Grand Theft Auto (GTA) IV should be banned. There, I said it.
This M18-rated game should be banned not because of its violent and
some say objectionable content, but because it's so terribly, terribly
addictive.
The formula is the same: Thug comes to town, thug kills and blows things up, thug ends up as kingpin.
You play Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immigrant searching for
the American dream in Liberty City. Cousin Roman becomes your guide as
you find your feet around the cliched "living, breathing world" of GTA.
Liberty City is a rough representation of New York, thanks to notable
landmarks, including the Statue of, erm, Happiness.
Any game developer can replicate a city, but its inhabitants make
up its soul. Things happen all around you. Police officers arrest a
hoodlum, wait for backup and put the perp into the backseat of a squad
car.
An hour into the game, I met with a random accident - Niko got
pinned against the wall by a car, with the driver slumped over the
steering wheel, horn blaring. It's a videogame gem that is cannon
fodder for online forums.
You'll spend hours exploring the city, even before you decide to
immerse yourself in the GTA universe run by the Russian mob, corrupt
cops and street thugs.
The game gets off to a slow start, with Niko being tasked with
"menial" jobs like playing debt collector. Things soon pick up, and
once you start delivering truck bombs, you know you're up and coming on
the most wanted list.
GTA's dark humour isn't lacking either: One mission requires you to
dispose of two dead bodies in the trunk of your car. A fender-bender
during a drive around the city pops the trunk, leaving the bodies for
all to see.
There are also the side missions of boosting cars and playing drug
runner - no harm making a little moolah to pay for weapons, the tools
of persuasion that you will need further in the game.
Rockstar Games has reworked the combat engine: Niko can now aim and
take cover behind any object, leading to more intense gun battles. The
left trigger auto-locks onto an opponent while the right thumbstick
lets you make minute adjustments in aim to take out people with a
headshot or incapacitate them by targeting a limb. Your arsenal ranges
from baseball bats to pistols, automatic and sniper rifles.
Thanks to Rockstar's Rage game engine and the Euphoria animation
engine, we see life-like reactions from both Niko and the non-playable
characters he interacts with. Sometimes, carjacking victims fight back
and cling on the car door as you drag them a block or two across
asphalt.
Such anti-social behaviour will often draw out Liberty City's boys
in blue, depending on the severity of your misdemeanour. The
wanted-star rating system is back, and the police search perimeter will
depend on the number of stars you have. Lose the fuzz by breaking line
of sight and escaping the search perimeter, but on levels of four stars
and above, you'll find that harder to do with police helicopters
circling above.
It helps that you can smash the windows of any parked car for a
quick getaway. The vehicles in the game sport better handling
characteristics - vans and trucks are sluggish, while sports saloons
and coupes handle like they're on rails. Niko can also fly helicopters,
but Rockstar stopped short of giving him access to jumbo jets and
jetpacks this time round so as to, as they say in the streets, keep it
real.
The game does have minor niggles. For instance, the camera system
sometimes gets confusing, and taking cover at times gets you killed as
you duck beside an enemy.
One feature that makes GTA:IV special is that your relationship
with supporting characters helps determine how the game plays out. Your
moral judgment is also questioned at some stage in the game - do you
let a harmless target go free or do you bust a cap in his eye?
Contacts soon become your friends, and with your trusty mobile
phone in hand, they are only a call or text message away from a night
out playing darts, bowling or patronising strip clubs. Yes, the former
two are mini-games within the game. Establishing a good rapport with
these contacts will earn you free rides, weapons and other essentials.
You have access to the Internet, with some contacts emailing you
jobs to do. And if you're bored, you can search the Internet to find
that special someone to date.
You can easily breeze through the solo player campaign in about 40
hours if you ignore the side missions, but the fun doesn't stop there.
Your in-game mobile phone is also your window to GTA's multiplayer
universe. If Niko, as a single entity, wreaks that much havoc across
town, imagine what 15 other players can do.
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