Game Review: Grand Theft Auto IV
Alright, on this game that i’ve just installed on my laptop, i have both types of comments on its reviews: lots of compliments as well as complaints!!! We’ll see…
Here’s a short review of the story of this game:
Grand Theft Auto IV’s protagonist, Niko Bellic, is an ex-soldier from Eastern Europe who moved to Liberty City to escape his past and pursue the “American Dream.” Niko was persuaded to move by his cousin Roman, who claimed to be living there with beautiful women, sports cars and lots of money. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Roman lied in order to cover up his own failures in life - the truth is he runs a failing taxi business, has mounting debts, and various criminals from Liberty City’s underworld have put a price on his head. Niko also has other motivations for moving to Liberty City, which are revealed as the story unfolds.
Alright, i haven’t played much of this game yet, no time, just gone though a bit. Now, on my compliments/praises about this game:
-fantastic graphics, no doubt, and real-looking environment of Liberty City and vehicles, awesome and natural-looking human characters and my favourite part: realistic cars, realistic crash damages and explosions!!!
-Well, the languages doesn’t change, i mean, more vulgar language, the better (lol…)
-If you have good achievements, prepare to win prizes from the official websites
-Try to play with the cops, and killing people and commiting crime looks realistic, sometimes blood-splashing looks real but violent, especially you blow a girl’s head off with a combat shotgun. Due to social emphasis, you’ll need to bring girl for dates, make friends and go out together etc. You can watch tv also, but that’s stupid…
-The major improvement after graphics is gunfire sound. You’ll feel like playing Counter Strike. The previous games (Vice City, Liberty Stories and San Andreas) have awful gunfire sounds.
-The PC version is of course better than the rest (PS3 and XBOX 360) as exclusion features are included: Record your most epic moments in the game in a video (don’t worry, no set up needed, just load and play, and after you finished a superb stunt or whatever, press F2 and the moment since you loaded is saved. You can cut later in the video editor), radios consist of user tracks and customizable handphone messaging tones and ringtones from your own songs.
Thats all for the good part. I haven’t played much yet so i can’t comment much. I will update this post, maybe paste a video link to my recordings to Youtube. Now, on my complaints, lots of them, actually it is the fuss you have to go though during installation and setup procedures:
-Installation was quick, maybe because i have lots of RAM, but, you’ll need to register online the official website (or you can’t play), craete a gamertag profile at xbox website and like it to your windows live ID, then these 2 are linked to your profile in GTA website. Why? who knows, if you have good achievements or you are really a hardcore criminal and made it to the top list of a particular achievement, enabling you to win prizes from the official website. Every of your actions including missions and crimes are recorded in a statistic and can be posted online. (After the hassle, enjoy…) The online registration is optional, but it is recommended you do so. Create a windows player profile as well in your game or you can’t save your game.
-This is why most PCs and laptops cannot play this game: Sys requirement:
At least Intel Duo Core at 2GHz (recommended 2.1/2.2 GHZ and above), 2.5-3 Gb RAM, minimum NVidia GeForce 8400GS graphics (all types of ATI Radeon cannot be used), 18Gb Free space, and only usable in Windows XP SP3 and Vista Premium (SP1)>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>What the Fuck, lucky i made a wise choice when i bought my laptop, spend extra cash for good specs but worth it, my laptop has no problem in support, but there’s still a bit hang or being lack. So i had to turn off every background-running programme if possible, like MSN messenger, Skype, download managers, Nokia PC suite, and even antivirus (pop-ups from them are annoying and may end up hanging your game) prompting for updates even if you are not online. It would be the best if you restart your laptop before playing the game if you usually leave it on sleep or hibernating mode to refresh the system.
- Now, you were a pro in GTA San Andreas, but you’ll be like a fugitive or an amateur criminal in GTA IV. You easily get wanted and busted, and the controls are different. Almost every key has a function and you can’t really change much of it. The cars are difficult to handle and explode easily, you die easily as well. That was a good point as it makes things look real, at the same time it might piss you off, and make the game tougher.
-Cheats block off certain achievements, so you will not be able to score high (prevent cheating in competitions/prize giving), and, keying-in cheats are difficult. You’ll need to bring out your handphone and key in teh phone number which is a cheat code with directional pads. suppose you ge caught in a gunfire, getting health full with cheat takes time, and most probably you die first.
So, that’s all. In short, this game demands too much from a computer, and it is designed to be played on a desktop PC actually, considering the default keys set invlove lots of numeric keypad that i reset them as in laptops you’ll need the ‘Fn’ key to access numeric keypad, and the system requirements. It’s not cheap to get a laptop as shown in the above’s specs. I wanted to upgrade my intel centrino’s processor into higher GHz (speed) but that costs me RM 600. Overall rating 8.1/10.0 . Sad. It could have been higher.
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