The cool stuff I've found after 22 gameplay hours of Grand Theft Auto 4.
1. They did a bang-up job of
making it feel like New York. Neighborhoods are mushed together
and you might not be able to find your old apartment, but the landmarks
are all there like you'd expect. Things you might not expect are right
too. For instance the game starts you out in Coney Island and in an
early mission you need to take the subway. The subway station is not a
generic NY subway, but is actually laid out like the subway at Coney
Island. Very cool. You find yourself recognizing buildings and all of a
sudden knowing where you are in a really weird way (results may vary if
you've never lived in New York).
2. It's not always the same!
Some jerk bumped into me on
the street (okay maybe I bumped him) and then he swore at me and acted
like an asshole. So I shoved him a bit, and he shoved me a bit and long
story short I beat the shit out of him. Then I just waited and sure
enough an ambulance showed up. The EMS guy got out and started trying
to save the dude. I got up close and I could hear he was actually
saying "don't you fucking die on me!" and stuff. Almost made me feel
responsible. It must have affected me a bit because I didn't steal the
ambulance and run them both over, I just kinda wandered off into
the park.
So days later I wanted to
show this to my friend. I picked a fight with a guy, beat him up and
waited. Nothing happened. Tried it with someone else, still nothing.
That's so cool. Call the cops and they show up right away …
sometimes.
Same thing with the weather -
its been nice or rainy or overcast, but just today I was playing
and it really stormed – driving rain and thunder. It looked
amazing but it was the fact that they waited until hour 22 of game play
to do it which was so fucking great. Most games are long over by hour
22; I'm not a third of the way through yet.
3. The story does not
completely suck – making it far and away the best video
game narrative ever. Scratch that – best video game
narrative ever that uses cut-scenes. (Best ever goes to "The
Sentinel" for the c64)
4. SPOILER
Yes you can steal a
helicopter and of course you can crash it into the Statue of Liberty
(Statue of Happiness). But if you do it right you end up on a higher
platform that you can't reach from the tourist entrance. Go
through a secret door and you're inside the statue itself. Climb the
staircase to the top and what's there? A giant beating heart. Yup, you
heard me. It's suspended in the middle of the statue from chains. Right
up there with the weirdest things in a video game ever. Shooting
it (and who would do such a thing) has no effect, it just keeps on
beating. Be careful trying to blow it up with a grenade, it's a
real easy way to die. How do you get down from the statue? Well,
unless there's a hidden parachute somewhere, you don't
exactly survive the experience.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/213827.html
5. Most post-modern moment is
a tie between watching TV and checking your email. I can't afford cable
yet, but I do get quite a few channels. Sitting on your sofa playing a
video game where you sit on your sofa and watch T.V. is a new
low. Or high, because the shows are clever and funny and of course the
commercials are all made up and funny too. Think Mad Magazine at
its best. Stupid jokes that make you snort in spite of yourself.
The email is mainly a device
to progress the plot, so there are emails from the people you need to
meet or kill or whatever. Of course there's an email from your
mom too. And junk mail of course. No hardcore porn, but there are adds
for the strip clubs in town that you can "click" on. They've actually
created a really deep internet – to be clear, you are never
actually online here, it's all made up.
Runner up po-mo-moment
comes when you hear about a murder you committed or fire you set being
reported on the news radio station as you drive around town. You really
do have a moment where you go "hey cool, I'm on the radio!"
6. It's actually the most
insightful critique of American culture I've seen in years. Niko, (the
main character) is an eastern European of unknown decent
(Slovakian) who has come to America to pursue the American dream.
The America he finds is nothing like he expects, but it's not all awful
either. While Niko complains a lot, you can tell he's having fun. The
brush that GTA4 paints the satire with is fairly broad (there's a
reality TV show being advertised called "Next Top Whore"). But so
what? Is John Stewart the only one who gets to poke holes in
American culture any more? And some critiques are more pointed. I
recently had a run-in with a guy in front of a video arcade. The
encounter was an intricate part of the plot and the reasons I were
there were pretty complex. On the radio news, they said that because
the murder occurred in front of an arcade the killer must be a violent
video game addict. All Rockstar has to do is hide a joke in the
third act and it knows that nobody but real gamers are going to find
it. And we are going to laugh our asses off. And we do.
The story wouldn't work as a
movie (too slow), or a novel (too repetitive), or a Broadway musical
(please). Why? Because it's a VIDEO GAME. You're supposed to play it,
live it, become a part of it. It's supposed to be slow and obvious and
surprising all at the same time. If GTA4 has to be something,
it's a fucking opera. it's Wagner! [IT'S A REASON TO GET A PS3 OR XBOX
360 … SHHH DON'T TELL ANYONE]
7. Other notable moments.
• Watching an SUV with
an American flag decal drive right over a car at a stoplight. This
happens without your instigation in any way.
• Driving north up Broadway in a stolen stretch limo. (Broadway is one way south)
• Driving a stolen car
off a cliff and jumping out in the nick of time. Looking over the cliff
and noticing some half-submerged rusted cars at the bottom,
as if you weren't the first to think of this idea.
• Running down the
tracks of the elevated train to successfully escape the
law. Forgetting about the implications of where you are and
having the 7 train ease your troubled mind.