Grand Theft Auto is one of the key reasons we’re producing Play today. We’ve had our perceptions of both gaming and pop culture turned inside out by the series, and that monumental trend has carried on into Grand Theft Auto IV. After the extensive, three-and-a-half year wait for this fourth instalment, it’s hard to put the meteoric impact of the game into a mere eight pages of words. Walking outside and having flashbacks of GTA IV isn’t uncommon, even after a few hours of play– the game feeds you so many options, tasks and memorable moments, that absorbing it all is a joyously difficult task. GTA IV is an achievement, in that it encapsulates everything that has been great about gaming for the past five years, while still dictating what all other developers should aim for in the future. The end result is a detailed, all-encompassing journey through the most exciting game we’ve played in years.

Essentially, Grand Theft Auto IV is the game that GTA III would’ve been, had the technology been available at the time. This version of Liberty City is optimised, to the point of insanity; people in the streets are conversing, eating food, talking on their phones and taking taxi rides. Nothing has been neglected. The props have been individually designed, so even the merest burger box leaves an impression, when Niko drops it on the sidewalk. The detail, which is applied to the game on a universal scale, is part of what makes Grand Theft Auto IV the game it is. Every tiny feature of the city demands relentless exploration, and you won’t resent Rockstar for crafting GTA IV in this obsessive way. The term ‘living, breathing city’ has become an annoying buzz phrase, used by lesser publishers to describe inferior sandbox titles, but Liberty City shows why it was coined in the first place. Liberty City is clearly Rockstar’s love letter to New York, but it’s also their creative playground for Niko Bellic’s incredible story.

After the impressively reworked credit sequence, which follows Niko as he arrives in the lively city, the tone is set. Niko’s story starts with typical American Dream fallacies, witnessed in just about every entertainment medium over the past fifty years, but this is just a hint of what is to come. Like GTA III before it, Grand Theft Auto IV is expertly unravelled. You start in Broker, a basic slum defined by its poor buildings, shady characters and inexpensive vehicles. Drive along the shore, and you catch a glimpse of the iconic Algonquin skyline in the distance; knowing that you’ll make it there, at some point, is an enormous incentive for ploughing through the missions.

Through art direction alone, GTA IV is a truly beautiful game. The iconic New York skyline is recreated with gusto, while every single real-life parallel– Star Junction, the Times Square equivalent especially– is hauntingly familiar to anyone with a knowledge of the city. Visually, only a few gripes can really be made with GTA IV. There’s a tiny bit of pop-up, now and then, and character models are occasionally weak, but the elaborate reconstruction of each landmark must instil fear, into the minds of rival developers.

As you’ve probably read in past issues of Play, Niko’s story starts in the servitude of his loveable cousin, Roman. The first few missions are basic, tutorial ventures that isolate you as the lowest of the low on the Liberty City ladder. Driving feels pretty similar to the previous games, although the default control system has that trendy, next-gen MotorStorm quality about it. X is used to hard brake, R2 to accelerate and L2 to reverse– it’s a comfortable scheme. Turning corners has never been easier, as a slow tap of L2 and a skid using X can generally spin you 90°, with no sweat. The camera hangs slightly to the left, to account for the realism of actually driving a car. In practice, though, this makes no difference to the overall mechanics of GTA IV’s driving sections. The main alteration is the in-car shooting, which is a far cry from the imprecise shoulder button shenanigans from last-gen GTA. Here, every weapon that could be considered usable in transit can be wielded, from pistols to grenades, and it plays like a functional version of the car shooting segments from the True Crime games.

Sensibly, the first few missions are rather sedate. Whether you’re tracking down a debt collector for your cousin, saving him from loan sharks or simply driving him home, the mission structure gently grows in ambition as GTA IV ticks along. Admittedly, a lot of the mission components are repeated ad nauseum, but they’re executed in constantly surprising ways, and the different circumstances that surround the objectives shield repetition from being a real issue.

