fantastic to be back in liberty city....shame no-one can play with you...
Gameplay - fantastic, just like GTA3 but with better graphics and more stuff as well. the new cover system is a nice addition but i still find myself not using it if it doesnt call for it. the sixaxis is good but just annoying in certain situations (like controlling bikes with it is really hard). another addition that i enjoy is the climb functions. its great to run away from the cops over buildings and jumping off cranes.
Graphics - not what i'd call "best of year" graphics (that goes to dark sector for now) but its still a jaw dropper. shame about the lousy framerate at some points but what do you expect when its modelling the entire island?
only had a few loading points in the game and they were all because i skipped the small explanations and the biggest was about 1-2 seconds. its great.
Story- ive only done 15% of the game and ive come to enjoy playing Niko Bellic. is nice to play an eastern european in america rather than a butch american in america. and it also plays on the theme of people going over to a better life but with false hopes. and because ive only done 15% of the game i cant really comment on the total sotryline but i cant wait to play it again which is what games should all be about.
now for the grizzly bit, online.
i so far have not played a single game online because of the mysterious loading screens of death (havent had freezing so far) when signed in to PSN. and the so called "fix" that R* came out with is a load of tripe. dont work at all. lost about 5% of the game because of it. im just playing it offline until i can be garenteed that it will work. im not having another save file corrupted.
update - the online is working now so i can now review it. the online is great. the free mode just allows you to piss about or the missions (though there are only four) which are great. my only niggle is the ranking system. only gives you the rank up in one session then deletes your progress when you exit the game. when that gets fixed then i will be fully happy with the game. still a 9.5 until that fix though.
Overall - a great game offline, worthy of its 10 score but for me the degraded online pulls it down to a 9.8 but theres no option for that so ill go for 9.5 instead.