you dont know how much work they put in this game to make it realistic do you? have you noticed that the reflection off cars reflects every thing in real time every were you go exactly how its presented at every angle? take in mind how big the city is, that takes alot of work and is pretty impressive to me. realistic=driving, shooting, Fing mostly everything if you think about it, the story was gangsta in my opionion, their for it was awesome and exciting. just a reminder this game was not for kids hence the title and being more realistic/graphic then ever. this is actually an adult perspective of being fun. not all games are perfect, then again not all games are for kids. rock starr was going for more of an adult view of a game and i think they did a good job of pleasing the adult audience. screw critics all games have flaws. if its that bad, then return it, mine froze a bunch of times, it didnt bother me considering it was a bad a$$ game. you just cant please every 1 can you. i wonder how rock starr feels hearing this stuff after puting a lot of effort into a masterpiece. and wile playing the online, i was at the edge of my seat. so dont hate. i hope rock starr dumbs the next 1 down and shows you people what a real complainable game is. (wile making alot of money off of it)

Get over it GTA haters and go back to playing halo 3 which is now only the SECOND best selling game ever.

if u dont cover in gta 4..... u die. cover is a must and the fighting is actually really good its like actual fighting.

i've never been a GTA fan, so thank god i rented this one.

judging by the reviews i was convinced i was going to like it, but aside from the graphics NOT being a 10 like most reviewers said they were, the gameplay is repetitive, the drving isn't that great, and contolling Niko isn't that great either.....although the story is interesting and funny so far.

but i can see why people like it. I'm only 18%, so I plan to go at least 40% to make a true judgement call on whether to keep it or return it.

I prefer Vice City much, much more. The control is atrocious in GTA4 and don't get me started on the terrible music. Don't get me wrong, I'd probably give this game an 8.5 out of 10 (which is still pretty good), but it's far from perfect. The story line is great and the voice acting is better than I've heard in any game I've ever played. The good outweights the bad. My friends play online but the control scheme is unbearable. I'm not saying these things to be controversial, but it's the flat out truth. I know what I like and I'm not really liking GTA4.

It's true that maybe some critics jumped on the 10-train and assigned perfect reviews, but I mean reviews are subjective opinions. That's what happens. It happened with Galaxy a while back. I think both GTA4 and Galaxy definitely have flaws in the game but the pros far outweigh the negatives.

I mean, the core gameplay of drive / beat people up / shoot hasn't changed since GTA3, so you sorta know what to expect with this game. Criticizing all the driving missions seems sorta pointless.

First of let me say that I think its a great game, I'm only about 23% and I really like it so far. The multiplayer is good too, I can kind of see where people are coming from when they say that they just added it in cause I would have like to see a lobby feature where you can see which games have how many people cause it ends up putting me in games with 2 or 3 people alot of the times.

There are two things that bother me alot, this first ofcourse is the driving, its okay and I've gotten used to it but the brakes and turning on those cars suck big time. Second is the lack of saving mid mission.

A good is example is Manny's first mission where you have to follow this guy and take out the dealers he is meeting with. The guy takes forever to get to the warehouse and when I got there I ran in and died. Everytime I died I had to do the whole driving part all over again. That just sucks the fun right out of the game, however it does alot of the other stuff right and it's still a great game, but an 8.8 or 9.0 not a 10.

When any thing receives as much praise as GTA IV, of course there will be those oh too willing to say "it's overrated"...Yawn...This guy says GTA has problems but with the exception of the glitches, every single one of them was his worthless opinion...

The story line flows just fine, but it seems that everyone has forgotten that every GTA has had filler missions...I couldn't wait to see what happens next, and no cut scene (save for the opening sequenc) last more than 5 minutes and that's a stretch...

I had a blast with all the side activities except darts...I find the driving to be pretty intuitive...Or maybe he just sucks at this game and I don't...

The online is actually a lot of fun if you know what you're doing and, again, don't suck...

Do I think the game is a 10? Nope...9, yes but that's because of the lack of mid-mission check-points...If you restart a mission then you should start with what you had when you started the last time...What's the point of a limited window of opportunity to redo the mission if you have to run all over town getting re-outfitted...And that's my biggest, 1 point deducting complaint...(I don't do .5's)...

Yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when you're trying to say that you have "the balls" to call a game out, at least have it be objective...

No one wanted to be the first site to end the "10 streak".

They're the same mostly, especially with pop-up. 360 version does load faster from startup though.

