They get away with it, too: Vice City's Tommy Vercetti blows away all the bad guys in his path, survives a major betrayal, and lives to rule the city. The heroes of these games rise from unfortunate circumstances-prison, obscurity, and certain death-to become kingpins and made men, captains of criminal industry. As influential as the original trilogy of PS2 GTA games are, they are essentially full-throated restatements of existing crime movie tropes, except shorn of all the tragedy. It's probably true that some of those series-defining characteristics were likely held back from GTA IV due to technical limitations, but you also get a sense that equipping Niko with a jetpack didn't quite fit the tone that Rockstar was going for with GTA IV.įrom Goodfellas to De Palma's Scarface, the crime genre has a rich history of critiquing itself. These omissions have only become more glaring over time, especially thanks to the seemingly eternal reign of its successor, GTA V, which added many of those elements back into the formula. Even the game's most outlandish setpiece, a lengthy bank robbery sequence strongly inspired by Michael Mann's Heat, could barely compete with the flashy jets and helicopter chases of GTA: San Andreas.Įven in the months after its acclaimed release, fans knocked GTA IV for lacking many of San Andreas's most memorable elements, such as RPG systems, a more diverse map, and optional activities like turf wars. The cartoonish violence of GTA III and Vice City were replaced with gritty gun battles and believable criminal hijinx. ![]() The introduction of more impressive combat mechanics (particularly cover-based shooting) and a more realistic handling model for vehicles made for a night-and-day mechanical difference between it and its predecessors. ![]() It's no exaggeration to say that GTA IV's technological leaps overshadowed much of the game's radical identity. ![]() Though it didn't fully succeed at that aim, it's now a reminder that even blockbusters can challenge their players in a variety of ways, a lesson that today's game developers would do well to remember. Today, however, GTA IV is perhaps best-known for a more distinct sort of ambition: a sense that Rockstar was making a different take on the open-world crime game, one that questioned the very foundations of the genre. By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's
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