Got a new 360 and this means a way to play GTAIV. DLED my previously bought digital copy. It looks like utter shit. Rockstar, please. I'm begging you, remaster this shit for new consoles. What the fuck.
Anyways, contrary to other people, although I'm critical of it, I actually love GTAIV to a point. The idea of a more realistic GTA actually appeals to me and I always loved the first two boroughs. I think the game falls apart after a specific point, though, and just stops being fun. I've always always adore the beginning area in Broker and moonlighting as a cabbie for Roman's depot. It always pissed me off you have only specific number of taxi missions you can complete before you can't ever again the rest of the entire game. Playing it for thirty minutes, I found myself loving the car controls and their weighted feel. In my older age while playing GTA3, I've somehow steered towards the more lopsided cars I used to hate a long time ago like the old style cab, the Esparanto, the Diablo Stallion;etc. I find these cars consistently fun to control and master now, and GTAIV offers more variations on that car take.
My problems with IV mostly stem from game loop. In 3 trilogy, you unlock hidden crap for unlocks so you can get new stuff and abilities. Like become fire proof, or unlimited stamina, or permanently up your health. So you have a reason to consistently play various missions, beat them, and explore. It works for a genius gameplay loop that constantly gives the player to explore every inch to unlock new crap. I feel Saints Row series has done a better job going with this formula than IV or V and it's a formula that I genuinely love. In IV, hidden packages become pointless. In that game, you have pigeons. Well, killing all 200 pigeons only unlocks a helicopter. Who cares. In III you get something new and cool every 10 packages. This keeps you wanting to explore and unlocking crap. This makes exploration consistent. IV has nothing like this and it's not rewarding. Further, the only special abilities you get are from doing friend relationships and they're basic things like Roman calling a taxi or Jacob coming with a car full of guns. Useful, but not fireproof anything like that.
It's almost like Rockstar didn't understand why some people even liked GTA.
So I'm not opposed some changes. I even love the game in some warped sort of way. Tonight I immediately drove my car on to the beach on Hove and just drove around in circles while listening to music like in the old days. I loved doing things like ordering a taxi and riding in the back, admiring the sights as they drive me. But the core GTA gameplay of abilities, exploration, unlocks is just missing.
Then there's the story. I won't get into it anymore but I feel there was wasted potential here. I like a lot of the early stuff where Niko works for the Feds, the whole Michelle reveal was fantastic, the entire scenario with Vlad and the Russian gangsters...but characters like Brucie and other storylines like Playboy show a tremendous lack of focus. I do love that Niko, like Claude, is basically a hired gun. A low level gangster. That's my shit. No robbing the feds for jetpacks, here. But it's like they were doing too much and it just lacked focus. I feel V had a more focused story. I think IV is at its best when it's more personal. The Glad/Roman section of the game shows this. But then it just wanders all over the place and you're doing this for that crew or that for this crew. It's like ketchup smothered all over a t-shirt at a picnic.
When you compare GTAIV with FFXIII or MGS4, I think GTAIV comes out on top the most by a long shot. I've clocked well over 200-300 hours in the game over the years. I've played and beaten it multiple times. I have such an odd relationship with this game. I love it but I also hate how disappointing it can be because I see the vast potential within it that it never reached because of a lack of focus, odd ideas on story that limited the gameplay variety (Houser going "Niko wouldn't drive an ambulance lol").
I can't wait to revisit it in full after San Andreas.