It has been a glorious return to the days of yore, when a young man could steal a car, drive it down a city street at 150 mph, slam it into a bus, shoot the bus driver, and then steal the bus.
This refers, of course, to "Grand Theft Auto IV". In this installment of the series, the player controls Nico Bellic, a Serbian immigrant with a penchant for violent crime, as he roams around Liberty City - Rockstar Games' stand-in for New York.
Liberty City has never looked this good. It has been completely rebuilt from the ground up since it was first rendered in three dimensions back in 2001's "Grand Theft Auto III." All of the islands have changed, and the layout of the city mirrors New York more than ever, right down to the street layouts of Algonquin - the Liberty City version of Manhattan. There are some differences between Liberty City and New York. For instance, there is no Staten Island in Liberty City, and the Bronx - or Bohan as the game calls it - is much smaller than in real life.
The gameplay hasn't changed too much. The player can still carjack people and go on a bloody rampage. The game is still broken up into missions, though this time, the player gets a little more benefit out of making friends than in previous games - for instance, one can use the in-game cell phone to call Nico's cousin Roman for a cab ride, which can be quite useful. The other in-game friends have their own useful abilities - one of them will rig up a car bomb, and another sells guns.
One of the places where the game has improved dramatically is in the combat system. Hand-to-hand combat allows for combos, and different attacks that can be used. "Grand Theft Auto IV" really shines on the firearm combat. There is now a cover system, which makes surviving those occasional drawn-out firefights quite a bit easier than it used to be. The targeting system allows for aiming at specific body parts on an opponent - like a headshot, which takes out the enemy in one hit. Vehicle combat is also improved. The firearm can be aimed by using the right analog stick while the left is still used for driving.
The graphics upgrade that came with "Grand Theft Auto IV" is well worth the wait. For instance, Nico has hands instead of chunky blocks on the end of his arms. You don't see 500 of the same person walking down the same street - except for the cops, which is probably on purpose. The water effects are quite impressive. The rivers dividing the four islands of Liberty City look like water, and when Nico gets back to dry land after swimming, he'll shake himself off, spraying drops of water around him. The explosions are particularly fun - the fireballs are quite realistic, and the spray of debris flying about is modeled in a way that would have been impossible in the earlier games.
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"Grand Theft Auto IV" is a worthy successor to the series. It has all of the gameplay elements of the earlier games, refined to an exquisite level. The only bad thing about the game is the lack of bicycles from "San Andreas" - but really, a Serbian assassin would look fairly ridiculous peddling around Liberty City.
"Grand Theft Auto IV"
Available Now for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
Grade: A+
