Grand Theft Auto IV review - ColourShed

[Music] Grand Theft Auto I've said it a million times now but the 3d era titles set the benchmark for nonlinear gameplay picture themes in pop culture revolutionising video games forever but by the mid-2000s a new generation of consoles were being released and the gaming landscape was becoming even more mature in 2005 Rockstar San Diego created a new game engine cleverly named the Rockstar advanced game engine or rage designed to set them up to this day as of this review with advancement of technology comes slower development times and with an open world concept that was a lot more complicated another Grand Theft Auto title would not be for another few years after rockstar north took gamers to Liberty City Vice City and the state of San Andreas traveling back in time and setting up moments that gamers will cherish for a long time the Enberg developers would travel back to the present put away the time machine returned to Liberty City and take a more sophisticated approach creating a dark and realistic styled city without the forests mountains and deserts and every single square foot or meter doesn't feel like an empty space on the map meanwhile rockstars other subsidiaries would make games between development including table tennis midnight Club 3 manhunt to the Warriors bully and Rockstar leads even developed a couple of GTA spin-offs for the PlayStation Portable based on previous maps to keep the interest in the series high that's a lot of games in four years fired at e3 2006 during the Microsoft panel Grand Theft Auto 4 was officially announced by Peter cross who showed off a tattoo of the logo on his arm and the first official trailer was released on March 2007 maybe things will be different in the next year 16 additional trailers based on characters landmarks in the gameplay were released and combined with murals commercials wanted posters and its own website the hype was extraordinary but although it was scheduled for an October release in 2007 just like every GTA title that came before including the handheld once technical issues and two of competing with the likes of Halo 3 call of duty 4 modern warfare and Mass Effect's delayed the release it's like something always something always something yes but with four years of development and 100 million dollar spent Grand Theft Auto 4 was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on April 2008 and the PC in December and sold three and a half million copies on the first day setting the record for the fastest entertainment product across half a billion dollars a record that would be broken a few years later by you guessed it another grand theft auto title with critics scores and sales numbers through the roof it was another job well done for Rockstar Games now that I come to think of it I have a ridiculous number of hours clocked on GTA 4 like it's up there with San Andreas among the video games I've played the most now that we've reached its 10th anniversary yes really which means we should be expecting a marble port soon is it worth playing now we're looking at the PlayStation 3 version you'll remember during the war we did some bad things and bad things happened to us Niko Bellic who was born in Yugoslavia for in the Civil War as a teenager and became emotionally scarred from the experience I was very young and very angry maybe that is not excuse but his life would change forever when he was part of a 15 man squad that was ambushed killing all but three including Niko believing it was a setup he would spend the next decade searching for the other two planning to kill the one responsible after the war his cousin Roman was sent to Liberty City in the United States by Niko's mother to pursue the American dream while Niko stayed in Europe to work for a will guarantee in the criminal underworld but after a cargo ship he was on sunk in the Adriatic Sea well Garen believes that Niko did this intentionally and goes after him combined with his cousin living the American Dream in Liberty City according to his emails and one of the people he's looking for is also living there Niko joins the Merchant Navy aboard the Platypus cargo ship sailing to Liberty City which is where the game begins after Niko arrives on the docks with ramen waiting and meeting each other for the first time in a decade this is the mansion in Nico's eyes it turns out Roman isn't as successful as he claimed in the messages only a cab depart a small apartment and heavily in debt with some gangsters Nico helps Roman with the cab business making fares in dealing with Lawrence Jaques eventually going deeper into the criminal underworld of Liberty City to find the friends that possibly betrayed him and pursuer he's are an American dream welcome to America Moscow Astana - Java bushka Nico Bellic is one of the most developed protagonists of the GTA series not necessarily the best but the most realized being from another continent we're always done in his life is try to survive he always thinks of himself as the only sane human being in the city like Jimmy Hopkins or John mustard in which case you've got there that is until he gets in a car on the flipside his cousin Roran is all about chasing the American dream having these two as cousins with different personalities whatever they face their family so they stick together regardless it's an interesting concept which might explain why it's been used more than once in previous titles combined with its themes of immigration corruption and betrayal GTA 4 is by far the darkest in the series I know enough about you your cousin your friends I know a lot of