Rating Preview
Story		9.5
Lastability		9.9
Playability		9.0
Originality		9.9
Graphics		9.0
Sound		9.9

In this incarnation of GTA you play as Nico Bellic, who has just arrived in Liberty City to meet up with his Cousin Roman who has been telling him about the money and women he has had since arriving himself. Upon your arrival it appears that Roman was not totally honest and in fact runs a small cab firm and is constantly bullied by the local mobsters. When you arrive, Roman’s life is taking a turn for the worse mainly thanks to his gambling debts and you just seem to make things worse. That is as far as I am willing to go with the story line as it will spoil the game for you but I am happy to say that the story is gripping and well told, it will also keep you second guessing and is enjoyable all the way through. The cut scenes are superb and the supporting cast really make this game even better with great acting and a solid script.

 

 

 

Nico himself is quite a lovable character, he has some deep secrets hidden away but basically he wants to get on with life, however nothing ever seems to go as smoothly as he would like it to. So to the game itself, the controls of Nico are the standard GTA fare, left stick to control movement, right for the camera, Y to enter vehicles and A to run. The LB is used for interaction with computers and people. The targeting system has been changed and although it works a lot better than before there are some new problems. Holding LB full-on will lock onto a target, with the RT you can fine tune the aim and change the targets, if your half press the LB you can also free aim, allowing for precision aiming, however holding this at half aim takes some getting used to and is not the ideal position to hold you fingers in for a long time. The melee combat has also been improved with the addition of block, duck, disarm, kick and a few punches, making up some neat combos along the way, once you have got used to the slight delay of each punch you are able to kick some serious tail. The gun fights and melee combat segments are particularly brutal with blood spurting all over the place and realistic movements depending on where you shoot people, it all adds up to quite a gruesome experience. The main frustration with Nico himself is how slow he moves, unless you press the sprint button you will go everywhere at a snails pace.

 

Of course it would not be GTA without the cars. There are a few classics like the Ballista that show up and plenty of new motors, like the mean looking Zombie bike. Each has their own handling and it will take you a while to get used to the cornering of each one. The radio stations are still present and you can select them with the d-pad, as usual there are plenty of stations to choose from, meaning that there should be a good enough selection of music to please everyone’s taste, and if it’s not music you are after then there is the usual choice of chat shows, often with hilarious DJ’s. A cool little touch is that once you have left a car, you can still hear the radio in the distance, a bit nerdy to pick up on that but this game is full of little touches like that. Most cars also have a GPS that links to your map and tell you the way to your next waypoint, either by voice or by plotting a line on your map to help find your way. Vehicles still take damage and will buckle with bits falling off the more you bash them, hit another car head on and chances are the other driver will be dead on the wheel when you pull them out, gruesome but cool. It also seems a lot harder to blow up your car than in previous incarnations.

 

The newest and probably the best addition to this game is the mobile phone, this little gizmo will help organize your game with ease. With the press of up on the d-pad you will bring up your phone, from here you can call friends you have met for missions or favours and also arrange dates with girlfriends or drinking buddies. It can also receive text messages with mission updates or reminders. Not only can you use the preset numbers but also free dial some of the numbers dotted around the city for a few cool extras, hell, you can even call 911 and nab the cop car when it arrives at your "emergency".

 

As well as the supporting cast, the city itself plays a massive part of the game. Liberty City is not really the place you would go to queue up for a copy of a much wanted game at midnight. From the dark slum like areas to the well lit city, the environments are truly stunning. One thing I am really happy with is the size of the map, San Andreas was just too big, impressive but too thinly spread. With 4 islands to explore it will not take long to get from one side to the other but the amount of stuff that is in between is amazing. I am talking a well represented living city, there are loads of vehicles all of the time, people walking the streets who react to you, shops that you can visit from clothes stores, underground weapons shops, food outlets, bars, clubs and a few entertainment areas for games of bowling, pool and darts.

 

On top of the main story you also have the side missions, and these are just as good as the main game, girlfriends make a welcome return, where you have to dress right and take them to the right places to progress. You even meet up with other contacts who you need to do small favours or just socialise with, which often ends in you getting drunk (a very cool visual effect is used here), and once they like you they will offer you a service, like free pickups or a bombing service. There are also vigilante missions. In previous games I rarely touched this part of the game but the new changes are excellent. Once you steal a cop car you can go into their computer and either select someone from the most wanted list or go to a current crime in progress, each one will be marked off on you map and you have to get there as quick as possible and take them down for a nice bonus. The method of picking who you want to go for is great and is a system that rivals the mobile phone.

WIth so much going on in this game it will take ages to see it all, and for a change I really want to, however there are a few little problems, the targeting I mentioned earlier, but also the graphics, they look amazing but there are areas that are just too dark, you can use the options screen to tidy this up but it does affect the day/night time feel of the game. Also worth a mention is the loading of areas, sometimes items will just appear from nowhere, this has only happened a few times but it is noticeable, sometimes it can just be a texture for a wall but other times it has been a whole staircase.

 

There is just so much to do in this title, reach 20 hours of gameplay and you still won’t have scratched the surface. I haven’t even mentioned the other items that can be found during the game as I don’t want to go into too much detail about include the fully working mock Liberty City Internet Cafe where you can check out emails and get new ringtones for your phone, as well as the fully working TV’s which stream content. This game has been a long time coming and now that it is here, I can’t even think about playing anything else, it’s that engrossing and easily the best game of the series and the year.