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Kind of a bore-fest

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: May 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Rockstar eliminated so many elements from previous GTA installments that I feel they took a step backward.
-driving is really goofy
-side missions like Pizza Boy, Taxi, Ambulance, and Firefighter are gone
-there is no bonus for getting all the secret packages
-you accumulate a lot of money but there is nothing to spend it on
-the vehicle list is significantly smaller
-there is no customization whatsoever... you get to pick from about three outfits
-no more tricking out your car... honestly, Saint's Row had a better vehicle storage system

others are better

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 9
Date: May 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

i do like the gta's series but this game is just the same thing wich to me is getting boring. its just not for me.

GTA IV All Flash no Thrill

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: May 09, 2008
Author: Amazon User

OK everyone Grand Theft Auto IV is given a perfect 10 rating by Gamespot and IGN. This perfect 10 rating should not have been given... It most likely deserves a 7.5 to an 8.5. Don't get me wrong GTA IV has stellar graphics and a great storyline but from there everything goes bad. The new highly hyped up aiming is some of worst i've ever played with in a shooter game. Once your locked on and your target is dead your still locked on, you have to disengage and then find another target, this becomes extremely annoying and hard when you're pinned down against 10 bad guys, who are all firing their weapons at you at the same time. I made a huge mistake and should have rented this game first. When you play GTA IV for the 1st time you will be amazed by the realistic feel of driving and how RockStar games have made Liberty City look like my hometown of NYC. But after about 5 to 10 hours of driving around, doing missions, and getting further into the storyline all the hype of why you bought the game wears off and you find yourself with a semi fun video game. Another extremely bad flaw to this game is Driveby shootings. you have to be right next to the fleeing car or person on the street because there is no aiming in drive bys. Seems realistic that you can't aim during drive bys but for a game you should be able to. If your far away in a car and your chasing someone while they're in a car and your some what far back good luck in shooting them down because you will hit nothing. This game is not worth 89.00 dollars let alone the regular price of 60.00. The Special Edition has a carry on money bag not the advertised Duffle Bag. It has a Licencse Plate which can only be used in certain states... New York is not one of them. The art book is a little 15 page flip through of early art of what the characters and places were going to look like, the art book is nowhere near as good as a Mass Effect Art Book with real detail in the Art chosen to show off. The only good thing about the S.E. of GTA IV is the Bank Vault Case which is good for show since all the locks are the same and if you know someone with the same case then you can say goodbye to w/e valuables you have in there. Rent the Game first, that's all i can say really. If you're happy with it 50 hours later then this review is not for you, but if you find yourself playing the game for a short time and quickly discover it is all Flash and No Thrill then you will find that Rock Star Games has some how paid off Game Spot and IGN to give Perfect 10s. When you play games like Gears of War or Bio Shocks and they don't receive 10s and you wonder why GTA IV gets a 10 then your as lost as I am...

Rockstar Listen Up!!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Since everyone copies GTA, I think RS could look around and take some of the better ideas other games have, not just sandboxes. I think Scarface and Saints Row are the standout clones of the past. Here's a couple I can think of:

1. After you finish the story allow a separate "mission select" game save where you can pick and choose any mission in the game, not unlike Rainbow Six Vegas' "scene selection" premise. Just minus out the before and after cut scenes to basically make it like the assassin missions.

2. Allow direct saving via the cell phone at any time. It's lame to have to go to the apartment and watch the little sleeping scene to just save. I know that it auto saves but I've had it lose some of my save before to have to redo 2 or more missions after it supposedly auto saved. I don't think this would make the missions too easy as most of the time you cant really use the phone during missions anyways, someone will show up and shoot you before you get to it.

3. Come out with a simple easy to use custom mission creator pack for modders that is cross platform after the PC version comes out. With XBoxLive and whatever PS3 uses for online, people could buy/sell/give away created missions/scenarios. It would be a great value and XBL/PS3/Rockstar could charge a small commission for the transaction to get their piece. I wish they would have done expansion packs for San Andreas in the long years between games or had an easy to use modders pack. Obviously this would have to have some sort of disclaimer as to the "hot coffee" stuff, but come on this is GTA. Most people would agree that murder is a LOT worse than sex anyways, but the authorities in the country have it grossly backwards.

4. Have some more sophisticated missions that don't just involve go here/kill everyone/run from police scenario we all know is basically the GTA MO. Look at Assassin's Creed or Thief and get some idea. I wish there was more sniping missions/side missions. Don't get me wrong, the combat in this game is much more satisfying than previous games with the cover system. Not sure exactly because I don't have specific examples but I think you can just look around at other games and get ideas.

