| Grand Theft Auto IV | 
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| List Price: $59.99
Buy New: $33.41
You Save: $26.58 (44%)
Buy New/Used from $33.41
Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 737 reviews)
Sales Rank: 23
Category: Video Games
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Studio: Rockstar Games
Brand: Rockstar Games
Label: Rockstar Games
Format: Playstation
Platform: Playstation 3
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Edition: Standard
Autographed: 0
Memorabilia: 0
Batteries Included: 0
Age: 17 - 20 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 37011
UPC: 710425370113
EAN: 0710425370113
ASIN: B000HKP88C
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Carry on the Grand Theft Auto tradition playing through the single player campaign as Niko Bellic | | • | Get cars and other modes of transportation anyway you can | | • | Interact with various colorful characters who give you various missions to engage in | | • | Engage in multiplayer challenges ranging from cover matches to shoot-outs | | • | Game Rated 'M' due to Intense Violence, Blood, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Partial Nudity, Use of Drugs and Alcohol |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 732 more reviews...
 Unbelievable detail August 5, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
You can drive for hours and not see the same street twice; and never under the same lighting/weather conditions...in a Ferrari... just amazing. Some missions can be frustrating when the bad guys get away, but overall a great game. There are very few 1 player games that I have ever put so many hours into.
a videogaming achievement August 5, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
i'm a mature gamer who bought a dozen or so videogames with a new xbox just to see how the technology had evolved. (the digital animations in many recent films had piqued my interest.) some few important flaws aside, grand theft auto is in my view exactly where the medium is headed, and is head and shoulders the best game available today ... and i say that as a great admirer of half life 2, portal, assassin's creed, bioshock and crackdown. the point here is total, seamless, deep immersion in a world. not just an environment, not just a point of view or mission or skill set, but all the redolent layers of culture: people, infrastructure, authority, television, radio, internet, dating, sex, weapons, power, money, recreational activities, jobs, vengeance, justice -- and not just culture but a world where hydrants erupt when you drive over them, jetliners blink their slow trace across the night sky, the city breathes with distant sounds of traffic, disorder, and heavy objects, the light changes almost second to second with the time of day or the weather or the illumination of interior spaces, and your vision blurs and your driving becomes erratic if you have too much to drink. against this rich background of sardonic humor and social commentary in the guise of "urban landscape", the splendid graphical rendering and gritty art design, the two big flaws are the waxy and unconvincing computer animation in cutscenes, and the still less than lifelike animation of the wireframe action figures (those strip club dancers are not very enticing). but the depth of detail here is remarkable -- the way different weapons handle, the way different cars drive (carjack an ambulance or stretch limo, for example), the completely unique content on different car radio stations, the internet parodies, the cellphone text messages, and the sheer variety of characters in the mix -- all of it designed with unbelievable detail and dramatic interest. despite the segmentation of the game into separate missions, the narrative has a compelling overall architecture. as one example, i had early on tried to cross to the largest of the four islands of the city (blocked by a plot motivated police action), and had been shot or arrested every time. so as i worked the missions, one of the fortunate recipients of my gangster skills asked me to drive him home: and home was on the inaccessible island. crossing over the bridge, the light of late afternoon streaming into the car, the music on the radio playing a vatic beat, it was an emotionally rousing moment. i say "me" but of course it's really niko bellic, an eastern european thug on a quest that only gradually becomes clear as the plot unfolds; and it's a third flaw of the game that this quest, as important as it is to niko, does not seem very important in his unstructured and varied choices of dating, driving and drilling bad guys with high calibre. but that's because the richness of the storytelling has made all the conventional story lines of videogames obsolete. the essential point is that this videogame has i think crossed the milestone of creating a digital, full length feature film, with much more depth and detail than any feature film has ever had to come up with, and a film that is potentially open ended, multilayered and even life changing. (i've learned that the addictive effect of videogaming is considerable, which means there is power there to affect "plotted" change of all kinds in videogamers.) videogames can now be anything: the story of an individual's search for the meaning of life, non stop sex with a harem, fighting the revolution and constitutional wrangles of a new republic, solving a deep scientific mystery, getting married and starting a family, building a career in a corporation ... anything and everything, but computed in real time and with an open ended architecture. videogames can do these things with the compelling visual realism and depth of any major studio film with digital special effects, and with the possibility of a collaboratively constructed reality through network game play. the painting of light and visual objects is i think a trivial problem: the obstacles now are in managing the narrative complexity and event interactions, in building new narrative conventions or genres, and in the animation of life forms, in particular a speaking mouth and an exerting figure (for example, a figure that actually runs *on the ground*). the fourth and last flaw of this game is the gangster mentality of all the characters, which is not really a flaw so much as a genre convention (as in for example film noir or chandler novels). this gangster ethos actually reduces the impact of the violence, which i think motivates too much of the game. but grand theft auto prototypes a new cultural modality, the digital fantasy domain, which as fantasy can come very close to reality and as game can stimulate any perplexity of emotion. it's an achievement.