people around you end up in jail so maybe but that's the same all over town this is a dying game as you can probably tell there are absolutely no appearances or even mentions of previous characters as the 3d universe expanded it relied on more characters from the predecessors to expand this story and it felt like there was a new story being told on each island or area it's not a bad thing I even said in my san andreas review that adds creativity and nostalgia but with a new story map and characters the writers can rely on them anymore the whole game feels connected with additional characters being introduced as Nikko moves up the ladder in Liberty City but most if not all of them stay relevant from start to finish like us partly because it's said in one city this time but point is there's enough backstory for a potential Rockstar spin-off and so much in the middle of it all that DLC has been released to expand the plot from different perspectives okay I know it was planned in advance why else with these characters interact in such crucial moments but Rockstar have come a long way from gta3 where cutscenes were basically do this task at the beginning when Nikko arrives in Liberty City there are other events happening on that cargo ship that eventually drive the plot all the way to the end and a lot of the characters that make a cameo in one or two missions play a major role in the episodes of Liberty City it is then you'll respect just how much effort has been put into Liberty City the real protagonist in fact you can play the expansions before this one and it doesn't feel like there's any information you're missing gta4 marks the first time in a while when recognizable talent took a backseat Rika Gervase and Kat Williams who perform in the comedy club as one of the activities you can do which I'll get to are the most recognizable names you're going to get I said in my vice city review that having a lot of celebrity voices adds to the movie TV presentation because that's what Rockstar were aiming for but this time along with the difficulties of dealing with different personalities they didn't want a recognizable voice distracting you from the story because the game wants you to pay attention to what's going on it gets especially intense after you reach the last dozen story missions the acting in this game is incredible which probably explains why cutscenes are so long particularly the ones with mchao fosston and john reveille I wouldn't say that there's also a lot of unique dialogue in game examples include retrying omission characters expressing their love for a certain radio station and each type of fail has its own phone call which I didn't even realize upon reviewing this game it's helps you from thinking it's Groundhog Day when you play it we're all so accustomed to gta5 we forget just how good the storytelling and dialogue is in gta4 I do find it kind of at a place where you have a protagonist with this much character development in an open world where what you see is possible it's like two fantastic ideas fighting against each other but I suppose you could say the same thing about some of the protagonists of the GTA series in general the least I can say is that the story is extremely underrated but it makes sense to forget about it because crap theft auto is about giving as much freedom to the character as possible so you in big guy well since you put it that way I mean with the writers and designers traveling to the city their map is based on for research they wanted a realistic presentation because they're working with more powerful systems now gameplay aside if you're going to go from this to this in a few years why would you not want to sophisticate it when I saw this for the first time it was mind-blowing this isn't just an expanded gta3 Liberty City this one is completely different it goes back to the one city with three islands which you have to unlock one at a time by completing the story missions but you also have additional mini islands based on areas in New York to fit more notable landmarks it's the detail put into the city the shadowing the satirical adverts in news buildings can be entered without learning times more traffic on screen and the volume of said traffic varies depending on where you are on the map it demonstrated the power of the rage engine some of these landmarks can even be interacted with don't let that sign tell you what to do everyone who's played GTA 4 has done this at least once however you are on an island where 90% of it is just buildings the map size is smaller than San Andreas it's dark to the point where you need to adjust the brightness settings and there appears to be less color than a broken printer back then because it was the first time we played Grand Theft Auto in HD we thought this was amazing but if you've never played this before and only plan on letting off steam there's a good chance that the city can feel extremely repetitive supposedly this was meant to be a Liberty State with areas outside of the city which would help liven things up with a few clues confirming that fact and I wouldn't be surprised if some of these tunnels or roads that are under construction are meant to connect to more than just the city thing is the idea of a former soldier who fought in a war seeking revenge in a world like GTA 5 while Santos doesn't really fit GTA 4 Liberty City is an acquired taste you either love it or hate it I doubt that the developers would have came up with something like GTA 5 because they want us familiar with the 7th generation hardware remember this is only the second game to use the rage engine