CVG Plays GTA IV

[MarkD1990]

This may have been said already sorry!

After a year of hype dissecting every morsel of information Rockstar teasingly flung at our feet, we've finally played Grand Theft Auto IV - and you can read our full, detailed hands-on impressions right here.

"First thing's first; despite our concerns the framerate is absolutely rock solid. We're on a fairly busy street corner in Broker with cars, pedestrians and the massive cityscape looming on the horizon. It's all good.

"Rockstar North hasn't been stingy with the effects either. Immediately we notice lovely motion and depth of field effects when locking on to targets (with the left trigger). There's also some bizarre but pleasant field-of-view "fisheye" mischief going on when you move the camera at an angle underneath or above Niko (making the distance between characters and the background look further - sounds strange but works)."

Grams Theft Auto

Controller in hand and game un-paused, the very brown-clothed Niko appears on screen, in our control for the first time. We're still knocked back by how fantastic everything looks - only this time there are no smoke and mirrors clouding our vision, and no handcuffs preventing us from peeking around the corner.

First thing's first; despite our concerns the framerate is absolutely rock solid. We're on a fairly busy street corner in Broker with cars, pedestrians and the massive cityscape looming on the horizon. It's all good.

Rockstar North hasn't been stingy with the effects either. Immediately we notice lovely motion and depth of field effects when locking on to targets (with the left trigger). There's also some bizarre but pleasant field-of-view "fisheye" mischief going on when you move the camera at an angle underneath or above Niko (making the distance between characters and the background look further - sounds strange but works).

The lighting system in particular looks fantastic. Some of the game's scenery and textures can look a bit rough around the edges in screens. But, in motion, the scale and detail of Liberty City is impressive. It feels just like a GTA city; pedestrians scatter and the sound of gun fire, the odd hidden ramp lurks behind low walls and comedy ad signs are never far away.

The mission we're on (Jamaican Heat) is early in the game and tasks Niko to pick up drug-dealing Jamaican gunman Little Jacob from his pad.

Stealing cars with the Y button is as simple as ever. The most noticeable difference from San Andreas is a strong feeling of weight behind the world, as demonstrated by the poor fellow flailing and rolling on the floor as Niko ejects him from his vehicle.

Euphoria Physics - the stuff powering LucasAarts' Force Unleashed game - is the tech to be thanked for this. It might not sound like a big deal, but because of how massively un-interactive and well, rigid the environments were in the PS2 instalments, it's incredibly liberating to see pedestrians fall over, cars bump in the road and scenery roll and collide realistically when hit.

The biggest impact of GTA's new-found physics is probably in the vehicle handling, which now feels far more realistic and affected by the world around it. By luck, we found the best car to test this out right on the street where we started; a completely rusted, half-burnt out old banger.

After happily evicting its previous owner (who was probably pleased to get some fresh air) we sped off down the road only to slam into the pavement, as the handling of the car was being skewed towards the dodgy wheel on our left hand side.

As with the walk and run animations of each character, vehicles can be seen bouncing and bopping with every bump in the road. This sense of gravity helps the world feel a lot more alive than previous Grand Theft Autos.

In this botched-up motor we had to battle with the analogue stick to keep it in a straight line, and the burst tyre on our side had a massive effect in how the vehicle handled. It's obvious that car damage is hugely more important in this GTA than in San Andreas.

Realism is a strong theme in IV's driving. It's much more difficult to simply right-angle around a corner at speed. You can't rely on the handbrake to spin you around a turn, and if you don't want to be sent into the side of a building by a bump in the road, you have to slow down.

It's still fun - perhaps even more so when you bugger up and do a barrel-roll into a hotdog stand - but as our extended play taught us, the gap between low and high-end cars is much bigger in the control department. Watch those corners!

OK Computer

Back to our first point; GTA IV is still very much a Grand Theft Auto experience. But it's impressive how Rockstar has built up and over San Andreas' design.

Driving to Little Jacob's place is a painless and far smoother experience than it would've been in GTA III. Analogue acceleration on the triggers makes cruising around the streets a breeze. The new GPS waypoint system, which draws a line through the map to your destination, is executed perfectly.

Even little Jacob himself, who comes scuttling out of his pad smoking a funny cigarette, is a far less sterile character than the blocky blokes of old. We stop mid-run on our way to the next destination, a meeting point where Jacbo's about to make a dodgy deal, realising that like old GTA's we'd better get into a car and take the Jamaican along. But much to our surprise there he is running behind us, still puffing away mind.

Once in the car Jacob carries on talking for minutes (there's shed loads of non-plot-centric dialogue) and even his "cigarette" smoke drifts realistically out of the window.

