I’m sure there are people out there that are hoping this blog is about news crews, or religious groups, or government agencies, or angry mothers attacking the game for being evil, dirty, violent, disparaging, or otherwise just plain bad. Or perhaps others are looking for this to be a post about the game being amazingly, awesomely, frighteningly great, perfect, terrible or whatever. This is not the blog you are looking for.
This is a blog about a technically awesome game. From that perspective I present information about a game that is graphically beautiful, technically amazing, and even has a pretty cool storyline so far. I own the version of the game for the XBox 360 so can’t speak of the PS3 version here. I don’t know how the versions are different or how they are the same and I can’t tell you that one is better or worse than the other.
As a developer I find loads of things about this game interesting that not too many others even notice. The first thing that jumped out at me was the cinematic opening story, but not that it was pretty or that the story was craftily fed to me right along side the credits for the game. Instead that once control was mine, there was no difference graphically. As some of us remember about Grand Theft Auto 3 for the PS2, the cut scenes were pre-rendered and had a style entirely different from the game itself. Once control was handed over to the player for the first time, the graphics kinda faded into a car on a bridge that very closely resembled the one we were just watching in the cut scene, but not quite. In GTA4 however, the cut scene ended at a car that I was sitting in and I waited for a shift in quality to indicate that it was my turn to play. It didn’t come. I pressed the gas, and to my surprise and joy, the “cut scene quality” car I was sitting in began to move under my control. It was nice to experience quality of game in the realm of cut scene quality.
Many reviewers of games in this series are quick to mention the “sandbox” style of play. This means any number of things to different people, but commonly it can be summarized as follows: the game can be played indefinitely without advancing the story and the world runs on its own without you. In GTA4 this effect has been maintained and I daresay improved. There are still loads of things to do (including bunches of mini-game style things to do with friends or even while on a date) and loads of things to not bother doing if you so desire. The world itself is far more “dense” than in previous incarnations of this series. Things are going on everywhere following their own rules. There are drug deals, and traffic jams, and random events of crime, and if you wander into the right places, there are even bowling games going on.
Graphics amaze me in general for many different reasons. Perhaps the game is doing something to make the graphics look way more amazing than the horse power of the system seems like it should be able to handle. Another possibility is that the system is being used to its maximum and the graphics are both great and are filled with nice little things that add polish. The worst case is of course when the system has loads of power and none of it is used, and that fact is pretty obvious. GTA4 is the one with polish.
The game is full of beauty. In some cases it’s the natural beauty of a sunset over the river, the amazing effect created by waves actually coming in at the beach, the streets getting shiny when it rains, or fog that wafts out of sewers. In other cases the content isn’t necessarily beautiful but the effect is. Walking the streets you occasionally see bits of leaves or garbage caught in a breeze, or someone walking by sends a text message to a friend, or a beaten up car that’s been abandoned has exploded with tremendous visual flare.
The story too is a fun one. Instead of a kid looking to make a name for himself in various crime circles like it was in GTA3, this game places you in the shoes of a Russian immigrant lured to the streets of America by a cousin that tells some very tall tales about how great life is. From the little I’ve played I’ve managed to learn that the main character has been a soldier in a war and has done things he’s not proud of, but that he honestly seems like a good guy over all. Trying to survive and carve out a place for himself in America places him in the path of crime in Liberty City, a place where crime is the norm.
Overall, I doubt I would rate the game as high up the rating scale as so many others do, but I do enjoy the game for many reasons and there is something to be said for the stress relief provided by stealing a cop car for the exclusive purpose of running down hookers and old ladies alike as they innocently wander the sidewalks of Liberty City. I think the game is both fun and visually appealing and grants the user an assortment of abilities to do things any good upstanding citizen would never, and should never, even think of doing in real life.