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Grand Theft Auto IV Review

A game of impressive scope that sets a new bar for the genre, in both it's amazing detail and excellent gameplay. If only Rockstar kept the PC port in the right hands.

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A cool new addition to the series, and open-world games in general, is a simple and obvious yet very effective – a cell phone. Niko can be reached by his friends/employers at any time, and it becomes a vital tool of staying in touch. It makes sense too, because you wouldn’t want to drive all the way to a friend’s house to ask him to go for drinks just to find they are not at home. The phone stores all your friends and their phone numbers, and generally acts as your quick in-game menu of sorts (to access multiplayer as well). You’ll receive text messages, phone calls, and even pictures through your cell, and it is widely used to keep missions going or for a quick restart after you failed.

GTA 4 PC

To escape from the abovementioned missions and sticky situations, you’re going to need an arsenal, and the standard toys are back. AK47s, various SMGs, M16s, an RPG, and a Sniper rifle are all back. They all can be found on baddies or purchased at the store, and operate as expected – one new addition is the ability to use grenades while in vehicles – you toss them on the ground and they explode behind you. A new item in terms of combat is the cover system. “No more running-and-gunning” said Rockstar, and now Niko can stick to walls and other objects to provide him cover. It works similar to the system first introduced in Gears of War – stick to cover, and either fire blindly or pop out for a few quick shots. It does great to introduce a new element to the action in GTA series. Your opponents can use it too, so don’t think you will have an easy time just firing blindly and sticking behind cover. It adds a new level of realism of course, but also intensity – as you’re crouched behind an SUV and cops are circling around to get a shot at you, the windows break under gun fire and the tires explode, until you finally make a run for it as the car explodes in the face of your pursuers. Your health bar and armor level are located neatly around your map, and generally interface is very clean – you only get your weapons and money stats show up in the top corner when you switch/reload guns or purchase something.

The cop heat level system has been changed also. While in previous games your only choices to lose the heat was to either die or change your car’s color, all you have to do now is escape the search radius. It appears as a glowing circle on the map, and if you escape it without being seen, you’re safe and lose your wanted level. The more stars – the bigger the circle gets and the more cops are trying to find you. If a cop sees you, the circle resets on your new location so you’re back to square one trying to evade. Once you get up to a high wanted level though, your circle will remain centered, so you’re back with the two basic options of dying or finding a car paint shop. Another addition to the radar is the location of every police car and cop. This makes it very easy to lose your wanted level on the earlier levels, so if you want to start a grand chase, you’ll have to take the effort to keep the cops on your tail long enough.

GTA 4 PC

Finally, the day many have waited for – a GTA game with an online mode! What could be better than causing mayhem with a bunch of your friends? Well, it all sounds good in theory, but the reality is that the online community failed to take off like it should have. To blame are those pesky PC limitations that prevented so many from even starting the game, and the bad news is that if you wish to play online – there is no avoiding Social Club or GFWL. And it’s quite disappointing actually, as multiplayer does live up to expectations with a ton of hilarious and exciting modes to play both solo and team-based. It’s a shame that many people cannot or simply don’t wish to run all the gimmicks required to get here. Of those that do get online, the most notable negative point of the multiplayer is the lack of dedicated servers, so most of the time you end up trying to find a host who’s connection can actually handle over 20 players. But once you get a good server and group of people going, it can be as fun as you have imagined all these years.

So it took seven months for the PC version to arrive. That’s one month less than San Andreas… and somehow, I actually wish they have taken that month to further improve the port. And yes, this is a port. Apart from mouse and keyboard controls, there is almost nothing here to distinguish it from the console versions. “What about the awesome resolutions, HDR and mods!” – go the cries of the fans. Yes, the game offers much better resolutions, shaders, and textures than the console versions. The trick is to get it running above 15-20FPS. If you haven’t heard, GTA4 is easly the worst port of 2008. Even on top-end machines, players were struggling to keep a decent frame rate on medium settings, our test-pcs included. Rockstar Toronto, a first-time developer for the series, haven’t stepped up to take responsibility. The PC version doesn’t feel like a rushed port; rather, it’s a lazy and ignorant port towards the target community. This is a great title, but one that must suffer on PC due to technical shortcomings.

Our ratings for Grand Theft Auto IV on PC out of 100 (Ratings FAQ)
Presentation
86
This is a GTA-style game throughout. There are familiar menus, text font, and UI. The story is fairly entertaining to see it through to the end, but it does remind you alot of GTA3's events.
Gameplay
87
Again, the classic formula remains unchanged. So if you were frustrated with previous games and their lack of checkpoints and endless mission restarts, you will find the same issues here.
Single Player
86
The game is expectantly long with plenty side missions and quests to do as you progress the main story. It can take anywhere from 20 to 50+ hours to finish your first playthrough.
Multiplayer
70
Multiplayer for a GTA game sounds like a mayhem dream, but all is not very well executed. Endless issues trying to use both Games for Windows Live and Rockstar Social club lead to many frustrations trying to play online.
Performance
(Show PC Specs)
CPU: Intel Core i7 CPU 930 @ 2.80GHz
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X 1GB
RAM: 6GB DDR3
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
PC Specs

50
Unfortunately this was a port by Rockstar's new Toronto studio, and they have done a very poor job. Crashes, texture popins, lack of AA are just some of the problems. The worst part is the terrible framerate that occurs on most rigs.
Overall
87
Grand Theft Auto IV is a game that must be played, if you can get past the heavy technical issues that plague the PC version. Its open world and endless possibilities are something that most other games can only dream of achieving.
Comments
Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto IV box art Platform:
PC
Our Review of Grand Theft Auto IV
87%
Great
The Verdict:
Game Ranking
Grand Theft Auto IV is ranked #69 out of 1957 total reviewed games. It is ranked #5 out of 28 games reviewed in 2008.
69. Grand Theft Auto IV
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Screenshots

Grand Theft Auto IV
22 images added Aug 12, 2009 05:54
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