While missions are significant to progress (both narratively and geographically), choosing to rush through them is the least sensible approach you could have to GTA IV. From the very start, surrounding events lead you into different branches of the game’s framework. Through meeting Mallorie, the love of Roman’s life, you encounter Michelle, and your first opportunity to start a relationship in Liberty City reveals itself. Before dating Michelle, you must visit the clothes shop and purchase some rather fetching trousers. At first, the importance of this doesn’t really become clear, but all of your potential partners in Grand Theft Auto IV will comment on the individual pieces of your clothing. Each has different tastes, as well, so you can’t wear a suit and simply get away with it– some women prefer the handsome veneer of a suave suit from Modo, but others prefer the general piss-poor nature of your casual clothing.

From this simple detail, we realised that dating in Grand Theft Auto IV would be far more complex than the frivolous relationships within San Andreas. The networking in GTA IV doesn’t stop at women, though– friendships also play a key part in the game. Through your mobile phone, which you receive early on, it’s down to you to socialise with the characters you meet, and see what benefits will emerge from these growing relationships. As you take your various buddies to bowling games, bars, restaurants and comedy clubs, in-game advantages will present themselves. With Roman, for example, he’ll sort you out with free taxis across the city, while the incoherently high Little Jacob will provide weapons on demand.

With female relationships, though, it’s a very different story. Fraternising with your fellow men has a very clear endgame, but it’s not so platonic with the women. If, after a successful date, a woman has made a slew of positive comments about your company, you can try it on– sexually. In this circumstance, Niko will either take a cold shower (not literally), or find himself in a rather pleasurable situation. To be quite honest, saying anything else would ruin it; be prepared, though, for some rather encouraging comments about your ‘performance’. Anyway, this relationship system dissolves time, and could feasibly eat 15 hours out of your GTA IV lifespan. With the women, we approached them with a hump-‘em and dump-‘em frame of mind (which Rockstar obviously wanted), but the friendships with the men are well worth the time they demand.

Simply put, there is a ridiculous level of depth to Grand Theft Auto IV. Every path you take becomes a game in itself, so sticking solely to the story missions is nigh-on impossible. After developing Niko’s relationships for a while, though, the necessity of progression comes back to you. With Algonquin hovering in the distance, the extensive amount of Broker missions– starting with Roman, but leading on to Eastern European gangsters, coke dealer Elizabeta and more– are once again the centre of your GTA IV mindset.

Early on in the missions, the greatest shock to the system is the combat, which has been completely overhauled from the PS2 games. Instead of the frantic, hold-R1-and-pray nonsense from the past three titles, this is a sublimely efficient system that recalls the gunplay from Uncharted. Tapping R1 sticks Niko to the nearest cover, while holding L2 targets the nearest enemy. R2 is used to shoot, while weapons are cycled with the D-Pad, so it’s a modern, well-considered system that makes combat a joy, rather than an annoyance.

GTA IV’s revamped shooting is astonishingly good. It’s tactical, but the generous availability of ammo prevents it from being a cumbersome activity. A selection of borrowed ideas, like blind fire from Gears Of War, or the camera position from Resident Evil 4, come together for an exemplary element of GTA IV’s gameplay. When Niko enters a shootout, mid-mission, GTA IV stops being a free roamer, and assumes the role of a classic third-person shooter.

This transition is just one of many the GTA formula has undergone. Although the leap between generations isn’t as revolutionary as the 2D-to-3D jump, Grand Theft Auto IV is a triumph through its tweaks. By streamlining the RPG stuff to the absolute minimum, Rockstar has pushed the memorable aspects of GTA– i.e. the shooting, the car jacking and the exploration– to the fore. There are distractions in the game, but they’re entirely necessary. There’s no time wasted on gyms, upping your breathing capabilities or stupid target ranges, which boils everything down to an accessible, balanced level. This has put pressure on Rockstar to deliver epic, ingenious missions to compensate for this lack of periphery elements. Thankfully, that’s exactly what they do.

San Andreas had its fair share of awesome, sprawling missions, but many of them were far too frustrating (Supply Lines, anyone?); that isn’t the case, with GTA IV. While the mission objectives lack ambition, at first, this instalment contains some of the most dramatic and frantic sequences we’ve seen in a GTA level.

Three Leaf Clover is one such mission. This particular mission is for Patrick McReary, a member of an Irish family that plays a huge role in the GTA IV plot. Of course, we didn’t know this before commencing the mission, and simply assumed that it was another humdrum activity that involved killing somebody, nicking their car and returning it to a lock-up on the other side of the city. Three Leaf Clover, though, is a bank robbery mission. It may sound like a simple, generic GTA task on paper, but the sheer bravado of its adaptation is just staggering.

