Grand Theft Auto IV Review - Severely Overrated Game Suffers From Extremely Repetitive Missions

Grand Theft Auto IV
Score: 7.0
Systems: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Genre: Action Length: 30 hours Difficulty: 6 Publisher: Take Two Developer: Take Two
Pros - It's the best GTA game - Liberty City is very detailed and creative - Lots of Multiplayer mission types
Cons - It's still a GTA game: Watch cut scene, drive from point A to point B, shoot somebody. Wash, rinse, repeat for 30 hours - Frame rates and graphics look like PS2.5 - Has an interesting world, yet there are no interesting things to do in it
The mega review sites undeservedly dish out hype and praise like clockwork to the GTAs, Halos, Final Fantasies, and Metal Gears of the world. No game encompasses such a ridiculous amount of hype as GTA does. GTA3 was an admittedly a revolutionary game for its time because it started a whole new genre: the sandbox game. It should be praised for originality and pushing videogames to new places. However, the GTA formula and actual gameplay have always been average at best.
Where do we begin? Let's take a minute to review what the mainstream media has to say about GTA4. Currently GTA4 is being hailed as literally the BEST game of all time. The game has a ridiculous 99% score on Gamerankings.com. Every single review without fail has praised the game as the Holy Grail of gaming. WOW! Can I start my own site to get another viewpoint from the hype driven, marketing based payola that is the norm in the videogame media?
The mega sites are all posting 10 page reviews that go on ad nauseum about the spectacle and grandeur of GTA4. Yet within those pages of PR fluff, there is very little concrete information about why GTA is the most fun game of all time, why GTA gameplay is anything more than average, why the game deservers a frickin' 10 out of 10.
Most of the large sites comment continually about how wonderful the cut scenes are. I think cut scenes can be a nice reward for finishing a larger portion of a game. Once these movies start becoming a significant portion of the game, then I may as well watch a movie (are you listening Metal Gear Solid?). In my opinion, games are a unique form of entertainment because they allow people to interact with a world and do things that are not feasible in reality. Watching cut scenes, regardless of their quality, tends to bore me to tears because it takes me away from having fun doing things in this great city that they've meticulously built.
The mega sites also write reviews the size of War and Peace filled with the nebulous, meaningless dribble about how the game makes you feel or little cute details in the world. Yes the world is a highly rich, detailed, and interesting place: plenty of people walking around with funny comments and actions, tons of variety in car models, good physics engine, and plenty of things to do other, such as bowling, buying clothes and going to a strip club (gotta be controversial to sell the game, right?). The main problem is that the gameplay is just not that fun inside this world. How does any of this matter if the game isn't actually fun to play?
The first 3 hours of the game is literally half cut scenes, and half chauffeuring people back and forth through the city. Woohoo, I can see now why this is the best game of all time. They should have called this "Driving Miss Daisy Theft Auto IV". The missions do get better and more interesting, but the game basically always revolves around talking to someone, getting a job (some kind of hit), and driving to go kill somebody.
There is so much peripheral SIMS like crap in the game such as bowling, dating, buying clothes, surfing the web that sound cool in theory but are not fun to do in a videogame. It really seems the developers focused on adding more meaningless content that no one wanted in the first place as opposed to making the game's core gameplay more enjoyable and varied (I supposed it adds to the bullet points they can put on the back of the box). If these types of things are fun, they have been done much better in other games devoted to the genre. Why play a game of bowling when you could get a bowling game instead?
I think that open world gameplay tends to be a flawed style of gameplay. It sounds cool in theory to allow people to do anything they want and see how the world reacts to your actions. It was fun when GTAIII introduced the style on the PS2. The genre has just failed to innovate to keep things fresh. What you end up with is trying to do all things for all gamers - a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none type of philosophy.
The open world also compromises graphics and makes gameplay repetitive and uninteresting. Other open world games, such as Assassins creed and Spiderman 3, are also great examples of the general flaws of this gameplay type. These games tend to have interesting worlds but ruin the experience with uninteresting and monotonous missions and side tasks. Repeating the same 4-5 types of tasks on enemies and environments that look different for 30 hours fails to keep me interested.
There have been many updates to the GTA system that allow it to move into the 21st century: map navigation and GPS voice allow you to get your next mission MUCH easier, aiming controls and fighting allow for easier lock-on and switching between targets, and improved controls.
Crackdown is a good example of an open world game, which is fun.. Its over the top action, mega explosions, fun platforming, smooth and polished graphics, and silly sense of humor make Crackdown a fun open world game to play. The upcoming game Prototype also looks to be a solid open world game because you get to do some amazing, over the top things in the open world. Again what you do in the game's world is the key, not the actual world and its appearance.
To be fair, the GTA game does try to provide you with a lot for your gaming dollar. The campaign is lengthy 30 hours (about 6 hours of cut scenes and 6 hours of driving between missions), and there are endless side missions (bowling, dating, clothes shopping, etc.)
The newly introduced multiplayer is robust as well with 12 different modes. Some of the modes are pretty cool, such as cops and robbers (one team runs from the other team chasing trying to catch them), GTA race (race while shooting at each other), and some co-op modes for 2-4 players. Due to the game's large following, there are plenty of people on-line to play with. Unfortunately, the technical problems that mar the single player portion of the game, such as poor frame rates, become even worse online. The game feels too sluggish to be any fun long-term online.Also, there is no online menu, so you have to quit a game, go back to the single-player mode and then re-enter the new multiplayer mode you want (all with the obligatory load times mentioned above).
If you are comparing GTA to previous iterations in the series, then it looks great. However, this game pales in comparison to the standards set by this generation's Gears of War, Crackdown and Ratchet and Clank. The textures, jagged edges, and rough look make this look like your average 3rd party multi-port game. The frame rate also suffers (appears to run from 20-30fps), which makes the game feel sluggish and the controls are not as responsive as needed. The load times are absolutely ridiculous in length (10-15 seconds each) and quantity (before each cut scene and the beginning of each mission). It is not uncommon that the game freezes up during these load times and you have to reboot the system.
I understand that the Liberty City world is a large and very detailed world, and its tough to make a sandbox game look like Gears of War or Drakes Fortune. However, Crackdown was a sandbox game and it managed to have great textures, frame rate and controls, so it appears Take 2 decided to focus on other aspects of the game and allow the graphics to suffer. GTA4 is a nice looking GTA game but an average looking game at best.
In summary, GTA4 is the best GTA game so far. However the gameplay itself continues to be the weakest link in the overall package. We here are PoweredUpGamers believe that gameplay rules the day every time, and no amount of hype is going to change that. If you liked former GTA games and don't mind that the actual gameplay hasn't changed much, then you will like this game. If you compare this game to other alternatives on any system, then you will probably find that the game pales in comparison to the games competing for your time and money.