On the Subject of GTA4

Maria Ozawa

I know I'm very late to the GTA4 party. In addition, I haven't played a single GTA since the very first, top-down version. That was fun enough, but I suspect I fell victim to media hyperbole with respect to the sequels. Not in the way the scaremongering media idiots would prefer, I suspect, but simply because I began to suspect Rockstar were becoming increasingly, needlessly controversial when it came to designing the GTA games in an attempt to sell games by way of controversy rather than quality.

Still, at $7.49 (I think) in the massive christmas Steam sale, I thought "why not?". Based almost entirely on forum feedback, I anticipated the game being a particularly poorly-performing port of the console version. And of course my expectations of the gameplay were no greater.

Another aspect I was aware of in advance was the ludicrous amount of hoops you initially have to jump through to get the fucking game started. Signing up to the Rockstar "Social Club" stupid online shit, then digging out my old MS GFW Live login from whatever piece of shit game originally required me to sign up for that, and then linking the accounts, and then logging into both just to get to the main game menu. Admittedly it's only really a hassle once, but bearing in mind that you're also running this from Steam itself if that's where you bought it, it really is quite unnecessary.

But as I said I was ready for that, so it didn't come as a surprise. What did surprise me was the actual quality of the game. For a "shitty console port" it seems to me that it runs pretty damn well, especially given the seamless scale of the city. I do experience a lot of flickering shadows, particularly in some indoor environments, but outside of that I really haven't had any technical issues. Not a single crash to date, despite some extended play sessions. Maybe the patches have improved the game, of course I can't tell.

More importantly though, I am impressed with the attention to detail and richness of the game itself. As far as story and missions go it's nothing mind-blowing, and the voice acting is very much on the cartoony side, but there's a great deal of warmth and humour, nods to various movies and some surprisingly subtle mocap acting which often adds more to the performance than the generic dialogue.

I have a soft-spot for big sandbox game worlds, and GTA's Liberty City is very impressive. From the more obvious touches like day/night cycles and the ever-popular steaming manhole covers, there's a decent weather system and a very good sense of a world going about its business. The city's civvies have a large library of behaviours and animations, there are all sorts of street vendors (and walkers), ambulances turn up when you beat someone senseless. On the first mission involving a helicopter I more or less ignored the mission objective and simply went on an extended aerial tour of the city, which is even more impressive seen from above in its entirety.

Of course there's the "controversial" stuff. Whether it's lap-dancing or street corner whores, a multitude of drug-addled storyline characters or the inevitable carnage, there's plenty to keep Fox news on their high horse. What Fox neglect to report is that there's plenty of "context" to the life of crime. Niko experiences plenty of introspection and a fair amount of humour, albeit before ultimately embarking on another killing spree. But the point is there is some depth to the game, it's not simply a teenagers' guide to carjacking and murder. That's what I wasn't expecting, and it was nice surprise.

I expected the game to be very gamepad-friendly, and it is, although it does a good job of not only supporting keyboard/mouse, but also switching between that and a pad on demand. Which is useful, because the firefights are much, much easier (for me) with KB/M, but I prefer driving on the pad, so I switch as necessary and it works very well.

So, much as I enjoy imagining Rockstar as being a bunch of mindless thug idiots, I have to admit I've been enjoying GTA4. I'm not finished with it yet, but I suspect I'm nearing the end. It does suffer from some repetition, but there are some more substantial missions spread out amongst the endless assassinations and car chases. The game also keeps coming up with new features as you progress, like a camera phone for spy missions, or the helicopter, or the various "loyalty" abilities (as I call them since playing ME2) of your friends.