Grand Theft Auto IV First Look
We sneak a look at the next much-anticipated entry in Rockstar's GTA series.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more anticipated, or scrutinized, game than Rockstar's upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV. The release of the game's trailer in March saw the 50-odd seconds of teaser footage poured over like evidence in a CSI episode, with fans (ourselves included) rabidly dissecting it frame by frame. To further stoke the fires of anticipation, Rockstar Games recently hit town and did the previously unthinkable: They gave us a look at a work-in-progress version of the Xbox 360 game. Whereas years past have seen us getting access to GTA games when they were much further along in development, Rockstar, confident in how development is going, raised the drape and let us get a look at GTAIV months before it hits. Our guided demo showed off a tiny bit of the city and gave us a taste of what Rockstar is cooking up for what is arguably the most anticipated game of 2007.
The demo opened up with the game's Russian hero, Niko Bellic, standing in a building--the offices of the taxi service, to be exact. As our demoer guided him around the interior, we were given a rundown of his story. The Eastern European immigrant will come to Liberty City at the request of his cousin, Roman. The trip seems like a smart move for Niko, who's had a rather rough life so far. The picture of life in Liberty City painted by his cousin is that of opulence and easy money. Upon arriving, Niko gets a reality check. Roman is living around the poverty line and drives a cab. Once that recognition hits, Niko realizes he's got to find a way to eke out a living, which is where the story begins. Given what was shown and implied in the trailer, we expect Niko's career search to take some interesting, and probably violent, turns. Rockstar reps noted that Niko's path through the game isn't going to tell a stereotypical "rags to riches" story; instead, it will offer a grittier tale that's about survival, "rags to slightly better rags" to be exact.
Once we got the rundown of the story, our demoer took Niko out for a stroll in the city. As the tour started, we got another quick primer on the city. The Liberty City in GTAIV is a modern-day metropolis that's a bit different than the one we know. The city is based on New York, though there's no version of Staten Island in the game. For fans at home already working on their maps, the borough of Broker is based on Brooklyn, Dukes is based on Queens, Bohan is based on the Bronx, Algonquin is based on Manhattan, and Alderney is based on New Jersey. Our tour took us on a run-through of some of the neighborhoods in Broker, underneath the Algonquin bridge overpass, and eventually out to the docks to look out on the city proper. The environment had a lived-in look that featured pedestrians, homeless, trash, steaming manholes, traffic, and an impressive array of little touches used to set the scene. But, while we expected all that, the demo showed off a new wrinkle to the densely packed environments: height. Though "verticality" has turned into one of the catchiest buzz words for new games, it's still an interesting feature to see. From the sound of it, GTAIV is going to let you go up or down buildings in the game as needed. Our demo showed Niko climbing a power pole and taking a look around at the environment--highlighting the impressive draw distance. But we also noticed that the dense city environment, which is roughly the same size as San Andreas, will be a layered locale with things to see and do at different heights. If it works the way we're hoping, it might offer some additional options when avoiding the police.
But avoiding police, like much of GTAIV's gameplay, is something that Rockstar wasn't going into too much detail on. There was no talk of the upcoming downloadable content or exclusive material for the PlayStation or Xbox 360. What was shared was that the role-playing elements are being dialed back, so Niko won't be morphing into a superman by the end of the game. Carjacking is being tweaked, so you can now break windows to jack parked cars. You'll be able to call people via cell phone and help move the story along, offering you more control over how the story will progress. Though you won't be able to fly planes, you should be able to fly helicopters. One of our big questions, what kind of online multiplayer the game will offer, was met with a coy assertion that the team wants the multiplayer to rival the single-player experience. Reps did note that it will not be a massively-multiplayer-online-game-style persistent city. Other details, such as the game's heads-up display, are still being ironed out. We did see a menu system that had all the expected options; we're just curious as to how it will be implemented. The driving force behind the game is its story, according to the team. So, to that end, the gameplay experience must be seamless. We're pleased to see the lengths they're going to for this to happen already. Moving in and out of buildings is seamless, and you'll have ample places to go in and out of, though not every building in the game is able to be explored.
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