GTA IV MUTLIPLAYER
Play is given exclusive access to GTA IV’s multiplayer modes and discovers a whole new gaming world.

Put simply, playing Grand Theft Auto IV’s multiplayer mode is a whole new way of experiencing GTA. Picture GTA’s hallmark gaming chaos, its improvised brilliance with a near infinite scope for possibilities and situations and now multiply that by factor X – the fact that you’re playing with other people – and you’ll have some idea of what the experience is like.

Creating an online game that would do justice to Grand Theft Auto IV’s infinitely complex gaming world is no mean feat. True, you could argue that much of the work has been done by what has gone before: the series was the first to create such an open-ended structure and make it work within the confines of gaming rules. So in theory all you’d need to do is add a networking option to the proceedings, let several people inhabit that world at the same time and you’d, potentially, have the greatest online game experience ever.

The trick, we guess, is applying the same necessary structure and rules that enabled GTA’s original single-player sandbox experience to remain cohesive even when the game world around you was chaotic and disorganised.

But let’s get something out of the way straight away. Grand Theft Auto IV’s multiplayer modes do include a Free mode where you and some friends can simply tear up Liberty City to your hearts’ content. It would have been easy to leave things there – just the fact that you have such an incredible world to play in, with friends, would have been (and still is) brilliant, but Rockstar has gone much, much further.

		PS3 VS XBOX 360 Which version is best? We’ve played it on PS3 and we’ve played it on 360 – so what’s the deal? Well, the short of it is that there is no difference between the versions whatsoever. Or at least none that we could tell with the naked eye. Okay, there is one thing but that just comes from the console’s themselves – they use different controllers. Obviously. So the differences are as different as the 360’s controller and the DualShock 3 – slight. Analogue sticks in slightly different arrangements and triggers verses paddles. And in terms of how that effects the game? Well, it just doesn’t.

When you add rules, you create games and, like the multiplayer games in Liberty and Vice City Stories, GTA IV’s multiplayer games are laced with the same brilliance and twisted thinking that makes the single-player game so good. But this being Rockstar, a company not known for resting on its laurels, those early experiments with the PSP games’ multiplayer modes should be seen as the beginning of GTA IV multiplayer, not the end. GTA IV’s multiplayer raises the bar. Significantly.

The biggest achievement in all this is the implementation of co-op online games that dovetail seamlessly into the GTA universe. Essentially, these enable you to play online games that resemble missions that you would normally experience in the single-player game but with the added bonus of playing with your mates. What Rockstar has done is essentially take single-player missions and turn them into online games. And it works brilliantly.

One such game is Hangman’s NOOSE where you and three other people attempt to prevent NOOSE (GTA IV’s SWAT) from arresting a computer-controlled ‘mafiya’ boss target – you have to first protect him and then transport him to a safe location on the map. Now, if that sounds like a typical GTA mission, then you’d be right. What’s great, and radically different about it, is that four people are playing the mission at the same time – which means four times the mayhem, four times the potential for ‘GTA moments’ and, we suggest, at least four times the fun.

Other co-op games see you playing cops and robbers with one team playing the robbers and one playing the cops – the robbers have to escape while the cops have to catch and kill the robbers’ boss – a randomly assigned member of the robbers’ team. Another has you and your team working for a mafiya boss performing missions in competition with another team of hitmen – missions are handed out via GTA IV’s ingenious in-game mobile phone.

The mobile phone is also how you access GTA IV’s online game modes. While in the single-player game you bring up your phone and select Multiplayer from the phone’s options. From here you can select game types and send invites out for your friends to join you. This will then take you to a lobby where you can choose all manner of options specific to the game type you’ve selected.

The host can control things like time of day, vehicle classes (specifically for GTA Race mode), weapon types, traffic, the location of the match, the weather type and choose whether the game will feature police or not – another factor that can have massive implications for the online gaming experience. It’s one thing to have two teams of human players working against one another – adding another element that is working against both teams raises the stakes even higher.

From the lobby you can also choose to customise your online character. You start off with some basic modifications – sunglasses, hats, tops, trousers and so on – but the more you play the game, the more options you unlock. Ever fancied playing as a Speedoswearing LCPD cop? Well, now you can.

There’s still much to discover about the multiplayer game and we’ve left a lot out of this feature so that you can do just that. What we’ve sampled has given us a great idea of what is possible with GTA IV online. Some that is down to Rockstar, and the modes it has given you to play with, but much will also be down to you because like all other Grand Theft Auto games that have gone before, this is your game first and foremost and the designers’ second.

Probably the biggest compliment we can pay GTA IV’s multiplayer experience is that three hours of solid play went by without us noticing. Standard online multiplayer modes are reinvented by blending them with the GTA IV open-world ethic and the all-new co-op missions are simply sublime. And the experience leads us to think that playing GTA IV online will be as essential and groundbreaking as the single-player game. And for a game of GTA IV’s single-player quality that is no mean feat.

Put simply, Grand Theft Auto IV multiplayer will change online multiplayer gaming forever.