[DrSatanDracula]

As noted in the thread title, this thread includes SPOILERS OF ALL SHAPES AND VARIETIES.

GTA 4 is the type of game which, while very good, has been brought to the leve of apotheosis by fan-boys that utterly reject objectivity in order to herald this as the second coming of Jesus Christ. This game is not the best game ever made. It is not even close.

Let's begin, shall we?

The biggest gripe I have with this game, as I noted elsewhere, is that it is A MAJOR AND EXTREME DOWNGRADE ON SO MANY LEVELS. The game has annihilated so much from the series. Considering this game - and the games before it - made Rockstar billions, the only excuse that can be made is that they are too lazy to code shit that they have before. It is intolerable and GREATLY IMPACTS THE QUALITY OF THE GAME and its replay.

The following things are completely absent:

Weapons: Mini-gun, flame thrower, homing rocket launcher, tank, harrier, rhino water tank, brass knucks, sword, dildo, vibrator, flowers, chain saw.

Side-missions: Pimping, property buying, money-property buying, trucking, gang wars, rampages, home invasions, and license tests.

Vehicles: Planes, bicycles, parachutes, rocket pack.

Celebrities: Excluding Bas Rutten and Jim Norton, there are no celebrities in game.

Character customization: A paltry amount of clothes, no barbershops, no tattoos, no training, no buffing up/getting fat, no improving skills, no getting tattoos. You can buy some clothes. That's it.

No connection to prior games: The connections are minute at best. At best. There is Lazlow. They mention Los Venturas and Vice City. That's it.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack itself is very "eh" and there are no uploadable MP3s. They should have also had a Sinatra-style radio channel. This is Faux-NYC. Why can't I listen to Old Blue Eyes?

The game does some things awesomely. No one can say the game isn't beautiful, the story not excellent (in the mainline - more on this later), the voice actors great, and the city beautifully done. The phone mechanic is also great. As is the taxing and friends that do things for you and you can have "dates" with.

On to the story: Okay. The story is very good. Excellent, in fact, in parts. These parts are the main missions. Some parts of the story, however, are crap. The game starts off very slow and there are points in the game where the storyline missions are just stupid. The McReary Brothers and Brucie are the best characters and storylines outside of the "Niko is getting revenge and killing Russians and other people who fuck him over" main storyline - Dwayne/Playboy X, Manny, and Elizabeta are stupid. Paper and Frankie McReary are good. The Italian mobsters are boring and stupid. Little Jacob is cool. The ending is good. I've only done the Revenge ending, but I hear that you have another option. I might go back and do that in a bit, but probably wait a bit.

I'd also like to commend the game for doing awesome with the cars and driving EXCLUDING motorcycles. Motorcycles are fucking unworkable - everything makes one fall off them and hurt oneself. That being said, the models and damage, handling, et cetera, are great. The game really outdid it self there. Definitely.

The city is also very impressive. Broker and Dukes were rushed in some parts and way too small (they miss out on cool areas) and the whole thing could have been larger (let's cut out some stupid Alderney crap for more LC). But the city is really well done overall and just cool. I'd have liked to have been able to go into more places, interact with more people, et cetera, but it was cool. But not being able to base jump? Un fucking believable!

The combat is definitely better in this game. They improved it a lot. It isn't brilliant. It isn't Drake's Fortune or ****l Gear Solid 4 or any game where combat is key. But it is much better than previously. The AI on the enemies could be better. They don't really do anything. But the combat is a lot better than the bullshit of prior GTA games. But yeah...the combat is not EXCEPTIONAL. In fact, I say they should have significantly improved it. I'd have liked to have faced intelligent enemies. I did not.

Multiplayer is also awesome. This really improves the experience. But the Playstation 3 interface for online calibration of shit and stuff is sub-optimal. It's okay, it's workable, but it is a bit off.

This game was good. It wasn't too long for the most part - the Italian missions not with standing - and it had some good parts. It didn't have as many "holy shit awesome!" moments in terms of mission gameplay as GTA SA, but it did have solid missions throughout. Also not having to lose one's shit if one goes to the hospital is good, as was the new police system. I like this game, don't get me wrong, but it is just........not the game that everyone makes it out to be.

In summary:

Pros: Great storyline, voice acting, graphics, gameplay improvements, multiplayer.

Cons: No celebrities, most of the extra content has been cut or altered badly (not being able to choose which race you want to do?! What the fuck?!), several parts of the story/missions aren't good at all, bad motorcycles and no planes, lack of GTA humour and feel, some lacking of truly climatic and epic moments, misc. other gripes mentioned above.

Overall score: On an objective basis of 0-10, with 0 being absolute garbage, 10 being God II, this game is a 7.5. I would have given it an 8, but there are too many flaws overall to give it that. I was going to give it an 8 for a long time until I got to the end and realized how much was lacking. This game is very good and enjoyable, but it is not God's gift to gamers.

Also, I do not consider the extra content being promised as part of this game. It's only for X-Box and I find it cheap and bullshit to count expansion material before it is expanded.

GTA 4: Whatever better fix these problems and live up to the hype, that's all I am saying. Of course, the completely bullshit fanboy reviews in magazines/websites that mention none of its flaws will probably fellate Rockstar even if they don't.

This is the problem: Big time games will never be objectively reviewed. For big time games, there really should be a mandated two week cool down period for objectivity on the part of the people who review it after their initial review. But that is a whole other thing...