GTA IV was released 10 years ago today what are your memories?

It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since GTA IV what are your memories of the game?

My memories are how impressed I was with the Graphics, Physics, and improved combat. It's one of my favorite GTA games of all time it hold up very well today especially with graphic mods. It still does gun fights and melee combat better than GTA5. The story was a nice change from SA I like the gritty realistic tone the game has. And for me it still has the most funniest talk radio out of all the GTA games. Also the music selection in the game was a good balance of rock and rap. In closing GTAIV for me was a masterpiece it had almost everything I wanted in GTA game.

240p for old times sake.

Disappointment. Really didn't live up to the hype for me.

@warmblur:

I had tons of good memories playing that. Especially quotes from the fun dialog!

Roman: "They call me the Janitor!"

Niko: "Because you can't pay your debts so you're always mopping the floors?"

I remember being very disappointed. This is where GTA games stopped being fun.

i remember my mate and i picking it up at the midnight launch and playing it til about 6am. initially we were blown away.

like san andreas i thought it had a really strong "opening act" i.e. the first set of missions. it was gritty, atmospheric, had interesting characters, great location etc.

but then, like san andreas, as the game progressed all the great work that had gone into making the opening act engrossing and cohesive fizzled and the game lost its momentum. the story didn't develop as expected (you never really progressed from being a glorified errand boy, the only progression was you worked for increasingly senior figures in the underground / mob hierarchy), the whole florian storyline was a big anticlimax and some rather large holes in niko's character became apparent and hurt his credibility.

still, it was a necessary part in the whole evolution of gta as a series. having gone from san andreas' crazy jack of all trades style to the very different serious and focused style of gta iv, rockstar apparently arrived at the conclusion that the correct balance was somewhere in between, nailing the formula with ballad of gay tony and then gta v

Enjoyable but not the best GTA game I've played

It was a brilliant play through I don't expect anything less with rockstar. I loved the way they switched between the 3 characters.

Tons of hype, tons of disappointment. The missions were very boring.

Annoying ass relationships where I'm constantly getting phone calls to hang out with people at the wrong possible times. Story itself was very "meh". Started off great then just fell off midway through and never really recovered. Physics got a bit wonky at times especially while driving. And so....so much more issues I had with it.

The few things I did like at the time was its animation and graphic quality. Many of the characters were also memorable even though there were a few who were insufferable. And awesome radio station music/shows. That's about all the positives I can think of...

Easily one of the most over rated games I've ever played. I can tell they put plenty of effort into making it. Just didn't turn out well for me...

I remember that starting the game was a huge shock. It just was so different from the earlier games, and totally different from what I had expected.

But more I played, more I began to appreciate it. And by the time the second island opened up, I was totally in love with the game and the unique characters in it. Brucie, Lil Jacob, Roman, all were brill and very lifelike.

And the radio stations and talk shows, just as great as in the previous games. Integrity channel had Lazlo's show that was so brill!

GTAIV became my fave of the last gen games, and it is still the last gen game I play the most. Indeed, I tend to replay thru GTAIV every year at least once, on my old 360. That's how much I love it.

My friend showed me how to get on top of the Majestic hotel. Then I equipped the parachute and jumped off, but I didn't know how to use it so I slammed off one of those fire escape staircases, died and landed on a shopping trolley.

Also, my friend showing me how to get into an abandoned house by parking a van in front of it and climbing it, then through the window. You couldn't get attacked by cops here AFAIK, so I shot a fat cop eating a doughnut in the hand with a sniper and he got up, aimed at me but couldn't shoot me. Naturally, I just threw a C4 at him and watched him fly.

Same... I found it quite boring. And I never finished it.

@warmblur: None first hand experience. However shared a flat with another student who played Grand Theft Auto IV quite a lot, and he really liked the physics in the game and how the avatars feet tracked surfaces.

All while I was still playing a lot of Devil May Cry 4 getting everything done in the game.

Needless to say, neither of these number 4 sequels really set the world on fire did they?

The intro... I thought the whole thing had a great feel to it and I enjoyed the silly characters.

As much as I liked the game I never finished it.

"Hey Niko, you wanna go Bowling?"

Yeah, GTA4 was new to Rockstars on the PS3/Xbox 360 of it's time, but the game was a huge step back from San Andreas crazy stuff it had. Niko was okay for a Russian guy, but he was the least of my favorite protagonist and for a 10 year old GTA game, the game didn't aged well. GTAV is were it's at.

Disappointed. I was so excited for GTA IV since GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas were very amazing. But when I did play it, the game was very boring for me. Not only was it a huge step back from San Andreas, but it wasn't as fun as the previous three games. The missions were very boring, and Liberty City itself in GTA IV was very dull. I still play GTA 3, VC, and SA to this day while for GTA 4 I never do.

Had a great time with the game. Loved the improved driving and shooting mechanics. This was my favourite GTA game until GTA V came out.

I remember it quite fondly. I really enjoyed causing chaos in the subway stations. lol

It was an amazing experience for me. One of my favorites next to SA.

GTA 5 did not live up to my expectations but it was still a great game.

TBH I was really unimpressed with the visuals but I loved the story and gameplay.

The physics were absolutely awesome/hilarious at the time. Unfortunately, I don't remember much from the actual missions.

Cinematic 25fps. Enjoyed the mission where you go into an apartment building with a shotgun and wipe the place clean.

