Enemy Down

Waiting to Get Lost

Re-live the GTA buzz with a look back at GTA4 in anticipation for 'The Lost & Damned'

Posted by Dekko on Feb 15th 2009 13:46

I am one of those people who sits on Grand Theft Auto and hardly completes a mission due to the endless hours spent trying to flip cars, stalking pedestrians, ransacking every Burger Shot in order or whatever other piece of random Liberty City madness flips its self over on the hot grill of my brain.

One such game I liked to play online was 'Motorcycle Gang' where the group of us would get a matching model of motorbike and cruise the mean streets looking for reasons to start shooting and it would appear that those sterling fellows at Rockstar North have had the same idea (or maybe a few have fled in terror from 'The Black Oyo' in Free Roam?).

The first expansion for GTA4 (360 exclusive remember) is due this Tuesday and after you've shelled out 1600 MS Points you play a biker named Johnny Klebitz with the bike 'club' known by all as 'The Lost', a group Nike Belic has had his share of run-ins with but now you'll be part of their world and an extra 250 gamerpoints will be your reward, as well as some fine game play.

So to commemorate this fine moment in gaming history I thought it might be cool to dig up my old review for GTA4 which was first published on the Xleague.tv site back on the games release.

Drive back the months in your mind and remember the anticipation which the hype drip slowly fed you before GTA4 was snuggled up amongst your games collection; how does the review stand up? Was it accurate or a pile of old turdy ramblings? Uhm probably best you don't answer that.

Anyway, here is the review & I hope to see you on those dirty Liberty City streets all next week riding your hog up and down Star Junction.

Adios.

Grand Theft Auto 4: The Review Heard Around the World

Well folks, here is a game you all would of played through and probably completed by now but we wanted to give you a review that was not rose tinted by the drugged up glare of a ‘good game finally being released’.

Some mags have described GTA4 as both ‘the game of the decade’ (wasn’t that Halo 3 as well?) and, get this, ‘the best game ever’! Now that is quite a boast.

OK, so first off, if there are any of you out there in t’internet land that have yet to sample the electronic giggery-pokery of Rockstar’s newest effort then hold back your wild horses of panic and fear not; GTA4 is good but it isn’t the ‘Great Gaming Hope’ like some lying games journalists/hacks would have you believe.

I am no hack! Stop laughing! SHUT UP! It’s true and that is why I want to give you a proper GTA4 interview.

Firstly, the thing which despite our claims of ‘game play first’ we always want to know about is the graphics, we’re all whores and you know you are too! Well, the visuals of this game as a whole are quite beautiful, the skylines look great and the sunsets are pretty and you’ll enjoy just driving around and being a part of the city.

That said though, the graphics aren’t as good as they could be, there is quite a bit of pop-up, the characters aren’t always well defined (like your first ‘copter ride with Brucie, his hand and the chopper’s joystick were merging, which is just sloppy animating and seeing things like that snap you out of the world that Rockstar have fought so hard to immerse you in) and things have a hazy look at points. It looks like GTA still, which after the claims of how realistic things were looking is a bit odd at first.

But again, this isn’t a problem when you’re playing really as, overall, the visual style and the odd bit of flair raises the game and you still love what you’re seeing.

Game play wise this is familiar GTA territory in some respects, many of the missions types are the usual drive to point A to collect a sack full of sombreros only to have to shoot it out with those darn amigos who also want the sombreros and then you make a speedy getaway. That’s your basic mission structure.

There are quite a few stand out missions but the ones you’ll remember the most are the ones which will drive you as close to the edge of murdering the cat as any computer game can push you. Two of these that spring to mind for me are the Elizabetha missions where you have to get the stash from the old hospital, all is well and good until you have to lose the cops and a 3 star wanted level; oh man!

I zigged and I zagged and I hid and I begged, I switched cars when the stars were grey, I fought to get to a Pay ‘n’ Spray but despite this little poem of woes those pesky psychic LCPD get knowing exactly who I was (despite the grey star, change car tactic) and when I’d be reaching the end of their search radius with those blessed grey stars another patrol car would suddenly appear on the road in front of me, buzzing like an angry wasp. Oh my, the wife was close to being pushed down the stairs that day.

Another mission that springs to mind is the first one for prison releasee Dwayne, it’s the most inconceivable bike chase since Keanu Reeves out ran a nuclear blast in ‘Chain Reaction’.

Niko dithers if you fall off the bike (which you will!) and by the time he’s finished running around the ‘cycle a few times (it’s a bike; you can get on either side for Christ’s sake!) the dude you’re pursuing has long since scarpered and you do not possess the LCPD’s psychic abilities, sadly. Oh how close the wife was to being punched time and again, in the face, while on that mission.

See, there is the true dark side of GTA; the rage from mission failure because of stupid controls or just plain bad luck. These two missions I’ve outlined may not even bother you, it may be a different lot but rest assured; there will be times when you’ll want to stab my wife with a pointed stick!

However (and this is the big however of the review, folks) bad you may be feeling at that lowest point, no matter how much you’ve cursed the developers for being brainless deodorant sniffers, no matter how many times you’ve beaten up your missus and kicked the cat and thrown the controller at a passing toddler you can rest assured that come tomorrow you’ll still be driving the streets of Liberty City and you’ll be happy there, you’ll feel good and you’ll be having fun.

For a GTA game the biggest surprise of 4 is its story; it’s good and the story alone makes you want to keep playing, the characters are better than mere clichés and cut-outs, they do have depth beneath the façade and they’ll be points where you actually care about these, well, these people as that’s almost what they are and I’ve found myself talking about them from Niko Belic’s point of view while I’m playing the game, saying such things as ‘I’m going bowling with my cousin’, little things ya see but I’ve never done it before and there in lies the genius of GTA, the immersion.

This game will be remembered as a benchmark for immersing players in a living world and I cannot wait to see where and what games come after GTA4 that will build upon this.

So, to sum up; the graphics are in turn beautiful and not the best thing you’ll see on either console but they’re never outright shoddy and with all the information that’s going on they do a good job. When you’re taking cover behind a car and peppering machine gun fire into a police cruiser and the windows, lights and wing mirrors are smashing and you’re leaving bullet holes in the body work then you know things are looking good.

Sound wise, well, I don’t reckon the radio stations are as good in this one as they were in Vice City or San Andreas, there seems to be a lack of memorable tunes. The humour is still there. The sounds of the streets are good though.

Game play, well its peaks and valley’s and your experience will be your own. Multiplayer shines but only when you’re with friends.

Overall this game is a work of genius, it is good but its many little flaws, while not ruining the game, do keep it from being ‘the best game ever’. I mean, the bloody target system was supposed to of been improved people! Yes the cover system is good (apart from when he sticks to the side of something when you want to stick to the back!) but the target lock and free-aim are annoying.

Target lock still doesn’t pick out the nearest threat but rather whoever it feels like, so you could have a dude 6 inches away and it’ll target someone 25 feet away, up in the roof! Come one! And free aim is badly named as its tricky to use and isn’t useful in a frantic gun fight, especially online if you’re fighting the police in ‘free roam’ with some friends, if one of them veers to close the lock on will automatically target then! Jeez-us! Many apologies will be said and given. But the fact you’ll be back despite this speak of the games quality.

So, that’s it & now to the score; a very deserving 8.9.

The fact I'm still playing GTA4 this amount of time after release shows that the game has got a firm back bone and the release of 'The Lost & DFamned' can only be GTA's magic shoes & we'll be run, Forest running for the months to come.

That's it, now I'm off to steal a bus and drive it through China Town covered in explosives.