All That and a Bag of Chips
User Rating: 9.5 | Grand Theft Auto IV X360
Whether you love it or hate it, there's no doubt that the GTA series has blossomed into a Blockbuster Power house in the video game market. Over the years we watched as GTA started as a look down on the city as if you were God, 2D crime/driving game. For GTA, GTA 2 and GTA London all stayed true to the looking down from the heavens feel. Then GTA 3 came and we got to try something we never would expected. With a great sound track, 3D graphics enhancement, and more interaction, GTA was a huge hit. Along came Vice City and Ray Liotta in probably the best GTA we've seen, with GTA Vice City. Still staying true to the 3D and formula of GTA 3, but throwing us into the 80s of a virtual Miami (Vice City) during the good ol' days! GTA San Andreas followed, and was a great game, but some people still will and say Vice City was the best. Now we have GTA 4, its next generation Graphics, expanded power in consoles have allowed us to take what we already love about GTA series, and blow it up to monstrous proportions. GTA 4 takes everything you love about any of the past games, Great Acting, Great Game play, Great Sound and Graphics, larger cities and more interaction with the cities (more enterable buildings), and of course a killer set of licks on the radio. It's hard to imagine this is better than any other past GTA, but it is. The story is great, the acting is phenomenal (and without a big name like Samuel L. Jackson or Ray Liotta), and the multiplayer is, well, phenomenal. You cannot help but not love the city, the change in Police is very good, and gets rid of the need to finding Cop Badges to lower you Wanted level, if you are a hell of a driver you can out run those cops and clear your wanted level, but beware, the more Po-Po you annoy, the larger the radius to get away becomes, making it harder to avoid finding new cops to reset the radius, and harder to get away without crashing, dyeing, or getting busted. GTA 4 is a great game, but its not for everyone. Plain and simple, little kids should not be playing this. Finding children online playing this puts gamers at risk to having some parent, who doesn't do their parental duties, of going a crusade and trying to have games like this banned. Had the parent done their job and not buy the game for their kid or, pay attention to the games their kids play, issues of mad parents can be avoided. Fans of the series will love this game, new comers will also enjoy it, plain and simple, this is the best in the series and is a shining example of delaying a game a few months, can be a good thing! Plain and simple: Masterpiece!
