Very few games manage to deliver on the hype, but Grand Theft Auto IV is one that does.
A year later, in 2002, the sequel arrived, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. This title was a bit of a rush job, (which is a little obvious considering it came out less than a year after GTA III) but that didn't hold it from being another blockbuster.
It took two years for Rockstar North (previously DMA Design) to create another sequel to this game. And then, on October the 26th, San Andreas hit store shells. Well... if they even got there. You needed to pre-order the game, otherwise you would not get it. The success is easy to describe. 1 out of 3 PS2 owners has this game. Incredible.
But then... it was silence. Of course, there were two PSP iderations (Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories) but there wasn't a true sequel to San Andreas. But when the 'Things Will Be Different' trailer had its debut in March 2007, a lot of people were complaining. Was this still GTA? The tone of the trailer was very urgent and serious. This lead character was in Liberty City for a reason. As you could know from the trailer, this guy had some hard times. Besides the guessing of how the story would be, the new engine was introduced. It looked terrifyingly beatiful. The stage was set, the stakes were high. Grand Theft Auto IV would hit store shells in October, like any other 3D console-based GTA.
But when the game got delayed (to Q1 2008) we obviously had to wait a little more for Rockstar's next-gen debut (besided Table Tennis).
But now it's out, and time for the review.
The story is that you're Niko Bellic, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, who hopes to wipe out his past and start a new future, in Liberty City. His cousin Roman promises him a life of luxury with hot women, fast cars and villa's. A lot of villa's. But when Niko finally makes the cross to America, he finds out that he'll have to fight for the American Dream. And meanwhile, he's dragged into a world full of mafia, assassins and corrupt lawyers.
The story is told well, with brief cutscenes and incredible voice acting. The old GTA humor is present, and a lot better and more realistic than anything you have seen in the previous GTA games.
The way you progress through the game is like in any other GTA game, and that's probably one of the biggest reasons why this title doesn't deserve a perfect 10 score. Most of the missions are like this: you either chase someone down, pick up a car or coke, or you'll just have to take someone out. This will get repetitive, but some unique missions keep it from being a pain in the ass to play. And besides, the story is just plain amazing. You want to progress through it, just to know what's behind the corner this time.
The control scheme in previous GTA games was probably the biggest problem throughout the 3D-titles. This has been improved, but it's still not as fluid as you'd want. The cars handle more realisticly, the aiming is a bit better, but it's still not as simple and accessable like a Call of Duty or Metroid Prime.
When the first trailer arrived, the stakes were high. And amazingly, it lives up to its expectations. The lightning is simply breath-taking, the details are great in both a small and a big scale, and it just looks slick. So that's also been refined.
The singleplayer campaign will take you anything from 30 to 80 hours to complete, and once finished, you can also try to take out every pigeon you see or just look for easter eggs. With this playtime put on top of that from the campaign, and you have a game with a lot of value. And when you think that's all, you're wrong.
The biggest addition to this new Grand Theft Auto is the multiplayer. And I can tell you, it will mean be the ending of the Call of Duty 4 online reign on both the PS3 and Xbox 360. The modes that are available range from basic Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch to Cops 'n' Crooks (which means that one team is the cops, and they try to kill the boss of the robbers, the 'crooks') to even racing. There are two types of racing modes, basic Race and GTA Race (Mario Kart like). They're both fun, but not as much as the basic gunfighting.
It seemed impossible, but it isn't: all that beauty from the singleplayer moves over to the multiplayer. As a host you can pick which area you want to play in, or you can choose for the ENTIRE CITY to be open for everyone. You can go anywhere and do anything. The only real structure is the placing of the weapons and spawnpoints. It can sometimes feel like you spawn right in front of someone's sight (especially if you're playing a small area) but most of the time the game is very well balanced and structured.
Is there anything else to complain about GTA IV? Well, not a lot. The cover system works fine, but some control mapping is a little bit odd. Also, the Xbox 360 version has a little bit pop-up, and especially the PS3 version has some problems with freezing (though I didn't have that at all) but most of the time, you can't really find any big glitch in the game. The delay definitely has paid off. It really feels like it's polished to the max.
CONCLUSION: GTA IV isn't such a big step from GTA III like III was compared to 2, but that's okay. It feels a lot more polished, looks a lot better, plays a lot better and is a lot more accessable. The story is top notch and it just feels like a blockbuster movie playing it. Grand Theft Auto IV is easily one of the best games to date.