Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Rockstar Games
• Released on: 2008-04-29
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
• Format: Playstation
• Dimensions: 2.00 pounds

Features

• Carry on the Grand Theft Auto tradition playing through the single player campaign as Niko Bellic
• Get cars and other modes of transportation anyway you can
• Interact with various colorful characters who give you various missions to engage in
• Engage in multiplayer challenges ranging from cover matches to shoot-outs
• Game Rated 'M' due to Intense Violence, Blood, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Partial Nudity, Use of Drugs and Alcohol

Amazon.com
What does the American Dream mean today?

For Niko Bellic, fresh off the boat from Europe, it is the hope he can escape his past. For his cousin, Roman, it is the vision that together they can find fortune in Liberty City, gateway to the land of opportunity. As they slip into debt and are dragged into a criminal underworld by a series of shysters, thieves and sociopaths, they discover that the reality is very different from the dream in a city that worships money and status, and is heaven for those who have them and a living nightmare for those who don’t.

Beginning with the 1997 release of the original Grand Theft Auto, the GTA series has been one of the most prolific, controversial and down right entertaining franchises in video games history. This pedigree of success guarantees that the highly anticipated eleventh game in the series, Grand Theft Auto IV, will garner at least as much attention if not more.

Return to Liberty City.

The dream as Niko expected it. View larger.

There's always a catch. View larger.

But some skills are international. View larger.

The Plot
Grand Theft Auto IV is a brand new adventure in the GTA universe following the experiences of Nikolai "Niko" Bellic, a new immigrant from an undisclosed eastern European country whose troubled pa st and the persuasion of his cousin Roman have brought him to the fictional Liberty City. Unfortunately, Niko’s search for the American Dream and a much needed fresh start, hits an immediate snag when the rags to riches story Roman spun to pique Niko's interest is exposed as not only a complete fabrication, but a ploy to enlist Niko’s well-known skills as a tough guy against the ample list of enemies clamoring for Roman’s debt-ridden blood.

Because Roman is the only person Niko knows in Liberty City he begrudgingly accepts his role as Roman’s protector despite the deception. But as time goes on Niko comes into his own, and his experience on the wrong side of the tracks proves more valuable than he could have ever imagined as he fights for survival and later supremacy on the crime ridden streets of Liberty City.

Game Environments
Based on several of the boroughs of New York City and parts of New Jersey, Liberty City, familiar to players of previous games in the series, has been entirely redesigned for GTA IV. Players can expect visible detail down to the weeds growing in the cracks in the sidewalk, cars and buildings of visibly different ages and a much greater level if verticality in the buildings and bridges that they are able to explore as Niko moves through the city streets. In addition, pedestrians in GTA IV are much more realistic. No longer simply moving cardboard cutouts, these NPCs are intelligent, modern, human representations that laugh, cry, eat, drink, use cell phones and ATMs, and talking amongst themselves regardless of Niko’s interaction with them.

Gameplay
Historically GTA games have focused heavily on mission-based play, requiring successful completion of fixed tasks in order for players to progress through the game, but this has changed to a great extent in GTA IV. Players will experience an entirely new and exciting emphasis centered on the blending of on-mission and off-mission play, resulting not only in an increased sense of realism, but more interesting and unrestricted gameplay.

Features
Aside from the car jacking and a detailed city environment here are the new features for GTA IV:

• Improved combat system - Now you can use cover and also a target lock system, which allows you to take out targets with greater ease and accuracy. Plus, you can engage in some hand-to-hand combat if you can't get your hands on a piece quick enough.
• Cell phone - Not just for basic phone calls anymore. Use your in-game cell phone to receive missions via SMS, snap photos, and ZiT (tag) songs that can be downloaded exclusively on Amazon.com/mp3.
• Free time - In between missions you can take advantage of "me" time. There are gentleman's clubs, comedy clubs, bowling alleys, and bars, which all house unique activities.
• Take a break from the storyline - A variety of side missions allow you to help run a car service, "borrow" cop cars, assassinate targets, help solve problems for those on the street, or take to the air with stunt jumps that are scattered all over the city.
• Control your own fate - Throughout the game choice moments will arrive causing you to make a decision that will affect relationships and money.

Multiplayer
Give Niko a rest and create your own multiplayer "hero." GTA has added multiplayer modes allowing you to take your creation out to play online in competitive, co-op, and free form modes. Competitive mode has you fighting against the cops, jacking cars, or racing to finish odd jobs. Co-op challenges you and your friends with various tasks including Hangman's NOOSE where you are responsible for escorting a wanted kingpin to a safe extraction point. Freeform lets you and 15 others lose on Liberty City. Use this mode to hit up the bar and play virtual darts versus each other or head out to the streets and set up your own drag races. If you can dream it, you can do it in Freeform mode.

ZiT: We'll Spot The Song For You
When playing Grand Theft Auto IV, if you hear a song that you are interested in buying as an MP3, all you have to do is dial ZiT-555-0100 on your in-game mobile phone and a text message will be sent to you with the name of the artist and the title of the track. The next time you log in at the Rockstar Games Social Club, you will find 30-second previews of all the songs you have ZiT'ed while playing the game. You can add them to your basket there and click to purchase at Amazon MP3, or you can find them all at www.amazon.com/gtamusic.

