Edge of Toon

Warning poor grammar and spelling may await you in the following paragraph.

I have just finished playing my first few hours of GTA 4 and I am going to
give a biased review based entirely on a few hours of gameplay, about 10
missions and a whole lot of dicking around. To begin I am actually going to
give two separate reviews on the game, why you may ask? ...."Why?"
thank you for asking, whenever I play a game like GTA I always have two
different save files, 1 for the real game and one for just fooling around, and
after spending a few hours doing a bit of each I feel as if I Should review
them separately. My first review is based on my experiences with the missions,
characters and overall feel of the game. I must admit at first I wasn't
impressed by the game the graphics seemed ok and the city was not what I
expected it to be. Then as I continued exploring the city I watched a sunset,
looked out over the litter filled river, and began engaging the characters I
started to get attached. By this time it was too late the game had got me and
the developers who choose to focus on the nuances of the city rather then the
graphics I applaud and encourage your decision.

My score for these portions of the game 4.8/5 mainly for showcasing portions
of reality while using an amazing branching, yet linear storyline to do so. The
only thing I would recommend would be to allow more freedom in how you choose
to execute a mission. I think that with all the tools at your disposal it would
be interesting to say use the dating site to convince a hit that you are women
and to meet you alone in a park or other local. But for all I know that still
may be a possibility.

While on the topic I am just going to list a few other good decisions I
think Rockstar made:

- allowing you to choose whether or not to kill someone (more difficult for
Jack and Hillary to use it as an example)

- complicated storyline for the main
character and the supporting cast (something that even books and movies have a
hard time doing let alone effectively.

- promoting people to wear seat belts and helmets (regarding the seatbelts
just check out some online videos to see why)

- allowing the beauty of the city to come alive while not hiding its shame

- injecting subtle yet intelligent commentaries regarding their view the president,
politics and especially war

- allowing the people to have choice (something often not allowed by the
government)

Now on to the mistress file, I use this file just to have
fun, fool around and explore the city. The main reason I keep this file separate
is because I use cheats it allows me to spawn weapons, helicopters and anything
else I may need. I don’t know how many times me and my friends have sat
around using the helicopter to fly to the top of building just to drive a car
or motorcycle off the building while we throw grenades out the window.
These cheats allowed me to see the city before I was really allowed to take the
tour. I also consider this part of the game to be the non-storyline extras like
flying through windshields, the inability to surf on cars, physics and all
those things that I really can't explain that make this game great.

For this Part I was tempted to dock half a point just for the inability to
car surf, and the horrible six axis control but I understand its not their
fault, and if I was allowed to car surf it would break the realism they are
trying to create. So for this 5/5. I just hope someone finds a cheat to spawn a
firetruck because I totally want to drive one off a building.

Total score 9.8/10 (It is only their to inspire Rockstar to improve the game)

PLEASE comment on this article/review/opinion.