Game of the Year

I don’t like Grand Theft Auto games. They bore me. The missions are repetitive, the combat is annoying, and the freedom of an open world eventually loses its luster. From GTA 3 (had a mission I couldn’t beat and just got bored) to Vice City (hate the 80’s) to San Andreas (too god damn long), I really thought I would never find a GTA game that I would want to finish. And, you know, I almost still didn’t.

GTA 4 was 2008’s game of the year. It shattered records for entertainment products, sent every game reviewer into an orgasmic fit, and was enjoyed on both of the “real” next-gen consoles. It also created the most convincing open world yet seen in a game, improved tremendously on the combat, and gave us a story that, while still a bit clichéd, was one of the best the medium has to offer. The graphics, while perhaps not superficially the best of the generation, are particularly amazing, because Liberty City looks so real and is so huge. I don’t know how they pulled it off, but damn. So, how could you not love this game? Well, it depends on your perspective. If you like the whole GTA thing, I couldn’t imagine a better manifestation. If you don’t, well, you had to look a little deeper. And deeper I looked. Oh, God, I looked. I wanted to love it like everyone else. I wanted to be cool. Turns out I’m not cool or with it, but that doesn’t mean I hated GTA 4. In fact, I liked it a lot.

The game starts incredibly well. As Niko Bellic (possibly the greatest, most well defined main character in any video game) you are a man in search of the American dream. Which, as it turns out, involves text messages. A lot of text messages. But also killing, stealing, drug dealing, and arson. The structure of GTA 4’s missions is no different from the other games: steal car, kill guy, come back. Or, when they want to really mix shit up: kill guy, steal car, come back. For a while, though, the great storyline masked the obvious deficiencies in the actual missions, and despite the repetition, most were pretty cool. The problem, as always, comes in the form of the main game being too damn long. Not that I necessarily need realism in a video game, but when my final body count was somewhere around 1,919,239,563, even the thin veneer of reality is completely broken. I’m fairly certain that Niko Bellic is the greatest mass murderer of all time. Also, I doubt the mafia and other seedy organizations have the kind of manpower to survive Niko’s swath of destruction. But, Ok. Let’s pretend that the missions are sort of outside of the real world, and the story can exist on its own. In that case, I love it. I’d even call it Godfather-esque, though it might be closer to the best of The Soprano’s in terms of its tragic nature.

When you do have to reconcile the fact that Niko actually is killing thousands of people, stealing hundreds of cars, blowing up buildings, and is able to walk around without cops knowing who the fuck he is, I find his sympathetic nature a bit difficult to swallow. It really is almost as if the story exists outside of your actions within the game. “Oh, I’m so conflicted. I want to have a normal life. Hold on, let me swerve and kill these pedestrians. Sweet! Oh, woe is me.” I think you see what I’m saying.

Despite these obvious (to me) issues, I still really enjoyed GTA 4. There were some very cool missions, awesome sandbox gameplay (I particularly enjoy jumping out of helicopters and trying to hit civilians) and genuinely emotional story points. Of course, there is also the often difficult game play, which is not by design but rather by developer execution. It’s possible I just suck at it, but still. Overall, though, the game play problems aren’t nearly as prevalent in this iteration and the story is much more satisfying.

So, what is all this leading up to? Really, I don’t know. GTA 4 is one of those games I just don’t know if I really like, or if I just like the idea of it. There was plenty of frustration and boredom, but I kept going back to it. And if that ain’t a game of the year, I don’t know what is.