GTA IV: First Thoughts

I come to this game late, as with most others these days. This is much later than I usually get to games though and there are a number of reasons for that. First and foremost, I failed to get on with any of the previous 3D GTA games. In fact, the last GTA game I enjoyed was GTA: London. Secondly – when I was about to buy the game when it was cheap, I heard that the game hadn’t aged well in the year since its release; so decided not to buy it. Now nearly a further year on again, I couldn’t resist it in the Steam sale. Yes, I bought the much maligned PC version.

Issue number one with the PC version. I’m an avid 360 gamer and love the implementation of LIVE on the 360. The PC implementation is truly horrible. It does nothing but detract from the experience and given that I bought the game on Steam, I have all of Valve’s community options already running in the background. It is still nice to see my Live friends online, but the implementation is so crusty as to make it dis-interesting. Issue number two is that despite having a pretty good gaming rig all round, my ageing graphics card is really letting the side down. It seems an 8600GT just doesn’t cut it for the game and I’m not about to buy a new graphics card any time soon.

Despite these issues – and a few others – I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played of the game so far. The car handling is as cumbersome and floaty as usual in a GTA game and it definitely seems to have that classic GTA weird lock-on combat. However the issues have been smoothed to the point where they impact on the game to a much lesser extent than in previous GTA games. Tellingly though it’s the characters which have drawn me in so far. Without having a chance to learn too much about the character of Niko Bellic, I’ve already grown to like him. He hasn’t been particularly likable as yet, but I really feel for him having to put up with his cousin Roman. Rockstar have pulled off a brilliant trick by placing your vaguely reprehensible main character / avatar next to a truly disgusting character, you feel sorry for him. Previously I’ve never had empathy for the main character in these games, making it difficult to become engrossed in the story and action. I’ve heard that characterisation is a particular strength in GTA IV and I look forward to this greatly.

I’m going to be posting more on GTA IV as I play more of it. Partly as an assessment of one of the biggest games of the past few years – and how it holds up today – and partly as an exploration of my enjoyment (or lack thereof) of this style of game.