Hard to believe it's been 10 years. I can remember watching the trailers and reading the articles back in the day and getting excited for it. I didn't get my PS3 until 2009 and that ended up being my first game. A lot of people talk about it being a step back from San Andreas but I thought the more realistic tone was a nice change of pace. Me and my cousin would play it together a lot. One mission that I can remember really liking is the bank robbery one; Three Leaf Clover.

It was this heist mission. I was trying to escape the cops and somehow ended up crashing on subway, which forced everyone to get out of the car. We then ran on foot on the subway to escape the cops, having to eventually find a way down and steal another car of course.

It took me a while to appreciate the game, especially since I had enjoyed San Andreas so much. But I've played it again within the last few years and it's aged better than San Andreas ever will.

i really don't get the adulation that san andreas gets. it's up there as one of the biggest gaming anti-climaxes for me.

the first part was stupendously good. as someone that grew up with 90s hiphop as the soundtrack to my youth it captured that atmosphere perfectly. the missions were great, characters believable and it builds up to this amazing crescendo and plot twist as you discover your mates have screwed you over and your brother is arrested. at that point i was thinking it was actually going to beat the godlike vice city.

but then the game went on the most bizarre tangent. gangbanger cj swaps the hood for the countryside and suddenly finds himself chasing hillbillies on combine harvesters, racing blind japanese businessmen, starting a business in a new city with a pot smoking hippy, flying remote control planes with some geeky kid from a comic book store, jetpacking out of area 51 etc etc.

it completely digressed from the plot / theme. and it ruined it for me. none of the other gtas did that, they all kept their focus and stayed "in character." tommy vercetti midway through vice city didn't suddenly go join the circus with a bunch of travelling trapeze artists, niko bellic didn't swap criminality half way into gta iv to become a goth and open a voodoo themed ice cream store with little jacob etc etc.

weird game

I recall being completely ticked off.

it was literally the worst performing game I ever had on my PC.

Thinking back I played through not caring about any of the characters for the first time in a GTA game.

Same tbh it just felt really dry compared to the masterpieces that are Vice City and San Andreas

i remember the thread on the pc forum on here when it released being full of people, me included, going nuts because their powerful rigs could barely get a steady frame rate on low to medium settings. the outrage lol

yup.

its ironic that the only 4 games I have gotten mad enough about to throw in the garbage are all super ultra AAA titles.

not that you were agreeing with that part,. but it does affect my opinion for sure

I enjoyed my play-through of it but it was only meant for one, for me.

Probably the worst GTA I’ve played tbh it was really boring and Liberty City is not a good GTA world imo.

same

also, it was a horribly optimized mess that did not run on like half the computers out there. I think that might be why I never finished it. Hmm...maybe I should get around to it, they have some insane mods out now for it.

With that said, something tells me I might find it better than GTAV, another game I enjoyed but found overrated.

GTA IV was amazing for me. I was a little too young to fully appreciate Vice City or San Andreas; I was Year 6 (the last year of primary school in the UK) when it came out and was allowed to play it. I used to sit in my room with some Butterkist Popcorn and play through the campaign for hours. Played it twice or three times through, I found it lulled when it got to Pegerino. I love everything about the storyline, the Michelle twist - the crazy Eastern European guy coming to Liberty City for Niko. Bernie Crane. The Lost and Damned & Ballad of Gay Tony DLCs were all amazing too.

Really loved that game man. I may have to go through it soon to celebrate the ten years.

Agreed. I think Rockstar tried to go down the more "realistic" path for IV, and in the process lost some of the fun that SA & VC had.

Great to see these responses I'm definitely in the minority that really enjoys GTA4. It's such a damn shame though that Rockstar didn't even acknowledge it's 10 year anniversary. GTA IV deserves some recognition I understand how people enjoy SA, VC more I loved those games too but the big difference is going back to try to play them is rough they have age pretty bad. While GTA IV holds up really well for 10 years old. It was ahead of it's time with a dense open world and attention to detail also the euphoria physics engine is really impressive. It was great watching peds fly through the windshield it is always a good laugh lol.

I remember playing it and thinking it was OK but nowhere near the level people were claiming. I always felt it was undeserved of the praise and people were over excited simply because it was first GTA game on the (then) new consoles.

GTA V was almost a completely different game entirely in its scope and fun and is the game I still play almost daily still.

Better than V

I remember spending a lot of time just driving around the city, at night, listening to The Journey. There was just something about that...it was like a quiet moment in a Michael Mann film. I think that was my favorite part of the entire experience.

I was playing in a store at first. Than finished it with a Xbox I have bought.

Such a good game.

Never got to play it, actually :(

I must I was playing this with my dad and we loved it. At the time my step mum just moved in and she was shocked at all the swearing and she walked in on a drug mission! (: She was fine with it and to this day i compare GTA 4 and GTA 5! I can not wait for GTA 6 when rockstar picks up there game.

It was alright. Not as bad as some people make it out to be, but not great either. I didn't really like the dark and gritty tone of it. GTA games are supposed to be light-hearted fun. I still think Vice City is the most fun I've ever had with a GTA game. Something about 80s Miami, the music, Ray Liotta that just worked to perfection.

The rag doll effects when you crash. Not my favorite game of all time, but definitely worth the money spend. Spend a lot of late night hours with friends unleashing mayhem on the city. Kinda surprising how long that can be fun.

when gta stopped being fun. Still amazing games and the comedy show on tv was friggin funny and amazing

Sooo boring the worst GTA imo liberty city was bland compared to San Andreas

I hated it, by far the worst GTA game IMO (including spin offs, even mobile ones). The only good thing it had for it were some moders that made it look great