Well, now I feel empty.

GTA IV is a game I've struggled with for a long time. I've been playing it on and off for almost 3 years now, and today I finally finished it. (I got my least favourite ending, sadly.)

The story in this game is an obvious 10/10. I haven't played many games that tell a story this meaningful so well. However, the game design can be very frustrating at times. Bad AI, no checkpoints, mediocre driving...they don't ruin the experience, but they make it significantly worse.

It's still a great game despite its many flaws, and I would recommend it to just about anyone. I mean, it even made me cry a bit. Overall, GTA IV is a phenomenal game, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

The thing about conspiracy theories and perhaps most ideologies is that, while the broad outline is inarguable, the actual specific details tend to vary from person to person. ‘Flat earth’, for instance, can be anything from ‘the earth is flat and this is being concealed from us’ to ‘the earth is flat so that, when the rapture comes, God can put all the sinners on one side and throw them off the planet’. The commonly accepted tenets among believers are thus nearly impossible to meaningfully categorise.

And… In my time with GTA4 over the years, ever since it came out, I’ve come to realise that the game posits the ‘American Dream’ itself as a conspiracy theory, with both the same general failings and the net negative effect it has on almost everyone.

Before I really get into this, I need to lay my cards on the table:

I fucking hate the GTA series. Ever since I was exposed to it (against my will, by a friend who thought it was the best shit ever made), I’ve seen it as nothing more than South Park for people who have panic attacks when they’re forced to think about something.
My opinion has only plummeted as time passes, with each replay of the PS2 games or GTAV crushing my already abyssal opinion even further into.
Not helping this is that the last ten years of GTA have simply been GTAV, whereas in 2013 the last ten years of GTA had been a whole bevy of entries and spinoffs. Granted, most of them were bad, but still. GTAV is my least favourite GTA, and perhaps one of my least favourite games of all time. Its supersaturation is exhausting.

But I’ve never applied any of this to GTA4, a game I view as not only the best GTA but perhaps one of the best stories/worlds ever realised in the medium.

A pretty significant part of why I give GTA4 a pass is down to the level of self-awareness it has. Previous (and future.) GTA protagonists had a tendency to come across as robotic, amoral psychopaths with no character consistency and a pretty significant disconnect between gameplay and narrative.
GTA4, meanwhile, portrays its characters as psychopaths on purpose. It’s the entire point; these people are assholes. It’s a welcome relief from GTA5, but I can’t really get into why this early in the review.

You may have heard, in the past, people decrying GTA 4 as the odd one out or even ‘the bad one’ and I feel it’s important to understand why.

This game opens with a broad, faceless Scottish man getting whipped while screaming ‘DADDY’S BACK YOU BITCHES’ several times. As opposed to immediately setting up a plot hook, a big bad or anything of the sort, GTA4 simply features Niko pulling into Liberty City, meeting his alcoholic brother and doing his best to make ends meet. It maintains this slow, grounded pace for the entire runtime up until the credits roll.

And… people didn’t like it! GTA fans specifically hated it. That ‘daddy’s back’ declaration in the intro was because the game took 4 years to come out. Which, in the 00s, was basically an eternity. They wanted another San Andreas - a content-rich, needlessly bloated long game headed by a poorly written psychopath - and instead they got what’s essentially The Sopranos in videogame form. This is primarily why GTAV is Like That and why GTA4 tends to be forgotten.

It’s hard to actually blame Rockstar for this swerve, though. Their intentions were pure: Assuming that GTA fans really loved the social satire and the madness of their protagonists, Rockstar developed a game where the critique of America is at the forefront and the narrative actually focuses on why the main character is like that.
Unfortunately for them, however, the humans behind GTA evidently changed their tune between San Andreas and GTA4 whether they were aware of it or not. At some point, America ceased to be funny to them and started being horrifying. It really, really, really shows.

GTA4 opens up with Niko’s arrival in Liberty City and almost immediately the game sets its tone. Roman - his cousin - arrives drunk off his ass in a shitty little car, the radio is playing Ukranian pop music and all around you is just… absolute fucking poverty. Roman’s taxi business is a cheap converted warehouse, people live under rail bridges, the nearby amusement park is completely abandoned and shit dude even the nearby park looks like ass.

What really strikes me, though, is that for all the talk of ‘a new life’ in America the game actually makes it clear that the first area is nothing of the sort.

In the story, it takes several hours for named characters with typical ‘American’ accents to actually appear. Till then, it’s primarily Serbians, Albanians, Jamaicans, Russians, Puerto Ricans and others scattered around. Outside of the story, the vast majority of pedestrians you encounter are ostensibly foreigners. As opposed to creating an alien atmosphere, Broker is rife with familiarity for Niko. So much so that his declaration of ‘I swore I wouldn’t kill anybody here’ rings hollow regardless of the player’s actions up until that point.

In this overly familiar world, Niko succumbs to fatalism and returns to bad habits like so many other characters you meet going forward. Fatalism runs through this game like a fault line, and a very early line sums it up perfectly;

“We can pick the game, but we cannot change the rules.”

GTA4’s cast is mostly people who’ve succumbed to this fatalism… Except Roman.