and the first one was a table tennis game a good one I might add maybe the city looks as it does so it can leave the player to break the status quo I mean that's not to say that GTA 4 has no sense of humor at all brucey you got the chill for real it has plenty of references to pop culture but they're more subtle than previous titles it's trying harder to be its own story either that or the seriousness of the presentation appears as so and the ragdoll physics some of the best of any video game I've ever played in addition to the rage engine it also uses the euphoria to deal with these physics it blows the lines between realistic and over-the-top whether it's falling down a set of stairs hanging on for dear life or simply learning to fly there's something about it that makes it so amusing and don't get me started on that swing set what the map of the city is there in the menu as you'd expect along with the locations of safe houses restaurants activities mission markers etc however whenever you set a waypoints it gives you a navigation on the fastest legal routes on the map HUD if you're in the middle of the second big island algonquin you'll notice that the routes isn't as straight forward as you'd expect as you can see from the signs it's a one-way street but being Grand Theft Auto you can still drive through it even though the GPS says otherwise that's a clever feature and as repetitive as the city can be at least you'll never get lost as you can see here safe houses have no garages but parking spots which save your vehicle you can get to it faster this way but because it's right next to the road with oncoming traffic going pass sometimes they can hit your vehicle moving it out of place and you'll go back to your safe house thinking you just disappeared for no reason ridiculous I'm sorry I deleted there the only positive thing I can take care of these parking spots is that you can land a helicopter there as well the biggest problem with grand theft auto 4 and wide saw overlook nowadays is the lack of content and customization options remember in San Andreas when you got to purchase properties explore forest deserts mountains tune your vehicle change your hairstyle on the progress you made affected your abilities none of that stuff is in GTA 4 even by 2008 snippets this feels very shallow you do get to wear different pieces of clothing which are both purchasable and unlockable but the variety can be compared to Vice City although that might not be too much of a bad thing because choosing what to wear is even more monotonous in San Andreas at least that game had some sort of submenu where you can choose the type of clothing in the outlet it's Franck but here you can only scroll left and right to select the clothing you want and if you want to whole outfit like a suit which you need for certain missions you have to scroll past all torso based clothes first in short it takes around half a minute just to choose what you want ASA this is the worst in the GTA series as it pertains to character customization I know gta3 didn't have it at all but san andreas Illustrated how far the series had come and the fourth game just feels like a huge step back so that's the weirdies yes changing your outfit isn't the only thing you can do in a safehouse to save your progress which obviously advances time by six hours instead of a floating icon you simply go to bed a minor change but once a feature introduced here that we really take for granted this anyway there's also in-game TV if you have no life and some of the more expensive looking safe houses come with a laptop giving you access to the Internet there are also internet cafes on each islands but you must pay a mammoth $1 to use it there are possibly close to a hundred pages which adds to the satirical nature of GTA but only a few have a useful purpose including emails online dating and downloading ringtones in wallpapers for your phone yeah instead of only popping up whenever you answer a call mobile phones are multi-purpose so you can also receive messages and change ringtones and wallpapers maybe one day you'll get the premium quality one like mine the phone can also be used to call emergency services which you'll need to do in a couple of the story missions an organized optional hang out with your friends hey cousin how about we go bowling as you progressed through the story some of the characters you work with will become your friends and you can do activities across Liberty City including pool bowling and darts while driving to your destination you get a deeper insight to the character's backstory through their conversations and because they're so compelling it's interesting to listen to although these activities add variety as you all probably know now I'll ask you so many times it drives you crazy but if you hang out with a friend a certain number of times you unlock special abilities or favors including free transport discounted weapons car bombs and backup so all that bowling is eventually worth something especially participating in these activities with your friends in addition to winning them is part of completing 100 percent of the whole game I know I said before that the city looks depressingly boring by today's standards but there's more to do here than meets the eye the checklist of things to do are similar to the predecessors including Star Barneses vigilante and car deliveries but there are little touches that make completing these less tedious and necessary the vigilante missions for example if you get one enemy it auto-saves so if you're wasted you don't have to do it all over again and if you complete