Richard's Online Journal

[28/04/08] GTA4: Exclusive Review

Nico gets ready to hit the town

GTA4 may just be the latest Saint’s Row clone to hit the consoles, but don’t hold that against it. Set in the fictional town of New Liberty (a thinly disguised version of Detroit), the action focuses on the adventures of Nico, an Eastern European criminal trying to work her way up the crime ladder from basic everyday stealing to Grand Theft Auto, the ultimate goal of the game.

After some ‘levelling up’, you can earn the right to carjack anything on wheels, including cars. Don’t think you’ll have it all easy though! The police will be quick to stop you, unless you pay to spray them with a Mace style power-up that makes them leave you alone. You can also try to escape the old fashioned way, with Nico braving the rush-hour traffic, but as with all games, you only have three lives, so use them carefully!

The sound is good, and very clear. You can hear everything that goes on, especially if you’ve got a good sound system. If not, the audio is somewhat muted due to having to being pushed out of your television, and you will not get the full experience of the original soundtrack, featuring artists like Lance Vance and Laslo in fine form. It’s not fair to pin all the blame for this on Rockstar, but we couldn’t help be disappointed that the game doesn’t even bother to try and rectify it after so many months in development.

Gameplay is 100% next generation. You’ll feel like you’re really there, which may not be a good thing, as New Liberty is not a nice town. Nico is constantly being pursued by her rivals, including an implacable hitman from her home country, who will stop at nothing to prevent her becoming the city’s queen of car crime. She also has the secondary, equally important goal of finding herself a suitable boyfriend… her ‘special someone’ to help her through the mean streets. This is a fairly unoriginal move from Rockstar, especially coming so soon after its popular dating simulators Hot Coffee and Manhunt, but never mind.

In summary, if you like the idea of stealing cars, you’ll probably like this game, but we have our reservations about recommending it to everyone. If you don’t like crime, for instance, you’re likely to get bored just walking round the city. Also, if you’re not very good at games, you may get frustrated. You also have to buy a next-generation console, making it a very expensive way to kill a few hours.

All this makes GTA4 something of a missed opportunity, especially competing against mainstream games like The Mass Effect and Rainbow Vegas. Overall, 6/10. A brave effort, but somewhat futile given that Scarface is already out there on the shelves.

Review by: Bob Forrett, Toddingham Daily Bugle. All copyrights reserved.