Well not long now until the release of Grand Theft Auto 4, so in an effort to get everyone upto speed on what to expect from GTA 4 here's complete round-up of the videos and details for this highly anticipated title!
The Plot
Niko Bellic - a veteran crook, sex slave trafficker, and murderer, comes to America with one belief: that he will be able to experience the American dream and start over. His cousin Roman tells him, through exchanged emails, that he has a mansion, tons of women, and more cars than he really needs. Niko naively believes him, hoping for some escape from the current life he leads, and leaves Russia for the capital of the world: New York City...erm..Liberty City.
He finds that his cousin Roman was actually lying to him. Roman has no status or wealth, he only owns a poor Taxi business in the middle of Broker. He owes some people (right now they are rumored to be Russian gangsters) money, and it appears Roman is in a fix. Obviously it's up to Niko to set things straight, but unfortunately, he will have to disregard his wish for a new life and revert to his old ways. R* says that the game, unlike past GTA's since Vice City, is not a rags to riches story, it is a rags to slightly better rags story akin to GTAIII.
Gameplay Features and Details
Rockstar haven't been as generous in releasing information and details for GTA4, in the past they've given us much more information, but here's what we've learnt so far.
The location will be Liberty City, a completely retooled and more realistic version of Liberty than what we've seen in the past (GTA1, GTA3, LCS, GTA advance).
There will be five buroughs: Dukes (Queens), Bohan (the Bronx), Algonquin (Manhattan), Broker (Brooklyn), and Alderney (New Jersey). It has been confirmed you start the game out in Broker. No, Staten Island will not be present because R* feels the area is boring.
The game will be much harder than past entries. The days where you walk up to any car and jack it are over, as are the days where you simply have to run to a pay and spray to get the heat off of you.
While the game is not as big as San Andreas, it has more detail and R* is going for less wasted space.
The police system has been entirely retooled. You will not instantly become wanted whenever you commit a crime now, even in public. If there are no cops around, and someone sees you, they will have to notify the police. It sounds extremely similar to The Warriors, it sounds like. When and if you commit a crime in public and the police are notified, a circular search area will appear on your radar. The fuzz will go on high alert. If you are outside of this area the cops will not be able to find you unless you commit another crime. If you are spotted in the circular area, the police will follow you to that location. Thus, if you are sneaky, they will not know where you are.
You can trick police to get rid of wanted level. Since there's no Pay and Spray you must use other ways to get rid of wanted level: changing your clothes (especially if they are bloody); switching cars to confuse the police; running into someone's house, out the back, and on to their fire escape, among other things.
Many interiors are fully decorated and have been given a much bigger emphasis and importance.
While the game does not have planes, it does have helicopters.
Some cars are locked, so you will need to strategize escape routes more thoroughly this time. In order to unlock locked vehicles, breaking the window is necessary, as is hot wiring the car. Obviously, under a chase this will make things more hectic.
Targeting system has been retooled. It has a Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War like targeting system, which is perfect for GTA, to be honest.
Niko has a cell phone, which is essentially the start screen. With the cell phone, you can call any number that's in the game, including mission leads, and various characters so you can learn more about them.
Car trunks are now usable. Supposedly you can put bodies and weapons into car trunks.
Missions are far more dynamic now and have a different structure. Many missions start at specific times now, similarly to Shenmue. If a train leaves at 10:00 am and you arrive at 10:01 am, you fail the mission. Missions also happen on specific days. If it's Monday, sometimes you will have a mission that starts on Wednesday. You can obviously do other missions in between or come up with a plan. Rockstar wants to blur the difference between story missions and non story based missions. I do not know what this means.
Missions have been completely retooled. Now, you do not have a giant arrow over someone's head if they are your target. Let's say you have to kill a target, but he's surrounded by a group of people. You do not know who is who. You can handle this in multiple ways. You can find out his phone number, call him up, see if he responds, and kill him; or you can simply go up to the entire group and kill all of them. The choice is up to you. Of course, if you do the latter choice, your boss may be pissed off...
