GTA IV is really fun but is it better than the previous GTA's? Read this review and find out...
They took out the entire fun weapons such as the knuckle-dusters, katana, minigun, flamethrower, machete, and lots more. Rockstar also completely wiped out the fun cheats and the OTT violence, which I thought were one of the main factors to make a decent GTA. In the game there is hardly any cheats to mess around with and it is just the ordinary-least important ones but the one was very disappointed not seeing was the never wanted cheat because at time I feel like walking down the street mowing people down with gunfire without anyone getting in your way which is why I have to go online in order to do that, which I hated. Another thing that made the game incredibly easy was the cover system, imagine yourself surrounded by hostiles or police, you take cover behind a wall and all you have to do is pop up and shoot and take hardly any damage which made the hardest missions incredibly easy.
The new-improved Liberty City is very well designed and looks stunning. I think it was very well spaced out and very big that it does take time to get used to it and know where you are going, so that is definitely an improvement to the series. The buildings and the textures are very well designed and the draw distance is very impressive and the water graphics are top notch. Also all of the sights and places to look at where somewhat very amusing as all of the major attractions had the mick taken out of them like the statue of happiness holding a cup of coffee with a smiley face.
The story on the GTA IV was (hands down) the easiest out of all the GTA's put together. I heard the announcements that it would be challenging and would roughly be about 30+ hours; well I completed it (surprisingly enough) less than 18 hours. However, I have to admit I bloody enjoyed it! I thought it was well written, it wasn't all over the place and just enjoyable. The main character Niko is by far my favourite character out of all the video games I have ever played. He is a character that you can't hate. With Niko he shows that he has a good side unlike all of the other GTA characters they are either hateful, whiney, wimps or just someone you wouldn't care for. Niko also has a great personality as well and is a very interesting character, which made the story enjoyable.
The cutscenes on the other hand is well directed and designed, it just amazed me how they moved as if they were real people and they responded very well to the dialog and the environment and was very amusing.
The online on the other hand (I think) is the reason why GTA got high scores in reviews as there is just so much to do as Rockstar have given you 15 different game modes to chose from which is definitely a thumbs up, and it is just bloody fun! You can do free roam, which is my favourite as it is just funny as hell, and makes you play it for hours.
Last off all, the physics and the animations. All I can say is that it is perfect, the realism in the collisions is absolutely impressive with all of the dents and scratches in any part of the car, unlike the previous GTA's you crash a car, all that comes out is a dent and smoke (nothing interesting) but lots of different parts of the vehicle falls off, the windows smash and scatter over the road and if you crash at full speed you fly out the windscreen. Another thing is that when you ran over a pedestrian on San Andreas your vehicle either flipped over or slowed down by like 50 mph, but in GTA IV when you splatter a peddy blood squirts on the car and the go flying depending on your speed. The animations is very realistic but very annoying at times, because just imagine you are wanted by the police, they are right behind you and you either run upstairs or downstairs but Niko slows down A LOT when moving down which means you get gunned down very easily which just p****d me off.
Overall I think GTA IV is a very good game but is quite disappointing due to the fact that it doesn't have the same amusement as the previous GTA's had and the fact that there isn't many things to do around the city compared to San Andreas like the shops etc but this is a game worth buying.