and you can start seeing the game for what it is.