A grand game but not without flaws. (Grand Theft Auto IV (PC))

Member Name: CaptChadd

Product:	Grand Theft Auto IV (PC)
Date:	12/11/09 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazing graphics, In depth storyline, Fun weapons and explosions.

Disadvantages: Needs powerful PC, Has a few bugs and glitches.

---- Reason For Buying ----

I have played all of the Grand Theft Auto's right back from the very first one and each time they have got better, bigger and more realistic and so when this game eventually got released on the PC, I had high hopes and even bigger expectations.

----- The Story -----

In this game you play an Eastern European called Niko Bellic, who has come to America to escape the past war that he has been involved in and also has come to meet up with his fellow cousin Roman.

Right from the start Niko sees that his cousin could be doing so much better and that there is an opportunity to make money, as long as you are not scared to get your hands dirty.

This is pretty much the same formula as the previous games, as you start off with nothing and then build yourself up so you have loads of money and respect, the classic case of the underdog story.

---- Game Design Details ----

The first thing you will notice when you play the game is the massive upgrade that the in game graphics's has had, with explosions, animation and cut scenes all looking great and smooth, as long has you have the hardware to run it.

The sound is good with ambient effects thought-out the city along with a day to night and complete weather system, all happening in a time frame of one minute our time is one hour game time.

The only other major difference with this game to the others is the new covering system which, when engaging in some form of combat, you can pretty much hide behind anything and then with a click of a button, pop up from your cover and fire a few shots.

This new combat ability does work very well and stops you from just standing there shooting them while they shoot you and means that you can bide your time, picking off the enemy, one bullet at a time.

---- Game Specifics ----

This game like the previous ones follows the same mission structure but has subtle differences, some of which are very well done.

The first of which is your mobile phone. In this game you can bring your mobile up on the screen whenever you want and call anyone that you have got a number from, this includes any girlfriends you might have picked up during the game.

These people can call you or you can call them and the following conversation can lead to anything from a typical mission to more relaxed tasks as taking your girlfriend bowling or bizarrely taking your girlfriend to a bar and getting drunk, which causes the camera to wobble all over the place.

Taking these different people out and making friends with them by getting the friendship level upto 100% unlocks some bonuses and means that these new friends will do favours for you, like blow up cars, send taxi's to pick you up and give you weapons.

The rest of the options have been toned down from San Andrea's and as such there is no such body building or weight gain system which I think the game creators Rockstar, probably thought were too much of a distraction from the actual game play and brought it dangerously close to becoming a slight RPG type game.

You can still eat in this game but all it does is replenish your health bar. This is good in a way as it makes the game pace alot quicker and means that you have more time to do the exciting things and not have to worry if you are losing too much weight.

---- System Requirements ----

This is a major topic at the moment for this game as the graphical engine that runs this is not optimised for the PC, so if you think you have a powerful PC, I would still give the minimum and recommended specifications a read over, as they are surprisingly high, even for a game like this.

Minimum Hardware Requirements:

OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
Memory: 1.5GB, 16GB Free Hard Drive Space
Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended Hardware Requirements:

OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
Memory: 2 GB (Windows XP) 2.5 GB (Windows Vista)
18 GB Free Hard Drive Space
Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870

As you can see from the details above this game needs a hefty PC to get it running smoothly but there are five patches that have been made for this game that you can download and they do optimise the game slightly but not by much.

---- Summary ----

If you have a medium to high specification computer and don't mind installing a patch or two, then you should get quiet alot of enjoyment out of this game as it will always show you new things as you progress through that you would not expect to happen, like random people giving you money and then running off.

Overall a great game that only suffers slightly from needing an overly powerful computer and needing a few patches to get it running at a half decent speed.

Summary: A great game that is only slightly flawed by the odd bug and being PC resource hungry.