After leaving the McReary house, we head into Algonquin, and drive our four-man party towards the bank. A cutscene ensues– BANG! One of our men is shot dead, adding an extra layer of tension to proceedings. We watch our fellow robbers blow open the vault, before walking into it and snatching the cash– again, a pretty simple objective. Soon after, however, the shit hits the fan to a damning extent. We’re shown a cutscene, of the events outside: a slew of police helicopters converge on our position, while their comrades on the ground swarm around the bank. Suddenly, we were in the midst of an intense firefight. Taking cover behind a wall, we opened fire on the aggressive law enforcers on the streets, wondering how Niko and company would ever find a way out. We look inside the tiny bank, before returning the camera to the wide expanse outside, at a road filled with the blood-hungry LCPD. The word intense barely describes it…

After a few minutes of slaughter, the atmosphere outside dies down to a reasonable level, and Patrick makes a run for alley at the side of the bank. We follow, but realise that there’s still wave of gunfire flying in from the bank’s front. By leaving the cover, Niko is seriously exposed to police heat– it’s only after terrified, desperate gunfire that the remaining police are despatched. Having lost 75% of our health, we realised that the alleyway was also infested with the law. At our most cautious, we finished the remaining officers with well-timed blindfire, as well as callous use of grenades. Once the helicopter swoops in, we started taking shots at it with our pistol, but knew it was a futile effort– Patrick told us to scramble into the subway, so we did so, much to Niko’s disliking. After eliminating the legion of police in the subway, we actually run into the underground tunnel, and emerge at the streets from a repair station. What happens then? Another police shootout, with more heat than ever. We sprint into a getaway vehicle, and finally escape the authority’s grasp– we bag a neat $250,000 at the end, before breathing a well-earned sigh of relief.

Three Leaf Clover is just one phenomenal experience of many. Like all the best missions in GTA IV, it took established GTA conventions, and heightened their impact with brutal set pieces and raw, unrestrained drama. Other fantastic levels, which saw us stalking an abandoned hospital for coke, or using a rocket launcher on a police convoy, absolutely floored us with their creative use of setting, gameplay and context. This is recognisable as a GTA game, but it’s the next step in every area imaginable.

To be quite honest, there’s as much joy in the marginal elements of Grand Theft Auto IV as there is in the story, but following both in equal measure is the best way to play the game. Without a balance of the two, it’d certainly be harder to embrace the identity of Liberty City. In Grand Theft Auto IV, there are 19 radio stations, all containing roughly the same amount of content as the PS2 games; if your intent is to conquer the story as fast as possible, you’d miss out on these, as well as the many different forms of entertainment that add amusement to the spectacle.

Cult hero Lazlow reappears on Integrity 2.0, his own radio show, while familiar celebrity voices can be heard on a number of different stations– overall, the writing is definitely sharper than it has been in recent games. In terms of original audio, it’s got to be the parodic, right-wing station WKTT (We Know The Truth) that takes the biscuit, but the scripting is consistent across all the stations. There’s a bevy of great satirical jabs, ideological craziness and OTT adverts that make the radio a delight to listen to. One highlight, for example, is the restaurant Al Dente’s, which prides itself on its: ‘special linguine with cheesy poof sauce’. Suffice to say, we had a long chuckle at some of the nuggets within the magnificent radio scripts.

The music, of course, is as culturally relevant as ever. GTA IV does something rather twisted, to your musical tastes: it defies them. We don’t like Kanye West or ELO, but when we hear Flashing Lights and Evil Woman on the radio stations, it becomes synonymous with our GTA experience. Rockstar is setting trends. There’s something so contemporary about it all, even though a lot of the music would ordinarily bore us. One great extra is the addition of an in-game hotline called ZiT (948-555-0100), which will detect the music playing in Niko’s vicinity, and text you the exact name of the track, several seconds later. It’s a minute, even missable feature that isn’t even vaguely associated with Niko’s storyline, but this is the kind of gold standard that Rockstar has applied to every inch of Grand Theft Auto IV’s grand design.

