Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered

Not wanting to tempt fate at all but I’m rather pleased to be having no issues at all with my copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, touch wood. In fact when I got the game on Tuesday I was unaware of the epic problems now plaguing Playstation 3 owners (as well as a few XBox 360 owners apparently) or of the queues and organisation required to distribute it just nine hours earlier. I arrived at Game early, intent on doing something mindless with my recoup day and queued with just a couple of harangued looking father’s on their way to work, all with orders of exactly what to get on pain of death. Five hundred free Microsoft Points and a bundle of free XBox Live userpics were my reward for pre-ordering so I headed home.

I should warn you now, there will be character related spoilers at points.

The opening cut scene lived up to the hype at least, it was brief but it established Nico well while also showcasing the glorious new visuals. As reports have said the acting in the cut scenes is no longer a cringe worthy event and this has done wonders, story is established and you are dutifully drawn in. I felt no desire to skip ahead at any point, pleasantly surprised that the stereotypes were being put to one side other than for characters who were simply stereotypical people, you got the impression.

Having met my cousin Roman the cut scene gave way to my first opportunity to try out the core mechanic of the franchise, the driving. I took the controls and prepared myself. You’re probably wondering why the preparation? For as much as I love the franchise, the previous few Playstation 2 instalments had controls which simply didn’t gel very well with me, the cars felt rag doll-like in comparison to modern driving games and seemed easily thrown around. The controls weren’t intuitive and I was left with the feeling that for a game built on the concept of driving, I didn’t have a great deal of control over the cars or at least not in the way I would want.

I needn’t have worried. Starting with Roman’s old banger I pulled the now-intuitive right-trigger accelerator gently and began steering with my left thumb stick. The camera was pleasantly controlled by the right thumb stick so could be operated independently of the car allowing me to truly check all directions and the left-trigger brought the car to a stop. No speedometer with this game so you have to remember you may be pegging it a lot faster than upcoming cars when you brake. As far as actual handling went, Roman’s banger had an ancient engine which took a while to get going, brakes which took a while to pull up, crappy suspension which you could feel as you went around corners but it all felt as weighty as it looked. Since then all cars have had the solid feel of a modern racing game which is a lovely change.

The control changes have thankfully also spread to the equally rag doll-like on-foot handling which used to leave me cold. Despite Grand Theft Auto III making a great deal out of your ability to walk as well as drive, including entering buildings, I was never interested due to the aforementioned controls. Now Nico merely walks as standard, he can run at the press of a button but walking has pace and control now, as well as a feeling of solidity akin to the car controls. I had no problem taking a walk around Nico’s neighbourhood to try out some of the new shops available.

Once I’d done figuring out controls and responsiveness I found myself taking in visuals. Now the hype machine will have you instantly searching for gorgeousness in the graphics much like me, however my arrival in Liberty was at night. Now granted the visuals are still pretty great at night if you look closely, however my personal favourites tend to happen between dawn and dusk when the colours really come into the world. The golden glow of both really makes your mouth water as landmarks silhouette against it in the distance, while the sunlight during the day evokes the heat coming off the side walks. The hype is certainly lived up to, I stepped out of a building late one afternoon to find rain sheeting the road. As I got in my car I spotted the pedestrians running with coats held over their heads to get out of the downpour at which point the sky erupted with a clash of thunder. It felt wet and muggy and I found myself wondering if this was perhaps even nicer than the clear, dry sunrise I had seen earlier.

Over the course of the last few days since those first early encounters I’ve found a plethora of new and improved features which come together to make this game truly stunning. From the saving which is now regular and automated (I swear in previous games the amount of pointless mindless exploration I did outside of missions was lost purely because I couldn’t be bothered to go back and manually save, as well as being given no incentive to do so…missions were the only visible progression at the time) to the new lock-on combat system with rudimentary ‘cover’ system. The cell phone can be used for just about anything, the new social interactions system gives the game much needed depth beyond the stupidity and the attention to detail in coding the AI of the city is stunning. People watching has finally become a viable activity in Grand Theft Auto as you really aren’t likely to ever really encounter the same person more than once that you’ll remember. Even if you do so, they’ll never be doing the same thing again.

They needed a true next generation experience to help Grand Theft Auto progress on from the GTAIII bodywork it’s been using for the last five games (III, Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories) as well as to sharpen up the innovations that San Andreas brought in but failed to capitalise on. Grand Theft Auto IV is that next generation experience, it fully deserves the swathes of one-hundred-percent ratings it’s received so far.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Gadgety Goodness, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, XBox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.