I often run into people who decry GTA4 as overtly cynical and pessimistic. It’s not difficult to see why, but I’d honestly argue that GTA4 is a relatively realistic-leaning-optimistic title and Roman exemplifies this tenfold. Despite having experienced the same horrific Yugoslav Wars in Serbia that his cousin did, Roman is a relatively optimistic man who takes the events of the game in stride despite the odd breakdown. He saw all the horrors, moved to America and actually accomplished the surprisingly difficult goal of establishing a business and owning a home.
Roman has a presence throughout the entire game, and serves as a fantastic foil to the relatively cynical Niko who constantly sees the worst in every situation. It’s telling that the ending in which he dies is almost universally considered to be the worst ending. I also hold a special fondness for his repeated calls to go bowling/play pool/etc. I didn’t realise it in my youth, but his and other friends’ calls serve as excellent stopgaps in a story that can kind of rush ahead at times.

Looping back to what I said at the start though, this game’s approach to the ‘American Dream’ is distinctly ahead of its time. It came out in 2007, when Call of Duty 4 had made imperialism mainstream again and American jingoism was still surging. This was a point in time where even games not set in the ‘modern day’ were rife with it - it’s omnipresent in Mass Effect, for instance, and still there in Gears of War. GTA4’s stance of ‘America fucking sucks’ isn’t revolutionary, but it is notable considering it’s peerage.

Unlike a lot of its themes, this one isn’t subtext. Early on ‘American greed’ is explicitly referred to as an infectious disease and it’s reiterated several times over. One of Niko’s first and most defining lines is “Capitalism is a dirty business”, which is pretty impressive given how ‘capitalism’ has become a no-no word in AAA gaming and its equivalents in other mediums. Can’t bite the hand that feeds, after all.

As for the American Dream itself, GTA4 treats it as a conspiracy theory. Several characters buy into it, most notably Roman, yet none of them can agree on a core definition. For the actual Americans, it mostly means some acquisition of status or wealth which is considered deserved due to their efforts. For the immigrants, it’s a mix between a fresh start and a relief from either past horrors or past crimes.

For Niko’s it’s all of the above.

He accomplishes none of these.

The last line spoken in GTA4 discounting phone calls is:

“So this is what the Dream feels like. This is the victory we longed for.”

There’s no definitive answer to what GTA4 thinks the Dream is, only that it’s considered abominable.

Moving on for a bit, what struck me the most during my replay is how well this game has aged. Barring some off-colour jokes about trans people and an oil baron being treated as a good person, there’s nothing particularly eyebrow raising or even just painfully dated. The humor is still funny, sharing much of its comedic DNA with something like Always Sunny, and despite the muddy models/texture I’d say Liberty City is still beautiful. A combination of great lighting and ambience only helps.

And the story, man the story… Easily one of the greatest crime fiction stories ever told.

At its core, GTA4 asks one really simple question: “What kind of person would you have to be in order to do the things most GTA protagonists did?”. Unlike its immediate successor, it doesn’t glorify any of these people. There are no attempts to make rapists likeable, antisemites/homophobes are universally awful people with no exceptions, and those obsessed with wealth are at best portrayed as sad souls flying too close to the sun. At worst they’re rightfully portrayed as selfish vain pricks who believe they’re owed the world.
As opposed to being about an event or what have you, GTA4 is an exploration of one man’s conscience and his experience with a world that’s paradoxically alien and familiar.

Well, not just his.

The friend system in GTA4 is much-maligned by more mainstream audiences, but even in 2008 I considered it an excellent system that only adds to the world and cast. As I said up above, they help pace the story especially from the midpoint onwards, and the dialogues Niko has with them tackle some subject matter that AAA games just completely shy away from even when they’re being ‘dark’.

Dwayne’s friendship chats dig deep into existentialism, suicidal despair, and other aspects of depression that are painfully salient in the 2020s amidst a growing loneliness epidemic. At one point, Dwayne muses that years of hardening himself to misery only left him unable to care, and that he’s struggling to remember how to care about anything outside of prison.

Packie meanwhile digs into the concept of being closeted, the pressures of toxic masculinity and how awareness of them doesn’t lessen them, and the double consciousness suffered by Irish-Americans who were born in America yet raised in an Irish Catholic upbringing. For a 2008 game, the treatment of queer people is surprisingly gentle and respectful and Packie’s self-questioning is approached with unexpected seriousness.

I realise now that it’s… very, very difficult to talk about GTA4’s story without spoiling it. Instead, I’ll just talk about the last act.

After hours of befriending people, working as a hitman/chauffeur and swapping out employers like they were a tarot deck, Niko is given two subsequent choices.

The first choice is, to be vague, a decision about whether or not to hold onto his previous identity, his life and trauma from Serbia. If you refuse, Niko and the rest of the cast state that it’s pretty unequivocally a good thing. If you accept… Well, TVTropes might suck but it rightfully lists GTA4 as the progenitor of ‘Vengeance Feels Empty’. Niko finds no catharsis in clinging to his old life, admits that he feels nothing, and while he’s not condemned by anyone it’s pretty clear that they don’t approve. Most tellingly, though; regardless of choice, Niko turns off the radio. Such a small thing, but it’s an impactful use of removing player control.
That said, refusing is very clearly the choice the developers want you to pick.

The second choice is essentially Niko being asked how he feels about his life in America. He can either chase the Dream, at which point NPCs mock him for being so stupid, or he can protect the people he cares about. Again, this choice is clearly weighted in favour of the latter (as the former costs you a vital gameplay feature), but what strikes me is how bitter the ending of the former is.
Niko greets the antagonist with ‘Welcome to America’ before putting an end to him. In essence, Niko gives himself over to the American Virus. It is fantastically grim, and only compounds how much the story nudges you to pick the latter choice.

