I have heard this question going about for a little while now, and I thought I would weigh in on the subject. Is Grand Theft Auto IV the greatest game ever made?

There is a lot in favor of it, that’s for sure. The idea of an open world has never been so well realized, and Liberty City truly feels alive, the ability to go on dates (and man-dates) may sound pointless, but it is actually a fun diversion that makes it feel as though you are living in the city and effecting things around you.

The story telling is also fantastic, delivering a clever plot and with good voice acting and fantastic motion capture.

The game play itself is solid, and though a lot of people have criticized the driving, I think that is feels pretty realistic and once you have a bit of experience, you can certainly feel in control. The cover system is also pretty solid, and is a great addition to the series, but other than the occasional rushing goon with a shotgun, it has a tenancy to make the fire fights a bit easy.

There are also some subtle touches that really polish the game off nicely. For example, driving to a mission can have one set of dialogue, then if you fail, the next time you get a different set of dialogue and if you fail again the NPC you are riding with just puts the radio on and you can listen to music. This is a minor thing, but it shows that rockstar really thought about the design of the game to a much higher level than most developers.

There are certainly some problems with the game. For example, the vehicle spawning is very odd, sometimes not putting any cars on the road at all until you move into the next area and money seems to get pointless pretty fast and there is nothing big to buy later in the game (like property in previous GTA games). Also IV’s version of the hidden package system from previous games seems to have taken the curious turn of making you get all 200 pigeons (packages) before getting any rewards, making it purely from the OCD completionists of the world.

I am yet to complete GTA yet, and I’m not rushing to get to the end point, so this isn’t really a review. Even if I were to review the game I wouldn’t be saying anything that 1000 other reviewers haven’t already said so there doesn’t seem much point. This game would definitely get a Ten from me, but that should be of no surprise to anyone I’m sure.

However is GTA IV the greatest game ever made? Well if it isn’t then I would like to know what is.