GTA IV – Multiplayer
Jun 4, 2008 | Filed under Games, Reviews
One of the biggest new features of Grand Theft Auto IV was the brand-new multiplayer modes. GTA hasn’t had proper multiplayer since my friends and I got together and had a LAN match playing the original GTA, so it’s been a while. Rockstar jammed a crapload of multiplayer modes into the game to dramatically extend the life of the title, well after the 30+ hour story mode and hours of running over civilians and trying to get away from the fuzz. The problem is, the multiplayer mode is just as frustrating as it is awesome.
The good stuff first: there are tons of modes, all of which take place in the very same Liberty City that you have free reign over in single player. Rockstar has done something truly revolutionary by successfully bringing the sandbox to multiplayer*. There are standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes, of course, and Turf War, which is the GTA version of a territory control gametype. There’s Carjack City and Mafya Work, both of which are probably closer to competitive campaign missions than anything else, and there are team variants of both of those. There’s Cops & Crooks, which works like a VIP mission where one team as cops tries to hunt down the mafia boss, and race, which is a no-frills no-weapons pure racing game. There are also several co-op missions, but my absolute favorite mode is GTA Race, which is a manic race with weapons and destroyable cars. All these modes are excellent in theory, but suffer when it comes to execution.
Since this is Rockstar’s first outing into online console gaming, the multiplayer mode lacks serious polish. Instead of a server browser, like most PC games and Gears of War, or straight up matchmaking, like Call of Duty 4 and Halo 2 & 3, GTA IV has the worst of both worlds. When you choose a multiplayer gametype, you’re thrown into a lobby, where a randomly-selected host has all the say in the game options. So, you never know what options the host is going to choose, and there’s no “veto” option if you’re sick of motorcycles on Star Junction. Rockstar’s decision to integrate multiplayer into the in-game phone menu is a great aesthetic decision, but it means that if you encounter a connection problem before a match begins, you have to stare at a loading screen, wait for the connection to time out, then stare at another loading screen, and then you end up back in the single player game, only to start the process over again. If you form a party of friends before a game, you’re all dumped into a special “lobby area” where you can run around and kill each other until the party leader makes up his mind. It’s a great idea, but again, if there are connection problems, you spend lots of time staring at loading screens, and you’re never sure if your party will make it back intact.
It also seems as though the developers have had their noses to the grindstone for the past several years making this game, and couldn’t possibly be bothered to actually play any console games online. If they had, they’d probably have noticed that there are a very large number of asshats on the internet, and that these people have a tendancy to make games unenjoyable for everyone else. Otherwise outrageously fun games of GTA Race can be ruined by turd nuggets refusing to finish and set off the “end game” countdown timer. The lack of an easily accessible “mute” button is also depressing. And while 16 players sounds like a good number for online matches, lag, clogged voice chat, and massive chaos are painful side-effects of cramming that many players into the GTA engine.
Don’t get me wrong: GTA IV’s multiplayer is really, really fun. That’s why it’s so incredibly frustrating that it feels so…undercooked.