Hi all!
You probably forgotten me and don't care about me anymore( ) but maybe you even don't know, that I have PS3. And ofcourse, GTAIV. I will try to review the game as good as I can, but I believe that it won't be better than Kaneda's. Believe me.
First thought:
First thing I must say is that GTAIV isn't the game I expected. I was suprised that, how many problems and mistakes it has. BUT, I do not say that it's BAD, It's a good game, worth playing BUT AGAIN, not worth for this money.
Story:
The story in the beginning looked awesome, everything was perfect. Roman, the funny cousin, Vlad, Roman's boss(I think),...the game looked perfect. No problems. (Spoilers) When I killed Vlad and when Niko explaines, why he's in Liberty City, It was becoming very interesting. But when playing through many mission, it wasn't very exciting story. Spoilers Overall: Story is in some way good, in some way bad. Actually, there are many stories in this game. (Dimitri's revenge, finding Darko, helping Roman in his life,...)
Missions:
Missions are simple. They aren't full of stir and movement, but they are normally simple. At the beginning of the game, it was normal as in any GTA game: pickup that guy, chase that guy, shoot that guy,...normal missions for training, but in GTA IV, these kind of missions all through the whole game. And that is bad. Well, maybe there are 2 or 3 missions different, but all others are killing a target, picking up and driving a person, or chasing a person. THAT'S IT. No Other city like in San Andreas(GTAIII Liberty City), no stealh mission(I was very disappointed in this),...simple missions the whole game.
Gameplay:
Gameplay is good. It's kinda stupid, that you need to hold a button to run normally. If you don't, you just walk slowly. Nothing wrong with it, just it get difficult, when police is chasing you. The fight system is the best compared in other GTA games. Different animations, different tricks, and nice oponnent's respond on your attack. Shooting isn't very hard, it's actually very good(auto lock-on or off) and I don't have any problems with it.
Police:
Police is in some way good and bad.
Good: They are much more smarter than before.
Bad: You can see them on your radar. That's good, but also bad. (No suprises behind the corners, you know where to run,...) And it's even harder to get away. (If you have 3 or 4 starts) it's almost impossible.
Radio:
The radio is...incomplete. As I noticed, there were some issuses with it. Same songs every few minutes. (I'm serious) There is a nice comeback from GTAIII and VC: Lazlow is with us again. And this time, it's on the streets, doing his show. I heard him once, getting in the taxi. Hehe. But, I don't enjoy the shows and radio as I did in GTAIII, VC and SA. Because the music choice is lame.
Graphics:
Ofcourse SOME people are playing GTA IV, just because of graphics and psyhics. And that's bad. Very bad.
The graphics ofcourse are great, water is just perfect, and models are good too. Rockstar really worked on this.
Psyhics are amazing. GTA IV has a new psyhics engine Euphoria, which is awesome. Check it out on google.
New features:
These new features are interesting, but lame. Like killing 200 birds in the city. Sounds interesting and exciting. But when you play the game, it's a real pain in the ass. Birds are everywhere: on the streets, roof tops, backalleys, on bridges, under the bridges, in places, where you can't get without helicopter,...and even worser is, that when you kill all the birds, you get NOTHING. NOTHING. It's the same with stunt jumps. NOTHING. But there are new features like comedy show, television(you can actually switch the programs),...
Overall:
Good game must have a good gameplay, good graphics, good psyhics, good story, and everything else. GTA IV fails here. IMO Rockstar worked TOO MUCH on graphics and new features, that they forgot about the main part. (story, gameplay,...)
Buy GTA IV just if you want to complete the GTA series or you're new to the series. Otherwise, it's not worth it.
This is my review, hope you like it. Comment are appreciated. Bye bye.