You can't trust video game reviews. All those Halo 3 reviews proved that to me beyond the shadow of a doubt. If any game out there is really getting a lot of hype before it comes out, then just mentally deduct 1.5 or 2 points off it's score to compensate for the score inflation. GTA 4 is a really good game, but the camera, the combat and the draw distance are terrible.

San Andreas >

you can easily take a cab to your missions and objectives. hence you dont even have to drive unless the mission requires it. second the story. if anything the story is much better in GTA4. there is alot of character development although i agree u meet alot of characters that are irrelevant to the overall main story, i cant name a single gta where all the characters where relevant. as for the cell phone well its a nice little extra, something unexpected. your really nitpicking hard. i have yet to play a game without some sort of glitch. mini games are just that, minigames. like em or not they are not a gamebreaking flaw. does gta 4 deserve perfect scores? no. is it the best game i played this gen? yes it is.

smh it sickens me reading all this hate about GTAIV. This game is sublime, please please pleaseeeeeeeeeeee tell me wtf is so good about Vice where ur able to put it over San let alone IV?!?! U kno what im glad ppl like ya exist in the world. I really pray R* never realease another GTA game ever again. Yea im kinda upset cuz never once inmy life have i seen a developer go so hard into developing a title for gamers and see so much unappreciation. If u can honestly play this game and see why it didnt deserve a 10 then thats all the reason that no one here a an actual reviewer. One user up there said the driving was bad because u cant drive around superfast like used to be able to. WHAT?!?!?! this is GTA...IV!! for next generation. Just becuz u SUCKED at the driving (which i masterrrrrrrrrred), dont get upset there isnt an easy button to make it betta for u. This game was based upon realistic simulation. Why dont u try gettin into a REAL car and gunniny it down the road at 95mph and see what happens. Yes, GTAIV is sublime in every-single-way. Hype or not this is the best game i have ever played in my lifeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, i can safely say that if i had a choice to keep one game and play it forever i wouldnt giv this title a second guess. a 10 does not mean perfect...no its a reflection of a foundation in a eveolution. This is the 1st, sandbox open world true next generation game. It conquered its genre as no other game seem to have done so far. It has elements of allllllll genre's in its own game and can be broken down and compared to other games in other genres. This is the epitome of a virtual simullation (video game) today. I want ppl to continue to decipher and break down the reasons why GTAIV "fails" and is "overhyped" becuz ppl like ya exist everywhere no matter how amazing a game is.But Ill desist, forgive my spelling and my outburts but we all have a breaking point. Im not gonna sit here and go through the things that are wrong wit IV, as ive seen ya took care of that lil task yaselves. Just becuz YOUR copy freezes doesnt mean EVERYONE else's does. so how bout you rate UR GTAIV, not the worlds cuz mine is perfectly fine and if it did freeze continously ill happily purchase another or do w/e it took to subjugate the problem. "i hate the way he walks...." WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!? im sure the person who wrote that found that SNL skit hilarious right? yea dont answer. Disagree all u want, in fact ill be surprised if my disagrees dont exceed 25. Then ill kno i aint waste my time. (Unpauses GTAIV)

I think the cars drive just find. I get a rush when getting chased by the police. Even when I crash and have to go at it on foot. And as far as getting sick of driving. One word...TAXI.

then it's not being totally honest. Instead they are giving you an awesomeness review not a gauge of the game against industry standards. How can one good feature make up for a short coming? Kane and Lynch looked good but that sure as hell didn't make up for the gameplay.

GTA IV should have gotten low marks in graphics, even I gave it to good a review in graphics in retrospective. I wasn't aware it wasn't 720p at the time....but let me give you an example

GT5 and MGS for the PS3 push the console to the max 1080p at 60fps...theres is a clear cut bar set there, and it's set as high as possible for the console.

So the fact GTA IV wasn't 1080p shaves a point off of graphics. The fact it wasn't 720p should shave another off since that is bare minimum for HD. Then you have the grid of dots that pops up in place of shadows and the rain slicked pavement effect that pops up on grass every once in a while.

Now mind you the whole excuse we were given why games shipped with bugs on the PC was because of no standard hardware configuration. So what's the excuse now?

im seeing a lot of people in denial about how average this game really is.

don't get swept along by hype, make you own decision.

You do not have to like a game just because its hyped.

7/10 for me, its just not as good as it should have been.

