Grand Theft Auto IV
PS3
M
Rockstar Games


With 'Grand Theft Auto IV', the series reaches its ninth installment in the series (including old school console and PC appearances). The equal measure of controversy and pure praise that has been heaped on the series (since it has graced all three dimensions) has worked as a perfect marketing tool to ensure that nothing can really diminish consumer interest, and quite honestly 'Grand Theft Auto' can go in any direction at this point and still rest assured that it will have a huge support base. Sony now has lost their stronghold on the franchise, and Microsoft has taken advantage of this fact by promising exclusive 'extra' content over the PS3 version. In reality this petty one upmanship will not really put any one version ahead of the other.

Booting the disc will give you approximately seven minutes of waiting for data to rip to the HD, plenty of time to call in sick to work/ tell your significant other you have a migraine/ shed any concept you have of time and personal hygiene.

Initially, you will notice that the scope of what can actually be done in this city is astounding. Without even leaving your apartment you can watch hours of TV within the game, and once roaming on foot you can go bowling, get a lap-dance, play pool, access a fictional internet within the game, and generally explore for hours without ever having an urge to follow the preset missions and plot path. There is just so much to be discovered in this living, breathing city that Rockstar have provided, that you will struggle to commit to the game itself. Graphically, 'GTA IV' is interesting in that it can be rough around the edges at times, yet as a coherent and living city, Liberty City is utterly stunning. There is occasional block-in, and there is so much detail on the screen at once that some haze and blur effects are used for the far-distance for the sake of tidiness. The lighting and weather effects are also spectacular to the point of being distracting, and the physics and damage models used on the cars are an enormous improvement upon the previous PS2 'GTA' iterations.

The six axis controller's motion sensitive features can be used for vehicle control and also for quick reloading of weapons, but I suspect most players will bypass this feature as it often results in clunky response time and general frustration. Multiplayer is really emphasised this time around, with the entire city available as the arena.

The dilemma that arises with 'GTA IV' is that the elements that were well and truly secondary in the previous iterations (taxi missions, secret items, hidden jumps etc) now seemsto almost be too attractive in comparison to the quite antiquated and overly violent main missions.. You can choose to simply goof off indefinitely in Liberty City, or you can partake in the many and varied missions that don't stray too far from the previous games in the series - cars, boats, planes, helicopters, weapons and women in a variety of combinations - 'GTA IV' is a multi-faceted, multi-functional, behemoth of a game. So basically call in sick, make your significant other less significant, delete your Facebook account, do whatever you need to do, but you owe it to yourself to spend some quality time with 'GTA IV' as both a game, and an experience that comes close to redefining just exactly what a video game should be.

Tim Koch