Grand Theft Auto 4 Gameplay Preview

Grand Theft Auto 4: The City

But in all honestly, the star is not Niko, it's the city he inhabits. Liberty City is the best representation of a real world city we've ever seen in a video game. Sure it's not "real," but it could be. It's designed with everything you'd expect from a bustling metropolis. A working mass transit system, skyscrapers, residential districts, a police force and lots and lots of traffic. GTA has always been about giving you that feeling of believability, not so much in the story and actions of the characters, but in that you feel that you're cruising around a living world. Assassin's Creed managed to pull this off rather well (at least, the environments did), but GTA 4 takes this several steps further.

Also, unlike the Liberty City in GTA 3, which was kind of a blend between NYC and Chicago, without any major, recognizable landmarks, this Liberty City is all about the Big Apple. There's the Statue of Liberty, the Met Life building, the Chrysler Building and Central Park. The Cloverfield monster would totally feel at home here. Of course, everything's just a tad different, as it's more of a satire on NYC than a one-to-one interpretation, so the Statue of Liberty becomes the Statue of Happiness (holding a coffee cup, natch), the Met Life building becomes the Get A Life Building, and so forth. It's not just Manhattan, though. Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and even New Jersey are represented, replicating their unique sights (and smells) for your enjoyment.

Grand Theft Auto 4: Gameplay Improvements

Once you get over the impressive feel of the city, you can begin to discover the improvements that have been made to the basic GTA gameplay, some of which are long overdue. Aiming and shooting, always a chore in previous games, is now strikingly similar to games like Splinter Cell and even Gears of War, allowing you to move into an over-the-shoulder view and control aiming and movement with the two analog sticks. Lock on is still there, but it's optional and generally meant for larger groups of enemies, as you can flick back and forth between targets very quickly.

Another huge improvement that's long overdue is the auto-save. Lets say you finished playing a half hour-long mission, only to accidentally fall off the side of a building to get hit by a car before you were able to go back to your safe house. Sure you could sacrifice all your weapons and a chunk of money for a hospital stay, but most everyone who played GTA reloaded the game and tried again, rather than having to make back the losses. In GTA 4, the auto save instantly records your progress from anywhere in the game, so driving back to a safe house is only necessary when you want to store a car or get a change of clothes.

Other improvements include a GPS system for getting around town easier (with fancy voice-over directions in luxury cars), a taxi system for fast travel to get anywhere in the city instantly (for a fee) and a minimized HUD, which integrates almost everything you need to know into the radar, with other info like ammo and weapons popping up when neccesary. The cell phone is also a definite bonus, as you're able to call in missions when you complete them, get weapon drops when you're in a tight spot or even call in a helicopter if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. GTA 4 seems to be all about streamlining the painful parts of the series and getting you right into the action.

Grand Theft Auto 4: The Missions

Speaking of action, we were able to check out a nice variety of missions from the game. The first was pretty standard for GTA: find a criminal, chase him down in your car and kill him. To aid in your search you can steal a cop car and use its internal computer to search the criminal's name, giving you likely hang out locations. Once the chase starts, though, you'll have to use some fancy driving and gunplay (using the games new in-car aiming system, akin to Saint's Row) to take him down.

Things progressed from there, as we took on a construction union in downtown Manhatt -er Algonquin, using a sniper rifle to pick off the guards and then moving in and around the cover of a construction sight to get to the leadership in an awaiting helicopter. Mostly on-foot, these missions used to be a serious chore in previous GTA games, but thanks to the new aiming controls, it looked a lot cleaner and more fun to play.

The third mission involved hijacking a truck loaded with drugs. After a brief gun battle, Niko chased down the truck on foot, grabbing onto the rear bumper and climbing on to the roof of the vehicle. From here the objective was to get to the cab of the truck, holding on for dear life every time the driver took a quick turn. Once in the front, though, a quick disarm and a close range pistol shot was all Niko needed to make their drugs his drugs.

The final mission was really more of an optional quest to better your relationship with Roman. Contacts will call you on your cell at random points in the game, asking you to do them favors or hang out with them. Get a strong enough rapport with someone and they'll help you out. In Roman's case he'll let you cruise around in one of his helicopters. But first we had to do some drinking. The actual mission just requires getting home, but 4 blocks becomes miles when you've had a few too many. Niko's walk is staggered and driving is a mess, so it takes a steady hand and a strong stomach to be able to get home without getting pulled over or driving into the river.

As you can tell, there's a ton to talk about in Grand Theft Auto 4, but hopefully this has given you a good starting point to go off of. We should be getting another look at the game, this time on the PS3, in a few weeks, but until then we've got a boatload of screens for your enjoyment.