But… I’ve done nothing but sing GTA4’s praises for the last 2000~ words. I unfortunately have to talk about the mission design.
When GTA4 came out, almost everything was decidedly ahead of its time. Other AAA games wouldn’t even try replicating the depth of its story for another five or so years, same with its open world simulation (which even GTAV took a step back from).

This does not apply to the mission design, which was archaic even at release. Missions are typically either shootouts, chases on foot, chases by car or tailing missions. These aren’t hard, in fact they’re quite easy. Unfortunately, the devs are aware of this and missions gradually become filled with either instant-fail conditions that can catch you off-guard because they’re not told to you until NPCs stop speaking, OR enemies simply become invulnerable until an event ends. Double unfortunately, the game also really likes to slam character building into the prelude of a mission, before the main event.

There’s no checkpoints.

None. Not until the DLCs.

A typical late game mission consists of a 5-10 minute drive with some impressively written and engaging character writing, followed by a shootout/chase/whatever you fail because of some poorly telegraphed condition or NPC with a rocket launcher spawning out of nowhere. You then have to do it all again. To the game’s credit, almost every mission seems to have two different sets of prelude conversations to pull from, so you’re rewarded - in a twisted way - for fucking up. Still, it gets grating towards the end as missions skyrocket in length and difficulty.

There’s also a small but grating matter; Rockstar didn’t renew the music license for the PC version and thus many stations are nearly gutted. This may not seem like much, but IMO the mid 2000s music and especially Vladivostok are crucial to the game’s atmosphere. The replacement music is not exactly up to snuff, and while it can easily be modded back to its original 2008 state it’s still quite the nuisance.

And… Man, if I don’t cut this review down it’ll go on forever. In the original draft, there were another 5k words after that music comment. Ruminations on how the game portrays immigrant solidarity, dissecting the ways in which the game carries a strong and tangible anti-capitalist message (ironic, Rockstar’s future considered), the surprising depth that comes with not portraying characters as white/black/hispanic/asian but as Irish/Slavic/Russian/American/Jamaican/African/Dominican/Spanish/etc etc, examining how the lack of customization and purchases is meant to reflect how Niko has nothing/how little money means to him and so many more little paragraphs.

But, honestly, not only is it a lot of filler (even by my rambling standards, see the Pathfinder review) but it is essentially nothing more than me dictating the entire game to you. While I would LOVE to write an actual thesis on GTA4, it’d take so much work that I’d have to be paid for it.

Ultimately, I’d say GTA4 has aged perfectly. It was amazing then, and it’s arguably even more amazing now. I considered it one of the finest games of all time when I first completed it as a youngling, and now that I’m an old fuck my opinion has only been reaffirmed.

Truly, when they put their minds into it, nobody does it like Rockstar.

I appreciate ambition and veering off in a different direction for a specific vision, especially one that to this day makes itself stand apart from even other entries in its franchise. I just don't think it was for me.

There's a clear obvious intent that GTA IV was meant to be different bold new direction for the series, not only to jump into a new generation of consoles but to restart from first base after the new highs and ambition that San Andreas had set. Unlike its predecessor which was concerned about the sheer scale of its content and variety, creating something unabashedly charming and actively engaging at every moment, IV is concerned about realism and being grounded. So many of its overhauled systems and structure are geared towards setting an oppressive tone, a different kind of immersion that's not based on "how do we make sure the player cannot possibly be bored at any second" but really making sure the player's firmly in the shoes of what sets Niko apart from every other protagonist in the series and the circumstances that led him to Liberty City. San Andreas wanted the player to not just be CJ but actively transform him into a power fantasy, something you earn over time with every activity you did as you gained control over every part of San Andreas you set foot in. Niko doesn't get to have that power fantasy even as he reaches towards the end of his journey, because every action you take are in the favor of those seemingly in control of that power, which in itself is also torn down to shreds as you quickly learn just how truly miserable and lacking that power of theirs actually is. The closest comparison here might actually be GTA 3, whom not only shares the same location (albeit mostly in name and a very general surface level similarity) but also an initially similar love for its crime lords and mafia gangs duking it out between each other as you change between sides as a yes man before taking matters into your own hands. But unlike 3, the crime lords and mafia gangs you're working for are nearly all drugged out of their minds, in far beyond over their heads for what they're actually dealing with, in a needless desperate hopeless cycle of petty killings just to maintain a status quo that all gets shattered in the end anyways. Claude, Tommy and CJ all get what they wanted in the end for the insane climb to power they go on. Niko only digs himself deeper into a hole that takes away everything from him for his selfish desires.

It's all a nihilistic self-defeating prophecy and vision that Rockstar does faithfully commit to from start to finish. But it's not a vision for me, over a decade after its release with so much other media with unique ideas and spins on cycles of violence, revenge, the falsehood of an "American dream", and just general nihilism. It's Rockstar's satire and edge at its most extreme to an unpleasant degree, and while I get on a surface level that it's why GTA IV is considered the best and darkest story in the series, it's also mind numbing to the core. For a game so deeply focused on wanting to create something "real", so many of its characters feel like South Park stereotypes being played up to their extremes. A lot of them you're not meant to like, only working with as a means to an end, but there's also others that you're just supposed to be indifferent or even like which is all the more baffling when body image obsessed definitely not gay Brucie's calling you as you drive around town asking to go to the strip club to go stare at tits like the real men you both are, or Little Jacob who essentially amounts to an always high on something that asks to go eat out at Burger King stereotype that eventually just serves as a convenient arms dealer to Niko that conveniently shows up towards the end of the game.