It's still far from genius AI, but little bits like this are certainly far ahead of III, which had slightly dim-witted friendly and enemy AI to say the least.

Eventually we make it to our destination; a dodgy back alley where Jacob wants us to keep watch over his shady deal. A hovering halo, similar to that in previous games, indicates where we should go; a ledge overlooking the alley.

Clicking the left analogue stick has Niko crouch, and the three arriving dealers are completely unaware of his presence - which means we can get the first shot off when the deal inevitably goes sour.

Immediately the scene explodes into something far more frantic than any of San Andreas' simple lock-on blasting. All parties dive into cover, taking blind pot shots over dumpsters.

Aiming and shooting has been handled in quite a unique manor from your average third-person shooter. Holding down the left trigger locks on to a target, and you can cycle through targets using the right stick.

From here you can shoot at an enemy's arms, legs, chest or head - but it's not totally automatic. The cursor is locked on to the centre of a target's chest, and from there you can move your aim with the right stick inside a small circle radius around the target.

This way a headshot actually requires some skill; simply holding up with the right stick shoots over the bad guy's head, so you have to hover slightly to nail him in the face.

The genius of this system is that proper free-aiming is also instantly accessible by holding the trigger half-way in, allowing you to aim your gun freely where ever you like. This proves useful when a hitman bursts from the rooftop above us.

This is also (yet another) example of Euphoria physics at work, we nail him and watch him tumble across the rooftop before grabbing and swinging from the ledge in a last ditch effort to stay alive.

The much-welcomed cover system works (and looks) great. Once we'd dealt with the psycho dealers, it was off to find their shotgun-wielding mates, with the purpose of putting and end to it.

Taking cover underneath window ledges and at the side of doors is painless and intuitive. Tapping the right bumper slams Niko into cover (Gears of War style). If you're a bit far off he'll dive or floor-slide. Jumping between cover is just as simple as in Epic's shooter. Niko was never stuck in a place we didn't want him to be.

Shooting feels slightly different from what we're used, but at the same time delivers a new dynamic. One trigger performs simple blindfire shooting, while the other pops Niko out of cover for full-on gun pointing.

The difference here is that the aiming reticule is on screen even when you're behind cover, and to fire consecutive shots you have to hold the right trigger down, as letting go sends you right back in to cover.

This way you're never out of cover when you're not shooting, and the hop 'n bop blasting gameplay is even more simplified. Thankfully, as is emerged in this impressively detailed living room (complete with couch, telly, cockroaches), Niko can shoot through scenery and blast cover to bits.

Plasterboard falls apart with every shot and enemy gangbangers are accessible to your ammunition behind most objects. This new combat adds greater depth to the bullet ballet of GTA IV, which is bound to supply some absolute standout action sequences when the final game arrives.

Lights, camera, ACTION!

The third and final most important layer we discovered is GTA IV's remarkable knack for a bit of cinematic flair. Our next mission takes Niko to meet some Russian mafia types in a shady Broker nightclub, where he's been called in for a chat.

The Russian head honcho is slouched in a smoky corner with female company, which he soon dismisses upon Niko's arrival. Character animation is top-notch. It's alomst like the rigid robots with square hands of San Andreas never happened.

So Russian's having trouble with the police, after the feds somehow discovered the shady deals they've been doing in Liberty City. Despite pleas from his subordinate, Dimitri, the boss is convinced the squealer is his right-hand-man's brother-in-law, and Niko's been hired to shut him up.

The target has been tracked down to a train platform not too far away from our meeting place. Thanks to the in-car GPS system we find the station with little problem (but we did run over a few pedestrians on the way) and there's our man sitting pretty on the platform, marked by a trademark yellow GTA halo.

A snappy cut-scene alerts the target to Niko's presence, and he legs it across the train tracks to set up one of the most intense chase sequences we've ever had in a GTA game.

We're hot on his tail but instantly blocked by a train shooting right in front of our faces. By the time it's gone the target's already racing down the staircase on the other side of the track, climbing inside a parked motor and speeding down the road.

We're straight after him with a quick tap of Y next to the nearest car. The combination of radar and a big floaty red arrow above our target had us hot on his tail in no time.

Tapping LB made Niko smash the driver-side window so we could get a chance to try out the new in-car shooting. It's miles ahead of San Andreas' drive-by right-angle shooting, letting you aim weapons using the right stick with an on-screen cursor.

This makes for far more hectic vehicle battles than in any GTA before. But because you can only really aim your cursor while continuously shooting it's a lot messier than on-foot combat, and spray tactics become top priority.

