Posted 31 May 2008 - 09:11 PM
Alright. There's plenty of talk (half of it by me) about Grand Theft Auto 4. I think it's time for a full-length review, and I think it might cut across the grain a little bit.
GTA -- 4 (PS3 Release)
Story/Plot: 9.5/10
This is where GTAIV really shined, in my book. Your experience may vary, since technically there are a few ways the game can go down -- but for the most part, the storyline is constant no matter how you play (or so I'm told) and it's really good. The story (minus spoilers) is a pretty plausible explanation of how an immigrant and his cousin are gradually sucked deeper and deeper into a world of crime -- and more importantly, the effects of that descent into "Liberty City." Full of lots of good characters, and the occasional miss, the storyline of GTAIV was the strongest part of the game.
Gameplay: 7/10
I was mre than just a little disappointed with the gameplay, because frankly there was nothing new. In fact, there was less. In San Andreas, you got to dabble with everything from your hairdo to your gang's territory wars and drug trade. In IV, you could customize your cell phone background and ringtone. Now the game had its high points, too -- I liked the new driving controls, and I flat-out LOVED the SixAxis helicopter controls. And you can still go on bloody rampages, and the police detection system was real convenient, even if they didn't LoJack the foot patrols for you... but there were no tanks, which is really unforgivable considering how much we all love stealing a Rhino. A lot of San Andreas features, like shooting skills, driving skills, combat skills, airplanes (though I understand that one based on the location)... the gameplay just left something severely wanting for me. Maybe I'm alone in that.
Combat: 4/10
Combat was kind of a joke, and they relied on it so much throughout the game. Your ability to make Niko use cover was just awful in terms of switching between free running, aiming, blind fire, taking cover -- each function was fine on its own (bonus point has been added for Niko sliding into bunkers!), but they weren't integrated well at all. I suspect this has to do with the way the designers worked -- I would guess they split up combat programming, and it just didn't come back together right. I Frequently found that the best option was to walk out in the open with an SMG and body armor, blasting through the armies Rambo-style. There were nice points to the fighting... Driving combat was vastly improved to account for not wearing your seatbelt, the ability to throw things (molotovs, grenades) out the window, and realistic auto damage effects. But frankly, if you weren't in the car, the combat in this game was just awful. And far too often, that was the case.
A sidenote -- with the hugeness of the game, you'd think there would have been a bigger arsenal... can't be that hard to program more variety than "the good one" and "the crappy one."
Creativity of Missions: 8/10
A very good mix. I won't give away anything on the off-chance that somebody is reading this who hasn't played the game yet.... but there was a good mix of missions. Although, again, I *really* wish a "Grand Theft Auto" game would focus more on the driving., because hey, that's the strong point anyway.
Landscape/World: 9.5/10
Another high-point. The map was too big to grow bored with, and the game took you all over Liberty City. If anything, the city was TOO immersive -- I used the GPS like an old lady uses a wheelchair, it got me EVERYWHERE I ever had to go. As a fan of big-map games like the Zelda series and Final Fantasy back when it used to have world maps, I was more than satisfied witth the giant-ness and thorough-ness of the "world."
Vehicles: 8.5/10
The cars were very well done in this game. Score isn't a 10 because too many vehicles were disproportionately bad or good; steal a Stallion, and you're lucky to make it down the road. Steal an Infernus, and you'd have to drive backwards to lose a road race. Also, there weren't nearly enough motorcycles.
Concept: 5/10
By "concept," I mean what the designers were trying to accomplish by making this game -- what they wanted to do differently, what they wanted to do better, etc. I shake my head at them. The game was advertised as being a HUGE leap forwards, where I see it trning out, if anything, more like a hop straight up in the air, or else maybe a small step backwards. The big-deal new feature was Niko's cell phone, which coordinated basically everything he ever does. I would have taken it a step further than they did, and sold a wireless "cell phone" controller that would run in the Player 2 slot, and run the phone calls, text messages, etc. through that. Oh well. I thought it was a really nice effort with the relationships in the game, but not quite a good execution. They tried to make the relationships carry the game, and it didn't work by me. The only in-game relationships that really mattered were the ones you made in the main plot. Some of the people you were meant to hang out with a lot were unbearable (Brucie reminds me WAAAAY too much of my now-ex-roommate).
OVERALL: 7/10
Don't get me wrong, it's a good game. When people ask, I usually tell them "It's as good as it's hyped up to be." That's not quite right, though. I'm honestly surprised that San Andreas and GTAIV came out in the order that they did. I know that there are a lot of people really happy with the new game, so maybe this is just my complaint. I don't know. I felt like they sacrificed a lot of substantive gameplay for little gimmicks like darts, bowling, and billiards. I hope there's another installment in the series, and I hope it's a combination of SA gameplay (stepped up with GTAIV driving engine and a fresh combat engine) and GTAIV plot (but this time I wanna see neo-nazis, rocker-millionaires, and politicians instead of just cops and "gangsters") in a world that's just as expansive, but maybe a little more familiar. Florida, anybody?
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