Are you tired of hearing about this game yet? No? Okay, this is a little embarrassing, but we just finished GTA IV. We haven’t even 100% completed it yet, but we’ve finished the story, and a few other things. Chris will blame this on me, but I’d like to blame it on Pixel Junk Monsters and Boom Blox. It’s so tempting to say you’ll play a quick round of something for 20 minutes before getting down to a serious game, but we usually get sucked in for longer than we intend.

Excuses aside, we’re done the story now, so (with minimal spoilers), here’s my summary/opinions. I also might fit some San Andreas bashing in here somewhere…

Like right here…

Things I am happy they got rid of from San Andreas:

• Carl Johnson. Also, pretty much every other character from that game.
• Wanna-be RPG aspects like driving skill, bike skill, weight, and fitness requirements. Pressing ‘X’ 500 times at the gym to get buff cannot be anybody’s idea of fun.
• Too many races that are way too hard. We did 100% complete SA, but it was put off for a long time because of how hard the races were. GTA IV has just the right amount of races, and they’re not impossible.
• Gang territories. Trying to do a mission in a territory owned by a rival gang and getting attacked by everyone on the street sucked. Getting called away for turf wars was no fun either.
• Brightness and display issues. I know this wasn’t a problem for all versions of the game, but the one we had was almost unplayable in certain areas. Especially at night.

Things I miss from previous GTA titles:

• Wu Zi. The only cool character from SA.
• The stars that you could drive through to drop your wanted level (If they have these in GTA IV, I’ve never seen them)
• Rampage missions. Those were super fun, and I can’t understand why they got rid of them.
• Ambulance/Firefighter/Taxi missions. Those were less fun, but they still added variety to the 100% list, instead of just having 50 vigilante missions.

Things I like from GTA IV that they should keep in the next one:

• Niko. As a character, he’s my favourite so far by a long shot. Technically he’s a mass murderer, but I still found I could identify with him, and I think that’s really saying something. I would be more than happy to see him star in another game.
• Random people on the street fighting each other. When one skanky chick pulls another skanky chick out of a car and they have a slap fight in the middle of the street… well, who doesn’t love that? (As an aside, my spell-checker suggests I meant to type “swanky”. I did not.)
• Map that actually tells you where to go. I know Chris has mixed feelings about this, but I think it’s great.
• The phone. While there are some aspects of gameplay related to the phone that I would remove (see below), you can’t beat calling 911 to get a cop car to come to you, and then stealing it. Also, the text message to let you retry a mission was a great idea.
• Life or death decisions. I’m all for indiscriminate killing, but occasionally letting you choose whether someone lives or dies was a great addition to this installment of GTA. It let us develop “our” Niko, which I think is part of the reason I liked his character so much. Spoiler: The last mission in the game has a decision like this, and your choice has dire consequences.

Things I did not care for, and would like to see gone in GTA5:

• Roman. I kind of thought he was funny at first, but that wore off really fast.
• Uptight girls who get mad when you won’t date them, but will never put out ever. This is my last spoiler: don’t waste your time with Kate. It’s not going to happen.
• The new way the weapon shops work. I much prefer just walking into an Ammunation, talking to the shopkeeper, and then navigating through a list. Walking around to each item is a waste of time. Same for clothes shopping.
• Man dates. Seriously? “Hey, thanks for executing that rival dealer for me, want to go see a show?”. Not only were the phone calls irritating when you were in the middle of something (I don’t know why Niko can’t run with a phone in his hand, but strolling along talking to Roman about fake boobs while ten guys are shooting at you seems a little silly), but I can’t see a real mafia guy getting all pouty because you won’t take him bowling.

Overall, I think GTA IV is a really great game, and I’m interested to see where they take the franchise from here. Also, I’m interested to see how long it will take to kill 200 pigeons.

When Julie told me she was writing a GTA IV wrap up I thought, “Do our readers really want to hear about GTA IV anymore?”. Then I noticed that we hadn’t actually written anything about the game itself, so with this summary, you can basically presume the subject closed.

I must say that even I enjoyed GTA IV more than San Andreas.  A lot of the improvements to the game increased its pace, focusing the gameplay and allowing for a more fluid experience. Rarely did I find myself having to drive twenty minutes across the city for the fifteenth time after failing a mission yet again.  That was always a mechanic that, I found, sucked the life out of the game.  Also, as Julie points out, the waypoint and directions on the map do help out immensely but at the cost of getting to know the city for yourself.  I must admit that I know very few shortcuts through Liberty City, whereas I can probably still get from point A to point B in Vice City without even looking at the map.  Taxi, ambulance and fire mission did help familiarize the player with the city as well, although I can’t say I’m sad to see them gone.  Especially the ambulance and fire missions, in which all twelve levels had to be done perfectly in succession otherwise you would have to start back at level 1.

One unfortunate addition, as Julie pointed out, are the friendships in the game.  I rarely cared enough to hang out with people, save to go to the comedy club so I could watch Ricky Gervais.  Pool?  No, thank you.  Of my friends who also spent significant amounts of time playing GTA IV, none of them heavily pursued friendships in the game.

I also share Julie’s affection for Niko.  He is probably my favourite GTA protagonist.  I would highly doubt that he will make a comeback in a future GTA but I suppose it’s not impossible.