My favorite among the GTA series August 3, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Pretty deep, especially for a videogame.
I don't want to tell any spoilers, so here's the gist. You play as Niko Bellic, a veteran soldier from the genocidal war in Kosovo. While fighting in the war, Niko, his cousin, and their platoon mates are betrayed by one of their members, leaving only four soldiers alive. Niko's cousin Roman goes to the US to seek a better life following the war, but ends up becoming a cokehead with a lot of gambling debts. He entices Niko to come to the US with tales of the American Dream, but when Niko arrives, he discovers the truth about his cousin's activities.
Niko has only two reasons to come to the states... to start over, and to find the remaining two soldiers from his platoon: Darko and Florian. There are no riches or comfortable accommodations for Niko, only the hunt for the betrayer.
Niko rampages through the streets earning money for himself and his brother. All the while, he meets a few characters along the way and tries to cope with his past.
In GTA3, you were a nobody. In GTA Vice, you were a tool. In GTA San Andreas, you are caught up in the worst storyline ever. In GTA LCS, you were Tony C. In GTA IV, you are a real, original character.
Not only is your character genuine, he is also one hard-boiled mofo. His soldier background is present in the gunplay of the game. Niko can duck behind walls, blindfire, take cover, dive across gaps for cover, the whole shabang. Aiming is much improved from past GTA games. You can screw people up pretty badly if you want. Grenade tossing is spot on. The AI isn't too dumb either.
Perhaps the most notable upgrade is with driving. You have a little GPS locater in your car and you can set your own waypoints. You can also take taxis to all marked locations and waypoints, very nice. The radio stations are brilliant as always. Car selection is sweet. Just be careful while driving...lots of terrible crap can happen to you. Sudden stops will send you sailing out of the windshield, and if your car begins billowing even a little bit of smoke, it will blow up eventually with wear. Lucky for us players, cars in GTA4 take a pretty long time to blow up once they catch fire. Just dive out of the car if it does.
Finally, the graphics. The game is beautiful. The Liberty City skyline has never looked so alive. Take some time out to look around from a high perch or while driving across a bridge. You will be pleased with what you see. I was actually able to use this to demonstrate the next generation of urban environmental modeling. Yeah it looks great.
I would have liked to see the same variety of available vehicles that was present in GTA San Andreas. This was the one downgrade that bothered me about the game. But the improvements in gameplay more than repaid for that change.
 Don't Believe the Hype August 3, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I read many positive reviews of this game and was convinced to purchase it. I played it for several hours and lost interest. It has got to be about the worst story ever written for a video game. The characters are all shallow and not at all interesting. The gameplay is slow and repetitive, to the point where you feel like you are doing the same boring tasks again and again... oh wait, you are. The driving portion of the game becomes annoying very quickly... there is no realism.
 great story, horrible gameplay August 2, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is one of those games that makes you suffer through horrible gameplay to enjoy a great story. I spent most of the game (when I could) on foot because of the horrible driving mechanic. How difficult should it be to drive around the corner? Apparently very difficult. I've been told by friends that I shouldn't expect great driving because this isn't a driving game - I guess it's time to remove the "grand" and "auto" from the title.
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