5. Make a simple all or nothing decision about the customization. None of this half way stuff like in 4, more like the all the way like in SA. I suppose the big thing is by about half way you have way more money than you can use to buy anything, why can't I scrimp to buy an Infernus any time I want? Or advanced weapons(M4 scope/rocket launcher, laser pointer)? I'd like to trick out my Comet/Porsche with better rims/acceleration/brakes and a custom uploaded paint job. I want a phone that has more options like a keyboard so I can see the internet anywhere or watch the TV anywhere. What about a 500000 store only non-spawning race car that handles like an F1 car?

This is a must have game and is awesome but needs to be developed more like the post GTA3 versions.

Not too bad

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 01, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game was ok. The only really entertaining aspects of it is driving the cars, hearing the funny radio commercials and running over people with the car. Definitely need to mute the sound around small children.

Come now people...let's drop some of the bias please.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: May 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

OK.

Background: I am not a Grand Theft Auto fan. I'm not clouded by this game, nor does this game "own me". The only GTA games I ever beat were San Andreas (because it was just too well done) and Liberty City Stories on PSP (because it was the first PSP game to allow custom soundtracks which made the game all the more fun). I bought this game for one primary reason: I know it'll get banned, or severely edited, and I want to make sure I have an untouched version.

If you want the quick and dirty, skip to the very bottom.

I decided to actually give the game a fair chance to see what the hype was about, and from there, decide whether or not the game was worth every penny I spent.

I did buy the special edition from Amazon, pre-ordered the day before release date, got it today as I should have. I was very impressed with the packaging and the speed with which I got the game; I noted some others didn't have the same success, so I feel fortunate. Let's go down the list of special goodies, in order of worst to best (IMO).

SOUNDTRACK: OK, there's over 200 tracks in the game, yet we get a 16 track CD. Mind you, I wasn't expecting to get a full box set of songs, but why bother with a soundtrack at all if it's not going to be more than this?

ARTBOOK: Very nice, but I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed. I mean, I look at art books like those of Persona 3 and Growlanser and then I look at this and wonder if Rockstar understands how to truly wow its customers. It's not bad at all, just not as great as I would expect. I mean obviously a lot of art went into this game, so when I see just three wireframes of Liberty City I have to ask myself where the rest of the drawings are.

DUFFEL BAG: It's not what you think. It's actually quite small, and thin. Probably would suit storing stuff when you go to the gym or something. I wouldn't rely on it for much.

KEY CHAIN: It's a key chain, nothing special. Letter "R" and a small star. Good quality though, nice build, better than the one that came with Growlanser for sure, but not as nice looking.

LOCK BOX: Yes, someone with a bit of strength could pop this bad boy open with a butter knife, but so what? IT's a cool addition and a really nice concept. (FYI, that's why the box is so big, it barely fits in there)

LICENSE PLATE: Amazon says it's exclusive to them but is it really? Dunno. It's nice though - if California weren't so Draconian when it came to vehicles I would put it on my car.

Negatives are the lack of a "Making Of" disc: hopefully they'll put those clips up for FREE on Xbox Live - then this is a moot point, and, as usual for GTA games, a very lacking instruction booklet.

As for the game I'll just go through the various complaints people have and see if I agree or disagree. How's that?

POP-IN: Agree. It's not bad and it's not a deal breaker, IMO. In fact in the time I played the game I didn't notice it all that much. It's really when you're going faster than the loading engine can keep up with, which isn't often considering most of the cars are rather slow and the traffic is dense enough that you can't speed through like you could with the other GTAs.

JAGGIES: Agree. Again, not too bad and not a deal breaker.

BLURRY: Agree. It's not as bad as people are making it out to be though. Like in Lost Odyssey and Kameo where the entire background is blurred and it has a realistic feel to it, this is more subtle. It's not a filter, it's more like the textures start out degraded and then slowly improve as you approach various things in the distance. It's NOT that big of a deal, only videophiles would even notice, really.

FRAMERATE: Agree. Again, not that bad, and not nearly as much as Lost Odyssey. There is just some slight stuttering that occurs at times, it's noticeable but not a deal breaker.

MUSIC: Agree. The selection of songs was poor this time around. I pretty much keep going back to the jazz station because it's the only one I can really tolerate. If you're open to indie music you'll probably find some things you like here. Also there are some big name artists with little known songs (that aren't that great), i.e. Nas, so if you're open to new types of songs from established artists, you'll find some good stuff here.

GRAPHICS: You know, I don't know why these got a 10. Not to beat a dead horse, but I can think of at least 4 other games with better graphics just off the top of my head: Bioshock, Lost Odyssey, Gears (different art direction, I know), and Fight Night Round 3. It's not the city, the city is fine...it's everything that's animated about the city: cars, Niko, characters, bikes, etc. Even trees don't look that great. And it's often hard to make out certain objects like when there's a fence or something. Additionally, the text on the cell phone is a dark font which is hard to read against the navy green background when you're more than 5 feet away from the screen (which you should be to keep from getting nauseous while playing).

