Now that GTA V has been released to fabulous reviews (and earned $800 mil on Day One!!), I thought I'd go back and re-review its predecessor. Well, this isn't so much a review as much as brief look back. GTA IV was the most anticipated title of 2008. It was released during the same week of "Iron Man" and rumors were circulating that it would affect the grossess of Marvel's first fully-funded movie. It didn't. "Iron Man" went on to make about $100 million during its first weekend, while GTA IV earned about $300 million on its first day of release. The hype was huge. Rockstar's crime opus was a huge success on the PS2 and "San Andreas" had certainly raised the bar very high in terms of open-world adventure games. Not wanting to repeat themselves, the team at Rockstar North decided to focus on the quality of the story and characters and scale down the action and gameplay elements. When it was initially released, GTA IV was given extremely high reviews by journlists with even some critics claiming it the best in the series. It wasn't. Not by a long shot. In terms of story/character development and technological advances, the first series installment on the XBOX 360 and PS3 was a milestone. In terms of gameplay, not so much. In fact, it would be a fair assessment to say that GTA IV lacked what made the previous iterations so much fun.
Rockstar North's tale of Eastern European immigrant Niko Bellic was the company's first serious attempt at making an artistic, cinematic crime opus with much of the company's trademark satire in place. But the spoofing of Hollywood's crime movies was gone along with all of the over-the-top missions and extensive customization options featured in "San Andreas". Niko Bellic's story is easily one for the history books in terms of video game storytelling, but the gameplay could be downright boring at times. The game's first 20 + missions consist of mainly traveling rom one location to another and simply gunning down a few bad guys. While Liberty City of GTA IV is miles ahead of the GTA III version (in terms of graphics and A.I.), the gameplay (what matters most) had taken a major hit. Yes, the formula remained the same, but even GTA III had more variety in its open-world environment. One of the disappointments of GTA IV is that there doesn't seem to be much to do. The game limits the open-world to a few story missions at any given time. Stunt jumps are still hidden around the city, but "Vigilante" missions (activated by jacking a police car) can be boring and the "everyday" activities (bowling, eating, playing darts) also weren't very interesting.
GTA IV also featured horrible car physics. Maintaining a car's stability is much tougher than in previous games. And even Niko himself doesn't move as smoothly as let's say...the protagonist of "Assassin's Creed" (2007). Melee combat is slightly deeper than "San Andreas", but it's not very intuitive nor are the shooting mechanics. Controlling the cover system of GTA IV isn't as smooth as it should be. In fact, it's quite clunky and this was also a disappointment considering that "Gears of War" (2006) did it quite well.
Despite my negative overview of GTA IV, the game isn't really terrible. It just didn't live up to the hype. The fun factor was nowhere as high as it had been in previous games. However, Rockstar certainly knocked it out of the park in terms of story. That's where the 9 comes in. Niko Bellic is one of the great video game characters and his story is the best one featured in a GTA title. Both expansion packs ("Lost and the Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony") were improvement in terms of pacing, tone and action. "Gay Tony" was especially a throwback to the more over-the-top PS2 GTA games. GTA IV also featured a very memorable re-creation of Liberty City. The non-playable characters seem to be going about their lives giving the illusion that Liberty City is a living, breathing metropolis.
"Grand Theft Auto IV" is a very good title when it comes to art design, storytelling, voice acting and techological achievements. But the gameplay (while fun in spurts) doesn't live up to the series' standards. I never played the online portion extensively, but you don't really need to experience it. GTA IV is mainly exists as a single-player experience. The numerous modes (some better than others) available online was just a bonus and a nice one at that (it was seamless to log into).