For Whom The Bellic Tolls
One of the greatest highs in modern videogames has to be that first moment when a GTA game hands control over to you, the player. Here's the world... go do some shit. Dizzying stuff, like pouring champagne directly on your brain balls.
And in this regard, GTAIV does not disappoint. As you catch your first glimpses of the world of Liberty City through the headlights of Roman Bellic's beat up cab, the possibilities seem endless. They aren't of course, but much of GTA's thrill has always been what you can imagine doing, rather than what you actually can do. And it's a pretty perfect engine, built for mind-blowing, and up to the task at hand.
The task at hand is making you feel like you are starring in your own epic crime drama... and you are. And it's ace.
Whilst the story never quite comes together in the way you'd hope (without giving away any spoilers... Niko Bellic could have become a definitive and tragic anti-hero by more than just videogame standards if Houser and co. had been a little more brave during one of the plot's key moments) the people you encounter really are as extraordinary as everyone says they are. Amongst the traditional cartoon archetypes there are a handful of characters here that would stand alongside the best of modern crime literature... broken, damaged people that occupy those thrilling grey areas that exist between simple concepts of good and bad.
Mechanically, the game is greatly improved over previous efforts but still not up to the standards of its genres (as always, it proves to be a jack of all trades, but a master of none)... and although combat is greatly improved, a twitchy cover mechanic and some over enthusiastic physics here and there go to frustrate as much as innovate.
The animation however, is something else entirely. The NaturalMotion middleware, although clearly in its infancy here, demonstrates that the way our digital characters interact with the worlds around them is perhaps the next frontier for developers... and serves to make pre-GTA games seem very wooden by comparison.
This is more than a game (and the reason for all this slightly worthy hyperbole) that demonstrates more strongly than anything that has come before it, that videogames are an art form.
One day, we will ask our grandchildren to sit down and watch Cloverfield with us, and they will refuse, because they have no way of controlling what they are seeing.
GTAIV is better than Cloverfield. With or without a controller.