Customer Reviews

It's ok
Well, I was excited for GTA4 to come out and couldn't wait to play it. But as the game progressed I have to say I actually got bored. The storyline didn't grab me as much as other GTA's. The graphics were nice, and it was a fun at first just exploring, but I guess I miss the variety of San Andreas with its forests, deserts, mountains, small villages and big cities. To be totally honest I actually stopped playing GTA4 and went on to other games. It's now sitting on my shelf collecting dust for now. Maybe in the future I will play it again, but for now I got other games to play.

rince and repeat
Well if you enjoyed the other GTA episodes get ready for yet another round of fun. It's a bit hard to make moeny at the start of the game as it appears that much of the early on money making tricks have been removed. However after a while you're making enough money to buy the toys you need.

Grand Theft Auto On Ice
Considering the vast changes and improvements this series has seen, from the overhead Micro Machines headache of the first two, to the improvement of GTA3 and Vice City, and then the huge environment of San Andreas, I was expecting great things with this latest release...but was let down. This is by no means a total disappointment but it does have some serious flaws that make me question all the hype around it. Granted, a Grand Theft Auto game arrives with considerable interest and enthusiasm from the video game world but here the ends don't seem to justify the means.

For starters just firing up the game and playing was a demanding experience; a two minute load screen and a whole new set of controls are an unpleasant way to start. I was really hoping the new systems wouldn't require load screens, or at least ones this long, but they're still here. The control scheme was also completely reworked, and though some players may enjoy this change, it was still frustrating to not be able to just start playing the game without a checking the instruction manual. Even when I switched over to the classic setup things just were not as responsive or crisp as past games, particularly vehicle control, this game's Achilles' heel.

If a game is titled Grand Theft Auto, and is part of a series that revolves around stealing, driving, and eventually crashing cars, then it would stand to reason that vehicle play would be at least somewhat intuitive and natural. Here though cars behave as if the streets are paved with ice or at least covered in snow. Hard turns, even at low speeds, produce spinouts and violent fishtails. Just basic driving is slow as most cars sound and behave as if they are permanently stuck in first gear or are just really underpowered. Generally the more powerful and fast a car is the harder it is to drive -- even at very low speeds. You're stuck between choosing small engine compacts with predictable handling or more powerful, but nearly unmanageable, vehicles. I quickly came to dread missions that would require chasing someone in a car as you can simply be outmaneuvered before actually being outrun. Also the vehicle camera is once again stuck in a low behind-the-trunk angle that makes for an enormous blind spot directly in front of whatever you are driving. I soon learned to just hold the thumbstick at a proper angle for a better view, but it would be really nice to see some kind of driving camera patch in the future.

(Personally I think the best all around vehicle is the Humvee; powerful and big enough to knock most traffic out of the way and climb stairs or small obstacles. Oh, and it's the one vehicle capable of moving on grass because for some reason all parks and lawns in the game are apparently very wet and most vehicles will just helplessly spin on them even if they are perfectly flat.)

The improvement in the vehicles comes in their reliability, or the fact that once they catch fire they don't explode a second later, instead you have plenty of time to get out and run for cover (small cars still produce big explosions). Cars also smoke, lose windows and body panels, and sometimes just shut off after a hard crash, all of which is an upgrade over past games where every vehicle was like a time bomb if you crashed it or flipped it over. Here they aren't quite as top heavy, but they can toss you through the windshield crash test dummy-style and sap up a lot of health (I guess seatbelts and airbags aren't in the code).

The game's strength is in its story, or rather in the depth and path in which you choose to play it. The sandbox style of gaming has always been very open-ended but here you can choose from multiple friends and, uh, business associates with whom to interact and perpetuate crime. Most get very annoying very fast, including Niko, this release's stereotyped protagonist, an Eastern European scumbag with a gut (he can't run very fast) and a short fuse (he ends up instigating a number of murders despite other characters' protests). Early on you get a cell phone and you end up with most contacts, services and shortcuts being only a call away. This combined with a very detailed and dirty environment and you have quite a bit of fun exploring and exploiting things throughout the game without having to drive really long distances or reload old saves.

The depth and detail seems to also hinder some play; there are almost too many people and vehicles to easily get around the city without involving yourself in multiple fender benders and hit and runs. The police are also very vigilant and you have to outrun them rather than just wait them out like in past games. Just stealing a car (practically the series' trademark) is risky as police will come racing after you and most drivers, from hunched over seniors to wannabe gangbangers, will actively fight you for their ride. Fortunately there are numerous parked cars (including unoccupied police cruisers) to steal and they are all for the taking because you can now simply smash a window rather than be stopped at a locked door.

I wanted to give this a higher rating but the frustrating gameplay just doesn't allow it. Graphically it is an improvement, especially after San Andreas felt like a noticeable downgrade from Vice City, but despite its grimy beauty there were still heavy shadows and blinding sunlight at times. Despite doing away with pointless details like having to work out or wear correct gang colors, there was still a lot of dumb filler; the Internet and cable in the game are interesting for maybe two minutes each and then you wish game designers had spent their time engineering workable vehicle physics and playable controls rather than silly extras. After playing and enjoying GTA clone Saint's Row on Xbox 360 I was hoping that Rockstar would take note and clone the clone, but they didn't. That's what is so unbelievable after Grand Theft Auto IV: how could an imitator produce such a fun copy and the original series not completely outdo it in every manner? If you have never played a GTA game this can still entertain even with a demanding learning curve, but veterans deserve better.