GTA IV review

[onearmedbandit]

This is by far the best game I have played. The city is absolutely massive and alive with activity. I'm playing it on HD at 1080i (yes I know 1080p is better) and the graphics are incredible, sure the characters retain their 'cartoonish' look but the enviroment is very realistic, whether walking around the city or flying down a street at breakneck speed. The cars are awesome as well, from the range available, the sounds, to the handling. By far the most realistic handling GTA yet, which while this is not what they are trying to achieve, they still have. I've ridden only 3 bikes so far, a chopper and two naked style sportsbikes with different underseat exhausts. IMO the handling of the bikes is far improved, making bikes now a practical option when trying to get around.

The taxi's, the ability to inflict damage to different areas of the body, the 'rag-doll' physics, the vastly improved targeting system, the addition of the cell phone, the small details like breaking a window before firing out your car, breaking and entering of cars, the subway, the realism of the enviroment, man the list goes on. This is truely a step up in gameing, if you are by any means interested in this game you owe it to yourself to play it. On HD.

Now I have to decide between GT5 Prologue and GTA4 for killing time.

[imdying]

Now I have to decide between GT5 Prologue and GTA4 for killing time.

When did you buy a PS3 mate?

[SpankMe]

Another excellent game review by Zero Punctuation.

[Boob Johnson]

Another excellent game review by Zero Punctuation.

Too much bling sent out.



brilliant

[Waylander]

I dunno if anyone is interested but here are my first impressions after the first 4 hours or so.
The storyline is fairly good, not the best I have come accross but it is entertaining if a little scripted at times.
Graphically, not quite as good as I had imagined based on the hype, this could be to me running it on non HD, will be interesting to see how large difference it makes.
Control wise it is a bit clunky, still sufferes from the same slightly clumsy feel of the previous games but the camera tends to be even worse. The option to change to an bonnet mounted camera makes high speed driving easier (IMO) but does limit visibility to the side, (not great when going through intersections).
The addition of the cellphone is quite cool, and seems to work well for the most part. The Taxi's are excellent.
The city is quite immersive and feels large and easy to get lost in.
In terms of the questionable content, and there is a lot of debate over the merits of the GTA series,
NZ has the same censored version as Australia. This is because Australia has no R18 catagory for Video Games, so products must either meet a M15 classification or be banned. Since NZ is such a small market and so far away it doesnt make sense to ship copies of the R18 version to NZ only, so we get stuck with the AU Version, M15 reclassified R18.
So essentially how bad is it? Well about as bad as a r16 movie IMO.
I have been playing 4 hours and have not seen any hookers, grauitous nudity, sex scenes, there is hardly any blood effects in the game, and dead bodies disappear almost instantly. These would be my estimates on the major edits from the full release.
Is it something that I would let kids play? no. Is it soul corrupting and evil? again no.
Personally I like it, Im not sure that the un edited version would make it much "better" as while people (mainly critics) get hung up on the unethical things you "can" do, it doesn't mean thats what the game is about. Its still a lot of fun.
Anyone else got thoughts?

Fav evil moment sofar - accidentally ran over a pedestrian, an ambo turned up a minute or so later, stole the ambulance and went joyriding with sirens blaring while everyone got out the way. Muahaha*cough* ahem... now back to our regular broadcast...

My score sofar 8/10

Took me all of 10 seconds to steal a car and find a hooker. The hard part was finding a bike.
Make of that what you will. The missions to me are just boring. Same thing over and over. Always end up breaking out the cheats and just having a massive firefight with the cops.

Online play is quite fun though.

[imdying]

I've played it for 2.5 hours... haven't seen any hookers, but I've apparently killed a few hundred people Easiest way to get money for me seems to be find a crowded street and spend some time on the footpath

I agree that the missions are pretty boring, but there sure is heaps of other stuff just to 'find'

[Headbanger]

Sadly for some they can't dfferentiate between the game and real life...

And are most disappointed (or dead) when things don't work out like they did on GTA....

Anyone that stupid is lucky to still be alive and there retardness can't be attributed to a video game.

[Forest]

The unrestricted version of GTA IV is now legally available in NZ.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4557930a10.html

You can buy it for $99.50 delivered from these guys:

http://www.firstgames.co.nz/

[chrisso]

Same thing over and over. Always end up breaking out the cheats and just having a massive firefight with the cops.

can you put some cheats here? Cheers

[Waylander]

Same thing over and over. Always end up breaking out the cheats and just having a massive firefight with the cops.

can you put some cheats here? Cheers

Google mate.
http://www.mahalo.com/Grand_Theft_Auto_4_Cheats