Everything about Grand Theft Auto Iv totally explained
Grand Theft Auto IV (abbreviated to
GTA IV and
GTA 4) is a
sandbox-style action-adventure video game developed by
Rockstar North. It is the ninth title in the
Grand Theft Auto series and the first in its fourth generation.
Grand Theft Auto IV was released worldwide (except in
Japan) Two episodic packs will be released exclusively for the Xbox 360, the first of which is due in August 2008 via
Xbox Live.
The game is set in a redesigned rendition of
Liberty City, a fictional city based heavily on modern day
New York City. It follows
Niko Bellic, a war veteran of
Eastern European ethnicity, who comes to the
United States in search of the
American Dream, only to find his cousin has lied about the wealth that was promised to be awaiting him. Like other games in the series,
GTA IV features "open-world" gameplay that gives the player more control over their playing experience.
GTA IV is the first console game in the series to feature an online
multiplayer mode, which contains
fifteen different game types.
A major commercial and critical success,
Grand Theft Auto IV broke sales records by selling about 3.6 million units on its first day of release and grossing more than $500 million in its first week. The game received overwhelmingly positive reviews, becoming the highest rated video game of all-time on review aggregator site
Game Rankings.
Gameplay
Grand Theft Auto IV is structured similarly to previous games in the series. The core gameplay consists of elements of a third-person shooter and a driving game, affording the player a large, open environment in which to move around. On foot, the player's character is capable of walking, running, swimming, climbing and jumping, as well as utilising weapons and basic hand to hand combat. Players can steal and drive a variety of vehicles, including automobiles, boats, helicopters, and motorcycles.
The open, non-linear environment allows players to explore and choose how they wish to play the game. Although storyline missions are necessary to progress through the game and unlock certain parts of the map and content, they're not required, as players can complete them at their own leisure. When not taking on a storyline mission, players can free-roam. However, creating havoc can attract unwanted and potentially fatal attention from the authorities. The more chaos caused, the stronger the response: police patrols handle minor infractions such as attacking people, using a firearm in public, grand theft auto, homicide, etc. whereas
helicopter support teams; the FIB (Federal Investigation Bureau), based on
FBI; and an elite
counter-terrorism and
law enforcement team,
N.O.O.S.E. (National Office Of Security Enforcement) replacing the military seen in previous renditions of the series, respond to higher wanted levels.
It is possible to have multiple active missions, due to the fact that some missions will run over the course of several days and will require the player to wait for further instructions, etc. The player can also partake in a variety of optional side missions. The player can slide to cover,
blindfire, and free aim. When locked on, the target's health is indicated by eight coloured segments on the target circle. Players can now target individual body parts using a revamped targeting system. Niko's health is represented by a green semi-circle on the left side of the minimap, and a blue semi-circle on the right represents armour. If Niko gets injured, he can recover health by using an escort service, eating, sleeping, using medical kits, or by calling for paramedics using his phone. Health is generally reduced by physical injuries such as falling from heights and going through the windscreen of a vehicle when crashing. Body armour is gradually damaged by gunshots and stab wounds. When Niko's health level reaches zero, he respawns at the nearest hospital, but loses 10% of his total wealth (up to a maximum of $10,000). Unlike previous GTA games, Niko is able to retain his weapons after re-spawning at a hospital; they're still confiscated if he's arrested and taken to a police station
Police and wanted levels operate differently from previous GTA games. When the police are in search of Niko, a search radius appears on the map in which the police will be looking for him. The size of this radius increases with the player's wanted level and re-centres itself on Niko's location if he's spotted by the police. The player can evade the police by escaping the search radius and temporarily keeping a low profile by not committing further offences. The wanted levels can be lost by either driving into a "Pay 'N' Spray" as in previous games (however, unlike the previous games, it doesn't work if the police are watching Niko enter the garage) or by disguising himself by clandestinely changing vehicles in empty areas such as parking garages. The player has the option to attempt escaping arrest before he's
handcuffed, at the cost of increasing his wanted level.
Vehicles
Stealing a parked car will now show Niko breaking the glass (if it's locked) and
hotwiring it to drive it; as opposed to previous games where the player would merely get in the driver's seat. During a mission with a target, if the player holds the cinematic camera button, the camera will turn towards and zoom closer to the target, but stay behind the player's vehicle until let go, returning to the normal camera. Every car in the game utilizes the in-game
minimap as a
GPS device, with voice directions to the destination; by default, the voice directions are only enabled on the most expensive cars, but it can be turned on in the Options menu for any vehicle. The player can hail a cab in order to travel quickly to various notable locations throughout the city, and the journey can be skipped straight to the destination at extra cost. The player is able to pilot
helicopters, but not
planes.
