The man and the mundane.
I figured that if there's one game that is worth its full price tag, it's Grand Theft Auto. GTA has always struck the right balance between length and fun, and its first venture onto the current generation shouldn't be anything short of spectacular. Oh yes, the hype-machine was in full swing, fuelled by banhammer-wielding protestors, countdowns to trailers and building-sized advertisements. The only thing missing was a group of royal trumpeters blowing a joyous tune upon the game's late arrival. But arrive it did, to much critical acclaim. Finally the world could experience the fourth game in the series.
Yeah, the 'fourth' game. I guess IV stands for IVelostcount.
Just kidding.
So I arrived home with my plastic-wrapped, pre-ordered copy, bragged about it to my brother, who was cautiously awaiting word of a PC-version of the game, and started playing.
The opening scene introduces us to Niko Bellic, a fresh-off-the-boat eastern European immigrant lured to Liberty City by the boasts of his self-absorbed cousin Roman, who claims to live the "American Dream". Partially driven by the need to escape his homeland and start with a clean slate, Niko arrives in Liberty City only to discover that Roman has fallen in with the wrong crowd and, worse still, is in their debt.
While the voice acting and music was top notch as we'd expect from Rockstar, it was the art direction in particular that caught my attention. This isn't the usual GTA, where graphical prowess is sacrificed for a richer game experience or a bigger world, no, this GTA looks the part too. "This is awesome!" I thought, afraid to look for an option to turn subtitles on because I might skip the cutscene doing so. At that time, the game felt like a winner already.
Unfortunately, that sentiment was destroyed completely within the first minute of actual gameplay. Rockstar had always presented the game as a more realistic approach to the modern-day crime environment, and its realism definitely weighs in. Literally. Driving a car is atrocious. I was hitting walls, pedestrians and lanterns alike trying to adjust to the controls. I've heard the press use a wide spectrum of superlatives to commend its bold and daring approach to driving, while I wondered how positive the press would've been about these unresponsive controls should it have been any other game.
It actually makes sense though, from a weird and twisted point of view. I heard someone describe GTA IV once as a virtual guide to New York, that Liberty City is supposed to be seen and not played in. I agree with him 100%, and apparently so does Rockstar. Not only does Niko walk instead of run (until you hold down the A-button, more on that later) but cars are also supposed to be handled with finesse. Drive slow and responsible. And that works fine, in free-roam, as in, taking the time to drive around the city (I see what you did there, Rockstar!) but when you get to the actual meat of the game, the missions, it's the cause of absolute frustration.
Driving to the mission location isn't too bad, partially thanks to a handy new GPS-feature that shows your route on your minimap, but getting back out is a jam. More than you'd want to, you're involved in a chase. Sometimes you're the one escaping, at other times you're the one chasing. The former is a pain due to the driving controls, but still very manageable. The latter is horrendous. You're required to take down your target but he's impervious to your gunfire until he has passed a certain point. You as the player, however, cannot tell when he has passed that point. Sometimes you can hit him as soon as the chase starts, at other times you have to chase him halfway around Manhattan before you can even harm his vehicle. So while you're trying to master whatever uncontrollable beast you're riding, hoping to keep him from escaping your sight (which would result in a mission failure, of course) , you spam your target with bullets in hopes of him finally dying so that the chase can end. As if that isn't a complete joke on itself, your target follows a pre-determined path, crashes and near-misses included. At times it feels as if Rockstar went for a trial-and-error mechanism during chases, and without any mid-mission checkpoints (safe for the very last mission) failure tastes twice as bitter.
And failure comes on swift wings in this game, though not necessarily at the hand of the player. One of GTA IV's biggest, most unbalanced issues is the fact that the game knows you are the player, and punishes you for it. Case in point: I was on my first date with Michelle, and as we left the bowling alley, a cop who was chasing another criminal runs into me. Just to be clear, I want to repeat this again: the cop runs into me as I was walking alongside Michelle. All of a sudden, the cop neglects his original chase, pulls his gun and starts firing at me. Michelle, understandably upset, runs away. The mission failed.
Another example: a mission required me to follow someone, and so I did. He stopped at the traffic lights so I too brought my car to a halt not too far from him. Behind me, a cop car pulled up. Then, another car crashes into the cop car from behind, and it isn't until that causes the cop car to slam into me, that they activate their sirens. Then, since I'm obviously the culprit here, they start attacking me. My target got spooked. Another mission failure caused by GTA IVs omnipresent Player Syndrome.
