GT…A.. oh who cares?

By
Craig Lager
Published: January 29, 2009Posted in: General nonsense

GTA IV – it was released a while ago, and when it first came out I really wanted it. The more I see of it though, the less I care. It looks like just another GTA, and while these are always fun they just aren’t always amazing.



GTA IV: city scape



The original GTA (the 2D one) was pretty much a perfect game. It was uncensored chaos and brought something genuinely new and thrilling to gaming. GTA 2 was…alright but far outdone by GTA London, which still wasn’t as good as GTA. They were just more of the same and novelty inevitably wears off. Eventually GTA 3 came along and was a breath of fresh air. It was 3D and had a proper city built around it. Superb. Vice City comes out and was really good – not really an advancement on 3 but definitely an improvement. Then comes San Andreas. Bloated, boring, frustrating, crappy looking San Andreas. Again, more of the same and the novelty had long worn off, but then again car chases, prostitute murdering, and general criminal hi-jinks will always be fun.

When the trailers for GTA IV started appearing I was genuinely excited. It looked fantastic. Amazing graphics, a city with atmosphere and…I don’t know….it looked like GTA would finally get some weight to it. I can’t really explain it but since GTA 2 the player has never really seemed part of the city, just placed in it. It never feels quite right. The weapons always feel flimsy, the NPC’s idiotic and the physics often laughable (and not in a good way)

I realise I’m probably making fuck all sense here so I’ll stop, but what I’m saying is this: GTA IV looks more mediocre with every passing week and with the amount of shitty bloatware that comes with it and is required to make it run (Games for Windows Live and Rockstar social club – both of which are terrible applications that cause nothing but trouble) I’m not going to be buying it any time soon – if at all. Ever.

Craig Lager