Car damage physics are more detailed in
GTA IV than in its predecessors. When major collisions on motorbikes occur, the player's helmet will most likely fall off. The physics engine will turn the player into a
rag doll after a crash, instead of using a predefined animation, resulting in more realistic collisions. Niko can lose
health (or die) if he crashes or smashes through the
windscreen of cars when colliding with objects at high speed. Vehicles won't explode if they're flipped over, or shot in any place other than the
engine block or
fuel tank, however they may catch fire and explode if they're repeatedly damaged via collisions. Explosions can sometimes render nearby vehicles unusable. Car engines can also die, rendering them unable to start, although phoning anyone will make the engine run again.
When driving or riding in a car, the player is able to smash the window, free-aim, and fire out of the vehicle with several different one-handed weapons as well dropping grenades or molotov cocktails. In certain areas of
Liberty City, Niko can stop along side a
prostitute, honk his car horn and let her in. This then enables him to receive different sexual activities with the prostitute at different costs.
Communication
The use of the
mobile phone has been expanded to perform multiple actions. When selecting the mobile phone, a zoomed-in version of the phone pops up in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. The phone allows the player to view
text messages and appointments, as well as arrange to meet friends for a variety of activities. Retrying a failed mission can be performed by accessing the menu. The player can take photos with the mobile phone and upload them to the police computer during certain missions. Niko can dial
911 to call the
police for them to arrest an enemy/pedestrian that's fighting/shooting at him, or just to trick them into wasting resources on a false alarm. He can also contact the
paramedics and the
fire station.
The game also features several different in-game databases that Niko can make use of. An in-game version of the
Internet can be used by accessing the cyber café chain, "
TW@", located throughout the city. There are over 100 accessible, fictitious websites within the game, and Niko can also send and receive email (complete with random spam mail) and set up prospective dates. Although the "TW@" cyber café was seen in
Grand Theft Auto III, it didn't give the player the option to browse the internet. In a police vehicle, Niko can use an in-car computer to access Liberty City's criminal database, discover information about various criminals in Liberty City and even track them down for a reward. The game also features in-game television programming, with several viewable channels featuring programs and advertisements. The television shows cover a wide variety of genres, including news, comedy, talk shows, and sports. There is also a mock of
Ric Burns' running continuously on one of the game's television stations, detailing the history of Liberty City in the same grandiose style as Burns' 8-part documentary.
Multiplayer
Grand Theft Auto IV is the first console game in the series to include online multiplayer, with 15 modes of play available. The multiplayer supports up to 16 players and allows players to explore the entire city. Players use a customisable character in a majority of the modes, with cash earned during play able to be used to purchase clothing for their character. Hosts of the games can control many variables, such as time of day, police presence, pedestrian presence, traffic, location of game, and weapons. The online games are split into ranked and unranked matches. The reward for the ranked gameplay is cash, which determines players' ranks. The game doesn't feature any
split screen or
LAN multiplayer modes.
There are several different game modes available. Team based gameplay modes include
The Social Club web site
was announced on
27 March 2008 and launched on
17 April 2008. The main features of Social Club launched on the same date of the game itself
29 April 2008. Social Club will also provide online features for Rockstar's latest
Midnight Club game, . Social Club consists of multiple parts. It initially included the LCPD Police Blotter, The Story Gang, The 100% Club, The Hall Of Fame, The Liberty City Marathon and The Zit.
In an interview with
Playstation World Magazine, Rockstar mentioned that that'll "heavily support"
Sony's
PlayStation Home, a community-based service for the
PlayStation Network. Rockstar also mentioned that visitors to their PlayStation Home apartment would receive 'goodies' such as clothing for their
avatar and items and decorations for their own PlayStation Home apartment. In addition to this, users can earn PlayStation Home trophies for their home space (Similar to the
achievements for the
Xbox 360 version).
Synopsis
Plot
Niko Bellic is an Eastern European immigrant
Setting
Grand Theft Auto IV takes place in a redesigned version of
Liberty City consisting of four boroughs, based on four of the boroughs of
New York City.
Broker is the equivalent of
Brooklyn,
Queens is
Dukes,
The Bronx is
Bohan and
Manhattan is
Algonquin. Adjacent to the city is the independent state of
Alderney based on
New Jersey and named after the
Channel Island of the same name. A
Staten Island-esque area isn't featured in the game as the developers believed that gameplay in such an area wouldn't be fun.
Following a partnership between Rockstar Games and
Amazon.com, players will be able to purchase real world
MP3s through
GTA IV's in-game mobile phone. Players are able to 'mark' radio songs that they like by dialing ZIT-555-0100 on Niko's phone. They will then receive a text message providing the name of the song and the artist. If a player is registered on Rockstar's 'Social Club' website he or she'll also receive a real world e-mail with a link to an Amazon.com playlist where all of the player's marked songs will be listed and available to purchase. Initially, this service is only available in the U.S., but will follow shortly to other international territories.
