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| From: Rockstar Games
Category: Video Games
List Price: $59.99
Buy New: $52.99
You Save: $7.00 (12%)
New (65) Used (18) from $48.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  120 reviews
Sales Rank: 4
Platform: Xbox 360
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.5
MPN: 39012
UPC: 710425390128
EAN: 0710425390128
ASIN: B000FRU1UM
Release Date: April 29, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 fun game-not for kids! May 15, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I got this for my husband's birthday and he can't stop playing it. He loves it. It's filthy as far as content, but that's why it's rated R. It's certainly not for kids, but the kid in my husband is amused by it.
Worth the wait! May 15, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a great game that hasn't lived up to some folk's expectations, and how could it after so much hype. I was down on the game myself when I first got it due to it's very slow start. In the beginning, when only one island is accessible, the game is very light on action, in fact, I felt like I was playing the Sims and not a GTA game. When you start out, the main objective is to become friends with other characters. You'll pick up your cousin, a date or a friend and try to do activities with them that they'll enjoy, which will boost your friendship with the character - this becomes important later in the game. However, once the second island is unlocked, the action and storyline really get interesting, and by the time you've unlocked the entire map, the action and storyline becomes so intense that I couldn't put the controller down!
One of the things I loved about the game is it's amazing size and scope. Liberty City is highly detailed and there's tons of character audio in the game. I have no idea how Rockstar managed to cram so many texture maps and audio files onto a single DVD9. Plus, not to mention the cut scenes, radio station audio and tv video clips. It's a stunning achievement.
The missions are some of the best I've ever played in any GTA game. One mission is a bank robbery that was clearly inspired by the bank robbery scene in the movie Heat (Two-Disc Special Edition)! If you've seen that movie, then you know how intense this mission must be. Also, there is a mission inspired by the classic chase scene from the movie The French Connection (Two-Disc Collector's Edition). Overall, the missions are fun (once the game gets going) and there's so much to do and get involved in that unless you're playing this 10 hours a day, you've got a game that will take months to complete 100%. Plus, the alternate endings will keep you playing more than once to see the different endings.
My favorite thing about the game is the biting satire. RockStar has always had lots of satire and social commentary in the GTA series, but they've really went all out for this release. If you think it's just a casual choice to have the Hummers in the game have the American flag painted on their sides... then think again! They name their news channel Fox News... oops, I mean "Weasel News". They rip on our love of fast food with places like "Burger Shot" that have employees who are vocal about how they would never eat the food there. They have a channel that airs degrading and materialistic shows, and the network is called "CNT"... hmmm, place a "U" in that abbreviation and you'll get the joke. Plus, just listen to the radio to hear America get ripped on for the choices we've made in the last 8 years of Bush... and we deserve every bit of it. It's smart, biting and funny as hell because it's all true!
My only complaint is that the music selection, which has always been one of the coolest things about GTA games, is the worst ever. There's nothing special about the music this time. If you're a huge hip-hop fan, then maybe you'll find something to like, but the rock selection is pretty poor. Otherwise, it's an amazing game that is so rich and deep, that you'll have plenty of reasons to visit Liberty City again, and again, and again...
Great! But not Perfect May 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Let me be clear and start of by saying GTA is a really good game. BUT I do think it is overrated. It's not perfect. A lot of game sites gave it a 10/10. I would give it somewhere around an 8.5. I'm just going to point out some of the flaws in this review because I think you can find GTA4's strengths in any other review, so this review will necessarily sound negative/ranting, but I did like the game.
I really don't like Niko. I think Rockstar did a horrible job of developing his character. The most immediate pet peeve is his accent - the voice acting was terrible. It sounds like someone mocking an eastern European accent. But more fundamentally, the character is ultimately unconvincing because throughout the game he teeters back and forth between angst-driven man with a mission to nice, polite gentleman. It's painful to watch conversations with other characters in the game where Niko dishes out relationship advice like one of those Dear Abby columnists.
Which brings me to a related peeve: the dialogue. It's pretty bad. Interactions between characters feel very unnatural. It's pretty solid at first (I'm not an expert on Jamaican dialect, but Little Jacob sounded convincing to me), but the second half of the game feels very rushed - particularly the dialogue between Niko and his primary female friend toward the end of the game.
Of course poor characters + poor dialogue will almost inevitably lead to poor plot. I guess storyline isn't the main draw for the GTA series, but I wish Rockstar put more effort into it, since it's otherwise a solid game. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but you find out what Niko's primary motivation is a few missions into the game. Other than a few minor hiccups here and there, there aren't any real surprises as the game more or less makes a predictable, straight bee-line toward resolution. Most disappointing is that the game fails to really flesh out Niko's past, and subsequently the villain characters in the game are under-developed - the game never satisfyingly explains their motivations.
Another issue with the plot is the ending, which I can only very vaguely describe for the sake of keeping this review spoiler-free. It felt like Rockstar was trying to execute a sort of moral denouement in the final scenes of the game, exposing Niko's hamartia (flaw). Unfortunately, the ending was poorly executed because the game has a hard time deciding whether it wants to moralize, or just kill people. Ultimately, the ending simultaneously involves killing people, as well as a sort of "winners don't do drugs!" type message, which of course feels rather out of place for a GTA game. Perhaps the devs wanted something to fend off Jack Thompson with.
Finally, some issues with the gameplay. The world does indeed feel much more immersive than prior iterations of the series, yet it still gets painstakingly repetitive in the second half of the game. I really found doing the same hunt-and-kill missions over and over again to get tiresome. Again, it feels like the devs got lazy as the first half had some innovative missions, while the second half devolves into repetitive drive to location, win gunfight against two dozen men, shake cops structure. The second half missions absolutely fail to satisfactorily integrate the new elements of the game - for example, I had totally abandoned the "friendship" system as it became more of a nuisance to maintain high friendship levels, with little reward.
In conclusion, I'd like to again stress that GTA4 is a really good game, and I just thought I'd point out the flaws because I think I expected a really spectacular game given the unprecedented positive reception it was given by most critics. I think we're going to see GTA4 go the same route as GTA3 - where the first game sets up sandbox, so to speak, laying out the core game engine, with subsequent games building on top of that solid foundation and introduce some really nice gameplay elements. It feels like the devs didn't have quite enough time to polish GTA4 in terms of plot and gameplay, but that shouldn't be a problem for the sequels that are sure to be coming out in the next few years as there is a really excellent foundation to work with.
 Its actually boring May 15, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This game gets repetitive and boring very fast.
I loved the previous games in the series, but
I can't even be bothered to finish this one.
Dont believe all the hype.
Great Game all around May 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I must admit at first I was hesitant to purchase this game seeing how the recent games kind of took a turn for the worst. However this game has truly re-established this franchise. The missions are very challenging but far from impossible. The characters you meet in this game are as different from each other as night and day with only one thing in common. Being criminals but other then that they truly have their own "personalities" which I think really helps with the overall aspect of being able to get into the game all that much more. GTA IV is much more mission oriented than the previous titles. IV has fewer things to goof off and do. There are no more random weapons just lying around in alleys to collect and from what i have seen there are pigeons to collect and fewer of those ever so fun massive ramps to see how far you can make your beater fly. All in all i believe that all the fun and challenging aspects of GTA have been brought together to form probably the best game in the franchise thus far.
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