graey's Full Review: Grand Theft Autoâ„¢ IV for PlayStation 3
With all the hype surrounding this game, I kept warning myself not to get too excited and boy was I right.
:GRAPHICS:
If you just go by the numbers (ie number of moving polygons ect) the graphics are great. However there are a couple glaring problems with the way they made use of the PS3's capabilities;
First, they focused far too much on close up detail to the detriment of long range resolution. Put simply, it's as if Nico is nearsighted as anything that's more than 1/3 of a block away is shown as a vauge shape. That could be a cop car, or a taxi, or a station wagon, you just can't tell because the textures don't render until the object gets really close. Second, it seems as if they were working with a very limited color palette. Most everything's in shades of brown and gray, making the whole game look like it's been washed out somehow. This compounds the first issue, as not only are things blurry, they're also mostly all the same color so they fade together. Thrid, lighting effects. The contrast of sunlight and shadow is too great, and boy did they ever fall in love with light reflecting off of water. A bit of rain and every street is now glittering at you like a whacked out neon sign. Very distracting and way over the top.
:SOUND: The standard game sounds (cars, city noise ect) are all fine and need no improvement. However the voice acting and radio stations leave a lot to be desired. In previous games they had at least one or two radio stations that I could at least stand to listen to and with an even wider range of stations in GTA IV one would think there'd be something for everyone. There isn't. I spent a great deal of time dialing around on the radio looking for something that I at least didn't hate and really had a hard time finding anything. Finally I just gave up and made it a habit to shut the radio off when I got into a car. It boggles me why Rockstar didn't choose to include a *.mp3 station for this game the way the PC version of GTA III had. I can't speak for the Xbox, but the PS3 already has its own dedicated directory for music files, the game could simply have looked there and played things at random while on that station.
:CONTROLS: The game controls dearly needed to be configureable on an button by button basis. You can choose from two different controller layouts, but even with the old style arrangement the game lacks the smooth and handy interface of previous titles. Honesty, no matter which way you set up your controller layout when designing a game you're not going to please everyone. The only way around that is to allow the buttons to be fully re-configured within your game. Games used to have that feature a lot more in the past, and they need to bring it back.
:GAMEPLAY: Here's the meat of the matter, where any game lives or dies imho. Sadly, this became GTA IV's grave. The biggest issue is the physics, it seems that inertia was given far too high a setting as cars have a hard time taking off, stopping and making turns without sliding around. This applies to Nico himself as well, he moves like he's got arthritis. He also seems to have a problem simply stopping, often turning around and running a step and a half back the way he came when all you did was stop pushing forward on the stick. Sloppy. The auto aim feature "updated" but not in any useful way. Seems they wanted to make it so you could autolock on someone and then hit them in various locations (arm, head, ect) but the reticle doesn't move far enough from center torso to do you any good. The cover system was maybe a good idea, but done very poorly. It's far too hard to tell where Nico will choose to take cover or what cover he'll switch to while you're in a firefight. It's much easier to simply crouch down and manually move behind objects, so you know where you're going. The phone. The phone is incredibly irritating. I found it impossible to just wander around the city and check things out without somebody bugging me to go out on activites with them. You can just ignore everyone and do your own thing, but it degrades your relationships. While this is a realistic concept, it was taken to a ridiculous extreme, I couldn't even get through a single game day without being bothered. The new wanted level system is pretty cool, one of the few changes from the "old school" GTA style that I approve of. It's not nearly as full featured and in depth as I had been led to believe however. There had been talk of losing stars by switching cars while no cops can see you and suchlike. As it is, the radius system is a step forward but not as much as it could've been.
:CONTENT: While they put a lot of stuff in, what was left out was much more important. The game's version of the internet was nifty, pretty funny how they put the FAQ maps right there in the game, all the pickups, flying rats ect. The lack of car mods is probably the biggest content disappointment. In San Andreas there were actual style mods and colors you could choose from, as well as good ole laughing gas. GTA IV takes a huge step backward, you can repaint your car at the pay 'n spray but of course it's random (and now also takes something like 4 or 6 hours of game time, a realistic addition but annyoing if you're wanting a certain color and have someplace to go). If there's one thing, content-wise that baffles me the most, it's the lack of insane stunt bonuses. That's right, when you hit a ramp, spin your car around 3 times in the air and then land it right back on the road without missing a beat you get... nothing. I can understand if they didn't want to award money, because that never made a lot of sense anyway but the insane stunts were never about the money, it was about seeing the data of what you'd done (jump height, degrees of rotation ect) and then trying to top it. I don't know any GTA player who hasn't spent hours just making runs at various ramps with different cars and bikes, trying to beat their record. Also missing: Taxi, ambulance and firefighter missions (unless I'm very much mistaken). Vigilante is still available (in a somewhat altered form) but I don't think I'm the only one dearly missing the other "R3" missions. (For one thing, I used taxi driver to learn the city maps in previous games) Nico himself is also a major letdown, there's nothing much to him. C.J. had stats and skill levels in various weapons and vehicle types, things to develop. Nico on the other hand is the same after 100 hours of play as he was when you first started. Even money, which Nico and his cousin are always talking about, doesn't do you much good aside from buying arms. There's no property to purchase, which brings me to my next thing... The hideouts have no garages. There are just little yellow squares in front to save cars in. And while this works (the cars are actually saved) it often causes serious traffic issues. Realistic as this might be, I think we could've done without it.
On the whole, I think Rockstar put a lot of work into this game. It's a shame they didn't seem to realize that they already had so many things right there wasn't really any need for most of these changes. I really hope we're not seeing a strenghtening trend of games coming out with so-so content and relying on their online play to fill the gaps. Some of us play video games because we don't want to interact with a bunch of jerks. The final nail in GTA IV's coffin: No Phoenix? Weak.
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