I've never liked the excuse of "it was just the times!" because in most cases for media I've seen it used for, I could equally argue that it was rotten from the beginning and it's especially true for just how much of a weird issue GTA IV seems to have against LGBTQ+ people. It's shockingly common for characters to just suddenly bring up how much they don't want to be gay or homosexual, to such a degree where it's used as a negative stigma, a point of comparison for an idea of something someone shouldn't be. A corrupt government officer wonders how Niko could think he's working for the FIB, "those homosexuals." Manny complains about how he's presented on live television by his cameraman's work, "making me look gay, like a transsexual." The only excuse GTA IV has for itself on the way it continually uses a group of poorly represented minorities as a stereotype not to be, is when it introduces Florian/Bernie, the most over the top extreme textbook definition of a gay man who lusts for a man running for city mayor that also happens to be cheating on his wife while using "family values" as his campaign selling point. Niko gets to call him a slur only to then say right at the very end what a good friend Bernie is even if the man he loves is a hypocrite and should do better. Great fucking representation Rockstar, A+ work right there. "It was just the times!" is an excuse that does not fly in my book for this game because Rockstar managed to go three whole mainline GTA games without needing to kick down towards a group of people like this, and because it frankly just reeks of that weird feeling South Park gives off whenever people try to defend the targets it uses for bad taste humor. GTA IV doesn't make everyone a "target", I know it because I just played through the fucking game. There's characters it represents with a genuine honesty that stick with you, like Little Jacob's Jamaican background and incredibly strong accent that never dares to reach for a "can you translate that for me" joke, earning my respect despite how much I don't think he's that interesting of a character story-wise. I shouldn't have to give the game a free pass because it came out in the mid to late 2000s because I have played games in that era and console generation that didn't need to talk down and poorly misrepresent something I feel personally strongly about, let alone games in its own series and the same developer.

Beyond all that though and a bit less grim and upsetting, GTA IV does take new spins on the gameplay formula, and it's the part where I understand that I'm probably in a minority in for just not liking as much as its predecessor. I like game-y video games, and San Andreas fulfilled that want to a T, whereas GTA IV ends up taking away a lot of the sillier stuff like dancing rhythm games, playing dress up all the way to hair styles, working out and exercising to raise up stats; since IV wants to treat Niko as a character of his own and not something that the player gets to evolve, the formula has somewhat stepped back to the basics that GTA 3 actually started with. IV is almost entirely mission focused with only a small number of distractions and side things to go after, the majority of which I quickly grew tired of because they don't change no matter when or where you do them, and sometimes who you do them with. Bowling is a meme and all, but I don't even think it was that bad compared to having to constantly bring people to the pool table or the bar to raise up their friendship meters because otherwise they angrily text and call Niko about how crappy of a friend he is while you're in the middle of driving a truck filled with explosives to some gang you have to take out. Again, cool for the grounded realism! I see the vision there! And again, I just don't think it's for me.

A lot has been said about how vehicles control in IV. I understand the intent behind wanting to make the vehicles heavier, visibly weightier when they sway around off the ground and leaning to the sides when you make sharp turns at fast speeds, because Rockstar wanted to make driving a challenge after how admittedly easy San Andreas made driving around the city at stupid fast speeds and still nailing corners was. Driving around in essentially New York City in modern times should be tougher, and there's an element of satisfaction and tension when you are either chasing someone or are being chased by someone when every screw up means spinning out, watching everything get badly destroyed and bent out of shape, and just barely getting the gas moving again. But I also think the comparisons that vehicles in GTA IV feel like boats or sliding a wet bar of soap along the ground to be too accurate; the realism factor stops really being "real" and actually fun to play when vehicles can't make turns when going above 10 miles per hour, and frankly less skillful compared to all the stuff that San Andreas had a whole in-game driving school to teach you about how its physics worked. Going fast in that game felt exhilarating yet still meaningfully challenging because nice cars that could go fast weren't common and badly damaging them could seriously screw you over when the AI in that game could also drive incredibly fast. The vehicle physics are so undertuned here that even the AI seems to struggle with how cars are supposed to move around; if you even grasp the basic timings of when to slow down around corners and accelerate again, you'll be able to outrun all of the AI drivers in IV because none of them seem to know how to nail it down unless they are intentionally scripted to drive a certain way like in missions. I wouldn't even have an issue with how cars are generally slower period in this game compared to San Andreas if it wasn't for just how bad steering feels in this game and how much it cripples the experience in a series that involves driving cars so heavily.

Combat is an area that does feels meaningfully improved over its predecessors and is maybe the aspect I liked the most out of IV? Rockstar definitely took the criticisms of the PS2 era games to heart here because combat feels brutal and snappy, firefights come and go in that "realistic" instant when headshots always mean an instant kill, people stumble and scream out when shooting and getting shot at, and weapons feel and sound devastatingly impactful; the joke pea shooters of San Andreas are long gone here. The lock-on aiming for console/controllers was also improved to have an actual interactive skill element to it, now letting you try to aim for specific body parts for different reactions instead of being stuck always locked onto the chest unless you were at point blank range like San Andreas was. The snapping can be an annoyance, mainly whenever it just refuses to lock onto new opponents when they come into view unless you let go and hold the left trigger again or when Niko randomly snaps onto something completely separate from what you were just running towards or looking at. It's overall an improvement on what San Andreas set up, even if it fully makes sense why GTA V would later completely step away from the system and opt for more generic free aim with forgiving aim assist.

