Review: Grand Theft Auto IV

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been a bit off the grid these past few months, picking through disarrayed bits of my post-graduate-school-life and trying to rebuild something resembling a normal, healthy human being. Of course, what better way to get with the times than by reviewing a game that’s more than three years old? This week I’ll be reviewing Grand Theft Auto IV, which is actually something like the eighth or ninth title in the franchise. (Apparently Rockstar Games has decided to take their sequel-counting conventions from Square Enix, makers of the upcoming title Final Fantasy XIII-2(a), Part 3, Paragraph 5.)

Design: 5⁄5

After making the genre of sandbox games their bitch with their breakout title Grand Theft Auto III on the PlayStation 2, Rockstar has consistently refused to mess with a good thing. Thus, the basic structure of GTA4 is identical to previous games. As protagonist Niko Bellic (a swarthy ex-military Serb with a receding hairline), first you complete a mission, then you run around in a giant city doing whatever the hell you want with little-to-no consequences until you get bored, and then you advance the story by doing another mission. In this game, your playground is once again Liberty City, although it has evolved from the generic metropolis of earlier GTA games into a full-blown parody of New York City, replete with the Rotterdam Tower (modeled after the Empire State Building) and the “Statue of Happiness”.

I don’t know if it’s the accent, the hair, or the sociopathic tendencies, but the ladies sure seem to love this guy.

The thing that impressed me the most about this game is the same thing that blew me away the first time I saw GTA3, namely the sheer size and scope of the environment. Liberty City is absolutely massive, and you can zip around all four major islands without having to sit through a single loading screen. Furthermore, while you’re tearing around the city you’ll run into (and over) a surprising number of NPC’s, each exhibiting some fairly sophisticated artificial intelligence. (They still largely suck at driving, though.)

In fact, if I had to pick a design flaw in this game, I’d have to say it’s the total lack of mission checkpoints. A few of the missions are quite long and challenging, and nearly all of them start with a long drive accompanied by expository NPC dialogue. That means after the second or third time attempting a mission, you’re about ready to shove whatever chatty derelict is in your passenger seat right into oncoming traffic.

Artistic: 5⁄5

For a game that’s aged three years by the time I’ve written this, it still looks amazing. From its dark, gritty slums to its bright, vibrant tourist spots, Liberty City really does look and feel alive. To get the full effect, make sure you take a helicopter ride at some point.

Liberty City looks so real, you can practically smell the urine right through your TV.

Of course, you can’t spell Grand Theft Auto without “auto”, and this game features a nearly overwhelming selection of makes, models, colors, and styles, ripe for the taking and rendered in exquisite detail. Steal a car and smash it up, get it dirty and then take it to a car wash, get it fixed and then drive it off a pier... it all looks great.

Narrative: 3⁄5

Rockstar really tries to work a story into this game, and I respect that. Unfortunately, when it comes to the sandbox genre, a cohesive plot and player freedom are almost always at cross-purposes.

“Air traffic control” is just one of Niko’s many areas of expertise.

For example, no matter how dark and troubled Niko’s past, I can’t imagine how it could be bad enough to reasonably excuse his carefree attitude toward vehicular manslaughter (which constitutes the majority of how he spends his time, at least when I’m controlling him). Maybe the moral nuances of the plot would have been more compelling if I had engaged in less wanton, senseless violence in between missions... but honestly, asking me to show restraint while playing a GTA game would be like asking me to count calories at an all-you-can-eat bacon buffet. It’s just cruel.

Gameplay: 4⁄5

On the surface, one would think I had fun playing this game... however, the truth is that after the first 10 hours or so, I honestly started to think, “You know, this isn't as much fun as I thought it was.” (Believe me, I was as surprised as you are.) I can think of a few possible reasons for this phenomenon:

1. The lack of checkpoints, which made some of the missions (including the final one) extremely frustrating.
2. The sheer size of the city. Liberty is so big that to drive anywhere takes quite a while, and so by the end of the game, I was pretty much just taking taxicabs everwhere to fast travel. Maybe GTA isn’t as much fun without the “A”.
3. One ill-conceived achievement, which rewards you for completing the story missions in less than 30 hours. Why someone would reward you speeding through a sandbox game is beyond me, but what’s worse is that I still tore through the last third of the missions to make sure that I got it. Anyone who’s read this post knows I can't resist an achievement, no matter how much it ruins my gameplay experience.
4. Perhaps prolonged exposure to ultra-violence actually started to bother me on some sort of psychological level. This explanation seems the least likely.

Regardless, there was something not quite right about this game for me, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. (I suppose there’s nothing more pointless than a critic saying he doesn’t like something, but doesn’t know why.)

