Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Rockstar brings their A game once again. They easily pull you into the raunchy world of GTA, with a compelling story, interesting characters, and a living breathing metropolis, that's practically a character itself. With several improvements over GTA San Andreas, some of which I would have liked to see in that game, Rockstar fires on all cylinders and puts you back in control of another great protagonist. This time your in control of Niko Bellic, a man who's made a lot of choices, that haunt him, and make him the reluctant trigger man, who's only doing what he has to do to survive. Now don't get me wrong, this is GTA and Niko has plenty of criminality in him. He's lured to Liberty City, by stories of riches and luxury, by his con man cousin Roman. Soon after arriving Niko is up to his eyeballs in trouble. Loan sharks, thugs, and all kinds of criminals are just dying to get a piece of Niko, but mainly his cousin Roman. Soon Niko is moving up the criminal ladder, working for Russian crime bosses, a wannabe Irish crime family, Latino drug runners, and many more. As things get better they quickly get worse. The climax and conclusion of this story are definitely highlights of this story.

The game play is a definite high point of this game. The duck and cover system is a beautiful, and necessary addition to the series. Now the hand to hand combat isn't as satisfying as it was in GTA San Andreas, but it still is great.

The graphics are spectacular, and are definitely the best in the series. When I first started playing I had a problem with wrecking, because I was to busy looking at how beautiful the cars and city were. Going from San Andreas to IV it's a huge leap in quality.

My only gripe with this game is the lack of variety in the vehicles that are available. The variety of cars are pretty good, but the high end cars are missing. No Infernius, or Comet's driving around for you to nab and joyride in. Also they took away the airplanes. That was a definite mistake, in a game this gorgeous to deprive us of being able to fly around the city in airplanes.

In conclusion, I think GTA IV is a solid entry in an already stellar franchise. Though it's not without it's flaws, It's still to great a game to give anything except for a 10. What more could you ask, in a GTA game.