Video Games : Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3)

Rating: - Its very good but...
Yes, GTA 4 is a very good game infact it is a fantastic game. but to put my feelings in a nutshell i will say this: GTA San Andreas is better.
if san andreas had the graphics and only added extra features not any took away (like the new game has for example going to the gym, clothes shopping, hair cuts etc)it would blow GTA 4 out the water. Yes the citys big but wheres the seedy housing esates? wheres the open land to roam around onb a dirt bike inbetween islands? it doesnt have the same sort of feel as a GTA game it is more like a film spin off. GTA for me was about gangbangers and hoodlums on street corners fighting for territory not a lone eastern european man taking a 'scarface' role becasue lest face it thats exactly wat this game is like. San andreas had everything for me and even though this is a brilliant game i just wish they could have built on the san andreas theme and enhanced it with the incrediable graphics and gameplay. whenever game developers add things to a game why do they have to take things away?!

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Rating: - Gobsmackingly good
Been a long time since I played a GTA game (were talking the London add-on for the original here) mainly because I quickly bored of the mindless driving around and I didn't think the transition to 3D would have made it any more interesting.

GTA has been 3D for a few games now, but for some reason, maybe because of the lack of any good PS3 fare, I was intrigued by the look of GTA:IV and took the plunge.

It's beautifully executed, very immersive and I am absolutely hooked. The characters are fleshed out quite nicely, the visuals are great. The city itself is huge, and there is nothing better than stealing a fast car and pelting around the streets at full speed.

Wholeheartedly recommended.

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Rating: - It's GTA, but not as we know it
I'm about one third through the game and to be honest, I'm struggling to stay interested. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game, most of the elements of GTA that you know and love are there, and the map is undeniably huge. But that in itself is one of the drawbacks of the game. In SA, covering big distances wasn't too big a chore due to the freeways. In a city, it's slow going. And with SA, the maps were easy to learn. This city is far more complex, to learn it properly you'd have to be an obsessive. And the sat nav they provide you with isn't very good. It only shows you where to go if you're on a mission (and even then it is never the most direct way), not if you're going to a contact to start a mission. Starting a mission can take 5 minutes (if you don't get lost) driving to your contact, then another 5 minutes driving to where the mission starts. That's not fun. And trip skip has somehow been left so you no choice but to drive all the way. You can hail a cab and skip that way, but that misses out part of the fun. Car handling has been tweeked so that it's more realistic, i.e. less fun. Drifting will invariably result in a crash. The way that wanted levels work has also been altered so that they work on a proximity basis. Up to level 2 is ridiculously easy to evade. Level 3 is a challenge. Anything above that is simply ridiculous. You use both the internet and an interactive mobile phone to contact people. Both are a pain. The "internet" is pointless and time consuming and your mobile constantly rings with people who want to meet up for drinks, food, etc. Utterly irrelevant to the game. If you want friends, go outside your house. These are all minor issues though.

My main issue with this game is the atmosphere. It simply didn't grab me as all of the GTA3s (including the Stories) did. This game reminds me of how I've missed the green hills and lakes of SA and the neon pink flamingoes of VC. It is unremittingly dull. The player character is an overweight middle-aged Eastern European. Nothing you can do can remove his pot belly and the clothes stores all suck. Who is this aimed at? The characters have no real charm and the dialogue isn't as good as in the last few GTA games.

My final issue is the radio stations. As a died in the wool music fan, I've always loved the GTA stations for their music and the hilarious talk stations. Now I wish that I could turn them off (not an option any more apparently). Not a patch on previous incarnations. Oh, and the sound levels are wrong. Speech and FX are controlled by the same volume level. Turn the volume up on music so that you can hear the radio over the engine and you won't be able to hear any conversations in the car or on your mobile (even with auto fade for calls). Turn the FX up and you can't hear the radio over the engine. All minor annoyances, but annoyances all the less.

This isn't a bad game (and I haven't tried any of the online modes), but as a single player game, if your PS3 plays PS2 games then I'd recommend Vice City and then San Andreas as better games. More variety and more fun.

Ultimately, the graphics are better and the map is bigger, but somewhere along the way the fun and the charm have gone AWOL.

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Rating: - Best game ever
This game has the best graphics, the best free roaming play, and i would say 2nd best storyline ( to san andreas ) which is not easy to beat !!!.

The people that say this game is a blur... hmm.. i wonder why... Buy a hd Tv that is what the console is meant for !!!!. i have tried it on a flat screen hd tv and an old tv and its pretty obvious which one stands out more for this game.

The storyline lasts ages... and is great.. you get to decide what happens sometimes and there are lots of extras like carjacking, Assassin, and drug missions.

The only downfall is that you cannot buy lots of places or businesses like in san andreas.
But there are lots of better things like... the cover system .. car shooting and how you can shoot through windscreens. This game kicks ass !!!!

It is a must buy. !!!!

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Rating: - Great game!
If i might begin by just stating something to the people complaining about bugs, i sure havn't seen that many and im sure some most other people who have written think the same, so im not so sure its rockstars fault.

Other than the odd "bug" this game is one of the best i have seen, sure it dosn't have planes but i think we are rather missing the point if we start down-grading a game because we can't fly in a plane.

The game missions are very immersive i find and im not someone who is easily taken in by a storyline, the other addition is the moral choices you can make throughout the game, a nice little touch.

overall this is a great game i think that it might have been over hyped though.