Yet another example: at a certain point you are asked to steal a cop car and find a person in a restaurant to make it seem like you're there to arrest him. In true GTA IV-fashion, your arrival is a cut-scene away from yet another chase and, skipping the predictable myriad of unresponsive controls and sudden turns, your escapee pulls up at his house, ordering his henchmen on guard to open fire as he quickly scuffles inside. About 5 guys are firing at me from the porch and a cop passes by as if nothing's going on. As I wait for the cop to do something, perhaps still baffled at his ability to ignore the hellish firefight happening at 10 feet from him, a patrol car passes by. They too roll right passed the fight scene, looking for trouble at the other side of the road no doubt, and turn into the next street.
So, thinking to myself that this must be the Mad Max-part of town and that justice is dealt in a Dredd-type of manner, I whip out my gun and return fire but from the moment I shoot one round, the cops start chasing me. They call in the cavalry, fattening the mission with an unnecessary difficulty that should backfire against the henchmen, but for some reason doesn't. The unexpected gunfire from all sides turns Niko to a bullet sponge. He falls to the ground. I fall with him.
Failing the same mission 3 times because I get attacked in the back, because my escape vehicle blows up spontaneously without a smoke plume indicating the car's condition, and because a single SWAT-officer storms me when I was just throwing a grenade and shoots the life out of me as I was hastily tapping the D-Pad to select another weapon to fight him off with, is a joke. By the third game over screen of the hospital coke mission, I was about ready to throw my controller through my television set in sheer frustration, and I can guarantee you that getting me worked up over a video game is a feat few games manage to achieve. A mission failure due to an error I make, I can stomach well. I learn from my mistakes and try to do better the next time. A repeated mission failure due to the game's faulty design is atrocious. Having to repeat the entirety of that mission every single time is a common diagnosis for a controller's death.
With all the modern tech, and hype to lead us into thinking this is the most believable virtual world ever created, I expected greatness. Instead, the game's world is the same fence we saw 10 years ago. Age hasn't been kind to it, and a great-looking paint job cannot cover its every broken board. Traffic still suddenly changes lanes without signalling, or takes a turn at a junction from the inner lane instead of the outer lane, cutting off the lane closest to the turn. Pedestrians don't commune with each other properly, but simply stitch a topical quilt of one-liners together. Cops don't care much that you ghost ride passed them through the red light at high speed, while simply bumping into an officer will earn you a Wanted-star.
Speaking of the Wanted-system, it too has been given a major overhaul. There is still a six-star rating and though tanks have been left in the hangars this time around, helicopters and humvees still ensure some thrilling sequences. New to IV, however, is the way the police works via search areas. The more stars you have, the bigger their search area, which is shown as a flashing circle on your mini-map. All you have to do to escape the police, is leave the search area and stay out of sight for a short while, as getting spotted will recenter the search circle on your current position. When you remain undetected for a couple of seconds, the heat wears off and you can continue without a fuss. It's not too hard to escape the sights of the police, though, making even the toughest of police waves feel easier than in previous games.
To take down all this opposition, you get plenty of firearms which mostly handle fantastic and as powerful as they should. You can really feel the punch when you pull the trigger and while there are no surprises in terms of weaponry (no chainsaws for example) the expected array of pistols, shotguns and machine guns have enough variety to warrant at least one favourite you'll fall back on in firefights.
Another supposedly helpful tool during firefights, and a much anticipated premiere in the series, is a cover system. By tapping the left bumper you will send Niko to hide behind whatever cover is nearest, be it a wall, a dumpster, a car, a post box, etc... Pretty much any sturdy item in the game world can be used as cover, but the system is very poorly implemented. Take a game like Rainbow Six Vegas, for instance. You have a button for cover, and then you can use the joystick to lean from your cover so that you can fire swiftly and accurately when your enemy pops up. GTA IV, however, does not allow you to lean from your cover. In short, if you press the fire button, you'll have to wait for Niko to roll out of cover before he starts firing. Needless to say, a second is all it takes for your target to duck back behind his cover resulting in a poor game of whack-a-mole. You fire at the enemy and he rolls into cover so you stop firing and from the moment you do, he pops back up. It doesn't matter how fast you tap the R-trigger to mow that bastard down, you gotta wait 2 seconds for Niko to finish his cover animations before he'll shoot. Of course, by the time Niko does finally squeeze off a round, the enemy is back in cover. Not being able to shoot when you pull the trigger on your controller distances you from the game and pulls you out of the admittedly amazing set pieces.
