GTAIV – Late To The Party
Ok so I’m late with Grand Theft Auto IV. After intense materialistic undeniably-shallow ‘wanting’ that has lasted several months, I finally relented with a 360 package. And I am glad I did – GTA4 is awesome, probably the greatest game ever made by a country mile.
I have never seen a gameworld so ‘real’, and I have never interacted with it so seamlessly. Outside of the mission-based central story you can take time out to steal cars for money, deliver drugs, date women, go see a show, have a bowl, go drinking with the guys, see the sights, shoot some cops, or just spook the natives. There’s a Ricky Gervais show on at the comedy club. I even spent time in my flat watching the TV – the poker spoof on there is hilarious. You can just sit in a car and listen to one of the scores of radio stations on offer. I haven’t touched the multiplayer yet either. While the interaction is never quite what you would like (I’d love to go befriend a tramp, or explore every building in the city), at the same time this is the most open sandbox I have ever seen in a game, and the most ‘alive’ environment. You are just consistently amazed at how people, other cars, the environment, just react to what you do. It is jaw-dropping.
The story works brilliantly – some movies struggle to grab your attention for 90 minutes, this game does it for hours and hours. I suppose it works like a drama series, the episodic missions giving you the next installment with an eye on the grander sweep of the story. The voice-acting is the best I’ve ever heard, and the cut-scenes don’t outstay their welcome, and build up a set of brilliant characters that really capture the imagination. You play Nico Bellic, a Russian immigrant to the US, and he works brilliantly – his enigmatic quality just allows you to express yourself through him. I have never felt more like the character I was playing in a game. These are the first cut-scenes ever that I have looked forward to, and never want to skip.
The game is a brilliant satire – it’s a version of reality that is immediately recognisable, but pushed to an extreme where all Western values are basically lampooned. The radio blares out ads for overnight baby delivery and RFID chips for children. The city is a dirty mess, punctuated by crass fast food outlets. The middle-class don’t exist – scummy rich people battle with the poor, who in the circumstances seem perfectly entitled to resort to crime to pursue their goals. A lot is made of the lawlessness of the Grand Theft Auto games, but in the world as presented there is little alternative to what you do – it’s like a Western. You do not corrupt society in these games, society is so corrupt that you are almost the cure. There is no doubt that this game compares favourably with any genre piece of film – this is so rich, and the satire so direct, that it makes one of the strongest statements you could see against materialistic, capitalist western culture.
There are problems. The gunplay is immensely frustrating, and given that it is a key component of most of the standard missions, it should be a pretty big flaw. But the rest of the game is so good that it gets away with it. Also when you fail a mission it is a big pain in the ass – you usually have to trudge through the mundane parts of the mission, which are sometimes extremely lengthy, just to get to the difficult bit that you aren’t sure you will complete when you get there. I am quite a way into the game, and some of the missions are a real test. I have been on the edge of getting utterly frustrated with the game.
But then I think of the car chases – watching a computer controlled AI that creates such believable chases is just unbelievable. You could swear those are real people there – the damned cars react to each other, it is just fuckin’ awesome. I’m seriously wowed by this game…
[rating: 5]
