I’ve not spent a lot of time on the PC the past week for a few reasons and one of them being GTA IV. The other I’ll discuss later after I get my RAM installed.

Anyway I’m fairly impressed with GTA IV so far. The graphics are nice, the story line has been interesting and I’m addicted to car jacking! I’ve played the early versions in the past and it was fun but the story line wasn’t engaging like GTA IV… I believe 1 and 2 are the previous versions I tried.

While I just started on Friday I’ve found the amount of work to be very detailed and immersive. It’s almost too much at times with the amount of time being spent doing different tasks. It’s fun to throw darts, bowl, play pool, video games, watch TV, see a show or surf around the internet but it also takes time to do so and when you’re attempting to befriend multiple people or gain the affections of da ladies it adds that much more time… Most aren’t too bad but the Pool is the most time consuming and probably one of my least favorite games anyway. The worst part is that there are no short term gains from doing these activities… They’re necessary to keep friends but while throwing a few rounds of darts or a few frames of bowling you don’t discuss anything. I think it’s a shame that they’re missing an opportunity to throw in some meaningful dialog between rounds. It would also make it a bit more exciting… it just seems that the interactive dialog is light… you’re out with your friends or girl for the entire point of conversation.

I also wish they had several mission storylines moving at once. I’m currently doing the Faustin missions (just finished killing off his daughters boyfriend) but that’s about it other than getting Brucie’s cars. Little Jacob and Roman rarely answer for missions. So if I get a mission that I’m not enjoying much things fall flat for advancing the story. Maybe I’m missing something (?). I am currently on one for Brucie that he called me for (maybe the start of a new storyline).

My final gripe is restarts on missions. It took a few tries to take out Faustins daughters boyfriend and each time you start at the house. It’s really not a big deal to drive over to where the biker hangs out (nothing affecting the story) so it would have been nice to start the storyline at the chase scene when you do a retry. I understand kicking off the mission again from the beginning but at least on a restart I’d like to save the 5 “real-time” minutes.

Since I have a feeling I’ll do this one for a while, I’ll probably add some more GTA IV resources as I go along.

While I have several complaints about the game I think it was very well done. I’m really not much for the language (it gets kind of old for me after a while) or some of the other content but the game is very well done with a nice immersive world.

Musically I like Liberty Rock Radio 97.8, Jazz Nation Radio, The Journey, and I actually like The Vibe 98.8 and International Funk occasionally. Not into rap, reggaeton or reggae stations.

Trailer:

Buy it at Amazon for the Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Special Edition and Playstation 3:

Strategy Guide:

Resources:
Rockstar Games official Social Club – Link your Social Club account with your PS3 or X360 account.
IGN GTA 4 Liberty City Map – A “Googlish” map with the highlights of Liberty City!
GTANet – Good information with Walk-Throughs, Character Lists and GTA News.
GTA 4 on YouTube – Walk-Throughs, Easter Eggs
GTA 4 on Wikipedia