Grand Theft Auto 4 is a waste of my time and yours

98%. This is the overall score for Grand Theft Auto 4. As a reviewer, It is their job to play the entire game and then come up with their own conclusions. It's GTA4 though. Who in their right mind is going to give it a score below 90%? I would.

Gameplay:

Rockstar has fucked up. plain and simple. What used to be an interactive amusement park, filled with endless mayhem and inventive time-wasting crap is now a wasteland. Imagine working on a fully interactive world for years on end and then forgetting to put an actual game inside? This is the world of GTA 4. Outside of the main missions [read as repetitive bullshit] there is the friendship system which is boring beyond words.Your in-game friends will phone you to ask you out on dates or activites. Bowling, Darts, drinking, and pool. All fucking, FUCKING boring after the first time. Especially with the AI. Thank god they included a skip opponents turn option. the only upside to these friends missions is the ability to unlock beneifts such as low priced weapons and free cabs. However, money is both plentiful and irrelivent, so fuck that then? Next up, controls. Copying from gears of war, GTA 4 has a cover system which works only until you need it. And not from close up either. Aiming can be toggled between full auto and manual, but just keep it on manual and you will easily level the playing field. Niko runs around nicely but jumps like a faggot on crack. There is a cellphone, which acts as the glue holding together the gameplay and missions. This also sucks cock, as friends and enemies will call at the worst times and especially during a mission. What else... oh the cars. Fucking grizzeled cunt missle is a nice adjective to use. They ride like iceblocks on butter. Very hard to manuever. Overall, gameplay is unrefined and stale. A 4/10 as you can still fuck hookers and then steal your money from their dead corpses.

Graphics:

Average. The city looks fine and everyone has a vasline shine to them for some reason but other then that, it looks pretty. This is where R* really excells. There are 1000's of little touches in this game. Niko himself is a bonanza of animation and running into pedestrians is always a good laff. The City looks like a mini-New York so good job. all though next time, how about a new city from your imagination? A 7/10 is resonable.

Sound:

Great stuff. The voice acting is pleasent and there are countless pedestrian vocal snippets. The radio stations become boring after a while though, as does the TV. also 7/10.

Story:

Utter fucking shit. Starts out so well and then degenerates into a mess. Niko is supposed to be this confused ex-soldier who needs to redeem himself in his own eyes, but at the end of the game *SPOILER* nothing has changed. There is a "big" revelation which is a binary choice adding nothing to the game or the final outcome. People come and go, adding nothing to the story. I expected so much :( Oh and Kate is a tight bitch who never lets you dip one in her sweat box. Just ignore her. *END SPOILERS* 1/10 for their effort.

Multiplayer:

I dont have Xbox live :( But GTA 4 is only number 3 on the LIVE charts so it cant be that great. Halo 3 is more then likely better. The stories I heard about the multiplayer do not sound promising.

Overall:

The Story and the gameplay sucks, like most next-gen titles. What a suprise. Next time R*, something new and innovative hey?

Lessons

So todays lesson is: Don't spend R350 on a pickup truck to haul your broken Vuka home unless you really need him too. On Sunday, Easter fucking Sunday of all days, my Vuka stopped on the road. I was driving and then it was as if I couldn't give it power. It was only the spark plug that came loose, but I'm a non-mechanic and this was an extreme situation. I was supposed to go to Hayden my cousin for a braai, I was supposed to be home at 6:15pm awaiting a kiss from my sweet Judi. I was supposed to have a brand new Vuka. But I was shafted. It stalled as I approached the Baxter theatre. Very calmly, I sent a please call me to Judi and she phoned my roommate Brent (who is supposed to know about bikes) to assist me. The lesson I learned is that in this life, you can only depend on yourself. It was dark, there were all sorts of hippies and students walking around like the fucking undead and I was scared! I didn't want to leave my Vuka on the road! No way was that going to happen. Ross (Judi's roomate) very kindly picked me up and we attempted to put the Vuka in her back seat. That didnt work out. So we left it there, chained to a lamp post. Five hours later and after a hearty pizza meal, Me, Judi and some crane vulture extracted my Vuka from the road and dropped it off at her house. In the morning, I went to check it out and I noticed a tiny plug like device hanging off the bottom of the Vuka. All I did was plug it in and the fucker worked. End of story.

Sunday was better. Easter at Judi's family. It was mad. A whole family, full of Judi's. Which is great. They sure were a friendly bunch of folks. Loads of eggs, lots of booze and a sneaky joint (beforehand) ensured a good time. Now I'm at work. And its boring. Its a holiday today so I wont get any phone calls. At least my writing is finished for the day.