GTA IV continues the great production, but the formula is tiring.
GTA IV packs a lot of stuff into one disc, and as such it has a lot of things to talk about. Basic premise is any other GTA layout. You play as Nikolai, "Nicky" as his friends call him, and you're an immigrant from overseas. You've come to Liberty City for numerous reasons, many being laid out as the story unfolds. Regardless, as far as you are concerned, you are there to live a new life with your cousin Roman.
The controls are all fairly the same. You can jump, use/switch weapons, auto-aim on enemies as well as, something new, take cover. Everything else you'll remember from past GTAs. The missions are of course laid out around Liberty City, different locales open up as you move along in the story. As you progress through the main story missions, you are presented with a cast of characters from your cousin, to traitorous mobsters, and of course a man-lover.
To get from point A to point B, you may either jack cars or, my new favorite, take taxis to designated points or points that you want to place and tell them to go. You skip wasted time, and get to enjoying the game faster. Another new feature is a replay system, say you die or just fail a specific mission, your phone will present you with a message asking if you'd like to replay it. This as such prevents you from having to methodically go and pick up the same mission again.
Missions range from following other people to blowing up rivals, and everything in between. Of course these missions would seem much more tedious if it wasn't presented with the polish, great voice acting, and enjoyable story that Rockstar lays out. So in fact it's the opposite of tedious, it's a great game that'll last you approximately 25 hours (just the main story missions), and has numerous side missions (transport drugs, chase down criminals, assassinate people, etc.). Of course there are also the "packages" and "stunt jumps" which, from my current point-of-view, seem very drawn-out. I mean, 200 packages, and at least 50 stunt jumps.
Those paragraphs being a mouthful, I'd like to throw in my opinion on the driving. The vehicles are a lot looser than previously, but not for the better. Often times you'll come careening around a corner and slide so far off from your target point, you might even slam a cop car, and it's just frustrating. People may say it's for the better, but when the NPCs are able to make tight turns and I can't, it's a bit of a downer. That being said, it doesn't make GTA IV any less amazing.
As far as value goes, let me just wrap this summary up. Main story will last 25-30 hours, complete with side missions, a multiplayer mode (which I'll go over next paragraph), way too many "collectibles" and "stunt jumps," all the new mechanics, and finally the achievements. All those together will probably make this game last at least 50 hours for the avid gamer.
Multiplayer feels very tacked-on. Multiplayer is a laggy, disastrous mess. Co-op and rolling around the city with your friends is fun, but the competitive element of Team Deathmatch, among others, just doesn't work for this franchise. My second game just sat at the loading screen for about 5 minutes before I turned my Xbox off.
I recommend this game to any sandbox genre lover. I still don't feel the charm of Vice City has been integrated the same way since Vice City. I still love Pogo the Monkey from VC, but there are a couple refreshing commercials on the radio this time around. If you can spare $60, then this game should be given thought; as long as you remember it's the same as all the other GTA games.
