I know why GTA IV fails..

GTA IV fails because of 2 simple things.

Money!: during the game your trying to make money doing everything for money, getting loads of it after hard work, but wait?! what the hell we can do with it?

NOTHING just buy few cheap weapons and suits (and sex) oh! and a hotdog or nuts!, thats why your killing half of new york so you can buy Hotdogs!!

this is where GTA IV fails and for example "Scarface the game" was great, because they knew players will work for money and want to ENJOY with that paycheck, and buy tons of cool toys!

Power!: after you kill and do nausty things for the Mafia you would expect to gain some power in the world, maybe even have some goons to come with you (instead of dawyne goons) or even be able to get a mansion with bodyguards or somthing like that but no... your still a lowlife after killing dons and destroying half of the city..

Money & Power- thats where GTA IV fails those features are Must have in an Open-world crime game.

overall: GTA IV is a good action shooter game with some nice missions and great storyline but thats all i enjoyed Gta san andreas, mafia and scarface alot more!

I Hope Saint Row 2 will be much better hit by the way it looks..

I keep hearing about this great story in GTA IV and I have to say I don't see it. All I saw was repititive mission after repititive mission, most of which had already been done in previous GTA games and in Mafia (and done much better), just to find one guy to get revenge on. And don't even get me started on the endings, which makes you feel like you just wasted 30 hours. What you do in this game has NO effect on the ending except for your choice on the second to last mission, and that's just lazy game design.

I do, however, think that it is a technical marvel (despite the lack of optimization), but gameplay wise it is the biggest disappointment of the year

.... gameplay wise it is the biggest disappointment of the year

Zam

Ican't understand how people say bad things about GTA IV and this game got maximum rates at many sites.

Well, i bought it yesterday, and today i'm gonna give it a try, it can't be that bad, i still trust gamespot.

I blame all the cuss words :)

Plus its WAY WAY OVER-RATED!

GTA IV fails because of 2 simple things.

Money!: during the game your trying to make money doing everything for money, getting loads of it after hard work, but wait?! what the hell we can do with it?

NOTHING just buy few cheap weapons and suits (and sex) oh! and a hotdog or nuts!, thats why your killing half of new york so you can buy Hotdogs!!

this is where GTA IV fails and for example "Scarface the game" was great, because they knew players will work for money and want to ENJOY with that paycheck, and buy tons of cool toys!

Power!: after you kill and do nausty things for the Mafia you would expect to gain some power in the world, maybe even have some goons to come with you (instead of dawyne goons) or even be able to get a mansion with bodyguards or somthing like that but no... your still a lowlife after killing dons and destroying half of the city..

Money & Power- thats where GTA IV fails those features are Must have in an Open-world crime game.

kingeliran

agree with that. the story stagnates a bit half way through because despite your progress you are still nothing but an errand boy, you just happen to be running errands for more powerful people. you never get to splash your cash, you dont even buy your houses, you are given them. you may as well be paid in weapons vouchers and taxi fares as thats all you really spend my money on.

despite this i still really enjoyed it and its still one of my gotys. with a bit more attention to these areas it could have been something really special. as it stands vice city is still my favourite in the series

The only thing keeping Grand Theft Auto 4 from falling flat on its face is the Euphoria physics. The game would be absolutely NOTHING without them.GodLovesDead

It's actually a pretty decent story..i'm only about 10% into it, but, you can tell they really took time to develop the characters and perhaps that's what you're having issues with. A lot of movies, for example, when they do this, people consider it boring and etc..perhaps you expected too much Van Damm action.SinzOfTheFallen

Actually they don't really take advantage of strong characters established early in the game. After the initial few hours, characters like Roman are cast aside so you can do mundane missions for hours and hours and the game will occasionally go back those characters just to get the "story" going and obviously at the end to tie things together. But its not done in a satisfying manner.

i felt like an idiot driving from spot A to B over and over and over again...i did that the whole game in GTA: SA, i did the same in GTA3 and GTA:VC...and again in GTA4...its time to update the gameplay...and it got 10 scores everywhere omg ROCKSTAR paid for all reviews, it doesnt even have great graphics...CateArcherNOLF

even before coming to pc, GTA4 has already become one of the best rated AND best selling games ever created. i really don't think i need to say more. Jinroh_basic

That proves nothing. Crappy games have done that before, but time always wins. Myst anyone? Besides, most of GTAIV's sells came in the first week when all we had were grossly inaccurate reviews by people who couldn't imagine the game being anything less than 11 out of 10. One last thought, best selling games are often the best rated games, because there are many people who refuse to buy games that don't review well. Its the same with movies..if you only have X dollars to spend your going to try to use it on quality products. GTAIV's graphics alone should have lowered the score a bit. It was a blurry unoptimized mess. Most people who thought they were great were prob console only players who have no idea what kinda of crap they are being fed. I don't really blame Rockstar tho. The PS3 and 360 are drastically underpowered for what we were told they would do.

Its pretty obvious the original poster didn't get far into the game, because this game is so much better than its predecessors. The more I play the more I am convinced of that. It does start out a bit slow and repetitive, but it seems like this is to let you get a handle on how the controls etc work. But the new missions, the game play, it's head and shoulders above any of the other GTA games. I absolutely LOVE the bank job mission, one of my favorites and the first time I have any real cash in the game (my little ugly eastern European is getting dates now). Sorry but have to disagree with the OP, and I can see why this game easily scores a 9.0tkemory

The bank job mission was done better in Mafia IMO. Also, GTA IV stole many missions from Mafia including the church shootout, where you drive away in a car with cofin in the back (Which was so much better in Mafia).