Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto 4 is surely not a usual game, it was ambitiously executed since the beginning and offers a lot to the player. The game mechanics aren't usual either, you have arguably more freedom in what you're allowed to do or not than any other game. Adding an incredibly engaging story that stands as one of the most convincing ever created along with interesting characters with strong personality and realism, making this an incredible gaming achievement.

If you're not familiar with the GTA-kind of gameplay and overall mechanics you might feel a little lost at the beginning, there's a lot to be learned in every sense. You are presented with a game with no menu, only an initial loading screen that instantly loads the game and from there the action will begin. You can have various save files and turn auto-save on, but to choose any of these files the game will have to be fully loaded already.

When you're through with the opening scenes you'll have witnessed the arrival of Niko Bellic, he's an European guy coming to Liberty City to pursuit the "American Dream" style of life. His imagination of such dream was inflated by his cousin, Roman Bellic, who lives in Liberty City and relentlessly told him bogus stories about his life in the city. When he finally arrives and meet up with his cousin Roman, he starts to realize that life in Liberty City will be no dream at all. Actually life in Liberty City will seem pretty much real, at least in the eyes of a shameless law-breaker, ready to jump into the crime underworld at any given chance. The story stands as one of the best stories told in video-games, it will look so much plausible if you also take in consideration that since the first minute Niko stepped into the city he continuously started to befriend the wrong kind people, and when I say wrong kind people I mean the kind of people your mom wouldn't want you to be friends with. They sure seem the right ones for Niko though.

Niko starts small-time, he just drives a taxi for his cousin in order to help him with his business, at this point Niko wouldn't have much to do anyway. You stay quite a while doing jobs for your cousin by driving people from one place to the other, but just as boredom seems to be showing up things start to brighten up. By driving around you meet people, and meeting people will get you new contacts, one of these contacts will be Little Jacob, he's a Rasta-guy that enjoys listening to Bob Marley, smoking some pot, and of course doing some gangster stuff here and there as well. By meeting up with Jacob he will sympathize with Niko and that's the beginning of a good friendship, also the beginning of Niko's troublesome adventure through Liberty City underworld of criminals and gangs. What is most important about the story is that it flows gently with many twists saved for key moments, the story is anything but predicable and the craziest undertakings will take place as the game advances. Some events are player's choice, and will be up to the player deciding what to do, whether kill one guy or the other, different situations and missions will follow depending on your choice.

Throughout the game, Niko will find himself involved with several peculiar beings, they are bad guys of all types; gang members, killers, drug dealers, corrupt cops, prostitutes, anything you could imagine. Of course Niko is not the Mr. nice-guy type of individual, so he plays his part as anti-hero well, not only that, one of the most believable anti-heroes of all time. He shoots people, he robs them, he robs banks, he steals cars, he brakes the law in a daily basis, he swears, he does everything wrong, but a certain charm involves the character, a certain charisma makes you like Niko the way he is. So much that as the game flows and the story unfolds, you'll cheer for Niko's personal redemption, and do everything at your disposal to make it so. Since that means play the game, it also means the game has definitely done something good to keep you hooked, and glad we are about that.

Niko came to Liberty City looking for a better life, or in many cases a "dream life", something that constant propaganda makes people believe it exists and can be achieved, especially in faraway places -- something like "the grass is always greener in the neighbor's yard" kind of deal. Niko represents a believable character, an immigrant that isn't hard to find in many rich countries in the world, a guy you may relate to someone you actually know or met. Liberty City resembles New York City immensely, it in fact represents New York City, the whole city is based on various parts of the actual modern-day New York. Some locations are iconic and resemble an actual location right away if you know New York even the slightest. It impress in details as there are always people in the streets going from one place to the other, when the sun goes down it has less but there's still some people walking around, including some night-time job individuals like hookers, who you can always request services from whenever you'd like, depending on how much money you drop, a better quality service will be given. When it rains it's funny to notice people fleeing the rain holding newspapers upon their heads, then the city gets temporarily deserted, it's only a matter of time for the rain to stop pouring and for the city to be filled with crowd again. The cars are also based on real models, there are several types to be found, going from popular to imported sports cars -- the latter in less number, and much harder to find --, each received a different name rather than the real name of the car it represents.

Driving in Grand Theft Auto 4 is of extreme importance, for you to get yourself a vehicle you just need to spot one you like, stand near it and press one button, Niko will automatically steal the car and start driving around. Don't sleep on the wheel though, if you rob a car by taking someone out of it, some people might try to retrieve his lost vehicle and you might get in an unnecessary fight; if there are police cars around a pursuit will follow, it's up to you to get out of the search perimeter and wait for some time for the situation to cool down. There are six pursuit levels, they are represented with stars. With one star you're fine, just one or two cars behind you and a small perimeter, you can even joke around, the police will hardly be a problem; but if you manage to do enough damage to raise your wanted level to six stars your life will become a living hell, with helicopters equipped with machine guns ready to blow your car in seconds, along with road blocks, lots of police cars and special cops with body armors and high artillery; also, the perimeter will be immense, making it quite a feat to successfully evade the pursuit alive and well.

Liberty City is big, it takes some time to go from one place to another, and that, after many hours into the game, can become a frustrating task; to overcome this you can also take other kinds of transportation, like subways, trains and taxis. The train and subway are found inside various stations scattered around the city and can come in handy if you're tired of driving and the place you must go is very far away, not to mention if the location sits near a station which would make things much more convenient; though the experience you'll be put through in this case won't do much to keep things interesting. So with the subways and trains being a little too much for a criminal with tight schedule, your secondary transport vehicle of choice will certainly be the cabs, you can easily call out for one and get into it, for just a few dollars you can skip the whole trip to your destination and perform a fast-travel to wherever you wanna go. Certainly essential later in the game when the car roaming will start to become longer -- due to expansion of available locations -- and more tedious.