When an enemy decides to disregard his personal safety and storm you when you're still in cover (which happens more often than you'd think) , you're royally screwed. Since, for whatever reason, Niko can't aim behind him when in cover, you have two options; leave cover to take out the idiot who ran passed you and get shot by the other enemies, or ignore the dude who ran passed you and get shot by him while you focus on the other shooters. Both those options kind of defeat the purpose of cover. Much like firing from behind cover, getting in and out of cover have their own animations that leave Niko open to enemy fire, and the player helpless to attack or move until the animation is finished. You are at the mercy of animation clips, as ridiculous as that sounds. Games like Batman Arkham Asylum, Splinter Cell: Double Agent and Uncharted 2 at least have context sensitive options that when you're in cover and an enemy comes towards you, you can take him down in one clean haul without exposing yourself. In GTA IV, you can't even protect your back when in cover.
Shooting doesn't fare much better out of cover unfortunately. As I've said before, you can't run unless you hold down the A-button, but that comes at the sacrifice of your right joystick. What this boils down to is that you can't run and aim freely at the same time. If you're being shot at from different directions, and there's two guys at either side of you, you have to start walking just to line up your shots one-by-one, but since Niko walks incredibly slow by default, it would be suicide. Sure, you can keep running if you target lock on your enemy, but restricting me from mob controlling an area just to maintain my mobility is ridiculous. Do I really need to hold 4 buttons just to run and shoot at the same time? If an enemy comes up close and personal, Niko can do a little melee attack to fend him off, but your enemy can somehow always recover faster than Niko can, often resulting in a considerable loss of health. For an ex-soldier turned hired gun, you'd expect him to at least be able to knock out or disarm his well-equipped opponent. Niko can do neither.
Not that you would want to fight hand-to-hand voluntarily of course. Movement is slow and sluggish and punches do very little damage, resulting in fistfight scenarios that drag for far longer than they should.
At least watching a cabaret show or comedy cup doesn't involve any gameplay.
So combat is a mess. Driving is a mess. And you'll get to experience both ad nauseum in a lengthy campaign which, in such case, isn't so much a gift steed as it is a Troyan horse.
Like in any GTA-game, missions are plentiful and open for you to tackle them however you see fit. In terms of content, this game is rich. In terms of diversity, however, it's about as rich as Niko when he first set foot in Liberty City. Before long missions become predictable and mundane, giving an increasing sense of déjà -vû and dread. Mind you, there are a few creative outbursts such as the bank heist, the job interview and the mission "I'll Take Her" , and while they follow the exact same formula as every other mission, they're presented in such a way that makes them a fun experience in an otherwise constant "drive there, shoot stuff"-routine. Considering the previous game had missions where you went into a military base to steal a jetpack, burned a weed farm with a flamethrower or rescued a person from a burning building, there's a noticeable lack of distinction between missions.
As per usual, missions are handed out via a number of eccentric characters, which once again brings forth another one of GTA IV's problems. Unlike previous instalments, you get no time to bond with your contractors, and you won't care to either. You do 3 jobs for someone, he introduces you to someone else you can do 5 jobs for, and while you're doing his work, he'll introduce you to someone else who has 4 jobs for you. All the while, your first employer simply disappears and you never hear from him again. This is a cycle that continues throughout the entire game and as the story progresses, your cellphone will fill up with contact names you just can't put a face to. I get that Rockstar did this to mimic the ever-changing crime milieu in our world, but then don't expect me to care much about their problems and, by extension, my missions.
There are some characters who can provide you with more work which usually ends up with them joining your group of merry friends. The aim is simple then, keep them befriended by taking them to cabaret shows, pool halls, pubs, bowling alleys, restaurants, etc... and if they like you enough (judged by a point-system) they'll give you a perk. One will let you ride his helicopter, another one has a mobile weapon store where he sells weapons cheap to you, and so on. This is actually a nice touch but unfortunately, keeping in line with Rockstar's tendency to ruin everything with realism, this feature is butchered by an Animal Crossing-esque friendship simulator. They'll call you on the most inappropriate times (and any other time, really) and ask you to go do something. Refusing will cost you friendship points, but considering the distance between you and your caller (you only get one hour in-game to pick them up or you lose friendship points because you're late, and yes, you are *always* the one who has to go pick them up) it's best to just leave them be. After a while, you won't even bother answering your phone when you see "Roman" appear on the screen. The option to turn off story missions is there, so why not the option to turn off this insipid socialising?