Rockstar deserves credit for being this bold with a mainstream AAA blockbuster release with a vision that wasn't only just making things prettier and more detailed for a more powerful generation of hardware, but also trying to reinvent the tone and direction the story they told went in a manner that I'm honestly shocked didn't spark more controversy with a general audience as well as fans of the series. It's a game that feels upset with the world but indifferent, not angry enough to change it and instead just continue going with the status quo no matter how terrible and oppressive it may be. It's the start of Rockstar spending countless hours building up insane technology that impresses to this day (even if the atrocious PC port still does not) and paying attention to little details few would probably notice until repeat playthroughs, and also where I think Rockstar's notorious satirical edge really began to show itself. I just also think it's too rough around the edges for me coming after an entry that was so purposefully endearing and charming at its core, happy that it was able to have fun with itself rather than wanting to say something and coming up short instead.

I finally finished the game's main story today. This is something I should have done long ago when I played it in high school but did not manage to complete the last mission due to its length and difficulty. This time around I was able to immerse myself in and let myself take things slow experiencing the game by doing the random encounters, dating, minigames, races, and other aspects of the game that were overlooked by teenage me. GTA IV was something else in terms of its world, story, characters, and the overall immersion I felt that I could not get from other GTA titles.

First off let me say that I am from New York City so I might be a bit biased but I think this game is amazing. It really does capture the "no one cares about you" attitude that the city has, which meshes really well with the Rockstar world design that is centered around making you feel like an observer in a living breathing place. I should also note that I played the majority of the game using the first person mod for PC. I think this really increases the immersion factor so if you're someone like me who doesn't like third person games still give this a try with that mod installed.

The writing is amazing, as to be expected. You really do feel like an immigrant who works their way up to the top, from doing small time gigs for a local mafia boss in the early game to carrying out full scale bank robberies later on.

I've heard people describe the game as "gritty", though I think a better descriptor might be "unapologetic". The writing prioritizes the strength of its absurd, slapstick, humor above being sanitized/politically correct. Some of this humor draws on stereotypes that should certainly be shunned today but I think going into the game with the expectations that these kinds of things are exaggerated for an artistic vision and are not a reflection of the real world makes them acceptable. The narrative simply wouldn't live up it's hyperbolic depiction of life in the city without this kind content.

I criticized Rockstar's game design in my review of Red Dead Redemption 2 for not giving the player the creative freedom to approach mission objectives. I wouldn't say that GTA 4 goes out of it's way to encourage player freedom but it certainly doesn't obstruct it either; there was never a time where I failed a mission because of something I thought was unfair (like walking out of bounds or something). For example, in one mission you need to assault some enemies hiding out in a hotel. The game gives you the waypoint of the hotel but doesn't explicitly say to go through the front lobby. I decided to look around a bit and found a window washer's elevator that I could use to travel to the top floor. I was then able to walk over to the skylight over the room with the enemies and begin my assault from the high ground. It's stuff like this that I think needs to be emulated in more Rockstar games missions. They have this fantastic world with tons of interactive elements. Why not let the player use them?

Overall, a real classic that I suggest everyone play at some point. I started it back in January, played a couple missions, got busy with school, picked it back up this fall, got hooked, and binged the entire 40ish hour main story in like 3 weeks.

through its many, many pain points and rough edges, it still ends up telling a great narrative with some really compelling characters. really fun environment too. when you finish the missions up in north algonquin they start introducing a deluge of faceless mafia or government goons to give you missions for the rest of the game and that's honestly my only real "issue" with the game as it were... why should i care about this revolving door of characters who will probably die at the end of their mission line to set up the next one anyway? then the game ends completely unceremoniously. you're winner.

i felt like i hated this game a lot of the time i was playing it but there was just something always bringing me back to get some more mission progress and just explore such a beautiful city (when they have the colour grading turned down) every day for the ~2 weeks it took me to beat it. i'm absolutely sure my feelings would sour towards it if i played it again but the first part of this game, sans the introductory few missions, is just the pure perfection of open-world gaming, especially when you're settling into the mechanics. maybe that's just because they don't make you do any close quarters non-cover combat until algonquin?

The driving is not hard and anyone who complained about it should be banned from reviewing games forever.

This game is regarded as having the best story in the series, but i couldn't care about it. The lack of focus on Niko's revenge in exchange for his employers/friends boring archs didn't help. Sure, GTA games doesn't focus so much on its protagonist story, but the people surrounding him. San Andreas/Vice City has only an idea of a plot concerning its protagonist, just like IV, the story is more interested in the people you encouter, but they were way more interesting in those games than the 15 identicals criminals/mobsters you work for in this one. It needed more Brucie-esche characters.

That wouldn't be much of a problem if the game didn't sacrifice it's gameplay in favour of the gritty-realistic story, it didn't need to have a soap as a vehicle, or such a small number of weapons, or a cover system so clunky that is better ignored, or a city that has nothing to do or to buy, as the game seems more interested in you only doing what they want you to do (Niko's friends calling him every minute he is not in a mission).

That said, although this game has only two types of missions, car chases and shootouts, the latter were always fun, especially playing with no auto-aim, yeah, was the same mission over and over, but the different locations, house interiors and ragdoll physics made the game for me.

The radio stations ads are gold as always.

O GTA e o protagonista mais SUBESTIMADOS de toda a franquia.

Uma galera que curte a série GTA não se apega muito por este game e eu consigo compreender totalmente o motivo:

A história de GTA IV é a mais séria e profunda de toda a franquia. Além disto, "Liberty City" tem uma atmosfera totalmente diferente. GTA IV é denso, pesado e real, mostrando os efeitos colaterais e traumas de uma pessoa que participou de uma guerra.