You can also drop grenades behind you vehicle, but as we discovered later this can just as easily blow up your own car as other people's...

Even though we're still getting used to the new car handling, the pursuit doesn't last long. Lamp posts still have cardboard physics but crash satisfyingly and spark violently on the ground.

We knock more than a few down as we unleash an Uzi rainstorm into the back of the target's petrol tank, sending his ride into space above an impressive display of smoke effects and flinging debris.

We even take out a fire hydrant, which sprays a gorgeous water spurt high into the air. The game autosaves, mission complete, and we're left to explore Liberty City on our own. Can you guess what's the next thing we do is?

Reach for the stars

Cop shootouts are of a much bigger scale than in previous GTAs and on higher star levels you actually feel like you're being hunted down by the law.

Thanks to some cheeky cheats on behalf of Rockstar, we're completely tooled up with guns, ammunition and a chunk of armour (which shows up as an extra half of a circular health meter) - and it's time to see how much carnage we can cause before the SWAT team inevitably runs us into a wall.

It all starts off with a hijack. We spot a police car at the traffic lights across the street and liberate it - immediately giving us one star.

The cops are quickly on the tail of our siren-screaming motor but it's easy to escape their radar with a few sharp turns. Obviously we need to rack up the wanted level, so we direct the police car down the nearest busy street for a game of pedestrian Frogger.

As we're sure will be much to displeasure of Daily Mail readers, the vehicle-meets-old lady carnage is a lot more realistic this time around. Euphoria physics has pedestrians fold and flail like rag dolls while blood splatters liberally on street.

If you smash head on in a collision Niko will even go flying through the windshield. It's visceral, violent and not for kids.

The killing has earned us a further two stars (that's three - the highest we managed in our hands-on time) and the familiar coppa choppa quickly appears above our heads - the perfect excuse to park up and play with the rocket launcher.

Explosions in GTA IV are stupidly destructive and absolutely massive - on the same scale as Crackdown's multi-car-flinging booms. Smoke trails realistically as car doors and debris are flung through the air. Even pedestrians who escape the initial blast are usually left on fire, running around like big, fiery Guy Fawkes.

There's also a slight heat-seeking function to the rocket launcher. When we fired it at a near-by cop for example, it swerved up and behind him, favouring the police car instead as a more worthy target. This made nailing the chopper even easier, which comes smoking and exploding down to the street in a twisted mass of metal and flame.

Although our star level is the same, the resulting chaos kicks off a massive game of hide and seek, with cops, minus their eye in the sky, frantically searching for us.

In GTA IV when you're out of sight from the law your stars will 'grey out', indicating that you're hidden. Unfortunately this doesn't work like the big game of peek-a-boo we expected, and even when you're hidden the cops are slowly drawn to your general location.

Eventually the law tracks us down to the dark alley we're parked in. Locking on to cover and whipping out the AK, we frantically take out as many as possible, but they've called in a second police helicopter and it's time to leg it or be shot to pieces by the new chopper's on-board mini-gun.

Eventually we make it to a small canal, where most of the on-foot bobbies seem to have lost our scent. It's just us and the helicopter now, but with no ammunition left for the RPG we pull out the next best thing; the sniper rifle.

The rifle works in pretty much the same fashion as before, but what impressed us most was the amount of detail you can pick out down its scope.

Lining up with the chopper above us - which is now spraying bullets liberally in our direction - we can make out the gunner actually sitting inside. We take him out and smile as he plummets to the ground in a single shot.

Now that its defenceless we're free to aim up and take out the pilot as well. Shooting right through the glass we perform yet another one shot kill, and the helicopter bucks violently downwards, exploding in the canal.

GTA has always been about the randomness, the wide-open battles and sheer chaos you can cause. We're delighted to see that GTA IV hasn't forgotten it routes. At the very least the fourth game will provide a bigger playground, louder explosions and probably the most epic and engaging shootouts we've ever had in a game.

Underneath the litres of polish and great combat additions, IV controls and feels just like a GTA game. But as we've said, that's no bad thing at all. Multiplayer details next, please Rockstar.

Source: CVG

Edited March 1, 2008 by mark866

[GTA Don]

Wow. I don't think this has been posted before, nice find. I can't wait for this game to come out.

[NotYouHaha]

Thanks to some cheeky cheats on behalf of Rockstar, we're completely tooled up with guns, ammunition and a chunk of armour (which shows up as an extra half of a circular health meter) - and it's time to see how much carnage we can cause before the SWAT team inevitably runs us into a wall.

Whoo HOO!

This confirms there are cheats!

Anyways, this heckload of information really excites me EVEN MORE!

GO GTA IV!

I can't wait till April 29th!