I think the game is too easy, personally. It's been a while since I've played the old GTA's but I remember them being more difficult. You can plow cops in this game and not even attract attention. I have yet to get busted by the cops and I'm 60% thru the game. I've also yet to die on any mission that I went in with full health and armor. Sometimes I go in with half health and no armor just for a challenge.

I don't understand why they made it so easy.

Other than that, and some horrible camera angles at times, the game is great.

He didn't even begin to scratch the surface of what's wrong with this game.

I think that giving this game 10/10 is way overboard, but I think that 9/10 seems more reasonable.

this could be the biggest conspiracy of all time.
alot of companies were great in the former generations(xbox and ps2) , but not necessarily mean that they are great in the next generation.

rockstar have failed on next gen consoles so far (table tennis and now gtaIV).

it looks like saints row 2 will be the real next gen GTA.

GTA4 is a lot of fun but the graphics are kind of weak in my opinion, I have seen better, but it makes up for those with great online, its fun... was it a 10 no for me it's 9

Please, by all means, point me in the direction of an open world game that thats THIS much going on that has better graphics? None of the GTAs have been representative of a systems capabilities in terms of photo realism...But when you have this much going on at all times, these graphics are actually quite amazing. But when GTA starts becoming about graphics over gameplay, then that's when I stop playing.

Giving complaints about GTA4 is useless. It's flawed LIKE ANY OTHER GAME but just creating an article about what's wrong with it, I'd like to see fair treatment and other articles pointing out what's wrong with other games like the MGS series, for instance.

There are some few things they should have added and improve. But thats it, since it was limited to a DVD9.

I think GTAIV is a good game...but the guy is right about the camera angle when driving...but again the game is good but it does have its little problems, good enough for a 10? I don't think so, I think after Halo3, 10s are being given out way too easily...

...and don't want to drive around town I just catch a cab. I find myself catching a lot of cabs or calling Roman's cab service to pick me up and drop me off. Driving across burrows can get tedious but as many posters have already stated, this is "Grand Theft 'Auto' 4".

I have 2 vehicles stationed at each of my safehouses, mainly to take out girlfriends and the occasional race with Brucie but I find myself driving less and less for missions and more so for recreation. There are certain cars I will jack and others I steer clear of...pun intended.

I agree with some of the comments of this OP, in particular his comments about the cell phone. The side activities are just that side activities and you don't have to participate in any of it but they are there. However I get the STRONG sense that other activities will be added later. Every time I go by the roller coaster, or place that looks like it could be mini golf I stop and wonder.

Low def Blurry Graphics Not for next gen TV's!!
Once again Low def blurry Graphics not great on HDTV sets!!

The game is boring.. I still havent played past taking michelle on a date.. I was bored to tears.. Once I was done dropping the Girl off.. I felt as if I already played the game before.. Oh wait I have.. all the other GTAs that play exactly the same way with no new features ever..

The only way I made this game fun was.. Online, Friends only, and Scooter racing.. That is hilarious

Game sucks

I'll be honest:

I hate the HORRIBLE FRAME RATE DROPS (when lots of stuff is happening)...it drops to below 10 fps.

But besides that, the game is fantastic for me.

The endlessly unique multiplayer insanity moments are priceless.

The Euphoria engine was a great thing to add to this game.

www.naturalmotion.com

"I had extremely high expectations for this game, especially after San Andreas." Um, and I had a deadline and was out of ideas, so I figured I'd say I have balls and put my opinion out there.

Anyway, I wouldn't give this game a 10 either, but it deserves at least a 9 and all the praise it's getting. I've got balls too, and I only expected this game to entertain me for at least $60.

What is this guy talking about? This isn't being honest this is nit-picking. The problem is that this game has been so overhyped that when it finally did come out that it was so built up in everyone's that of course the game was going to be a disappointment. There was no way it could possibly live up expectations when everyone had such varied and lofty ones to begin with.

too much driving? i guess it's too hard to hail a taxi and go from point A to point B?

i only drive in GTAIV for two reasons:

1. when i can't take a taxi (ie, when a mission requires you to drive a certain vehicle from point A to point B)

and

2. when i just want to go for a cruise around the city and listen to the radio.

any other time i need to get somewhere in the game, i take a taxi.

simple as that.

there are certainly fair criticisms of the game to be had, but the driving aspect...in a Grand Theft AUTO game? try again, man.

Considering what you have found wrong with the game... I would give it... hem... let's say a 9.8/10. Loosing 0.2 pts for the minor problems you have just listed...
Thank you for being honest.