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Product DetailsPlatform: PC | Edition: Standard
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Product Description
Amazon.com
For Niko Bellic, fresh off the boat from Europe, it is the hope he can escape his past. For his cousin, Roman, it is the vision that together they can find fortune in Liberty City, gateway to the land of opportunity. As they slip into debt and are dragged into a criminal underworld by a series of shysters, thieves and sociopaths, they discover that the reality is very different from the dream in a city that worships money and status, and is heaven for those who have them and a living nightmare for those who don’t.
Beginning with the 1997 release of the original Grand Theft Auto, the GTA series has been one of the most prolific, controversial and down right entertaining franchises in video games history. This pedigree of success guarantees that the highly anticipated eleventh game in the series, Grand Theft Auto IV, will garner at least as much attention if not more.
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The Plot
Grand Theft Auto IV is a brand new adventure in the GTA universe following the experiences of Nikolai "Niko" Bellic, a new immigrant from an undisclosed eastern European country whose troubled pa st and the persuasion of his cousin Roman have brought him to the fictional Liberty City. Unfortunately, Niko’s search for the American Dream and a much needed fresh start, hits an immediate snag when the rags to riches story Roman spun to pique Niko's interest is exposed as not only a complete fabrication, but a ploy to enlist Niko’s well-known skills as a tough guy against the ample list of enemies clamoring for Roman’s debt-ridden blood.
Because Roman is the only person Niko knows in Liberty City he begrudgingly accepts his role as Roman’s protector despite the deception. But as time goes on Niko comes into his own, and his experience on the wrong side of the tracks proves more valuable than he could have ever imagined as he fights for survival and later supremacy on the crime ridden streets of Liberty City.
Game Environments
Based on several of the boroughs of New York City and parts of New Jersey, Liberty City, familiar to players of previous games in the series, has been entirely redesigned for GTA IV. Players can expect visible detail down to the weeds growing in the cracks in the sidewalk, cars and buildings of visibly different ages and a much greater level if verticality in the buildings and bridges that they are able to explore as Niko moves through the city streets. In addition, pedestrians in GTA IV are much more realistic. No longer simply moving cardboard cutouts, these NPCs are intelligent, modern, human representations that laugh, cry, eat, drink, use cell phones and ATMs, and talking amongst themselves regardless of Niko’s interaction with them.
Gameplay
Historically GTA games have focused heavily on mission-based play, requiring successful completion of fixed tasks in order for players to progress through the game, but this has changed to a great extent in GTA IV. Players will experience an entirely new and exciting emphasis centered on the blending of on-mission and off-mission play, resulting not only in an increased sense of realism, but more interesting and unrestricted gameplay.
Features
Aside from the car jacking and a detailed city environment here are the new features for GTA IV:
- Improved combat system - Now you can use cover and also a target lock system, which allows you to take out targets with greater ease and accuracy. Plus, you can engage in some hand-to-hand combat if you can't get your hands on a piece quick enough.
- Cell phone - Not just for basic phone calls anymore. Use your in-game cell phone to receive missions via SMS, snap photos, and ZiT (tag) songs that can be downloaded exclusively on Amazon.com/mp3.
- Free time - In between missions you can take advantage of "me" time. There are gentleman's clubs, comedy clubs, bowling alleys, and bars, which all house unique activities.
- Take a break from the storyline - A variety of side missions allow you to help run a car service, "borrow" cop cars, assassinate targets, help solve problems for those on the street, or take to the air with stunt jumps that are scattered all over the city.
- Control your own fate - Throughout the game choice moments will arrive causing you to make a decision that will affect relationships and money.
Multiplayer
Give Niko a rest and create your own multiplayer "hero." GTA has added multiplayer modes allowing you to take your creation out to play online in competitive, co-op, and free form modes. Competitive mode has you fighting against the cops, jacking cars, or racing to finish odd jobs. Co-op challenges you and your friends with various tasks including Hangman's NOOSE where you are responsible for escorting a wanted kingpin to a safe extraction point. Freeform lets you and 15 others lose on Liberty City. Use this mode to hit up the bar and play virtual darts versus each other or head out to the streets and set up your own drag races. If you can dream it, you can do it in Freeform mode.
ZiT: We'll Spot The Song For You
When playing Grand Theft Auto IV, if you hear a song that you are interested in buying as an MP3, all you have to do is dial ZiT-555-0100 on your in-game mobile phone and a text message will be sent to you with the name of the artist and the title of the track. The next time you log in at the Rockstar Games Social Club, you will find 30-second previews of all the songs you have ZiT'ed while playing the game. You can add them to your basket there and click to purchase at Amazon MP3, or you can find them all at www.amazon.com/gtamusic.
