You guys know I’m a vid game player…just finished “Grand Theft Auto IV”…here’s a few thoughts.
8 out of 10. But with some SERIOUS drawbacks that make the game almost unplayable.
The story was about Russian immigrant Niko Bellic (I may have the spelling of that wrong…I’m too lazy to go into the other room to get my copy of the game to see one way or the other…lol), who comes to “Liberty City” (a New York clone) to live with his cousin Roman and find revenge amongst the Mob culture…becoming a mercenary/hit man/”dirty deeds done dirt cheap” kind of handyman.
The story is one of the best I’ve ever witnessed…VERY engrossing…it pulls you in and KEEPS you in. Niko has had some HORRIBLE things done to him in the past…and this is the story of his quest to find personal justice and make a buck or a million along the way. You get a LOT of great “toys” to play with (my favorite being a class-A Sniper Rifle), and the game is comprised of several “missions” that Niko completes along the way of gathering information towards his quest.
The things that bugged me. I didn’t realize I was going to have to play “The Sims” amidst criminal acts. There’s a “friendship” mechanic amongst the gameplay, akin to what you have to do in the Sims…I could be out kidnapping a Mob Daughter (no lie…that happens in the game…complete with cute blonde in bondage…tho only a cleave gag and wrists tied behind the back), and another character in the game could call me wanting to go bowling…REALLY?! One of the achievements of the game necessary to get 100% completion is to have all your “Friendship Levels” with all your characters above 90%.
In a CRIME game?! K…whatever. :/ (I should say that Bowling, Darts, Pool, Seeing A Comedy Show, Strip Clubs and Private Dancers…all fun and well executed!)
Car controls are nauseous at best…vehicles are difficult to drive from one location to another without crashing…helicopters, especially (more about this in a sec). And the Police…OMG!!! Nothing like just tapping a Police car and then spending the next 5 minutes trying to escape the cops for it! 🙁 But the worst thing when it comes to vehicles is getting a taxi to drive you from location to location. There’s nothing like just wanting to get a taxi…holding a button down (and KNOWING that you DID hold down a button rather than just press it), and having Niko car-jack the taxi instead of just ride in it. And 9 times out of 10 when that happens, there’s a cop within sight of it…so you not only have a taxi you just wanted to ride in now in your possession, but you have to escape the cops before getting arrested.
“I was just trying to get a RIDE, ossifer…it’s not MY fault the player PRESSED the triangle button instead of holding it down!”
WTF?! Why not just have a DIFFERENT button establish that you want a ride versus wanting to steal the taxi??? GOD, what FRUSTRATIONS that caused!
And the controls of the helicopter…OMG. That alone kept me from completing the game for about a week. I’d get in the copter…struggle with the controls to keep the thing flying…and by the time I’d figure it out, my target had escaped. And that was after bulldozing my way thru prolly a HUNDRED tasks and guards just to GET to the copter! How could “Saints Row The Third” get vehicle control so RIGHT, and this game get it so wrong?????
Frustrations aside…this is one of the better games I’ve ever played. If they were to make the driving abilities of all forms of transportation better, this game would be PERFECT…but I knock it down two steps just because lousy vehicle control hampered the overall playability of the game for me…the cars, boats and copters (ESPECIALLY the copters) became obstacles in and of themselves…not cool. I found myself fighting the cars just to complete a mission…that sucked!
Tolstoy