Sua jogabilidade também é a MAIS REAL de todos os GTAs (Sim, mais real que o GTA V, em questão de JOGABILIDADE). A direção dos carros é SUPER REAL, o mesmo acontece com o sistema de tiro do jogo. Uma física surpreendente até mesmo pros dias de hoje.

Niko Bellic também é um dos protagonistas mais bem desenvolvidos da série (FACILMENTE carismático com sua ironia).

O desenvolvimento da história é ótimo (As escolhas feitas durante a gameplay são ótimas e abrilhatam o game).

O "único" contra do jogo e seu maior problema é a falta de otimização (Eu lembro de zerar ele no Xbox 360 e NOSSA, era muito bug de textura, principalmente ao acelerar muito com o carro, a cidade simplesmente não renderizava). Teve algumas boas vezes que o jogo simplesmente engasgou.

Niko!! Let's Go Bowlling!!

PRÓS:
- História e protagonistas MUITO BONS.
- A física do game.

CONTRAS:
- Alguns problemas de perfomance.

i came into this game with two things: a functioning knowledge of all the major plot twists in the game and very low expectations. neither prevented me from having a blast and enjoying myself. rockstar sat down and made a grounded and realistic GTA story with realistic and relatable characters that i can feel pathos for. having played previous GTA games, that is something i wasn't convinced they would ever do. i have my share of issues with the way some characters are handled (i.e. kate), but on the whole, i find the story of this game to be its best aspect.

for me, my enjoyment with this game begins and ends with Niko. Niko is by far the most interesting main character in a game that i've played in a long time, and i was invested in his character arc and narrative from beginning to end. i really adore how the game gives you so much to work with in regards to his character. rather than just being told "Niko is a traumatized man who is haunted by his past and finds it difficult to connect with people", you actually get to experience it first hand. Niko is awkward on dates and the women he dates tend to not value him as a person, more as an idea. when he opens up to them, they (typically) disregard his feelings. when talking to his friends, Niko will often say that he needs to distract himself from his intrusive thoughts or negative feelings. hell, this even extends to his combat dialogue. whereas Tommy or CJ would say snappy one liners or something stereotypically cool in combat, Niko just shouts shit like "PUSH ME, PUSH ME" and "I'LL TEAR YOUR FUCKING HEART OUT". he's clearly unstable and has an unhealthy relationship with violence. this is a character that feels like a living and breathing person with complicated feelings and emotions.

on the gameplay side of things, i enjoyed myself quite a bit too. the vehicle physics take a while to get used to, but now that i've sunk an ungodly amount of time into this game, i can say that they feel pretty natural now. i almost can't even imagine what older GTA games felt like at this point. the online multiplayer is fun too, for as active as it is in 2020. i feel genuine regret in never having the chance to play some of these modes with a more active userbase, because i had a lot of fun with the nearly dead one that i did play with.

the mission structure is fairly standard if you've played a rockstar game. there are some standout missions and some less than stellar ones as well, but overall there's nothing exceptionally shitty, which is another thing i'd never expect to be able to say about a rockstar game. i will say that i don't adore the abundance of chasing missions, because the rubberbanding on the AI always being just a little bit faster than you is apparent, but that's something i take as a necessary evil to keep a game like this exciting.

however, i do have problems with this game, two major ones. the first is that there's virtually nothing to use money on in this game, both online and offline. in San Andreas, you had so much more to do and work with in terms of buying property, clothing, hair styles, tattooing, etc. meanwhile here, you have next to no clothing shops and basically nothing to spend money on besides weapons and taxi fares. i've felt every GTA game has a major problem with "there's never anything good to spend money on" in GTA games, and this one has it arguably the worst out of all of them.

the second problem is honestly more damning for me: GTA IV hates me and people like me. if i was writing a polygon/kotaku/etc. esque article about GTA IV, i would title it something to the effect of "This Game That Includes Homophobia Is Really Good Once You Get Past The Homophobia". within the first five minutes, you hear someone say "you're a fag". the only named gay character you can do missions for is called a fag by Niko in his very first mission, and then later by another NPC. every single gay character shown in the game in meaningful capacity is either a repressed closet case or a flamer who might as well have the words "stereotypical effeminate faggot" tattooed on his head. and that's not even getting into the ways in which this game seems to adore using the t slur and referencing transphobia/misogyny like it's an auto-laugh thing. i don't have a problem with games having slurs in them if there's a point to it. none of the gay men in GTA IV are good representations of what it means to be gay, and instead are just caricatures meant to elicit laughs from those who see people like me as "others". it fucking sucks.

it's difficult for me to rationalize liking and enjoying this game when i consistently feel like my personhood is a joke to rockstar. i get that 2008 was 12 years ago, but that's simultaneously not that long ago. there were several points where i wanted to give this a shit score on principle, because it's reductive and makes me feel shitty. i guess i'm in this place where like, i simultaneously think this game fucking sucks, but also i greatly enjoy it and have fond memories of my time with it. it's this compartmentalization that you have to go through with some media. it's a little weird, but what can you do?

the vibe is the best radio station in the game btw.