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Customer Reviews
Rockstar, shame on you.
To anyone considering this game, I highly suggest you pick it up for the 360 or PS3 instead - and that is the very first time I've ever made that recommendation about any game before.
My PC lets me run any game I want. Most modern games run at 720p, 60 frames-per-second, 4xAA on my 46" HDTV. This includes Fallout 3 and Dead Space. Other games, like Far Cry 2 are more taxing, but I still manage to crank out a solid 30 frames-per-second. GTA4, simply put, performs horribly. I am only getting 15 to 20 FPS on average. I can't picture someone without a hardcore gaming PC getting anything close to a playable experience with it.
Also, to install the game you're forced to also install Rockstar Social Club, Games for Windows Live, the SecureROM service (DRM). Plus you need a Windows Live account to even save your game. Terrible, terrible port. Shame on you Rockstar.
I thought GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas were superb games that were funny and entertaining with a good mix of shoot'em up, adventure/quest and interactivity to suit most tastes. Those titles stayed on my hard drive for a long time and provided me with much entertainment.
I'm sorry to say that GTA IV lasted on my hard drive for about 6 hours. The vast majority of which was spent trying to get the thing to work.
I'm sorry I didn't come on Amazon and check out the negative reaction that this game has generated before shelling out my hard earned cash for this incredibly disappointing waste of time and money. The sheer number of 1 star reviews here would have warned me away from the game, like the plague.
Like many other reviewers here, I feel cheated out of my money by "Rockstar" games and I'm very angry about it. "Rockstar" have gone about their business in a very underhanded way. There should be clear stickers on this product declaring that various online accounts are needed to play the offline game. I and I'll wager the vast majority of users don't want a "Windows Live" account, nor do I particularly want "Rockstar Social Club" account either. The "Windows Live" account is mandatory, to enable the user to save their progress! Never in my many years of PC gaming have I come across such an idiotic and deal breaking device before. I'd love to have been at the meeting where that "feature" was suggested.
On top of that, the user is required to download and install Windows Service Pack 3 for XP users. Why? I don't know. I've no idea why any PC game would need a Windows Service Pack to simply run. Obviously this is at Microsoft's insistence, but it is yet another reason to leave the game on the shelf. There are some people who just don't need, or want Windows Service Pack 3 on their machines. I was one of them until I bought this game. Oh, by the way, "SecuROM" is included too! The "SecuROM" anti-piracy spyware, like "StarForce" before it, is something I just don't want on my machine.
What I and every other PC user would like to do is simply install the damn game and play it. A game like the GTA series is primarily designed for Offline users and that is the target audience, so why is "Rockstar" trying to push Online to the games detriment? GTA is, in essence, a story based adventure game for a single player.
After the irritation of trying to install the game, the real show-stopper makes its appearance. I'd heard that the game was resource hungry, but really, that's an understatement. My current PC exceeds the recommended requirements by some degree and I had a lot of difficulty getting the game to even accept my assigned display preferences, even in 1024 x 768! On top of that, there were missing textures from the start of the game. So much so that the game was unplayable. I've run recent releases which are heavy, like Fallout 3 etc, with no problems. But GTA IV is just ridiculous. After much messing about, included unloading NVidia drivers and installing new ones, then fooling about with the preferences again, I finally got the game to run. But it was far from the experience I was expecting. I could barely get it to run at 20 frames per sec, which would plummet to about 8 or so in a car. So, in short, it was pointless.
According to Gamespot, "Rockstar Games insists that the problems experienced by users are extremely low". I simply don't believe them. They are lying and a casual overview of the reviews on Amazon proves that very clearly. "Rockstar" have stated that they were trying to `future-proof' the game! But this is bunkum. Games should be designed to run on current hardware, not some rig that won't exist until 2014, when few pwople will be actually playing this title.
The simple fact is that "Rockstar" have simply rushed out a lazy port of the console version for the Christmas sales and they don't give a toss about the public doing the buying. It comes across as extremely badly optimized code and the end result is an unsatisfying whole, to what should have been this years masterpiece. There may be some hope to rescue this sinking ship with patches, but at the moment I am not holding my breath and GTA IV has been deleted from my Hard Drive. I've lost 6 hours of my life and 40 Euro and have had to put up with an extremely frustrating and ultimately miserable experience that just wasn't worth the hassle.
I've never said this about a producer before, but I can honestly say that I will never by another title from "RockStar Games" again, nor anything that has "Games for Windows" emblazoned across the box.
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