GTA IV

I’ve been meaning to blog about GTA IV for a couple of day now, but have been to busy. Even now, I just thought I’d jot down a few things…

First off…This is GTA through and through, there is no revolution here, the structure, gameplay and style is still very similar to GTA3. For anyone who didn’t like the previous games, they sure as hell won’t like this.

What GTA IV does is blind you with details. No other game out there has had so much crammed into it, this has the effect of bringing Liberty City to life, which is simply fantastic. You can waste a huge amount of time just cruising around, or watching TV in your apartment or browsing the internet. The attention to detail in the game is great, but this can only be appreciated more and more as you play the game.

I’ve noticed that GTA IV has been getting a slew of 10/10 review scores, and whilst this is great, I think that the game is being overhyped a little as the second coming. It isn’t, it has a ton a faults, but at the same time these can be easily ignored so long as you are enjoying the game. As started above, it isn’t a revolution, but more of an evolution to the series, but all the same, great fun.

I’ll give you two examples of things that I did last night.

1) Whilst leaving the internet café TW@ I bumped into a woman carrying a paper mug of coffee. She stumbled and dropped the mug to the ground. After mouthing off at me she started to walk away. As such, I picked up the mug of coffee from the pavement and proceeded to throw it at her. Hitting her directly on the back of the head and sending her sprawling on the floor. Unfortunately this annoyed a nearby policeman, and I was forced to make a quick exit from the scene.

2) My cousin phoned me and asked me if I wanted to have a game of bowling. I proceeded to steal a motorbike and picked him up. We rode to the bowling ally and enjoyed a few games, then on the way home we stopped off at a bar.

Before going into the bar he mentioned how the bar always reminded him of a colleague that we’d previously knew, who had died recently.

When we left the bar we were both utterly drunk and were stumbling all over the road. My vision was a mess and I could barely see where I was walking, but I managed to make my way back to my stolen bike, and my cousin also jumped on the back. Unfortunately a police car was passing at this point and saw us in this drunken state starting up the motorbike. Suddenly sirens started as the car began to give chase. I rode through the city, barely able to see where I was going, with my vision jumping around like I was on a cruise ship in a typhoon, whilst trying to evade the police.

I somehow found myself in a park and my cousin in his drunken state was babbling on about his childhood and really starting to annoy me, but somehow I manage to avoid the police. As such, I turned around and headed back to my cousins business premises to drop him off. On the way home (my vision still a mess), we crashed into a truck and went flying off the bike. We both laughed it off and got back onto the bike, ignoring the truckers shouts of protest and I dropped him to his business.

Just before getting home, I stopped off at a hot dog stand and grabbed a snack, before turning in for the night to sleep off my hangover.

It has to be said that both of the above were not missions in the game, just things that happened during the course of normal play. It is for this reason that GTA IV is a fantastic game.