Development
Work on
Grand Theft Auto IV began in November 2004, almost immediately after the release of . According to a financial consultant for
Take-Two Interactive, around 150 game developers worked on
Grand Theft Auto IV. The team consists of core members of the
Grand Theft Auto III team, albeit larger. The game uses Rockstar's own
RAGE game engine, which was previously used in
Rockstar Table Tennis, in combination with the
Euphoria game animation engine. The Euphoria engine also enables
NPCs to react in a realistic way to the player's actions. In one preview, a player knocked an NPC out of a window and the character grabbed onto a ledge to stop himself from falling. The game also uses middleware from
Image Metrics to facilitate intricate facial expressions and ease the process of incorporating lip-synching. Foliage in the game in produced through
SpeedTree.
Grand Theft Auto IV sees a shift in the series to a more realistic and detailed style and tone, Dan Houser added "because we were working in high definition and we knew we'd need a shitload of research, we wanted to be somewhere where we'd a foothold." Although smaller than San Andreas, Liberty City is comparable to it in terms of scope when "the level of verticality of the city, the number of buildings you can go into, and the level of detail in those buildings" are taken into account. Music supervisor Ivan Pavlovich said "[wehad] to pick the songs that make New York today what it is, but make sure they won't feel dated by the time the game comes out." The developers contacted over 2,000 people in order to obtain recording and publishing rights. Citing sources close to the deals,
Billboard reported that Rockstar paid as much as $5,000 per composition and another $5,000 per master recording per track.
Femi Kuti,
Jimmy Gestapo and
Ruslana, and real-life radio talk show host
Lazlow Jones.
DJ Green Lantern produced tracks exclusively for the game's hip-hop radio station The Beat 102.7. Rockstar Games initially appeared to be committed to the original
16 October 2007 release date; however, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter suggested that Take-Two may choose to delay the release of the game in order to boost its financial results for 2008 and to avoid competing with the release of other highly anticipated titles, such as
Halo 3. Rockstar responded by saying that
Grand Theft Auto IV was still on track for release in "late October". On
2 August 2007, Take-Two announced that
Grand Theft Auto IV would miss its original release date of
16 October 2007 contrary to their previous statements, and would be delayed to their second fiscal quarter (February–April) of 2008. Their stated reason for the date change was "due to additional development time required to complete the title." In a later conference call with investors, Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick attributed the delay to "almost strictly technological problems... not problems, but challenges." It was revealed that technical difficulties with the
PlayStation 3 version of the game contributed to the delay. On
24 January 2008, Take-Two announced that
Grand Theft Auto IV would be released on
29 April 2008. At a Take-Two shareholder meeting on
18 April 2008, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder announced that
GTA IV had already "
gone gold" and was "in production and in trucks en route to retailers" Overall,
Grand Theft Auto IV took over 1000 people and more than three and a half years to complete, with a total cost estimated at approximately $100 million, making it the most expensive game ever developed.
Downloadable content
During
Microsoft's 2006
E3 press conference on
9 May 2006, it was announced that Rockstar Games will offer exclusive
episodic content for the Xbox 360 version of the game, which will be released after the full game via
Xbox Live.
Peter Moore, the then head of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division described downloadable content as "epic episode packs", and not just an extra car or character. A press release during the conference said that the packs would add "hours of entirely new gameplay" to the game. Details on the pricing of these downloads have not yet been revealed, though it would almost certainly not be released for free, as
Take-Two Interactive's former
CEO,
Paul Eibeler, has said numerous times that these downloads would provide "additional revenue streams" to the company, but Microsoft has said that it'll be up to Rockstar on whether or not that'll charge for it. Jeronimo Barrera, Vice President of Product Development for Rockstar Games, has said that the episodes are an experiment because they're not sure that there are enough users with access to online content on the Xbox 360. Take-Two Interactive's
Chief Financial Officer, Lainie Goldstein revealed that Microsoft was paying a total of US $50 million for the two episodes. On
20 February 2008, it was announced that the extra content will be introduced starting August 2008.
Downloadable content for the PlayStation 3 was said to be "likely" by vice president of development Jeronimo Barrera, in the May 2008 edition of
PlayStation World.
|OXM = 9.5/10
|OPMUK = 10/10
|OPMAU = 10/10
|EGM = A+/A+/A
|IGN = 10.0/10
|1UP = A+
|Edge = 10/10
|EuroG = 10/10
|GSpot = 10.0/10
|GI = 10/10
|MC = PS3: 98% (48 revs) and PS3 version of
GTA IV have received average critic review scores of 98% from review aggregators
Game Rankings and
Metacritic. It is the highest rated video game of all-time on
Game Rankings. Ahead of its worldwide release, most publications were not sent copies of the game. Instead, reviewers had to play the game at Rockstar premises or in booked hotel rooms.
