I finished Grand Theft Auto 4 today with what I hope is the “bad” ending and all I can think of is wow!
I found the last mission pretty difficult, much harder than any other mission in the game, and must’ve needed about 30 retries due to my poor motorcycle skills. But perseverance paid off and I got to see the longest credit sequence in known history, every single name deserves their mention though as I thoroughly enjoyed GTA4 from start to finish, and I’m only 68%-ish complete.
Honestly it’s the best game I’ve played for a long time, with a mature and thoughtful story that twists and turns with legitimate surprises. The ending I saw was genuinely surprising and I really wasn’t expecting events to turn out as they did. I’m genuinely enthused about replaying the campaign to witness the, presumably, “good” ending, along the way I’ll choose the alternative response to all the decisions I made this time… but first I have pigeons to kill and relationships to build.
The characters are more than cardboard caricatures this time around, with even “small” characters feeling more like people, they have motivations for what they are doing and the voice acting and motion-capture help give you an attachment to them.
The biggest character, as much of a cliché as it is becoming, is the city itself. Liberty City is packed to the brim with detail and I was genuinely surprised at how interesting the city was to simply drive around. In past 3D GTA games, the city was ultimately simple geometry and not that interesting (except a few structures), but the Liberty City in GTA 4 has been painstakingly created. I’m sure there must be duplicated buildings somewhere but I didn’t notice anything obvious during my playtime, almost everything looked unique and individual.
The Euphoria engine powering the pedestrians (and other character models) is shown off to great effect too, with the unique on-the-fly animations really giving character and weight to their little bodies as they go careening off the bonnet/side/boot of your car/bike. As well as the neat reactionary responses they now give, such as honking your horn near a ped carrying something causing them to drop it and curse at you.
The story is also a good length, it took me 36 hours to get through, that’s with a bit of relationship time and mission retries (but no messing about, I can do that now the story is finished :)). So hopefully next time I can do it in under 30 hours for the Liberty City Minute achievement.
Like I said yesterday, it does have a few niggling flaws, like the targeting and cover systems occasionally going mental and doing something bizarre, but there are so many neat little touches, both graphical and otherwise that I could literally wibble on for hours about the game. Rockstar have seriously outdone themselves and created a great experience.
2 Comments
Only almost halfway through so far, but I’ve noticed something. The way that drugs are dealt with in game is interesting… it seems like almost every contact (thus far) takes some kind of drug, and in every case, it screws them and pretty much everyone around them over… and, noticably, whenever proffered, Nico always turns them down.
Among the things I never expected to find in GTA 4, an anti drugs message is high on the list…
I dunno, most GTA’s (since 3 at least) have had an anti-drugs message. San Andreas was almost as blatant as 4 (with CJ’s gang being the only gang NOT doing drugs and cleaning out the other gangs which did) but yeah it’s funny how pretty much every character except Jacob gets screwed by cocaine. Jacob just does weed so maybe that’s where R* is making the distinction.
I’m fairly sure most would agree that crack is bad and weed is meh.
I found Niko VERY interesting, especially as it’s the first true protagonist that’s not a canvas for yourself, he is pretty much anti-anything offered to him, even drink (except for one occasion I can think of but he doesn’t drink any of it). Actually perhaps by him being neutral in that way it allows players to connect more?
But yeah, GTA4 is pretty anti-coke (buy e-cola). But then, it is a pretty sensible thing to be against.