a certain stunt bonus its marked so it lets you know whether you've done that stump bonus already also there's an in-game website giving you the locations for the flying rats and random encounters with the latter making its introduction to this series yeah whenever you're close a character pops up on the map HUD and you have the option to encounter them sometimes more than once which triggers our mini mission and it adds a bit of personality to the city which is what it desperately needs reaching 100% will give you the keys to the city okay you also get unlimited supply for your ammo arsenal but not unlimited ammo I think it's pointless if you've already completed everything and because it's a lot easier to pick enemies off you won't be using that much ammo anyway the BC control mechanics from the 3d universe are in GTA 4 but have been fully revamped for the better aiming at enemies for example holding the aimbot locks onto the closest enemy obviously but you still have minor control of the crossfire allowing for leg or head shots and with a flick of the analog stick you can lock onto another enemy ok the predecessors are loud head shots but here it's easier to pull off regardless of PC or console as you can tell it's very hard to explain but if you played it you know what I mean and instead of running straight at the enemy's head on you have a proper cover system that you can use on other walls or ledges and fire weapons accurately without being fully exposed to gunfire the shooting mechanics feel very different to the 3d titles and that's why I felt fresh back in 2008 taking cover ragdoll physics and Niko Bellic trash-talking the combat system has also been reworked you can punch kick block dodging counter and thanks to the ragdoll physics I wonder how many times I've mentioned already the hits can look brutal especially when using a baseball bat like San Andreas you can climb on and jump up ledges it's a bit slower and sometimes you have to be in the exact position but anything's better than this you can even climb up a stairs faster by jumping non-stop it's probably a glitch but it's useful and finally swim without drowning instantly but like by City Stories you can't dive underwater before gta5 and Red Dead Redemption came out GTA 4 had the best controls of any Rockstar game out there however I say this in regard to moving around on foot the same cannot be said for the vehicles ok you can look at it in two ways do you praise the vehicle handling for its realism or criticize it for its lack of control for example the way they take damage from - scratches - a great explosions or collisions they're also equipped with changeable headlights you can humorously fly through the windscreen seriously has Niko ever heard of a seat belt and the drive-by shooting mechanics have been refined there's a crossfire allowing you shoot anywhere with precision as well as being able to use more than just an automatic weapon there are a lot of positive things to say about the vehicles but the handling that leaves a lot to be desired now I know you can't turn while braking in real life but it's a video game sometimes you need to take liberties to make it a more enjoyable experience look I need more did that we'll go up this should have made an even balance between the two because from an aesthetic perspective the vehicles are so much better than the 3d universe but I think people would complain less about the controls feeling less realistic then feeling as realistic as possible they just don't work in a grand theft auto game but like I said before it's a matter of preference the least I can say is that the designers clearly put a lot of effort and attention to detail into the vehicles start however one thing we can all agree on taxis or cabs or as Nikko calls them are the most efficient vehicles in Liberty City and make life easier to the point of being borderline cheap to use sometimes I would even stop on the middle of the bridge to get in one because you can Waypoint almost anywhere on the map and reach your destination in seconds because you can skip the real-time journey yes you need to pay but it's more than worth it therefore a kind of defeats the purpose of having trains because they only reach a certain destination and you're never gonna run out of money to the point where you can't afford taxis because you can only use them when you reach a certain point in the story and already have plenty of money to spend after Liberty City band Tony and Claude from using anything that can hover off the ground the developers decided that it was time to finally implement flying in Liberty City the only flying vehicles are helicopters which is fair enough because the map is too small for planes I mean you can fly from the airport to the prison in 1 minute and 12 seconds yes I timed it but no parachutes yes I know Luis Lopez eventually had access to them but even in storyline nicker of former soldier would know how to use a parachute and what if I'm in the air and need to get out fast if san andreas already had parachutes why not this game it also doesn't help that the height limit is lower than the tallest building in Liberty City like the controls the wanted system has been radically changed if you attract a wanted level a search bubble sensors on your position as indicated on the map HUD the higher the wanted level the bigger the bubble the higher volume of police activity and the more aggressive they are to stop you so you can evade them regardless of once at level but it's challenging even on three stars because like the predecessors you can go to a pain spray and eliminate