Its been about a month since my last game review so I decided to put up a new one, Rockstars latest of its most controversial series and I know its been out for awhile but hell why not.

Grand Theft Auto IV

GTA IV is set in a compleley revamped Liberty City and your character is Nico Belic, a man who comes to America to find the one who backstabed his squad during the fictional war that happened in the old country. When one first steps into the new Liberty City you will be amazed by the graphics weather your playing on a HDTV or the one in the living room, as they are by far the best for any GTA game. The car physics are nice and made to act as realistically as possible such as turning the car, damage of the car, and the scraping of the paint job if you drive to close to something. Rockstar has added "ragdoll" physics to the game making it even more realistic such as when you gun down a pedastrian or fly through the windshield of your car. Now the missions are what makes the core of every GTA game, they usually vary in difficulty and objectives and usually come with a nice variety. But sadly this is not true for GTA IV, missions are mainly go to a certain location and kill everyone. Sometimes you will have to pick up an item or chase someone down but they all mainly boil down to the same thing with the execption for a few missions. And now for the side missions which is starting to play a more important role in the GTA games. Rockstar has built apon the dating aspect of GTA:SA and now you can hang out with certain friends by doing activitys such as bowling, pool, drinking, and other such events. By hanging out with friends you are able to earn special benifits if they like you enough such as selling you cheaper weapons, sending you backup, or a ride. Although useful sometimes it can be annoying as they can call you at bad times and you cant shoot a gun and manage a phone at the same time resulting in you dying and having to do the mission over again. In GTA IV the familiar hidden package is gone and replaced with pigons or "flying rats" and instead of 100 there are 200 that must be shot, thankfully there are stationary and can be easy to find (with some help of a gameguide), some more then others. It is fun however to watch them blow up into a puff of feathers when they die though. As expected there is racing side missions but Rockstar has redone the car theft side mission to make although interesting but a little easier then previous games, instead of running around the map looking for the cars, Niko will get an Email (yes there is internet in GTA IV, nothing great though and no porn lol) and you can choose to accept the mission when ever you have a free moment and the car will appear as a blip on the radar waiting for you and usually has a few armed drug dealers near by but are easily delt with and then the car can be taken to a garage where Niko will recieave payment for his deeds. And now the weapons and pedestians. The weapon selection has improved yet degraded, there are melee weapons, assult rifles, pistols, shotguns, grenades, sniper rifles, molotov cocktails, and RPGs. All of which can get the job done perfectly fine but to me they are not has fun to use in GTA IV, I miss the chainsaw, minigun, and flamethrower. The pedstrians have never been so much fun to run over in a GTA game, in my opinion this is the best part of GTA IV, the blood smearing everywhere on the car and streets with the ragdoll physic engine will have you laughing a guilty laugh each time you play. Online play, I cant really say much for online play as I have not had much experiance with but here it goes. Its nothing that great and not alot of people are on now since the games realease but it still can be fun with the few people who do still play online and really its good for Rockstars first attempt at it.

Over all I would give GTA IV a 3 out of 5 because of the lack of variety in missions but the game has plenty of witty dialog, some fun side missions and beautiful graphics but sadly is not above the "try it before you buy it" rule much like its predecsors. If you have any suggestions please say so in the comments.