The interface of the in-game menu is full of information with maps, missions, career numbers and statistics, anything you might wanna know about what you've been doing in Liberty City can be found there. You're also introduced to a cellular phone to organize your contacts and receive calls from the friends you made throughout the adventure, some will bypass the line of being a mere acquaintance and forge a more bonded friendship, when this happens, they will call you from time to time to do some non-gangster stuff, like going out on a strip-club, playing darts, playing pool, eating a lunch or maybe just a hamburger, sometimes even going to a restaurant or a cabaret show. Each person you know will have different taste in places they would like or not; for instance, it's not a good idea to take a woman out and go to a strip club, you would have better chances at a restaurant or going for a billiard game. Different personalities demand different approaches. The cellular phone is one of the great aspects of the game, it's everything you need to fully manage your contacts and always receive information about what going on and what's going down in the underground world. It's dynamic and easy to operate.

If you get in trouble with armed enemies you can take cover basically anywhere, then use your gun as blind-fire or aim exposing yourself to damage. You can also shoot from a moving vehicle, by pressing one button Niko will break the window of the driver's side and you'll be able to shoot out while driving, one stick will handle the car and the other the crosshatch; many missions will require to neutralize cars by pursuing and shooting them down. You can drive motorcycles and helicopters as well -- and basically any vehicle in the game, there's numerous types --, you're able to shoot with your weapon from the motorcycle but the helicopter will only allow the launching of missiles found in the helicopter itself. If you're caught by the police you'll have to go down to the district and pay a fine to get released from prison. If you're a hard ass and refuse to give up even in the most lost cases, you'll ultimately die and have to pay the medical costs for your recovery. In any case, locked in prison or shot to near death, you lose money.

Another great thing about this game are the radio stations, when you're inside a vehicle you have the opportunity to browse through a good variety of them, each has a different type of music going on and different kinds of subjects spoken. For example, if you're into some hardcore, you can easily turn on the hardcore station to listen while driving. If you're not much into hardcore, but reggae is your thing, just go switching until you find the reggae station, be sure to find some Bob Marley in there. It doesn't matter what kind of music you're into, you'll surely find a radio station that suits you tastes, if not completely, at least a little. You can even find Jazz and Electronic Music stations. The music isn't the only attractive in them, you can find several dialogues spoken by the presenter of each station, much like in a real station, most of them are funny and mock various aspects of American pop and social culture. Even some guests will sporadically participate and make the dialogs even funnier. You have another way of communication at your disposal, that being the internet, you can easily go to an internet cafe and rent a computer to browse the internet, there are dozens of linked websites in the game, and again, comedy plays a special part in most of them, you can also check your e-mails that friends will often send you or schedule dates with people in the dating website, just send an e-mail and see if the person is interested.

Dating is another option if you're tired of shooting people or driving around the city destroying cars, the game primarily gives you two girls that are potential girlfriends for you, the rest can be obtainable through the internet dating website. It works like a real date, you call her, or she calls you -- depending on the status of your relationship and how much time have passed since you two last seen each other --, you two set up the date, you go pick her up at the time scheduled to take her somewhere. Depending on her likes and dislikes, she will like you more or less, so you shouldn't only take her to a place she enjoys, but also not kill anyone in the process, not drive fast, not have your clothes with marks of blood, not use the same clothes too often, and not be late. Each girl also has specific cars that she likes less or more. When you're done with the date, take her home and try your luck, depending on how good the date went and the relationship status in general she'll let you go upstairs and spend the night. After sleeping with her, you can unlock certain abilities for you character whenever you call her, like Carmen for example, who's a nurse and will help you recover your energy by helping you with your wounds whenever you call her for help, be aware that exploiting this system won't be an option, you must date the girl and keep her happy before using any of the girls' special abilities, otherwise you lose it.

Two things stand as potential flaws, the first would be the number of activities you are allowed to do with your friends, for a city that big there should be a lot more activities, even though there are a number of restaurants and clothing shops where you can dress up Niko the way you'd like. Another one is the restart option, it's a good system and will certainly help you not feel frustrated when restarting some missions, but it could be better, some missions deserve a momentaneous restart from right before the action, it doesn't even need to be a saved one since it can jeopardize the entire game in case of non-sufficient ammo or erroneous strategy taken, but driving to the place of the action every time you fail at a mission can become a frustrating task in some of them throughout the game. The multiplayer delivers good fun, it's up to 16 players online at once; and it's online only, no split-screen multiplayer is available. There are 15 game modes and they go from the usual deathmatch to groups missions for the mafia. There are race modes and co-operatives as well. The online multiplayer can deliver good fun and will surely keep you playing for a while after you've finished the game, if you're willing to give it a chance.

In the end Grand Theft Auto shows itself as a great and unusual game, it brakes the chains from the average to bring an ambitious experience in story-telling with a nice style of open-world roaming. With its amazing story and non-stop action the fun factor is never a problem; and whenever you're tired of the main missions of shooting, killing, dealing and robbing, there will be several side-tasks waiting to be performed. It should be played by anyone interested in a fabulous game, that even though violent, its primary focus is quality; quality of story-telling, quality of game mechanics; and of course, the alluring charm of Liberty City, with no doubt one of the most amazing locations to be found in a game.