GTA IV - The story: genetically different
May 7, 2008 | Filed under Games, Reviews
When Grand Theft Auto IV launched last Tuesday, I was very curious. I’ve played the series since the original, top-down PC game, and I spent a good chunk of time playing GTA 2. When the series moved to 3D with GTA III, though, I lost interest. I didn’t have a PS2 at the time, so it was old news by the time it finally rolled onto the big black monster that was the first Xbox, and I finally got to play it. The story was unengaging, the characters were unsympathetic and unrelatable (Tommy Vercetti was an asshole), and the missions were freaking hard. Not to mention the awkward controls and the piss poor shooting dynamics.
When San Andreas finally came out, I was terrifically uninterested and never really played it, since it seemed like more of the same, except with black gang bangers in the 1990s and you’d get fat if you ate too many cheeseburgers. Oh, and Samuel L. Jackson. My understanding of the game is that the story was more interesting than Vice City, but the missions were even harder. So, I did what just about everyone winds up doing in GTA games: going on a killing spree and running from the cops for as long as possible. And of course, there is only a limited amount of fun that can be squeezed out of doing this.
So it was with equal parts optimism and skepticism that I placed the GTA IV disc into my 360. I did allow myself to get caught up in the promotional hype and positive publicity blitz surrounding what may end up being the biggest video game launch in history, but I still had trepidations because of my experiences with the other games in the series. As the very slick opening credits played out and I met Niko Bellic, IV’s protagonist, all that skepticism and reluctance faded away, and I was hooked immediately.
The biggest and most important change is the story. Yes, the combat is vastly improved, and the open world aspect is better than it has been, but the story is the meat of the single player game and what’s really got me hooked. Niko does terrible things throughout the course of the mission, but he’s not on a mission for personal glory, like becoming a mafia kingpin or anything. He’s an illegal immigrant veteran of a horrible war that’s just trying to make it on the mean streets of New York Liberty City. When a character asks him why he does what he does (mostly contract killings), his answer sums up his character perfectly: “I need money, I can do this, I don’t care if I live or die, and I’m looking for someone.”
The supporting cast has been created with the same attention to detail and characterization. There’s Niko’s hopelessly optimistic cousin Roman, a Jamaican weed fiend who sells guns out of the trunk of his car (and has an accent so thick I and I be having trouble understanding him all de time, one love), a Puerto Rican lesbian drug dealer, and an Irish crime family with a black sheep crooked-cop brother, among many others. Everyone is excellently characterized, and painted with differing shades of gray instead of a broad black & white. Everyone in Liberty City is damaged in one way or another, but everyone has their own reasons and motivations, making them seem that much more human. It makes for a very involving experience, more so than even other story-driven games like Mass Effect.
The story is massive, too. So much that after a week of playing constantly, I’m still not anywhere near the end of the story missions. I’ll be posting more impressions as I wrap up the story missions and dip my toes into multiplayer. But so far, as my “addiction level” in the game’s stats points out: I’m a fiend for GTA IV.
Edit: corrected spelling of Niko’s name from “Nico.”
May 7th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I have to agree that the storyline is amazing and the difficulty has been vastly better balanced, although many missions still require 2+ runs to figure out where to go/what tools are needed. The hype was lived up to, improving the faults and improving upon the features that bring you back to GTA time and again.
Oh, this isn’t my blog/review?
Well then.
Hit me up for multiplayer sometime D, I haven’t tested it either but i hear good things.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Yeah. The effing motorcycle missions especially. On the mission where you have to pretend to be an Albanian biker, I actually chased the guy down on the second try. He hopped off his bike and I persued him on foot, only to be crushed by an incoming ambulance. It took me 12 more times to pass that frakking mission.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
[...] Part 1: The Story [...]