Load times are practically nonexistent as far as exploring the city is concerned, although they are present when starting a new mission. I also noticed that Niko’s limbs/body often ‘clips’ with his surroundings. An example of this is when walking up close to the bonnet of a car. It was also visible around movable objects and some buildings. A lot of the buildings become very pixelated on closer inspection from Niko, with doors that look normal from a distance appearing about fourteen feet tall when you are standing right next to it. However the detail and overall scope on the buildings you can enter is very good indeed. You can walk into a clothes store or a restaurant and really appreciate the effort involved trying to achieve the look and feel of a real outlet. On the whole the visuals bring Liberty City to life with amazing attention to detail, short load times, superb lighting, bright colours and an overall realistic replica of a big city. Traditionally the GTA games have never broken the mould on graphics, partly to do with the size of the playing area and the amount of pedestrians/cars going around. I wouldn’t say the graphics are next gen but they are a massive improvement over previous GTA titles. The game doesn’t bring anything new to the 360’s visual capabilities - but represents Liberty City with a great deal of satisfaction.
Every aspect of the sound on the game is perfect. There is no other word you can use to describe it. The dialogue is what dreams are made of and tells the story with the style and passion that you would normally find in an Oscar nominated film. The voice acting is sublime and very convincing, with accurate lip synching to the characters form. The actual sound effects of the city are spot on, with wind noise mixed with cars blasting their horns and people shouting at each other. You can hear the rain falling down and thunder/lightening is epically recreated helping to create an atmosphere un-matched in any game that I have ever played. The soundtrack takes the form of radio stations that play anything from classic rock to RnB and hip-hop, with often hilarious radio hosts chatting to each other between songs. Artists such as Queen have lent their superb songs to a large soundtrack totalling more than 100 tracks. There really is nothing Rockstar could have done to improve this part of the game.
In previous GTA titles, the single player was the only major aspect of the game. Now with GTA IV, online multiplayer has been added after the explosion of online console gaming. The entire city is open to play in or the host can choose which area of the city to restrict the action to. You can create your own party but instead of there being a lobby with each of the party members’ gamertag, the lobby (if you can call it that) is actually a part of the city. At this point, the party host can choose whatever game mode and options they want from the mobile phone. I have found myself using the free mode option the most, as it is the closest to the single player experience you can get with up to 15 mates. It’s an all holds barred exploration of the city where you and your friends can do as you please. Other game modes include the traditional ‘deathmatch’ and ‘team deathmatch’. ‘Mafia Work’ sees you set a task to complete a job for a mob boss before your opponents do and can get pretty intense. ‘Car jack city’ has you running off to collect various types of cars to earn more money than anyone else and ‘Turf War’ is very basic ‘domination’ style of game play. Also present is a racing mode that should keep the racing fanatics happy. The Cops ‘n’ Crooks mode is kind of like team survival mixed with team objective, with one team of crooks trying to reach a point before they are killed by the other team controlling the police. Don’t expect GTA IV online to match up to games like COD4, but it offers a second option to prolong the game life after finishing the masterful single player mode.
As a single player experience it doesn’t get much better than this and now with a relatively strong multiplayer, GTA IV is sure to attract a vast amount of new fans to the genre. Despite a few graphical and control issues, it doesn’t take much away from the fantastic title that GTA IV is. Once you start getting into the game, it’s easy to forget these minor problems after experiencing the work of art that Rockstar has put together. The exciting and challenging missions along with the superb soundtrack, graphics and free roaming multiplayer prove that GTA IV is a heavyweight contender for game of the year, based on popularity alone.
