You don't need an Amazon review. You already know it's great.Reviewed by Booyah, 2010-03-17
Great game. Like all GTA games, you need to put in an hour or so to
figure out the game and actually unlock some fun stuff. But it's
totally worth it. Huge game that provides hours upon hours of fun
because it's so open ended.
If you liked earlier GTA games, you'll like this. If you've never
played one, try this, but be patient. You'll hate it for the first
hour until you get good at driving, then you will be hooked.
The maturation of the GTA seriesReviewed by Bryan Creel, 2010-03-03
I did several side tasks and achievements along the way and my time
played was somewhere between 35 and 40 hours. You will definitely
get your money's worth for this game. There are plenty of reviews
out there so you don't need me to tell me how great the game is.
Instead I will just list the things I loved and a few gripes I
had:
Liked So Much
* There are yellow cabs all over Liberty City. You can hail a cab
and hop in. The driver will take you to any point of interest or
waypoint that you have marked on your map. You can watch the ride
or be instantly transported there (well, after a loading screen).
This is so awesome. There are many times I want to drive around,
but sometimes I just want to get there.
* You can set waypoints on your map. If you are in a car it will
show you a GPS-style route on your mini-map that you can follow to
reach your destination. This is a massive help to getting around
this large city.
* The city is very much alive. GTA has always been known for having
an active environment but this latest installment really takes the
cake. There are tons of little details that you will notice and be
amazed by. An example: I was standing in the road and a car stopped
so it would not hit me. The car behind it ran into its bumper, and
the driver hit his head on the steering wheel and was knocked out.
His head was on the steering wheel sounding his horn. It was just a
cool non-scripted event.
* As it is often mentioned, the plot and characters are excellent.
I was reallly drawn into the world and the plot.
* The graphics are excellent.
* The difficulty is pretty good. The missions do ramp up in
difficulty, but I seldom had to repeat a mission more than once.
There were a few tough ones, but nothing that just made me
despair.
Liked Not So Much
* Previous GTA games had hidden packages. If you found them, you
would get weapons to spawn at your safehouses. GTA 4 has pigeons
that you kill instead of packages, but there is no reward for
finding them. There's no way I'm going to hunt down all of them for
no game benefit.
* I would have enjoyed a little more control over the camera's
default position when you are driving. It tends to be a little too
low for my preference.
If you want to play GTA 4, here are a few tips that might help you
out:
* Take some time and learn the driving mechanics. The brake and
emergency brake work very differently from other GTA games. You
have to use a combination of them to skid around a corner and that
combination differs based on the car type you are driving. Learning
how to handle them will serve you well in the later missions.
* You will meet people over the course of the game that want to be
friends with you. They will call you on the phone and ask if you
want to do stuff. Saying "no" will decrease their Like score. To
avoid this, say "yes" and call them back to cancel immediately
after they hang up. This will keep their Like score from going
down.
* When the missions start getting harder, keep your body armor
maxed out. There's nothing to spend money on besides armor and
weapons, so don't worry about that. Get Lil Jacob's Like score up
and he will offer you discounted armor and ammo.
Obviously I really liked the game and I'm giving it 5 stars. It's
is very, very good and an excellent value for the money.
If Gary Busey and Nick Nolte had a baby, it would be Brucie!Reviewed by bookreader, 2010-02-20
Straight off the boat and sucked into the criminal life, that's the
american dream hu! Friends in need, cab rides, drug drop offs,
gangs from every bureau, psychos, car thieves, jumping into
helicoptors, out running the law, quietly taking care of problems,
or blowing them up, car chases galore, and the weapons I could go
on forever but I won't.
Getting people drunk is one of my favorite things to do, just to
see how they all act. From Jacob being "mash up" to Kate and Packie
saying they wanna die and fallin' all over, it's great! Bernie
nearly made me piss myself many times "maybe he wants to kill me
because i'm FAAAABBBUUULLLOUSSSS"! Brucie has issues. Roman is a
man whore but a nice guy. This ones a definite must have. Wasn't a
fan of GTA until this one got into our collection. Loved ever
minute!
Stay safe, stay second Amendment!
Review on GTA 4's Multiplayer RacingReviewed by Mango, 2010-02-20
I've owned GTA 4 for at least four months and still haven't
completed the story mode yet. The main reason is because I usually
play multiplayer instead. The multiplayer is more interesting and
fun to me than the singleplayer, so this review is going to be
focused more on the multiplayer, particularly the racing
bits.
There are two kinds of races: Race and GTA Race.
Race is just that, a race. You and a bunch of other players racing
through checkpoints to the finish line. There's usually no tricks
in this game. The only thing you might have to worry about is
people who drive the wrong way. They are commonly known as
backwards drivers. If you aren't paying attention they could really
mess up your place. While they can be annoying, especially if
you're in first place and they hit you, bumping you down to fifth,
it does add a bit of a challenge.
GTA Race is just like regular race. The only difference is you can
get weapons and shoot at other racers. If you're behind someone and
you have a weapon you can shoot the car in front and the car in
front can shoot right back. Cars shooting from behind have a better
advantage at taking down their opponent because shooting for the
car in front can be a bit difficult since they are looking behind
them and not at what might be up ahead. If they have grenades on
hand, well, that's another story.
Cars can catch fire and eventually blow up, so unless you get to a
health pack in time, you'll want to get out of the car ASAP!! Just
be sure not to evacuate in the middle of the road where other cars
can run you over.
While it can be fun, GTA Race has several rather annoying things
about it.
Campers/ Spawn Killers- Campers are people who sit on corners
waiting to shoot at passing cars or stragglers. They are more
common in games where auto-aim is allowed, where they have a better
chance at getting easy, no skill kills. I don't mind campers. Like
wrong way drivers in regular Race, they add a challenge. Either you
take them down first or they'll get you. It's the Campers that
spawn kill that get frustrating. They kill you, you respawn with NO
weapons and no way to defend yourself and they kill you again. And
again... and... you get it. Unless you can somehow evade their
bullets and escape, which is pretty much impossible when auto-aim
is concerned, you won't be going anywhere.
My Thoughts: I think this problem could be fixed if Rockstar lets
players spawn with weapons temporarily when they die. This way if
someone is waiting to kill them they have a way to protect
themselves. Once they get in a vehicle the weapon disappears. Of
course, that won't happen so we'll just have to deal with dying
unfairly.
Race or Deathmatch?- Very annoying. You're in a race but NO one is
racing. The majority of players are on the map shooting each other
as if the game were deathmatch and not a race. These happen often
and are more common on races with long laps. Many times I've
finished a race and had to sit and wait as the rest of the "racers"
run around shooting each other. One game lasted and ended after a
whole HOUR and that was with no one finishing. Usually after half
the racers cross the finish line a countdown from thirty seconds
starts.
My Thoughts: After the first person crosses the finish line they
should start the countdown. Maybe starting at two minutes. At least
then we'll know the race will end sooner rather than later.
GTA 4 is definitely a good racing game. The story mode and the rest
of the multiplayer modes are fun too, they just aren't as exciting
as the racing, in my opinion. I really enjoy racing games and I
haven't found any good ones in the past few years other than NFS:
Hot Pursuit 2 and NFS: Underground 2.
Games are only fun when you can PLAY them.Reviewed by Casey Futoma, 2010-02-13
I received a pretty good looking case, complete with all it's original manuals and such. The disc didn't look too bad, but when I put it into my Xbox it would crash at the title screen every time. The funnest part of a game is being able to play it. :|