the wanted level immediately however you can't drive in if the police see you which is fair this is an ingenious wanted system and like bully people around you can also be arrested the only thing I don't like about it is that on the second island Algonquin there's an officer on almost every corner making it harder to evade the law and the necessary however on the same island if you drive on the subway tracks underground it'll be impossible for the police to see you I tested it out to see if I can evade six stars and it worked trains might not be that meaningless after all while we're on the subject of the cheating codes can be entered using your phone by dialing the correct number the only types of cheats include health weapons want to meters vehicles or weather changes which is handy if you're sick of ending up in the hospital every two minutes but like the city there's not much variety and because cheats are activated on your phone if you get here the menu cancels out so be careful i only ever use cheat codes when i'm free running me i'll do my best not to repeat myself but as fantastic as the story is in this game it takes a while for it to pick up i know i said before that the controls made it feel fresh in 2008 but now that it's been a decade and we have GTA 5 the missions feel lightweight but that's what happens when you take away a lot of the features from san andreas i could have been in gta4 so putting these missions on hold is inevitable suddenly it turns into a completely different game as i mentioned so many times already the ragdoll physics are what make it so entertaining when you're flying around the city looking at the streets below and then decide to jump down start a crime spree and all the while people are trying to kill us what is fun despite being set on a map with 90 percent buildings with realistic vehicle controls it feels twice as big as it actually is and the gameplay is still as aggressive as you choose it to be I can rampage for at least an hour and not get bored but not everybody agrees as Grand Theft Auto 4 caused controversy even before it was released with its adult content becoming a designated scapegoat and numerous criminal lawsuits bans and censorship this was the last game Jack Thompson used to file lawsuits against take-two interactive and rockstar games the publisher actually sued Thompson first to prevent him from declaring GTA 4 as a public nuisance a year before release and after Thompson responded with a countersuit both parties eventually settled Thompson was not allowed to attempt to ban games released by Rockstar but can still work as an activist against video games and as a consultant for video game related lawsuits and that's not the most controversial part of GTA 4 as I mentioned previously that you can do activities with Niko's friends one of them is drinking and after you walk out the bar the camera is shaky and blurry and you have the option to drive while intoxicated driving in this state Mothers Against Drunk Driving was highly critical of this gameplay feature and requested the ESRB the change to games rating for mature to adults only Rockstar stated that people who play this game understand that drink driving is irresponsible this was the next in the GTA series after the hoc coffee fiasco in which Rockstar had to recall all copies of san andreas worldwide just to fix the problem combined with the controversy surrounding their other games Grand Theft Auto 4 attracting controversy was inevitable but as we all know this is Grand Theft Auto we're talking about a series of games that let you drive fly shoot and platform on a giant map without a linear path this level of freedom and jump to HD make Grand Theft Auto for an instant success did I mention three and a half million copies sold on the first day in 2008 but to answer the question is it worth playing now well it depends on what you want from Grand Theft Auto game if rampaging is all you ever to even back then the predecessors were the better option in that regard but if you love captivating storytelling with highly developed characters look no further we can pick the game Niko Bellic but we cannot change the rules however because it takes itself so seriously it overshadows the gameplay to an extent and therefore it barely scratches the surface of what San Andreas was able to achieve in terms of content but because it's been over a decade and there are over 25 million copies of this game out there it's cheap for what you get it's still an open-world action adventure and it's more innovative than it gets credit for and introduced the cover system the story is deep and poignant it has some of the best ragdoll physics of any video game I've ever played and as you can probably tell that theme is epic it brought Grand Theft Auto into another era and despite its flaws compared to other titles in the series I love this game as much as I did when I played it for the first time all those years ago so this is what the dream feels like this is the victory we longed for [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: ColourShedProductions

Views: 1,045,592

Rating: 4.8951769 out of 5

Keywords: gta 4, grand theft auto 4, gta 4 review, grand theft auto 4 review, colourshed, colourshed gta, colourshed gta 4, colourshed grand theft auto, colourshed rockstar, colorshed, colorshed gta, colorshed gta 4, colorshed grand theft auto, colorshed rockstar, colour shed, colour shed gta, colour shed grand theft auto, colour shed rockstar, color shed, color shed gta, color shed rockstar

Id: ADIZPSChffc

Length: 29min 8sec (1748 seconds)

Published: Sat May 19 2018