What should be an Excellent game let down by lots of small problems... (Grand Theft Auto IV (PC))

Member Name: aled99

Product:	Grand Theft Auto IV (PC)
Date:	24/09/09 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Graphics much better than older GTA, good shooting battles & can choose outcome of some missions.

Disadvantages: Lots of problems with graphics, sound, freezes, errors & crashes.

I've played most of the pc versions of GTA and enjoyed most of them. GTA IV is a great game, although not my favourite GTA game of all.

I've seen lots of reviews and forums with people complaining how slow GTA IV runs and how poorly optimised it is and with my old pc I had to agree with them. However, having upgraded the processor in my pc and the graphics card GTA's performance has improved dramatically. The graphics are very good; I started playing GTA SA on another computer, but the graphics looked so much awful in comparison that I soon lost interest. GTA IV does need a reasonably fast computer, but then it runs ok - a decent graphics card really helps, as I found out when I tried to play it on a Laptop, and got around 1 or 2 fps (should aim for at least 30!).

The annoying thing about running GTA IV is the amount of additional programmes that need installing before you can install the game. It insists on installing games for Windows Live and Rockstar games social club, as well as the normal DirectX, flash and .net framework.

After installing the game it seemed to be running fine, but the shadows were flickering, so I downloaded the latest patch for the same (1.0.4.0 at the time). This didn't fix the shadows and worse still it after a few mins game play it made the sound loop (most common was some random car horn would get stuck on and the radio station would play continuously). This is quite a common fault, but I had to uninstall the game and reinstall without the patch to solve the sound problem. The shadow problem was improved by downloading the latest driver for my ATI graphics card. Another problem I was having is regular freeze ups, but I've found that minimizing to the desktop then restoring solves these.

Problems aside, I think GTA IV is a really good game. I like the story missions, and the added ability to choose the outcome of some missions. The fighting side is great fun, and there are amazing shooting battles, where you have to duck down and hide behind something and use the cover system, where you can get protection behind something, just coming out to fire a gun and then retreating again. The aiming system is good, and the crosshairs change to show when you have a perfect shot at an enemy.

Cars and motorcycles are as ever fun to drive. There are now convertible cars, but one disappointment is you can not change whether the roof is up or down, it stays in the position you found it in.

Overall I think GTA IV is a good game. It would be brilliant, but it's let down my major flaws and problems. There are so many reports of these problems that I don't think it's just my pc but I've managed to tweak the settings to make it run as well as possible. I wouldn't buy this game new, rather get it second hand for borrow it, so then if it's not such a waste if it doesn't like you pc (work on it).

Summary: A good game as long as your computer can cope with it.