Aside from the first two games, Grand Theft Auto IV has always been the black sheep of the series' main entries, as its shift towards realism ended up turning off fans of the PS2 trilogy's wacky, hyper-satirical sandboxes. Even with the amount of jokes about this game's driving physics and bowling-addicted cousins that I've heard over the years, I was still more curious about finding this game and playing it than any other game in the franchise, and since Rockstar decided to make it much harder to play the original versions of the first two PS2 games, Grand Theft Auto IV ended up being the only one of the older Grand Theft Auto games that I can actually play. Because of how many differing opinions I've heard about this game, I went into Grand Theft Auto IV hoping I'd at least like it, but I didn't expect for it to turn out to be my favorite game in the franchise by far, as it fixed some issues that I had with the other Grand Theft Auto games I've played while also carving out its own identity.

Rockstar has always been known for making open worlds that feel alive, but even with that in mind, I was still incredibly impressed with what they had accomplished here in Grand Theft Auto IV. The oppressively grey palette, dirty streets, and grungy textures greatly added to the grit of Liberty City and Alderney, and this more cutthroat setting also strengthened the game's dark and wholly engrossing story. Rather than being chock-full of explosive setpieces like in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto IV instead has you battling it out in abandoned construction sites, underfunded apartment complexes, and sleazy strip clubs, and the traditionally eccentric and fun supporting cast was also replaced with seedy drug pushers, corrupt cops, and paranoid mafiosos. Normally, I'd be upset if a game's missions weren't as varied as its predecessor, but because everything was recontextualized through Niko Bellic's perspective as an undocumented immigrant, it all made sense within the context of the story. Not only that, but the smaller scale of the missions also made them more fun due to their decreased linearity and increased ways of getting in and on top of buildings, as coming up with ways to complete objectives on my own rather than relying on the game's exact instructions led to some really memorable and satisfying moments for me. I'd also say that the gunplay here is the best in the series, especially with how your limited arsenal was integrated into the world through the presence of underground weapons dealers, and the constant need to be alert while firing at enemies and the incredibly impressive ragdoll physics made for combat that was much more exciting than just hiding behind one spot of cover like in Grand Theft Auto V.

Along with the fun missions and immersive setting, a big reason why the game's story was so enthralling for me would be its protagonist. Not only was Niko Bellic's cynicism and cold-heartedness brought to life thanks to Michael Hollick's voice acting, but seeing how his past haunts him as he struggles to see any real future for himself outside of violence was very compelling, especially with the story's numerous player choices, and it made the game's plot evolve from being a critique of the American Dream into a look at the psychology of revenge, the effects of war, and the endless cycles of violence. Like I mentioned earlier, Grand Theft Auto IV has gotten a lot of flack for its driving mechanics and hangout sessions with the other characters, but I honestly really liked both of these features. The more realistic handling of the cars and bikes fit perfectly alongside the game's tone and world while still making for some intense getaways and chases, and spending time with the supporting cast made the story and the rest of the game feel more interconnected. Although Red Dead Redemption II is still my favorite Rockstar game, Grand Theft Auto IV isn't far behind, and I really hope that I can eventually find a way to play Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City without having to buy the so-called "definitive" edition that came out back in 2021.

I'll start with the bad things, I guess:

- weird mechanics, cause I'm obviously used to GTA V and San Andreas

Escaping police, fighting, you don't recover life at all if you don't find a restaurant and eat, TOLL and making a character IMMORTAL just so rockstar's story would make more sense making you get to the right part of town to watch a cutscene

- Bad performance

This on pc is UNPLAYABLE without patches and mods you find on internet

- Too much tutorial

Everything has a goddamn notification "press this, do this"

About the good parts:

+ The radio...

Rockstar never gets it wrong! Jazz, rock, calle 13, Elvis Crespo, some russian raps/hip hop and, of course, the messed up chit chat in it.

+ They payed attention on every detail on this GTA

When you get near a running car, you can listen to the muffled radio, when someone tries to enter the car and you start driving, they are dragged with it, the moves your character does, you can feel they tried to do it as real as possible for a 2008 game and you can hear people in radio talking about a mission you just did

+ The story

It's much more deep than GTA V, for example, emotional charge, etc. Unfortunately, I felt it just got like this towards the end, cause most of the game is the GTA recipe: go there, kill this man, come back, etc. But It's a goddamn fine story

My verdict? Give it a try. I'd say It's the third best GTA, behind San Andreas and V, clearly.

I will always say this is the best GTA to release thus far.
Believable environment, Story that has its serious moments, shockers and jokes at times.
A Prick of a villain, bizarre side characters, and absolute Gs Big Up Lil Jacob.

Seeing a completely new realised Liberty City all the way from GTA 3 was incredible especially for 2008!
Better protagonist from 3 Niko Bellic is a badass, has morals and uses quotes that I even still quote today.

88 Missions looks like a small amount when you look at it, but some missions are actually quite long, tricky because of the health not regenerating and the driving.

The driving is the biggest complaint in this game, which I can understand BUT the cars on the 1st island are crap, when you unlock more high end cars the handling is easier, I found myself being able to turn corners like they were nothing!

This would be 5 stars btw BUT, There is a very common bug that stopped me from finishing the final story mission so the fact I couldnt complete it without having to look up a fix is ridiculous.