The May 2008 issue of
Official Xbox Magazine (UK) published the first
Grand Theft Auto IV review, giving the game the maximum score of 10/10. The magazine also stated that the game has an "amazingly realistic world; stunning action set pieces; genuinely engrossing storyline; hugely entertaining multiplayer;" and that it's "vast in every respect."
PlayStation Official Magazine (UK) also gave the game 10/10 in their May 2008 issue, describing the game as "a masterpiece that improves on all GTA's best bits."
GameSpot's Justin Calvert initially submitted the review with a 9.5 score. However, that was before the review was overlooked by the GameSpot committee, who agreed that the score should be heightened to a perfect 10. The initial score of 9.5 became available on Gamespot's web site due to a bug in their publishing system. It became the first game since 2001 that GameSpot had rated perfect. The review called the game "compelling," with a "plethora of online multiplayer features" and stated that
GTA IV is "undoubtedly the best
Grand Theft Auto yet." The
New York Times wrote a favourable review as well, calling it a "violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun."
Despite the almost unanimous praise given to
GTA IV, the game has received some criticism. A review in
Ars Technica states that the game "...[is] not perfect. It doesn't deserve unquestioned, unadulterated praise. In many ways, the slight regression of the series from is surprising: there are fewer vehicles, weapons, and story missions, less character customization, and even the size of the city itself is smaller." GameSpot noted that there are occasional problems with friendly AI and avoiding the police being "a little too easy." Scott Hillis of
Reuters said first week sales of the game were expected to reach $400 million. Matt Richtel of
The New York Times said the game's release was "expected to be one of the biggest video game debuts ever" and said 5 million copies of the game were expected to be sold in the first two weeks. Analyst Michael Pachter predicted the game will sell 11 to 13 million units by the end of 2008. Pachter also expects
Grand Theft Auto IV to represent 3.2% of all US and European software sales for 2008 and for lifetime sales of the game to reach 16 to 19 million.
Not only has it surpassed the expectations stated above,
Grand Theft Auto IV has claimed two entertainment industry sales records, posting the best single-day and seven-day sales totals for a video/computer game. The game sold more than 3.6 million copies on its first day of availability (garnering $310 million in sales), while also selling 6 million copies in the first week of availability (garnering $500 million in sales). In the United Kingdom, the game sold 631,000 copies on its first day of release, The previous record holder in the UK,, sold 501,000 copies within 24 hours. One of these incidents, an attack near a
Gamestation store in
Croydon, was later reported to be an unrelated argument between two groups of people leaving a pub and the story has been referred to as a "
media panic."
On
6 May 2008, it was reported via
Major Nelson's website that
Grand Theft Auto IV was the most-played title on Xbox Live for the week beginning
28 April 2008, taking the number one spot from which had held it for the preceding 12 weeks.
GameStop and
EB Games reported that the game led in sales the first week after its release, noting that its stores in
Puerto Rico led all districts in pre-release reservations and sales 48 hours after its release. According to
GameStop, the
Xbox 360 version of the game outsold the
PlayStation 3 version by about 2 to 1 in the first week.
On
13 May 2008,
Grand Theft Auto IV broke the
Guinness World Records for "Highest grossing video game in 24 hours" and "Highest Revenue Generated by an Entertainment Product in 24 Hours". It sold 3.6 million copies on day one, which equalled roughly $310 million in revenue. For first day sales it also broke the record of "Fastest-selling video game in 24 hours", previously held by
Halo 3 at $170 million.
During the first five days of availability, the title sold 1.85 million units on the Xbox 360 and 1 million on the PlayStation 3 in the United States, according to the
NPD Group; in the United Kingdom the Xbox 360 version sold 514,000 copies and the PlayStation 3 version sold 413,000, according to Chart-Track.
Technical issues
A blog entry on
Kotaku reported that several PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners had complained of the game
freezing during the initial cut-scene, rendering it unplayable. It was also reported on Kotaku that the online multiplayer was down on release day for some PlayStation 3 users.
On
7 May,
Rockstar and
Sony released a patch for the PlayStation 3 version of the game to improve the multiplayer experience. According to developer Rockstar, the update prevents GameSpy's servers from being overloaded and therefore reduces the impact on those servers that were causing the game to stutter and lock up.
Controversies
Prior to and since the release of
Grand Theft Auto IV, the game has been subject to a great deal of controversy. Figures including
George Galloway,
Jack Thompson and
Glenn Beck have criticised the game, as have organisations including
New York City officials and
Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
The version of
GTA IV released in
Australia and
New Zealand was edited to remove content to allow the game to meet the requirements of the Australian classification system.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Grand Theft Auto Iv'.
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