Grand Theft Auto IV is amazing. Period. Exclamation point.
Smiley face.
Fans of the previous games in the series don’t need me to tell them
that. They’re all too busy playing the game already. For those of you
who are on the fence about the purchase (or somehow missed hearing
about one of the most notorious game franchises of all time), here’s a
quick primer for the latest edition: You play the role of Niko Bellic,
a Serbian immigrant hungry for a slice of the American Dream. Upon
arriving in America, you’re taken through a story that satirizes
America’s most beloved institutions, from Starbucks to American
Idol, while simultaneously telling a gripping crime story that’s as
good as Scarface. The world you inhabit is completely
open-ended—if you’d rather surf the net or race sports cars than
follow the plot, that’s an option. The end result of this design
choice? An immense amount of content that developer Rockstar North has
crammed onto the disc, and an all-too-easy way to lose yourself for 100
hours.
Prior entries in the GTA series weren’t entirely without
flaws. Chief among complaints was the game’s horrid aiming
system—a crucial function in a game so dependent on one’s ability
to shoot people. Thankfully, Rockstar’s taken this to heart and
completely overhauled the system, giving players the chance to choose
between automatic target lock-on and more precise analog stick
aiming.
Otherwise, the game plays almost exactly like its predecessors. Even
the city, a fictionalized New York known as Liberty City, is recycled
from 2001’s Grand Theft Auto III. Normally, this sort of
recycling would be an issue—but in IV, Liberty City has
been so graphically upgraded, expanded, and stuffed full of nuance that
even those who plumbed every nook of GTA III will find the
experience fresh, rewarding, and unique.