Grand Theft Auto IV

Feb 28, 2008

It's been a long time coming, but we've finally gotten a hands-on demo with Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV. It all feels like a bit of a blur, to be honest, as we spent as much of our demo time wreaking havoc on Liberty City's citizens and infrastructure as we did performing missions. Now that we know just how much the Edinburgh-based development house has fine-tuned its highly-anticipated sequel, we can confidently say that you'll probably love the game as much as we just did.

After finding out more about the PS3 version (the team is working feverishly to implement rumble, since DualShock 3 should release around the same time as the game in the U.S.), we jumped into the action with a Sixaxis to assume control of the game's new protagonist, Niko Bellic, an Eastern European gun-for-hire. After accidentally bumping into some tough guys on the street, we found ourselves in a three-on-one fight. We lost, miserably and painfully, thanks to one dude packing a blade. So much for a badass beginning.

A lot of GTA IV feels familiar, but other elements seem quite different. Take for example our humiliating shanking and subsequent hospitalization in front of co-workers and Rockstar reps. When you target an NPC, with a gun or your fists, you'll be zeroed in on that person, and able to switch targets with a flick of the right stick. Also, unlike past games, you can use the face buttons for a variety of combat moves, including dodging, counterattacking, and separate buttons for punches and kicks. It's a huge departure from the one-button melee of the previous outings.

After getting out of the hospital, we jumped into our first mission, "Bleed Out," which also serves as a tutorial in how not to get one's ass kicked. In the mission, Niko gets a phone call from his troubled cousin Roman, who's gotten himself into a nasty pickle with some Albanian loansharks. Niko must drive to a basketball court in a housing project and confront a few henchmen, who are beating Roman to a pulp. It's here that you'll learn about attacks and counterattacks. We also learned that Niko can scale tall fences, which could come in handy down the line.

After delivering a swift and severe beatdown to the two thugs, Niko commandeers Roman's car to chase the head loanshark, an unsavory character named Darden, across Broker (GTA IV's Brooklyn). As Niko takes out Darden, the game teaches you how to use counterattacks to disarm and stab knife-toters. That woulda come in handy earlier.

After completing the mission and dropping off Roman, we delved into more mayhem, such as testing out exactly what happens when you leave a flaming car at a gas station (answer: we barely got it inside the parking lot, let alone a gas pump), seeing just how the line-of-sight police system works (if you commit worse crimes against cops, your radius widens greatly, but if you escape the radius, you'll soon be golden), and what happens when you run up the freeway ramp (if you're hit by a car, sometimes, you'll leave blood spots on the fender and hood). During our crime spree we also discovered that the cover system isn't just confined to walls; if Niko's on the street, he can duck behind vehicles stuck at red lights.

All of the experimentation was important, as the driving system in GTA IV is a departure from the "four sizes fit all" approach to San Andreas' vehicles. It's not about regular and sports cars, big trucks, and bikes. Every car you drive has its own quirks, and the typical approach to circumventing GTA's bad vehicle handling around corners is gone. You'll have to drive with more caution and care, but if your car flips over, it won't explode. Also, it takes longer for a fiery car to detonate than in the past, giving you more time to hightail it out of there.

In addition to the cab system, which lets you hail cabs with the press of a button in lieu of jacking cars, there are also other surprising moments inspired by real life. The NYPD has cab fleets driven by undercover officers who make busts; our Rockstar rep mentioned seeing one in action once. It's in the game, as Console Editor-in-Chief Will Tuttle discovered after taking out a cabbie from a block away. His partner jumped out of the passenger's seat and immediately began opening fire, plus the line-of-sight police meter suddenly showed up on the mini-map. That dynamic, "anything can happen" nature of this new Liberty City popped up quite a few times during our demo.

After putzing around, we took on "Jamaican Heat," a mission with weed-smoking Jamaican arms dealer Little Jacob. Roman, who runs a semi-legal cab business in Broker, sends Niko to pick up Little Jacob. It's hardly a "pick up and drop-off" though, as Jacob hands Niko a gun in case his deal doesn't work out. Of course, things go south, and the mission showcases the ease of the new shooting system, which lets you manually target by half-pressing the aim button. After taking down some yardies and jumping into a hotboxed car full of ganja smoke, Niko makes one more stop at the gangleader's house to take down the remaining thugs. While the earlier part of the mission showcased the shooting system, the second part emphasized cover.

Once we'd made burgers from Jacob's beef, we wanted to try out the friends moments. After getting Niko and Roman inebriated beyond recognition, we discovered just how tough (but amusing) it is to control Niko when he's smashed. Nearly anything in the environment that he can collide with will cause him to fall, whether it's a wall, a telephone pole, or Roman. We went against our real-world better instincts and walked out into the street to unsuccessfully hail a taxi, when both Bellics weren't falling over. Eventually, we drunkenly jacked a car and drove.

Since the controls are dramatically altered when Niko's inebriated, you have to overcompensate behind the wheel. Mercifully, drunkenness only lasts three or so minutes, so it won't give you thirty minutes of loopy controls. As the debilitating effects wore off, we decided to cross the George Washington Bridge via the pedestrian walkway. Once we reached the halfway point, PC Editor Miguel Lopez pointed out, "dude, you won't be able to play this again for two months, and you're busy trying to cross a bridge in your car!" We relented and drove the vehicle head-on into the Hudson River (or whatever Rockstar's calling it). Miraculously, both cousins were perfectly fine. (The car was not.)

From there, the action shifted away from Little Jacob and toward a mission from two shady figures. In "Final Destination," Niko has to take out a potential rat who's hanging out on a subway platform. Whether you chase him by car or by foot, you'll have to track the guy down as he attempts to escape the subway station. Will took the easy but potentially fatal route, falling off the subway platform onto the street. He caught up to the snitch just as he was making his way out of the train station for a quick and easy kill.

Our demo wrapped up with "Harboring a Grudge." Although we found Brucie, the homophobic meathead that we encountered in the last preview, to be a hilarious character, Patrick, or Packie, might just have him beat. A trashy Irish gangster a few states short of "The Departed," Packie is a small-time crook who recruits Niko to intercept a Triad shipment of cloned pharmaceuticals from a truck pulling up to Algonquin harbor. After taking down the Triads, Niko must take the truck to one of Packie's hideouts. It's here that one of the other new abilities was revealed: you can now toss grenades and Molotov cocktails out of your window to evade pursuers.

After that, we tried to commit the most mayhem possible, from hitting cop cars and helicopters with rockets to Will getting four stars (out of six, this time) and a massive police standoff on a bridge that saw him toss a grenade out of his car just before hitting a roadblock, then evading a five-car chain explosion to jump off the bridge into the water below. A police boat wasted him, but it goes to show the riveting degree of freedom that Rockstar will be offering.

For those looking to scour over Grand Theft Auto IV with a fine-toothed comb to find flaws, we'll say this: we encountered a few bugs in AI and weapons during some missions (an overexuberant grenade cost us a mission once), but overall it's business as usual. GTA IV has found many ways, through gameplay, to alleviate annoying elements of its predecessors, whether it's time saved through transportation or streamlining the combat system. It's still got pop-up in some spots, the cars will never handle as deftly as in Burnout Paradise, and we don't doubt that NPC AI will have its "quirky" moments. However, in true GTA fashion, the whole seems stronger than its parts, and the sampling we've played points to a title that's got a lot of potential. Hopefully we'll get at least one more taste of GTA IV, as well as one more car into the river, before the game's late April release.