GTAIV is a game that every fan of video game storytelling--hell, good story-telling in general--owe themselves to play.
What I received was the best story to be ever told in a video game.
In Grand Theft Auto IV you are Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immigrant coming to Liberty City to live out the "American Dream" with your cousin, Roman. Prior to your trip across the Atlantic, Roman talked of mansions, sports cars and beautiful women–when you reach him, you realize that it was all a farce and he lives in a dump, just scrapping by in the city. With no real skills other than dealing in death, Niko is forced into the seedy underground of filling jobs for crooked cops, mafia thugs, and gangsters to get by, all the while searching for demons in his past.
Saying anything else past that would be unfair to anyone out there that hasn't played the game. What I will say, however, is that GTAIV tasks you with deciding on complex moral decisions throughout the game that will force you to put down the controller and weigh the pros and cons of the decisions you will have to make. By the end of the storyline it will feel like all the things happened to you, not Niko. The decisions you make are things you have to live with after you've completed the game. I was constantly thinking "what-if I did this instead of that, what would have happened?" There is a trend in gaming that have you making these moral choices (BioShock, Mass Effect) and Grand Theft Auto IV easily takes the top spot in that regard. I was shaken to my core by the choices I was forced to make.
This is thanks to terrific character development, character design and how the story is impressed upon the player. If you wanted to, you could purely play the missions in the game and still be thoroughly enamored with the storyline. However, throughout the game you'll have the opportunity to cultivate the relationships you have forged with the characters you meet along the way, allowing you to take these friends out to eat, bowl, bars, strip clubs, among other things. It is not the actual act of going to these events that make them worthwhile, it is on the way to the bar or bowling alley and on the way back that their true value is unlocked. While you are in the car with these characters, the conversations you have with them will unlock tiny nuggets of information; back story that you would not receive otherwise. Also, if you get these characters to like you well enough, it will unlock perks in the game that prove useful: Helicopter rides, free cab service, buying guns and armor for reduced prices, and more.
One of the reasons the game's story succeeds is because of some sharply written dialogue and unbelievable voice acting. Bruce Kronenberg, the voice of Niko, stole the show in a game full of extremely well-voiced actors. He captured the emotion of the moment on every occasion, without fail. Dan Houser, the writer for the game, deserves all the praise that could be showered upon him for this landmark accomplishment in video game writing. He managed to write human characters in a video game, something that is a rarity in our industry.
Gameplay wise, things seems somewhat similar to past Grand Theft games. There are some new additions to make things a bit easier to progress through the game and a lot less unwieldy. Shooting has been over-hauled from past games, allowing you to take cover behind walls, cement blocks, etc., as well as blind fire. There is a free-aim option to shooting as well as an auto-lock on feature, and I primarily stuck to the auto-lock on. It was fairly easy to take down the enemies with it and there is no need to complicate things. The addition of the cell phone was key to the design and helped things from getting too frustrating. If you fail a mission, you will receive a text message that allows you to quickly jump back into the mission, without having to drive back to the person that gave you the job.
The game still has its moments of challenge though, mostly with missions where you had to chase targets. I would take a wrong turn or crash into something, allowing them to get away. The shoot-out sections had their moments early on, but as you get deeper in the game, you'll grow more and more accustomed to how things work in those situations, negating most of the challenge.
The mission structure can, at times, illicit a "here we go again" feeling, as the variety is lacking at certain points in the game. Yet, whenever you get these thoughts, the game will throw you an amazing mission that will grab you with either its story significance or its enthralling setting/premise.
Graphically, the game looks phenomenal when measured in scale and in scope. Getting in a helicopter and flying around the city, you can't help but marvel at the sheer size. You'll note the glistening water in the sunset and the lights of cars and bridges at night. To be sure, you can find better looking games out there when it comes to very finite details, but nothing else matches GTAIV's size and scope.
There are so many other things to say about the game, but there is no reason to drone on about every single little thing that GTAIV offers. I've put 42 hours into the game, completing just one of the two endings. I have achievements to get, more side missions to do, and a lot of multiplayer to dig my teeth into. Even if those extras weren't included, this still would be a phenomenal, once in a lifetime experience. One that every fan of video games, every fan of video game storytelling–hell, a fan of a good storytelling in general–owes themselves the privilege of checking out for themselves.