They’ve even crafted an in-game Internet and several TV channels, which would be a conceptual nightmare to any other developer. Obviously, the Internet in the game only goes so far, but it’s still deep enough to avoid feeling gimmicky. It warrants exploration, because new ringtones can be downloaded for the phone, Niko can make date requests and certain missions can only commence through use of the email. There are some hilarious takes on Phishing, via the junk mail sent to Niko, so, yet again, we have another small idea that is as multi-layered as anything else in the game.

The TV is another fine concept. Although not as insightful or accomplished as the radio, the take-offs are just as hilarious. America’s Next Top Hooker, for example, never fails to raise a laugh (“it’s time to judge women again”), while 24 parody 72 is completely on the money with its take on the show– captions like ‘brown= suspect’ will inevitably impress you.

Everything just adds up so well. At one point, we were speeding across the Algonquin Bridge at night, having finished a mission on Broker. As we were driving, Niko was having a conversation with Roman about hitting a strip club, while the Smashing Pumpkins blared in the background. While this happened, we remembered that we had a job interview in the morning at a law firm, as part of a mission we’d started a few days before. Do you know what happened to us, at that point? We realised that we were living in this world. We had more going on in Liberty City than in our real lives, and we cared about every single detail. Whether it was the relationship between Niko and Roman, the timing of the interview or the rampaging we’d have to leave for another time, it was all a factor in the decision we’d make next. Sure, Niko’s story is relatively linear, but we had real choices within that structure.

At some intervals, that choice aspect even spills over into the main plot. Unlike previous GTA games, which were either rags-to-riches stories or vengeance tales, GTA IV has muddied the waters of the gaming narrative. If, by some stunning luck, you’ve dodged the GTA IV spoilers on the Internet, we won’t ruin these important decisions for you, but they’ll inevitably have an effect on the circumstances that surround Niko. Frankly, these decisions will have you deliberating with genuine care over the outcome, should you become as attached to the characters as we were.

Actually, Niko’s story is a strange one. He’s not a self-serving, smooth individual like Tommy Vercetti, but he’s not a vulnerable good guy like CJ, either. He is looking for revenge of a kind, but it doesn’t fill him with angst or call for many preachy monologues. For some characters, like depressed Dwayne or problematic Derrick McReary, he’ll help them out of empathy. For others, like bent cop Francis McReary or high-flier Playboy X, he’ll bleed them dry for cash. The script is slightly heavy-handed, but the majority of the drama is carried off convincingly, thanks to the hugely talented cast and subtle animations on the characters.

It’s definitely the best story that GTA has offered, simply because it’s filled with a more varied look at human nature. Since you’re constantly engaged with these different characters through social interaction, seeing them play a role in the story is uniquely gratifying.

Sadly, we’re running out of space, and we still haven’t mentioned our erratic relationship with Kate McReary, the brilliant drunk sequences or Ricky Gervais’ appearance in Grand Theft Auto IV. Beyond this, there are tons of great sign jokes and store names that are too infinite to be listed in an eight-page review, but discovering them all is a continuous joy.

Grand Theft Auto IV is game that you absolutely must own, without hesitation. We know ways in which it could be better– the shooting isn’t as tight as Uncharted, while the driving isn’t as precise as Project Gotham, on the 360– but the franchise has made genuine, impressive leaps in every department, from top to bottom. Grand Theft Auto IV is also marred by other standing issues, like the awkward jump mechanic, the frustrating A.I. on friendly NPCs and the slightly glitchy cover system. Still, everything that GTA IV attempts is literally brilliant, without exception. If any of the multiple features were the subject of their own games, such as the shooting, exploration, driving or relationships, they’d still be worthy of extremely high praise.

Grand Theft Auto IV, though, bundles all of that into a single package, without ever failing to deliver on any front. Liberty City is a setting of relentless, passionate genius that houses some of the greatest gaming experiences that you’ll ever have, regardless of what you thought you knew about GTA. Niko Bellic’s story is crafted with deft skill, and can easily stand its ground against the narrative strength of other mediums. Finding flaws in GTA IV is like splitting hairs. It’s a near-perfect, obsessive experience that’ll dominate your gaming life for the coming months– fantastic job, Rockstar.

Samuel Roberts