I finally decided to play through a GTA game for the first time ever. Biggest mistake of my life. One of the most poorly made dumpster fires imaginable. I could so easily ramble on goin "urrrgh the CLUNK the JANK oooo it burrrns" But the gunplay and the cars and the hand to hand combat were so abysmal, that it at least forced the game to be somewhat engaging. Combined with the complete lack of checkpoints, even the most mundane missions had some tension in them - though some of that tension is caused by the try not to fall asleep challenge rearing its ugly head. Genuinely, if the cars controlled well this game would have nothing going for it.

My problem is solely about how not fun this is. I thought at the very least, the narrative would carry the creatively extinct missions. Starts off with a strong set of characters and very quickly has me wanting to see where things go for them all. I'm down for a slow burn and it's kind of cool to play the actual franchise some of my favorite games are somewhat derivative of. Except no, this game refuses to give its characters or storylines time to grow. By the time you start forming any meaningful connections and the story starts going somewhere, you're instead introduced to a new cast of characters who'll give you your next handful of missions before being dropped in favor of the next group of nobodies. It got so convoluted and sloppy there was often little to no connection between missions. I was doing stuff for characters I swear I'd never been introduced to. The main storyline is about Niko and his cousin, but oh he's out of missions for you, spend the next 80% of the game barely speaking a word to him. We gotta throw in weaker and weaker characters to give you the same exact mission of "Drive here - kill someone" for the 75th heckin' time in a row. Instead of reigning in the story to focus on the struggles of an immigrant and his family, y'know, where there's actual meat for the story to explore...It rapidly devolves into doing petty tasks for a dead mob boss's higher up's punk kid's friend's brother who knows a guy who just got out of prison who's buddy don't trust him no more like dog this just sucks this isn't a story this is word vomit. Like they just thought we'd get bored of seeing a character too much so the second they run out of haha funneeee joke to tell with someone they just write them out of the plot.

One of the most nothing stories I've ever witnessed. Sloppy themes, forced emotional moments that fail to hit due to poor story focus, mind numbingly repetitive. Narrative dead ends at every turn and packed to the brim with filler. Just a completely vapid joyless husk with nothing to say. Not a single element comes together to form anything cohesive or impactful. All building up to Oog oog Niko, I know you just spent the entire game getting filthy rich from being everyone's errand boy, but you should totally put us all at risk to do one more job for a scam artist traitor. Sitting on well over half a million dollars and this game wants to present a scenario where you and the only other character that matters are hurting for money.

I go on about the story so much because that's basically all there is. Otherwise it's 70% boring driving segments, some chases dragging on so long it reminds me of superman 64 ring missions except this controls worse. And 30% kill everyone in this room missions. Both mission types done better in just about every other video game not made by Rockstar. Sometimes they mix the kill everyone and driving chase missions when they're feeling especially ambitious. But they're always so awkward because most times they don't want you to just shoot 'em and end the mission right away. So completely arbitrarily they'll take no damage from you until you've chased them for 4 minutes first. Especially obnoxious when you're chasing someone who's on a motorcycle, doesn't matter how much you fill him with holes at point blank, he won't react to you, you gotta chase him through his scripted obstacle course before he can die in one shot. Otherwise, you'll be running from the cops a lot. Which means nothing but driving and hoping cops don't spawn in front of you, resetting their range. 90% of the time it truly was never a chase regardless of the wanted level.

The vehicles are so limited in what they're capable of doing they couldn't realistically design anything around them despite it being almost the entire game. When it comes to the cars, not sure I agree that "you can feel the weight" or "It's realistic". But like I said that's far from my problems with this game. A designer can only design around the mechanics available. I'm fairly sure cars are physically able to turn on roads better than they can do a full 180 degree rotation on the spot - but that's besides the point. My point is the game's so mechanically barren there's no room for the game design to grow in the 20+ hours it demands you play it in the main story alone. Same goes for the gun missions, probably to an even worse degree. This era's cover shooting mechanics sucked universally even in decent games let alone in the shovelware Rockstar spat out.

So yeah the mechanics all individually are worst in the industry, but even if they were significantly better, I don't think they'd make the game any better. I don't often judge games based on how well things control. That feels so binary and transactional to me. Especially because "good controls" is a complicated topic that I shouldn't bloat this review with. What matters are ideas and execution of said ideas. This game has no ideas and doesn't try to execute anything.

Only other thoughts are being confused at where the fun of the open world is. I've seen Rockstar fans get 20 years of enjoyment out of beating up random NPC's. And like, no shade I guess but I genuinely couldn't be farther away from seeing the appeal. You might as well be throwing around ragdolls in Gmod. And trust me I'm not trying to pull a "GTA IS BAD FOR U THINK OF THE CHILDREN OMG SO OFFENSIVE" But to me this is like, the Cocomelon of video gaming, genuinely below subway surfers slop. I've personally observed my generation go full no thoughts head empty zombie mode over this franchise since the ps2 days. The same people berating "cringe" zoomer kids over things they enjoy be playing GTA like it's a family guy funniest moments compilation in the corner of their summarized drama of the week youtube video. I'm not trying to trash talk tastes here I just genuinely believe this franchise has done irreparable damage to gaming, in how the industry is run, and how it's perceived and engaged with by general audiences. We're lucky gaming as a medium gets to have so few boundaries and yet all the biggest names just squander the chance to do anything meaningful with it.

I'm saying this is a stupid baby game. Play Garten of Banban instead.

Grand Theft Auto IV, is a game about choice and perspective. "What does the American dream mean today," was printed on the back of the box and the game runs with the theme. Liberty City, like the city and country it was based on, is a land of dichotomies: Pessimism vs. Optimism, Principles vs. Greed, Promise vs. Reality. Each of these dichotomies reflect part of American life, and through the lens of an immigrant, they are given a different perceive than we normally receive in media.
While Niko's American dream may be different from another mans, their shared pursuit of dreams makes both Americans.

This game is the the peak of GTA series, It has the best narrative, best physics, best setting, best characters... Everything that's good in any GTA game is here. One of my favorite games of all time. Another detail is the wonderful soundtrack, no game protagonist other than Arthur Morgan has moved me more than Niko Bellic. In addition to being probably the most revolutionary open world game of the 7th generation of games, it is probably, side to GTA III, Rockstar's most revolutionary game. If you have the opportunity, play this game.

I enjoy GTA games mainly for the sheer spectacle on display. They are huge games with budgets to match. I don't think any of the GTA games have ever actually been fun to play, at least when it comes to the core shooting and their main mission design. For being a series that has a lot of freedom to do whatever in the open world, the missions are always extremely restrictive and sometimes frustratingly janky. I feel like every GTA has a mission that demands you do a specific jump onto a running train or something that can, and will frequently go wrong, instantly killing you. Other games would make this a scripted thing that's very difficult to fail so you can get the satisfaction of doing a cool looking setpiece, but in GTA if you don't line up your motorcycle just right or whatever you will just repeatedly eat it.

The comedy clubs you can visit in GTA IV are funny simply for how dated they are now. I love the 45 second long Ricky Gervais bit where he's just not particularly funny.