Summary

GTA4 may have made some amazing technical strides, for the most part it plays like any other modern Grand Theft Auto game. If you’re in the mood for engaging in another title from that fine pedigree, GTA4 should be more than worth your time.

Hiatus

With this post, I’m officially returning from a four-month hiatus. It’s been a whirlwind summer so far, including but not limited to major life events such as thesis defenses, graduations, new jobs, and pregnancies. (You know, it’s apt that the word “hiatus” comes from the Latin word for yawning, because my hiatus has not involved very much sleep.)

Regardless, I’m back now. In fact, I’m so back that I’m making the following pledge: from this point forward, there will be a new blog post every Tuesday and a new game review every Thursday.

Now, you may doubt me (and given my track record, you’d be justified). However, I’m very serious about this. New posts. Every Tuesday. Every Thursday. Even holidays. For example, I’m told Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday this year... who knows, maybe I’ll be so filled with the holiday spirit of slaughtering turkeys that I’ll end up playing this game.

I’m just kidding, of course. If I’m playing anything around Thanksgiving, it will be The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Saints Row: The Third. I assume the choice will depend on whether the tension of spending time with family is better eased by murdering dragons or hookers.

On second thought, why do I have to choose? Maybe this year I’ll need both.

The Best Hangover Cure

As should be obvious from the date of my last post, my blog has been on a bit of a break while I finish up my Ph.D. degree. However, I hit a major milestone this past weekend when I turned in a nearly final draft of my thesis to my committee. After doing a bit too much celebrating on Sunday night, I nursed a brutal hangover on Monday using an old family remedy: fluids, aspirin, and the Gears of War 3 beta.

My initial reactions are pretty positive. As one might expect, not much of the game is fundamentally different from its predecessors. I was able to jump in and play as though I’d never left, like these months of pretending to love Black Ops were just a bad dream. It seems like they refined the button overloading a little bit; for example, you now have to hold buttons down to do certain things, which reduces the chances of your character absently rifling through an ammo crate when you want him to be assisting a dying teammate instead.

Also, there appear to be two new default weapons. The first was a “Retro Lancer” which has a bayonet instead of a chainsaw. I think the balance here is a faster instant-kill melee, at the cost of a lower shooting accuracy. Instead of your standard Gnasher, there is now the alternative of a sawed-off shotgun, which can instantly turn anything into a pile of bloody chum, but can only do so one shell at a time.

You must get a tax break if you include a mall as one of your multiplayer maps, because it seems to be all the rage these days.

A few other new weapons I found scattered about were an incendiary grenade and a “Digger Launcher”. The latter adds a nice twist to the cover-based combat, as it can burrow under walls to explode an enemy hiding on the other side.  If you have a terrible sense of direction like me, then you’ll be pleased to see that the loading screen includes a map of the current multiplayer level, complete with locations of where to find these precious toys. Just don’t expect to be the only one making a beeline for the nearest Mulcher.

Although not much has changed on the surface, that doesn’t mean that a lot of new work hasn’t gone into the game. I get the impression that designing a good multiplayer experience is kind of a thankless job, as people only notice when something is unbalanced, such as when a map is poorly designed or a particular weapon is too powerful. Though things look good right now, it will take some time to see whether Gears of War 3 gets it just right.  Of course, that’s why they have these beta tests… and if it means I don’t have to wait until the fall to get my Gears on, then I’m certainly happy to help.

Review: Bulletstorm

In the supper of video gaming, first-person shooters are the red meat: bloody, delicious, and unlikely to be dethroned as our dominant form of sustenance, no matter how many heart attacks they cause. Our latest helping of hamburger is Bulletstorm, an FPS from People Can Fly (makers of Painkiller) and Epic Games (of Gears of War fame). Following the adventures of Grayson Hunt—a former military assassin turned space pirate and part-time Christian Slater impersonator—Bulletstorm invites you the abandoned resort city of Elysium, where you get to carve a brutal, limb-strewn swath through waves of mutants as you “kill with skill”.

Review: Stacking

Stacking is the latest adventure from the developers at Double Fine, makers of Psychonauts and Brütal Legend. Available as a XBLA and PSN downloadable title, Stacking is a puzzle adventure set in a quirky Industrial-Age world inhabited entirely by Russian nesting dolls. As Charlie Blackmore—a child laborer and apparently the smallest denizen of this bizarre universe—the player solves puzzles by possessing larger dolls and using their abilities. In the interest of dispensing with any obvious off-color jokes as quickly as possible, let me add that this is a great game concept for anyone who enjoys being inside several people at once.