VIDEO
April 25, 2008 - Criminals are an ugly, cowardly lot
more worthy of pity and disdain than admiration. This is what you'll
learn playing through the single-player campaign in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV.
The series cheered (and criticized) for glorifying violence has taken
an unexpected turn: it's gone legit. Oh sure, you'll still blow up cop
cars, run down innocent civilians, bang hookers, assist drug dealers
and lowlifes and do many, many other bad deeds, but at a cost to main
character Niko Bellic's very soul. GTA IV gives us characters and a
world with a level of depth previously unseen in gaming and elevates
its story from a mere shoot-em-up to an Oscar-caliber drama. Every
facet of Rockstar's new masterpiece is worthy of applause. Without
question, Grand Theft Auto IV is the best game since Legend of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time.
You play as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European attempting to escape his
past and the horrors of the Bosnian war. He arrives in Liberty City to
experience the American dream, only to discover his cousin, Roman, may
have fibbed a bit in his tales of success. Starting from nothing, Niko
makes a living as a killer and enforcer, a bad-ass foreigner who
appears to have no morals. The longer we stay with Niko, the more we
see that there is a broken human being inside, one who would give
anything to escape the person he once was.
Don't worry, GTA's famed over-the-top action and tongue-in-cheek humor
are intact, but there is a new level of sophistication in the
characters and the game world that raises the story above the norm. As
Niko becomes mired in the death throes of American organized crime, he
begins to become more self-aware. Niko's struggles with his ruthless
nature never inhibit the gameplay, but instead enhance the emotional
gravity of a brilliant storyline. The more absurd the action becomes,
the greater we feel the very real pathos of Niko Bellic.
Much of the credit goes to the artists at Rockstar North who created as
believable a city as possible. Liberty City is inspired by New York,
but not beholden to it. While there are many parallels, Liberty exists
in its own universe and rightfully so. Many open-world games have
cities that feel as if they existed only from the moment you first
turned on your console, but Liberty City looks lived in. It's an old
city and each block has its own vibe and its own history.
Drive around Liberty City and you'll be able to identify each
individual block. Though Liberty is filled with brownstones and a
myriad of similar brick buildings, you can tell one from the other,
just as you can in New York. Go to an affluent neighborhood and the
street is likely to be newly paved, the pedestrians better dressed, the
cops more plentiful. But head to Dukes or Bohan and you'll find streets
nearly stripped of asphalt, homeless people wandering about aimlessly
and criminals preying on the weak.
Watch the people and you'll witness some amazing things. At one point,
I saw a woman stopped at a light, looking in the rearview mirror right
before she was rear-ended by a man ogling a girl on the street. The man
got out of his car and went to the woman, checking to see if she was
okay. This had nothing to do with Niko or a single action I took. These
were the citizens of Liberty City going about their day. And it was
just one moment in a day full of incidents.
Hang in one area of the city long enough and you'll see how traffic and
pedestrian flow changes as the day progresses. When it rains, people
bring out umbrellas or shield themselves with a newspaper and run for
an awning. Cops chase petty thieves unaware that walking down the
street is Niko Bellic, cold-blooded killer. There's a perfect balance
of mumbling doomsayers to remind you that the reason this city never
sleeps is because it's full of nut jobs. People go about their day,
only altering course when Niko inserts himself into their lives with
his crappy driving or excellent marksmanship.