Also Swing Glitch is hilarious ;)

O jogo é absurdo, a história é EXCELENTE, o Nico é um personagem maravilhoso, varios personagens carismaticos, uma ambientação incrivel, a cidade de Liberty City por mais cinza que seja, guarda uma vibe MUITO boa, amei demais tudo isso

agora vamos falar do real problema? que port RIDICULO esse de PC. é PATÉTICO DEMAIS ESSE PORT, simplesmente dropando FPS no meu PC com uma config otima, jogo bugando TODA HORA, eu NÃO CONSEGUI FAZER A FINAL DE PULAR NO HELICOPTERO DO PEGORINO PQ LOGO ESSE MOMENTO O JOGO BUGA E NAO DEIXA EU SUBIR, tive que ver esse pedaço no YT pq o jogo simplesmente não deixa eu terminar ele

o pior port da história do PC, é simplesmente patético o trabalho da rockstar nesse port, é ridiculo o quanto esse port estraga a experiência do que estava sendo uma das aventuras mais fodas que eu estava tendo nessa saga GTA

o primeiro jogo que não deixou eu terminar ele, e olha que joguei mafia 2 remaster, que tem sim um port porquissimo, mas esse aqui deixa qualquer homem simples parecendo o coringa.

vai tomar no teu cu Rockstar

GTA 4 was once hailed as the pinnacle of technical achievement in open world design. A richly detailed city and a focus on gritty realism to sell the cynical and satirical life of Niko Bellic and others in the “land of opportunity.” But what happens when the standards of realism is elevated, when the technical achievement is thoroughly outmatched by the ever shifting rat race to make the biggest most detailed game? What happens when making your protagonist bluntly state the themes of the game is not enough? As you might have guessed, I don’t think the once pinnacle of open world games is all that impressive anymore.

Recently I had finished Red Dead 2 and despite sorely lacking in combat depth, I was thoroughly enraptured by its slow methodical approach to gameplay and the quaint humanity afforded to its wide cast of characters. I remembered below the satirical edge of GTA, the 4th entry attempted something similar so jumped back in to see how it held up.

What caught my eye immediately on starting was the brown and grey visual style it went for in the city. I can’t say that it was very appealing but I wanted to see if it was justified by the narrative. I tried making excuses for it, maybe they wanted to represent Niko’s humble start among Liberty City’s lowlife, or maybe it related to the themes of the game about how despite leaving his eastern European roots this city was the same with old and new vices.
But I fear it just doesn’t work. Moments of sincerity are few and far between and the darker tone are used as little more than cynical sarcasm. The story and characters are far too wacky, many nothing more than a caricature to justify the grim tone. When you’re driving with various flavors of clowns as companions, frequently crashing into cars and then shooting up a neighborhood worth of people for “amusing” reasons it’s really hard to take grim tone of the city seriously. GTA 5 and RDR2 did a much better job of embracing its silliness and realism respectively.

1 thing I keep hearing from fans of the game is how much better the story is compared to 5. I can’t compare since I haven’t played 5 since release but man does 4 have a really messy structure. Now credit where credit’s due, the humorous dialogues feel quite natural helped by amazing VA from all and Niko is a really well realized flawed protagonist. I really like his dynamic with Roman as both have quite an opposite approach to life but still very much care for each other. Roman’s insistence on playing by the rules and maintaining a constant optimism and faith in the American Dream is not played as some naivete but rather a tragedy of how the whole premise is false. Niko on the opposite side is a trigger happy maniac that doesn’t play by anyone's rules and on the surface is may look like he’s moving up in life faster but he’s also paving a path of destruction, living a highly dangerous life and still gets pushed around just as much as Roman by mob bosses above him. So despite lacking an ounce of subtlety in the themes of the game, I quite liked it.
Problem is that’s where most of my praises end. The story lacks any form of structure as you keep meeting new people and doing jobs for them while having the carrot at the end of the stick being a vague revenge motive. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the game has a strong set of side characters or Niko’s personal investment in those stories. But most characters doesn’t have anything to offer beyond being amusing and Niko’s only motivation is looking for a pay check. This also where the “friend” mechanic fell apart for me as why would I spend time with characters I barely care about?

Lastly I come to gameplay and world design. Usually cities or location in an open world game take on a character by itself as you spend countless hours traversing it and engaging with the details and secrets it has to offer. GTA 4 might have been a technical achievement at release and even now is quite a large city but it absolutely isn't impressive or detailed enough anymore. I’m sure I sound like an asshole trying to bash an old game for not being comparable to newer games but I don’t do this without reason. That reason is that GTA 4 made a noticeable attempt at being realistic. Niko’s movement have long and deliberate animations, the cars feel really weighty and can’t turn corners fast, you pay a toll every time you cross highways etc. This is the same approach RDR2 took but unlike that game GTA4 simply didn’t have the tech to make an immersive open world. Streets feel too empty, there’s not enough shop or activity variety and too much of the city looks samey due to lack of detail. Thus when you couple an un-immersive city with dull gameplay, the whole experience becomes a slog.
And I didn’t even mention how dull the mission designs are. Rockstar games have never had great combat depth but in this game it feels specially lacking as you frequently drive slowly across long distances in a boring city only to shoot up a bunch of people in a building or drive some variation of vehicle that control just as bad as regular cars. In return of doing them your reward is some amusing humorous dialogue and money you have nothing to spend on. By themselves, each aspect they might not be that bad but the experience as whole was a chore to me.

I’m sure GTA 4 felt a lot better at release and I didn’t give enough credit to the game in this review. To mention one of them would be that despite disliking how the cars drove, I quite liked how distinct each vehicle felt. At the end of the day, I liked the concepts of this game far more than what it delivers.

I love this fucking game. My fave GTA by far.

It's only flaws are the depressing endings and that it doesn't work properly on PC. Everything else, from the car physics to the map to the crazy DLCs, is just pure gorgeousness. I would play this over GTA V any day.

It seems like Rockstar have gone back in this direction with RDR2 which is heartening.