Depending on how well and what you do during missions, you can form relationships with your bosses and clients. If you do good, kill your targets discreetly, you will have a good relationship. If you do things in plain sight, without using your brains, your boss will most likely hate you and break all contact. It sounds like a great evolution on GTA2's fun, but not exactly deep, respect system.
Maintaining character relationships can result in specific rewards. Little Jacob is the guy who sells you weapons. Your relationship is maintained through phone contact and loyalty. If you boost up his relationship, perhaps he gives you better weapons?
Trip skip feature from Vice City and Vice City Stories is back, thankfully. Now you can even use cabs to drive you pretty much anywhere you want apparently.
You do not get weapons Ammunation any more. Ammunation will most likely not be in the new game.
As the third trailer hinted, before you gain any sort of weapon, you're going to be using your fists. More emphasis on hand to hand combat will be in GTAIV.
Beware night time in certain Burroughs, as you may get jumped by random gangsters and the freaks of Liberty. You can get robbed.
There is now a GPS. Saints Row ftw.
People will react to your weapons. So if you have an rpg out, they will obviously go batshit, which will cause attention to you.
You can push people off of buildings.
As the third trailer showed, there is now an emphasis on cover. Kill.Switch and Gears influence obviously.
Girlfriends are returning. No word on whether R* will make them funner than last time they appeared.
The internet is a feature in the game. How this will affect gameplay is unknown but Rockstar promises it will be crucial to the gameplay.
The game will NOT, THANK GOD, place emphasis on territory or gaining territory.
The days where you carry millions of cash on you are over. You can now use atms or go to the bank to deposit or withdraw funds. Sounds pretty similar to Dragon Quest. Maybe when you die or get busted, you lose half of your funds or something. Can't imagine what will happen when you get robbed.
It seems getting busted may have bigger consequences than simply losing your money and a lil cash this time. Many people think this means you may end up going to jail every time you get busted, but that's just mindless speculation at this point. Honestly, that wouldn't be very fun.
You can now shoot different body parts and your victim will react realistically depending where he has been hit.
Rockstar will use the Euphoria Engine, known from "Star Wars: The Force unleashed". Result: Every Explosion looks different.
Enemies that have been hit may still try to get up again and attack you.
Pedestrians have a memory. They remember your face when they saw you doing a criminal act and run away in terror whenever they see you again.
The multiplayer will be activated via the cell phone. Nothing is known about the multiplayer modes except that there will be up to 16 players possible.
Francis International Airport is back but resembles JFK Airport
Niko's cell phone has a Built-In Radio
2 Minutes real time is now equal to 1 Hour In-Game time. Thus, longer, more fleshed out days.
Seasons are NOT in the game
Every cop car has a working computer, which allows you to search for any criminal in the city, find his where abouts, and any thing remotely related to him or her. Should be handy if you need information on a target.
You can call the police via 911 AT ANY TIME. Maybe you can use this feature to your advantage somehow...
When I first jumped into the game, I shot one of the cab drivers through the windshield and thought it was cool that he just slumped over in his car. But what I didn’t realize was that all of his dead weight would press down on the gas pedal, which caused the cab to barrel down on me and slam me into a wall.
Dramatic vehicle jumps from previous games return.
There are no returning characters from previous GTAs.
A GPS system will tell you the optimal route for arriving at a mission checkpoint.
You can plant waypoints anywhere in the city.
The wanted rating can go up to six stars.
Customization is restricted to clothing changes--no afros or anything like that.
The fighting style Niko uses is krav maga.
You can take a taxi or ride the subway to get to various points on the map. You can sit back and enjoy the ride or immediately jump from one point to the next.
There is no car customization, nor can you store things in cars.
The controls seem to work pretty well, and the driving controls have mostly been entirely retooled.
Driving phsyics have been retooled. Now when turning around corners, you will have to use your regular break and then your hand break, other wise your car may turn over.
Car damage is more realistic now. Various parts of the car can be damaged, making it hard to drive in certain situations. For instance, if your tires get bent from an accident, it is much harder to drive after the fact.
The game's story is longer than San Andreas and should take around 100 hours if you take your time and do every thing.
The latest video is also posted here on the forums (link)
Linear Mode