Not even snowballing a riot through the streets of Liberty City is appealing now that the people scream and limp realistically. The lack of absurd and over-the-top weaponry doesn't inspire much let's-go-crazy anyway.
While Niko Bellic is without a doubt *the* best protagonist the series has ever had, thanks in large due to his loyalty and backstory, I couldn't help but wonder why Niko was doing what he did. Half of the time, Niko said that he would kill someone because he needs the money, which makes little sense because at the time, I had close to 450.000 dollars, making a 5 grand hit obsolete. The reason I had so much money in the first place was because you have nothing to spend it on, safe for weapons, clothing, food and the odd Pay-and-Spray job. You can no longer buy properties, nor can you buy vehicles. For a satire on a materialistic world where internet order babies are all the rage, there's a surprising lack of consumption options.
The other half of Niko's work seems to have him focussed on tracking down someone who has done him wrong in the past, someone who now lives in Liberty City. This, on the other hand, makes for a far more interesting thrive, even if it does take a while for this story to blossom. At times it feels like Niko's simply wasting his and my time doing mindless errands, since only one of Niko's 30-ish contact people can provide him with information on his "special someone". The eventual confrontation, though anti-climactic, didn't satisfy. The story isn't bad, far from, it's just too spread-out to keep my attention / interest.
Besides the story, there's a multiplayer component. I'll admit that my experiences with the multiplayer were limited to a quick splash, but it was enough for me to conclude that whatever issues I had with the game were multiplied by lagging targets and profanity-spouting gangster wannabes.
The audio is fantastic, but I wouldn't know Rockstar if it wasn't. The voice acting is great and the soundtrack is varried, giving you at least one radio station you will turn to and with a vast selection of music, chances are you will get to know new artists and songs. Plus, there's a certain charm in having a high-speed highway shoot-out over some jazz.
On the graphics-front, Rockstar managed to import its trademark artstyle into the current generation of hardware with some amazing results, despite the washed-out look. Animations are done well, the city looks gritty and the special effects never fail to impress. The entire map streams without interruption but this comes at a price; pop-in is present (and sometimes in a very distracting manner) and the framerate can take some serious dips.
There's plenty of other bugs to dig up though. I've fallen through the street once. The camera works against you 2 times in rapid succession when you're taking cover near a doorway. I ordered a cab ride to another island once and just as we left, the cab got involved in a pile-up whereof not a single person had the brilliant idea of backing up and driving away, apparently all happy to sit in their crash staring through their windshields like zombies. The AI too has some serious issues as is evidenced by the bank heist mission, wherein one of my fellow robbers ran to a grenade I just threw, killing him in the explosion, etc etc… If the game would be fun, I'd overlook these flaws myself but since I'm frustrated enough by the actual game, the bugs jump at me all the more.
What this all amounts to is Grand Theft Auto IV's biggest problem; a severe case of split personality. It doesn't know whether it wants to tell a realistic crime drama or paint its satirical portrait instead. In other words: fun versus realism. Niko can be dealing with the death of a loved one over a radio commercial promoting the purchase of babies via the internet, or he can lament his murderous past when he's not playfully yelling "Sorry!" for running someone over. Cars control very realistically (or so I'm told) but crashes barely have any consequence on a car's performance (or even damage greatly.) Niko can't spurt for too long without becoming tired, but he is able to stow away 10 weapons in his inner jacket pocket. Half of these trifles can be swept away with "it's just a game" while the other half can be suppressed with "but it's supposed to be realistic." It doesn't work that way, Rockstar. The world is not realistic enough to uphold the drama that the game wants to tell, and the game is not fun enough to make me want to explore the entirety of the world.
"Maybe it's not that bad." I told myself every time I forced myself to at least try and finish it. "Maybe I should give it another chance." But nine chances later it should start sinking into my thick skull that, yes, it *is* that bad.
I don't know whether I am mad at Rockstar for what they've done with the franchise, mad at the game for not living up to the hype or mad at myself for paying full price, but the fact that I seek to blame someone or something shows that Grand Theft Auto IV is not what it should have been: fun. Yes, there were some great moments but they are outweighed by the sheer frustration that dominates my memories of playing this bloated, buggy mess. Maybe the game didn't need a royal group of trumpeters blowing a joyous tune upon its late arrival after all, because GTA IV blows hard enough by itself.