Into the valley of death rode the six-hundred-plus minutes I’ve spent in Liberty City since I last wrote. I would like to tell you that the rabbit hole has gone deeper but the truth is that it has merely gone on, level and consistent. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, per se. As I said before, Grand Theft Auto 4 is an engaging piece of software beyond the basic freedom the open-world gametype offers up. The story has continued to entertain and while reaching Alderney hasn’t revealed some kind of treasure trove of new experiences, the missions that progress that story have continued to impress. One in particular, a full-on bank robbery, stands out. At first, the job seems like another cut-and-paste shoot out; go to marker on your map of LC, watch a scene of dialogue, proceed to shoot everything in site. What actually happens is quite different. You, as protagonist Niko Bellic, retrieve the money from the bank’s vault before everything goes wrong. One of your partners is shot to death and you must lead your surviving associates out into the city against the full force of the LCPD while sticking to a loosely defined path through alleyways and the city’s subway system. Eventually, the escape opens up entirely, leaving you to decide how to evade patrolling helicopters and squad cars. The bank job is exemplary of how much GTA 4 has grown as game with specific goals over its predecessors and how artfully implemented linearity gives your personal experience of the game that much more impact.
While the game has stopped surprising, I have found myself gaining even more appreciation for the physical presentation of the city itself. Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation lamented the turn from the caricatured presentation of older GTAs in favor of a more realistic approach but I take issue with the criticism. GTA4’s world may behave more like our own but its look is still unreal and beautifully so. Like many other great works of art, it’s at its strongest when implying something instead of directly mimicking it; a rainy night driving along the river, the city skyline cruising by, doesn’t directly recall the New York I call home. The light is over-saturated, the blur of speed too unreal. But it captures the romance of being there.
I’ll be back with final thoughts on the game in just a few days and be sure to check out part 1 right here. Who out there’s been playing?