Generally Frustrating gameplay detracts from the overall extremely high quality of this pretentious sandbox game
From the get go it is entirely clear that a lot of time, love, and care has gone into the creation of GTAIV, everything about the game just screams quality. The cut-scenes, writing, story, character development and unparalleled bit-city feeling all come together to create what should have been one of the greatest games of the last decade. The story is captivating, the characters are likable (or unlikable, if the game wishes); you don't play as Niko Bellic in Liberty City, you live as Niko Bellic in Liberty City. You socialize as him, you work as him, you eat, drink, and relax as him. There are so manly little details that go into making the game great that it is simply heartbreaking to think that the underlying mission mechanics are the most frustrating I have ever seen.
There are no single major flaws that make the game a chore to play, instead a whole bunch of little problems all accumulate to create some of the most irritating, blood curdling, keyboard-smashing moments i have ever experience in all my years of gaming. At first I only thought it was because of two main problems, but now i realize there is a web of problems that cause such grief. First off, there are no checkpoints within missions, meaning failing one means starting all over. but its worse than that; when you die you don't load a checkpoint at the beginning of the mission, but rather you are revived at a hospital and given a message on your cellphone asking if you want to try again. The only problem with this is when you are revived, any ammo or body armor you used during the mission will be gone, and seeing as how the missions are fairly difficult, you will want body armor at the start of each one. Because of this, i found myself reloading my last save and starting at my safe house instead of restarting the mission after being revived at the hospital.
Because of this, you will want to get through a mission on the first try, but the game makes them very difficult most of the time, and will often pull a dick move by slapping a wanted level onto your ass at the end of a mission even if you are clearly out of range of the cops. In one rather difficult mission which required chasing a man through an apartment building onto the roof, i killed him in a spot in which it was totally impossible for anyone to see me, but the game decided to slap on a 3 star wanted level which i had to get rid of. If you are busted, all your weapons will be taken from you, which means another load back at the safehouse.
The gunplay and combat is excellent; the ragdolls are probably the best i've ever seen, but you will lose health very quickly, and since there is no regenerating health, which means you will die a lot, at which point you will be sent to the hospital and will have to load your last save game. After about the 25% point in the game, i found myself having to repeat almost every single mission, and needless to say it became very frustrating. i stuck it through to about the 60% point, when i simply gave up. Playing GTAIV had gone from being fun to being a chore.
I know these gameplay mechanics are supposedly classic GTA ones, but if they suck, why put up with them? I found myself having much more fun playing Saints Row 2, even though the story is not as interesting and gunplay not as tight. GTAIV does have one of the best physics engines i've ever seen, the driving feels excellent and very realistic, and bodies have weight. The character animations are generally spectacular, and the game looks pretty good for the most part, but a lack of any form of AA makes things look pretty darn blocky. the sound effects are excellent, as are the facial animations; all this could have added up to create an very immersive game, but the fact that your always dying and reloading means your constantly being reminded your just playing a game.
Its a terrible shame GTAIV is as difficult as it is, it could have been very fun, but every time i felt i was getting into the game, i'd get stuck at another mission, and having to repeat a mission 5 times over really helps suck all the fun out of it. I'm probably going to stoop to the level of using cheats eventually, because i would like to finish the game, but overall i am sorely disappointed with GTAIV; it will not be entering my top games of 2008.