A day in Liberty City

When I first owned a PC back in 1997, it had two games on it – games that are still my all time favorite games – StarCraft and Grand Theft Auto I. I remember trying to figure out how to play on the computer :). And I got so sucked up in the PC & gaming world those days, I had pretty bad fights with my girlfriend (whom I married along the years) back then. I was very excited about GTA – I was able to blow things up, I was doing missions for mob bosses, had to talk on payphones, I got to run over people and so on. I had good times with this game that was brutal and funny as hell the same time.

A little nostalgia?

Well, now it’s 2008 and nothing changed. I mean, nothing about the experience of playing this game. It just got a thousand times better. Yes, I’m talking about Grand Theft Auto IV and you as Niko Bellic. But wait… this wasn’t my first impression.

I read at least a dozen reviews about the game when it came out for console. And then I was eager to see it on PC. And the day came on 6th of December. I was so curios, I read another dozen reviews and discussions, this time about the PC version -  and to my surprise people would say that it sucked. It sucked because textures weren’t converted as they should’ve been, because it didn’t run well even on high end systems because of bugs, that it wasn’t playable. So I had reserves when I loaded up the game the first time. And surprise… surprise the people were right. I was disappointed – the game looks like shit on my system and I can’t even change the resolution above 1024×768 because of some cap in the game that reads my hardware and automatically sets the cap. If you are wondering my system is an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, 8600 GT 256 MB. Some may say it’s not much, but every other game I play these days (Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia, Crysis) looks spectacular and works pretty well on this system, with the resolution set to 1280×1024. But not GTA IV. It simply looks like crap. I can’t change from Low texture settings and the Render Quality is capped at Medium. Watch the video below, you’ll know exactly what I mean and how I’ve felt.

But… the other day I had some more free time and I gave it another shot. And low and behold, it got me. With all the crappy settings and all that I was having GREAT FUN. And the further I played the further my jaw dropped to the ground.  The game looks OK even at low settings, once you concentrate on the game / story and you forget about your 1024 and Low settings. All the good things I read about how detailed the city life was in Liberty City IS true – and I might add, to me it’s a hundred times better. I’ve done maybe 15% of the main story up until now – but I’m already addicted. Just a few things I’ve found marvelous in the game:

It has about 20 radio stations, among which I think everybody can find something that suits his taste +  the PC version even has the Independence Radio station – your own MP3 folder to listen.

a lot has changed since GTA I ... visually

You can actually have a social life. You can make friends and can call them to hang out with, play some “games in the game”, like pool or darts; can get drunk as hell (and then you and your friend talk some serious shit and driving is a real challenge). You can go watch a cabaret for example and you actually go into the theater and there is a show for you – stand-up comedy or whatever. And this far I haven’t seen the same show twice – so bigups for the developers. And that’s true for the TV too. I found myself actually watching TV in a videogame to my entertainment. My favorite in-game friend this far, is Little Jacob. He likes Bob Marley and ganja. So if you switch to TuffGong radio station while he’s in the car… he says “I feel this, mAn.” and he even talks some sense like “sometimes you have to lay back and chill, get away from everyday life”. Funny, huh?

Of course, you can have “lady friends” too – a whore or a girlfriend – your choice. The girlfriend you have to take out and entertain (games or a restaurant, just as your friends) and if you’re lucky enough you even get to “drink a coffee” at her place. In some parts of the city though, you can find pleasure for money too – and this time Rockstar got it right – you pick up the whore, drive to some quiet place and then choose the services you want – and unlike in previous GTA’s, in GTA IV you get to see the action. Yes. Not the vulgar way, but enough to get the idea. Bigups again.

For the internet addicted, there is e-mail and browser in the game. You get e-mails from friends, you can search for your soul-mate and you can even buy ringtones for your in-game phone in this virtual “cloud”. Very detailed, very cool.

The game is filled of course with a lot of cars – that’s what GTA is about in the end, right? The bad news is, you can crash really bad, you get thrown out on the windshield and you can die :). The cop car has a computer through which you can access the police database, so you basically can find any crook or criminal you’re looking for. Driving around is a little bit tricky tho’ because the camera won’t move as it should around corners, so you have to get used to control the camera with your mouse – thumbs down this time.

I had this moment when I couldn’t resist to cry out loud “WOW”. This happened when I “executed” one of the first bosses in the game, Vladimir. It was a really cool visual experience. So brutal and raw, like I’ve never seen in a video-game before.

merry christas - GTA style

Day and night cycles, weather changes, surrounding world reaction and all that you expect from a game in 2008 is all there too. Everything happens almost as in reality, so it’s very easy to loose yourself during the game and get into character. And you can play for hours and never know how time in real life passes – and this my friends is the sign of really good design, extremely detailed and carefully thought-out game; not so common in our days (see NFS Undercover).

This is what I think of the new GTA in a nutshell. To sum it up, GTA IV is a great game. I just love to play it, no matter what I do in the living-breathing city of Liberty. The visual experience might not be so great on my system, but the game itself kicks f_kin’ ass. Everybody MUST at least give it a try. I highly recommend it as a great way of breaking out of the mundane. I’m sure I didn’t see half the game has to offer yet – but as this may be true, I already know that this is another of my all-time favorite games. For the nostalgic and for old times sake, here’s a tip – Rockstar made GTA II available on their site, a few years ago, go to the Rockstar Classics site to get your copy.

Happy GTA-ing.