Two Weeks in Liberty City
When I first arrived in Liberty City I felt the same amazement and wonder that my digital cohort, Niko, did. I thrilled at the subtleties of my first cab ride and marveled at the way the populace hops back and forth across the uncanny valley; one minute seemingly real, the next lodged facefirst into a wall. But Liberty City is a rough town and that childlike innocence wore off after just a few days.
Grand Theft Auto 4 is gorgeous and the distractions are expertly designed and integrated into the world in such a way that it really feels right. Using your cellphone to access friends, contacts, and amenities is at once a great way to simplify the menus and a poignant jab at today’s society. But at its very core GTA4 is a story-driven action game and here is where I part ways with the glowing reviews that call it an example of perfect-ten, straight A’s wunder-gaming.
I have no issues with the story, so far. It weaves the modern day crimeland archetypes like a comfy sweater, letting you slip in nice and easy and feeling so good that you rarely take it off for long. The only problem may be that amidst the action some of the more important dialog gets lost and you’ll wonder why you just gunned down a troupe of thugs.
What I do take offense to is how little the actual gameplay has changed in all these years of 3D Grand Theft Auto games. I was promised an innovative, groundbreaking new GTA experience, yet here I am still retrying missions over and over until I finally figure out what to do, where to go, and who to kill. There’s also surprisingly little time for interpretation and usually a mysteriously undefined time limit that really throttles my wilder “sandbox” dreams. I can’t get too far away from a fleeing target even if my detour would line me up for an interception. I can’t set up vehicles in advance since they all disappear once a scripted event happens during a mission.
Yes, it’s much easier to restart a failed mission but many of them have numerous stages, all of which must be repeated just to get to where you screwed up the last time. It’s not like I just suck either, Rockstar even recorded unique dialog for repeated attempts and after several tries they turn the talking off altogether. As far as I’m concerned, this is the biggest mission innovation they could come up with (seeing that the other improvements are borrowed from other games).
The action itself is great and benefits wonderfully from the cover system and GPS navigation but it takes so much passive talking and driving to get to it that it feels like a fraction of any given mission. A few minutes of enthralling gunplay and a run from the cops and you’re finished… or you’re dead and restarting the whole thing all over… again.
But this isn’t Gears of War or even Max Payne. This isn’t a battle against an invading army or an alien race, this is everyday violence that’s quick and sloppy and over before it starts. It’s that compelling mimicry of real life that’s echoed by the citizens, the cellphones, every aspect of Liberty City that eases my disappointments and frustrations, and keeps me yearning to get back on the streets. Like Niko writing an e-mail to his mother, I promise to write again soon.
