Grand Theft Auto IV

By: Ryan

The newest installment in the Grand Theft Auto series takes you back to Liberty City as an immigrant named Niko who literally stepped right off the boat. Niko is in search of the great American dream but realizes rather quickly that in order to survive in Liberty City you better enjoy killing hundreds of people in cold blood.

The city is laid out as the islands that you are used to but the city itself is incredibly detailed. Based off of actual buildings the skyscrapers are gigantic (yes you can go to the top of each one and jump off) and the roads are as intricate as the streets of New York City. If you walked into this game expecting a layout like that of San Andres you are going to be either highly disapointed or extremely relieved.

Now I remember GTA from the very first one where you played as a tiny blue dot who shot other dots with his grey pixel pistol that shot grey pellets at people. You'd drive around and do missions for different gangs. The game has come a long way both in graphics but also functionality and game play. The freedom in the game is almost unrivaled, giving you the ability to alter the outcome for certain parts of the game based on the moral decisions you make.

Onto the game play, which is fucking awesome. The very first thing I did in this game was steal a car only to have the driver try and take me back out. As usual I gunned it but instead of the guy being stunned or merely falling over, his hand got caught in the door and I dragged him down the street until he met his unfortunate demise once I side swiped an oncoming truck. You hardly will come across two people that look the same crossing paths though the same can't be said for the vehicles. The smoothness of flying the helicopter is astounding giving you the ability to wind and turn through city buildings.

You receive, for the first time ever, a cell phone and over the course of the game acquire peoples numbers. These are friends, people you do jobs for, and even some enemies. You also get a couple of love interests, so once you find that girl of your dreams you get her digits and hit her ass up, you can go on dates with her. Bowling anyone? As fun as that all sounds usually you just end up getting phone calls from people who want you to come and hang out with them, and of course you are on the other side of the map and you say yes, than you have to drive as fast as you can to get to their house before they call back whining like a bitch that you are a bad friend. Now they no longer want to hang out and you wasted all your time driving in the wrong direction.

Most of the game you spend doing missions to try and continuously rescue your dimwitted cousin who lied you into coming there in the first place. That's fine and well it moves the story forward and you end up doing a lot more. You meet about twenty five people over the course of the game so there are a lot of different angles being covered and a lot of different perspectives you get to see.

If you got into the new downloadable content that recently came available called the Lost and the Damned you play as a guy in a motorcycle gang. There is animosity within the group and you end up playing through the missions to become the leader of the gang. The person you play as is someone that you meet multiple times in the normal story mode. From this dlc you get to see a whole other side of what is going on in Liberty City and with Niko. If you are wondering yes you get to play side by side with him!

There is also a multiplayer feature which you can access through the cell phone. There are ranked and unranked game play with a total of fifteen different game variations. The main ones are Deathmatch, Cops'n'Crooks, GTARace, Freemode, and Turf War. Death match is pretty self explanatory with team fighting against each other in specific parts of the city. Cops'n'Crooks is really a good time where there are two teams, one playing as cops, and one playing as bad guys. Each team starts with automatic weapons though there are others scattered throughout the city. The crooks have to try and escape to either a helicopter or a boat while the cops have to try and stop them. At the end of each round you switch, rinse, and repeat.

GTA Race is a race where you can leave your vehicle and get into a new one. You also can pick up different weapons that are placed on the course to destroy your opponents. Most of the time these races turn into anarchy but it's still a good time. Turf War is basically where the teams have different territories that they are trying to take from one another. Finally Free Mode is just what it sounds like. You run around the city with a bunch of other people and wreak havoc. You can kill each other, kill people, have the cops chase you, it's a great time waster.

Grand Theft Auto IV is by far the best in the series to date. Rockstar has taken this game to the next level with the level of detail that went into creating the sandbox city landscape. The only thing I thought of after I smashed that first guy into that truck was I can't wait to see what GTA V is going to feel like.