OK ReV, so what's the good news?

The good news might be your bad news. To me, I like a game that sticks to a formula. Some hate that - some love games to always change. GTAIV sticks to the tried and true formula of the past PS2 games, with one small twist: Now you've got choices. You can make decisions on whether you're going to help or harm someone, save or desert someone, etc. So in a way it's taking the concept of Fable and slapping the GTA world around it, if you can envision that. Don't know if I care for the choice part yet, but it does keep things lively.

Everything else you love about GTA is here to the n'th degree. I'm sure you heard about the fact that you can now do more...uh...'more' with the hookers, plus the various engines for gunplay and weapons have been improved. Sadly, it's a LOT more difficult to control both Niko and the various vehicles. With Niko, he now walks by default, and you have to hold A to get him to jog (what was the default in the previous games) and tap A repeatedly to get him to run (what was hold A in the previous games). With the vehicles the buttons seem to have been switched around or made less effective. I had a very difficult time just steering in the city, and I still haven't been able to power slide around corners. It told me about handbrake controls, but I could swear I could do it with just the regular brake provided I was at the right speed, before. I actually failed a mission because of that.

So, in summary:

- There are things you will need to get accustomed to. Some things are different, some things are the same. Some things were improved, some were a blatant step back. It's anyone's ball game whether you'll truly enjoy the game for yourself or not. One thing's for sure...no matter what reviews come out, no matter what reviews get posted here, and no matter what a stripper tells you, THIS IS NOT A PERFECT GAME. It's a good game with its flaws, just like any other. If you can accept that, you'll want to buy this game.

Ironing out the flaws, a great game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 09, 2008
Author: Amazon User

So as much as I love this game, what are the "flaws" I mentioned in the title? Well, let me start off with the bad news first:

-The vehicle control sucks. Every time you try to stop the car, it spins around. This is really frustrating, becaus sometimes you'll try to stop yourself from getting a wanted level.

-The hand-to-hand combat system is a real joke. You can seriously play through the hand-to-hand combat parts blind-folded. All you have to do is smash the X button several times. The character moves on his own.

-The game is a bit too short. About 6 hours in, you're already halfway through.

So why did I give this game 4 stars? Well, here goes:

-The graphics are amazing. They look realistic, and are a HUGE step up from GTA 1-3, VC, SA, and LCS.

-The voice acting is incredible! Niko sounds amazing, as does Michelle.

-The music is great too, especially the intro music.

-The gameplay is great, although a bit repetitive, still very great.

-The ending is the best video game ending in years.

Allthogether, if you look past the flaws, then this is an amazing game, and GTA in its top form.

Its cool ...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Well when it arrived , i thought there was something missing .. cuz everything was in a small box :)

when i saw the bag i thought it was so small !! but its not :) its medium sized ... cool ... carried my console with 2 controllers ! ;) and it smells good !

and the CAR PLATE was OK ... not really strong but OK .. cuz its not real .. its just looks cool :)

the key is good :) ROCKSTAR ... actually 2 keys

hmm the box that contains everything is cool i love looking at it

The Music CD is good . i loved the first track cuz its the theme ... other tracks are just RAP :) which is boring .. i dun really love rap

The ART BOOK is fun :) Illustrations and 3D (wireframe , Non-Textured and textured MODELS) and how niko was made .. and the other expectations of niko .. :)

and finally .. the game :) its fine .. not bad .. i really like what i got inside the Special Edition Package more than the game :)

No Car Tuning , no Body Building , No Hair cuts
Character customization only on the multiplayer mode
the multiplayer is a little bit boring :) but its ok

Well the game is fun ;) if ur friends play it .. and u invite them :)
the story is fine .. they're funny :) ... well its one of the best games ;)

Fun story, kind of repetitive gameplay after a while, but amusing multiplayer

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The graphics, cut scenes, and story are excellent. It kept me playing for hours just so that I could finish the story. The gameplay was very repetitive after a while, but wanted to continue the story more was making up for it.

Lucky, you have the Taxi cabs to take you place to place, otherwise traveling yourself would take 10 times as long.

I just started playing multiplayer, and it is fun, and different than other multiplayer games... that is, you don't get pissed off when you die. Whenever I get killed or blow-up, I laugh at myself because the graphics are hilarious. I don't get into competitive mode like other games, because you just want to try doing the most stupid things in these multiplayer maps.

Mature Game for adults

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Very good graphics!
Great story line.
Awesome free-roaming experience of New York City!
Definitely for the grown-ups.

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