Like everyone else on my Xbox Live buddy list (except for the one guy playing Viva Pinata) I am completely hooked and dangerously addicted to GTA 4. Seriously, you would think they would start to run out of ideas, I mean how do you make an already record breaking game even better?! Rockstar obviously has the answers.
So it's been about week since GTA 4 hit the streets and I believe most of you are playing it now or have had enough hands on time to get the feel of the new game. I don't even know where to start, I just finished off Brucie's missions last night...but I have put in more than 20 amount of hours just by doing side missions, random character quests and odd side jobs. Everytime I complete one thing, a new option or mission line opens up! It's like neverending and I love it.
The graphics are amazing, the attention to detail is impressive and I just love how fluid things work together. The best part has to be the voice acting and the character development, Niko is so laid back and chilled yet sarcastic and witty. I love how jolly and idiotic Roman is, and some of the other characters were/are just cold blooded, narotic, and unforgiving. My favorite character so far is probably Brucie, the meat head with a violent streak. He is hilarious with his body image obsession and he is so tweaked all the time.
I will say that holy shit I am completely surprised at amount of language and sexual references in this game so far...I am not complaining, I love it. I am just surprised this game only got a M rating, there is no excuse for a child to be playing this. The age old excuse mom's used to give me when I worked at GameStop when buying their kid a GTA game was, "They can see worse on the news", well that definitely does not hold true anymore. I am an adult and I love adult games, just keep this one away from the kids. Video games dont cause violence or bad kids....poor parenting does. But that's for a whole nother post.
As usual, the music in GTA 4 is great, Liberty Rocks is my favorite station. The aiming in my opinion has gotten a lot better, and the driving is still not as great as you would like it. But seriously, when has GTA drivng ever been easy? Oh and the tv stations are a great addition, I didn't realize I could waste so much time watching an in-game tv show and actually be amused. The internet is fun and the sites are really funny. Best of all tho is the story and the cutscenes, the story is extremely immersive and interesting, you learn more and more about Niko and his background little by little as you go. The cutscenes are very entertaining, I am usually impatient with cutscenes and just want to get to the game, but GTA 4's cutscenes are well written and you actually forget for a bit that you are playing a game, you get wrapped up in the story and the characters very easily.
Finding your way around the city is a little bit easier than in the past, this time around they have incorporated a Saints Row like GPS, but even with that major improvement you still learn your way around the city rather quickly on your own.
The online play is a lot of fun, it feels a little last minute or a tab like it was just thrown in the game to shut us gamers up who were whining about wanting multiplayer options. We got it tho, and it is a lot of fun regardless. Maybe next time around Rockstar will incorporate it more and make it a bit more indepth. But who doesn't love getting online and just blasting their friends away just for the hell of it?!
Anyways, to make this long post short, I give GTA 4 (so far) a full 10 on my game scale. I love it and I will playing it for many more hours to come.
