Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA IV) (Xbox 360) > Reviews > GTA IV, the best in the series yet

Author's product rating:   

Playability & Enjoyment	Excellent - very playable game
Addictiveness	Very hard to stop playing
Graphics	Excellent
Difficulty & Complexity	Quite a simple game not too complicated
Value for money	Excellent value

Advantages:	Awesome graphics, great gameplay, amazing storyline, good voice acting, online play
Disadvantages:	Every now and again there are little glitches .  Music slightly dissapointing

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Hello, I hope you enjoy my first review :D

Can I just say that this is an awesome video game that NEEDS to be bought, or at least borrowed off somebody.

I'll start by saying the storyline of the single player campaign is very good. The writers have really gone to town with this one. You play as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European war veteren in his mid 30's. He decides to leave the "old country" in search for "that special someone". The story is well written with great cut scenes, characters, twist, plot, comedy and voice acting. Niko becomes a very likable character, with a great sense of humour and you really get to understand him and his charatcer as the game progresses.

The gameplay is awesome with revamoed weapons system - you can still use auto aim, but now you can also zoom in slightly and aim at certain parts of the body - e.g. you can go for a headshot, or shoot them in the leg so they fall to the floor which can be entertaining! Once again there is a multitude of weapons including shotguns, machine guns, smgs, rockets, greanades, rockets and others. You can unlock the ability to phone for these weapons, or you can buy them from dodgy backstreet shops.

Going on rampages is still fun, with the police being revamped. There is a new system, which includes stars, but there is now an area of "heat" around you where the cops will be looking for you. The police dont always shoot, unless you dont comply or return fire - then you;ll get New Yorks finest ganging up shooting you. It is difficult to get away with more than four stars after you with SWAT ("NOOSE") teams after you and helicoters boats and FBI ("FIB") etc all wanting a piece of the action.

The driving is now much more realistic. My friends complain that the driving is too heavy handed, and that it is too difficult to control the cars. This may be true for some users. But I believe the handling of cars is realistic, if you are driving at high speeds in a rubbish car you arent going to get around that sharp bend! The sports cars are fun and feel very quickly, its painful when you scratch your freshly stolen Ferrari!

The graphics are simply stunning with brethtaking visuals and realistic lighting effects! At times the graphics look like real life, at other times it is very good and is only very occasionally dissapointing. I played this and went back to playing San Andreas on PS2 - it is a huge leap forward. There is large main character detail, with facial expressions, and little touches that you dont often notice but make the experience much more realisitc. Depedning on what the weather is or what time of day everything looks different - you get that morning, slightly tinted looking and feeling which is good. However I believe the game is too dark at night - you may find yourself fiddling with the brightness settings. The game still has some graphic glitches sometimes - such as things going thorugh walls and there is sometimes popup if the disc is struggling to load a lot of things at the same time.

Online play is fun. GTA Race is a favourite of mine, you start in a set vehicle (car / bike), but though the race you can pick up weapons so you can shoot people, they're tyres and destroy their car. You can also steal other cars if yours gets trashed. Theres a "Free Mode" which I was very suprised that they included - you can have 12 player multiplayer but with pedestrains and traffic included for the whole map - the game seems to keep up most of the time, but there is the usual glitch and lag here and there which is expected. There are many other online games including types where you defend turf, steal cars, have deathmatches and deliver packages.

GET IT now its a HUGE game!! Also you can pick it up for around £30 now.