Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV arrived several weeks ago and was met with an endless litany of praise from the gaming press, earning a constant barrage of 10/10, 100%, and 5-star ratings. As impressive as the new Liberty City is, and as engaging as Nico Bellic and associates are, there's really no way to justify those scores. GTA IV gets top marks for being an excellent interactive experience, but its success as an actual game isn't quite as impressive.

The main problem is that Grand Theft Auto IV trades off every advancement it makes over previous games with a setback somewhere else, and nine times out of ten that area is gameplay-related. The most obvious example of this is in car handling, which has gone from completely unrealistic to slightly-more-realistic, with the result being that driving is noticeably less fun than it used to be. Cornering at full speed using the handbrake just isn't going to happen any more. It requires a more subtle touch on the gas, brake, and steering to avoid spinning out of control into traffic or an indestructible tree. While requiring more skill from the player isn't necessarily a bad thing, the change in handling ends up feeling like change for change's sake, with no real payoff other than a slight touch of pointless realism.

Balancing that out is the advancement in the on-foot combat, which has gotten easier in all the right ways. Nico knows how to use cover to his advantage, pressing up against a wall or crouching behind a barrier at the touch of a shoulder button. Firing is done with the analog triggers, and a half-press brings up the aiming reticule while holding it all the way down fires. The lock-on functions much the same way, calling up an aiming reticule when pressed half-way (yes, again) and sticking tight to the nearest threat when held all the way down. If Nico is behind cover when locked on, he'll poke his head out to aim, so it needs to be used carefully. It's worth a bit of risk, though, because even though the target it locked, you can go for some fine tuning on the aim, resulting in one-hit kills with the ever-popular head shot. It's a good combat system that allows for plenty of bad ass on-foot gunplay, although both hand-to-hand combat and driving while shooting are still awkward.

As tough and capable as Nico is, he's still just a small-time thug in a very large city. Nico goes from fresh off the boat, knowing only his cousin Roman, to a being well-connected member of Liberty City's underworld, and that's where Grand Theft Auto IV's social aspect comes into play. Nico has friends, and friends don't like to be ignored for days on end as you tool around the city, go on missions, or just cause trouble. They don't call often, but later in the game there's so many of them that the phone can be ringing off the hook as people want to go bowling, shoot some darts, grab a bite or drink, or just not be ignored. This gets old fast, and while it's easy enough to turn the phone's ringer off, it turns itself right back on whenever it feels like it. The large cast of characters is uniformly interesting, with excellent voice acting and tons of dialogue for any situation, but after a while you just want them to shut up and let you game in peace.

Once you've satisfied everyone (or blown them off) it's time to do a mission, and true to form GTA IV introduces helpful new features while changing or removing helpful old ones. Missions are marked on the map, same as they've always been, and they range in difficulty from pretty easy to "Oh god, not again!" hard. The latter wouldn't be so obnoxious if the Trip Skip feature hadn't been removed, but it's gone and now you've got to drive every monotonous foot across town to get to the exciting part, every time you restart a mission. On the plus side, one of the cell phone features is the ability to restart a failed mission immediately afterwards, but that only emphasizes how odd it is that Trip Skip is gone. Why save the player time and tedium in one part of the game only to add it back in another? The missions are a lot of fun, and there's always something new to do, but it only takes one major sticking point to show just how entertaining it isn't to make the same drive across town ten times in a row.

There are more changes made in the GTA formula that feel like enforced realism rather than good gameplay design, such as the way finding the hidden collectibles no longer opens up an arsenal at the safe house, but despite this GTAIV is still a lot of fun. Nico's life isn't a happy one, but it's certainly lively. Liberty City is a huge, diverse, and gorgeous playground to commit wanton mayhem in, filled with a rich cast of characters that keep the story from drowning in negativity. It's packed to the brim with more content than any three other games and there's always something new to do, whether pursuing the storyline, looking for side missions, screwing around for the hell of it, or hopping online for the multiplayer modes. Grand Theft Auto IV reaches for the stars but doesn't quite make it, and will have to settle for being excellent rather than flawless.