The Moral Choice

I have played many games on almost any possible medium since my early youth and as a gamer, you are constantly confronted with people talking about “the next best thing”. Most of the time however these hypes don’t come through and you end up with a mediocre game and a foul aftertaste of wishing you had spend your money on something else. It is therefore even better, when once in a while a game comes along that not only lives up to the hype but manages to surpass every expectation. One of these games is the new GTA IV. Every blogger who has only the faintest interest in gaming is writing about the new Grand Theft Auto game by the developers Rockstar and so I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and talk a bit about my recent source of sleep deprivation.

What makes GTA IV so different from its predecessors is not that it redefines gaming in any way. It does not include any extreme game play changes, nor does it change the way the story progresses. It still is and feels like a part of the previous installments. You have to pass missions for different NPC characters to advance in the story and gain money, power and become infamous amongst the different gangs and law enforcement agencies. The difference with GTA IV lies in the details and this is where the game really shines. You don’t feel like you drive through a computer generated city anymore with polygon characters that just populate the sidewalks, but you feel like you are in a real breathing metropolis. The pedestrians have conversations, talk on their sidewalks, look at shop windows, react to abrupt weather changes, scream for help when an accident occurs and react in a genuinely realistic way to foreign influences. If a murder occurs on these streets the other pedestrians won’t walk idly by as if nothing had happened, but they will react with horror and fear.

Rockstar improved almost every negative point of the previous game series. They have included a virtual cell phone that lets you plan activities with the friendly NPCs, you can take a cab to any location in town (which saves an enormous amount of time), and the radio stations don’t feel as unreal anymore due to the frequent news broadcasts that are introduced into the shows to talk about the recent happenings in Liberty City. Animation details like the way you break into cars, reload weapons and jump over fences are big plus sides of the game. The aiming system has also drastically improved and the characters new ability to take cover behind pillars and boxes makes it easier to survive in this world of crime and corruption. Which takes me to my next point: in-game violence.

Due to the realistic animations and lives of the population of L.C. you feel genuinely inclined to not harm any of them. They are for the first time really innocent bystanders and your conscience will prevent you from plowing through a populated sidewalk with your car. Furthermore the protagonist of GTA IV is not a cold hearted criminal anymore without any remorse or ideals. Nico Bellic does not come to America to live a life of crime, but to escape a violent past of war and poverty. The game also gives you the opportunity to spare the people that cross you and therein lays the key to a more likeable hero. Nico is not a dumb criminal anymore who does everything to gain power, he does what he has to, to help his family and to find the people who destroyed his life back home. The story telling fits in with movies like The Goodfellas or The Godfather and could also be compared to shows like The Sopranos or Rescue Me. The game includes strong language and violence and is therefore not available to minors and the responsibility lies with us adults to keep it that way. So if your teenage kid at home cries about how much they want to play this game, don’t give in. It really is not the right kind of entertainment for them!

IGN.com Review