GTA 4: Why It's Not Working For Me

So one of the primary reasons I bought a current-gen console was to be able to play Grand Theft Auto 4. I've been a big fan of the GTA series since back in the top-down days on the original PlayStation, and the transition to third-person has worked for me in GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. I figured that GTA 4 would be another enjoyable installment in that series, and among the first things I did once I hooked up the 360.

Wrong. I've had it for two months, and have maybe logged two hours of gameplay. It's not as if there's anything major wrong with the game, but there are several aspects of the game that I just can't seem to get past.

First, the return to Liberty City is really strange. I know that Liberty City in the series has always been a surrogate for New York City, but the fact that the city is entirely different than the Liberty City in GTA 3 is really disorienting. Or at least, it would be if I'd managed to explore most of the game. Unfortunately, getting into a car and driving has been nothing but an annoyance.

One of my favorite parts of the GTA series has always been how easy it is to drive. Sure, it's utterly unrealistic, but so is just about every other aspect of the GTA experience. You just had to hold down the gas button, occasionally brake around turns, and worry about shaking cops or spraying pedestrians with gunfire. However, this version of GTA does away with all of that in favor of a more realistic style. No longer can you go barreling down the road at 100 miles per hour and pull of a ridiculous 90-degree turn, evading the cops while maybe mowing down a few innocent bystanders. Instead, turns at anything above ten or so miles per hour require judicious and skilled use of the handbrake, and still often result in a wild fishtail.

Look, if I wanted Gran Tourismo, I would have bought it. By making driving so difficult, I have to focus so hard on that aspect of it that I can't even bother to plan the best escape route when I do draw the heat. I do appreciate that it's now possible to escape from the police by outrunning them, but as mentioned this becomes really difficult when any time you get above 30 mph you're liable to run into another car, or a tree, or who knows what. It really kills the visceral thrill I got in early GTA games, and that's a damn shame because it's what set those games apart from so many others (well that and being able to murder hundreds of hookers).

The storyline is supposed to be great, but so far it feels like a pretty generic story: Eastern European immigrant washes up in New York, falls in with bad company. Of course, the inevitable betrayal must be down the road, since it's a GTA staple (though at least in GTA 3 it has the decency to happen at the very beginning of the game).

Furthermore, the social interactions feel pointless. I enjoy bowling, or darts, or pool, as real life activities, but in video game form they're bad enough when it's a game designed around that one event. As a tacked-on feature in a much larger game, they're horribly unrealistic, and not in a fun way. Darts was so easy that I've given it up, while bowling and pool are just repetitive. I understand the idea behind the features, but if you can't make them fun, take them out.

In the end, it feels like Rockstar got caught in a lose-lose situation. One the one hand, you had people expecting more than just upgraded graphics for the next numbered version of the game. On the other hand, you have an incredibly well-established gameplay style that you risk ruining if you stray too far. I, for one, would have been fine with basically the same game with just a few tweaks (plus better graphics and a more involved storyline), but instead they broke one of the core elements of the game. Hell, if you want to up the difficulty curve of the driving, at least allow people like me to turn off the new style if we want.

I'm sure I'll pick the game up again at some point, and eventually it will probably suck me in enough for me to beat it. But no game that was so hyped, and so poised for success, should require four tries to grab my attention. When I start replaying old XBox games for the third or fourth time just to avoid GTA 4, that's about as big an indictment of the game as I can muster.