yet another great gaming experience from the GTA Series, but not quite the head shot you were expecting ...
While there are so many great things to do over the course of this "Balkan Madman's" (Nico Bellic) hunt for revenge, so much charm was lost in it's translation. For example, what happened to the plethora of customizable options we had with CJ of San Andreas? I don't know about you but I am one of those people who will buy a game simply because of it's character creation and one of my favorite styles to go with is leather pants, combat boots, no shirt and lots of bling and tats. What? No tats what so ever for GTA IV? How come? Shouldn't I have the option of controlling an overweight ladies man(Roman), Rastafarian drug runner(Jacob) or a jacked up, conceited, car collector(Brucie)? "Its been done before"? Isn't that MY point? Moving on... ;)
GAME PLAY:
Well if you were expecting some monumental change in the way GTA is going to be played, you are sadly mistaken. It was the same stuff over all over again. They did however add a 'shimmy' ability while hanging on a ledge and guess how many times that was useful or even necessary... once. One time through out the game I 'shimmied' (during the part of a mission that serves as a tutorial on how to... SHIMMY!). The reason why is that helicopters are so damn accessible. If you wait until you get to Algonquin then the sky becomes the limit (literally). Tons of really cool vehicles and paint jobs from the Pay and Spray but once again, not your choice. Not only do you not get to customize your wheels, but it is a random affect AND no matter what you go to the pay and spray for, it will cost you about 3 game hours, even for a horse of a different color! Last but not least in this department, the chances of you just happening upon a cache of much needed ammo are slim to none, making the game add more responsibility to Nico's already hectic life that will actually hinder the player's progress.
WHAT'S NEW:
Quick question? How many types of GTA based missions can you think of? lets see there are; assassinations/ hits, package collection/ delivery, car chase/ race and thats pretty much it. I thought that adding friendships would increase the game play value, but I was wrong. Not only did it add another dynamic as to how the story unfolds, but if you chose to ignore them for a while (like me) and let the likeness factor drop to about 25% (like me) then you not only have to kiss their butt, you have to wipe it for them too in order to get it to move up! Let me tell you this became so monotonous that after all of the thumbs down, negative calls and text messages, I could only stomach 1/2 hour of this game at a time! I kid you not! By the way if there is something 'New' about this game that you think i should address feel free to IM me. Seriously.
OVERALL:
When I started this game I was immediately disappointed and was thinking of going back to play San Andreas. For some reason I gave it a chance, got caught up in the story and finished it. It is very addictive and my level of addiction was classified as "Downward Spiral" in the stats screen. So yes I played it all the way through and even got the 100% complete "Key to the City" achievement... Why? I still don't know the answer to that myself. Even the ending (which will leave the lasting impression in the player's mind) was far from GTA standards. I would have killed to see Nico take the place over, ya know like the rest of the games, but no he exacts his revenge and it ends (with something as simple as a single bullet). They do prelude to a sequel or something more to the story than you are told but if you are a fan of the series, then rent it first and judge for yourself. Otherwise I would rather play San Andreas all over again or wait for Saints Row 2.