Here at The Newb Review we like to think that games journalism isn’t all about picking up popular games and telling you how great they are. Tom01255 has adopted this idiom as his own personal mantra as he delves into games that everyone seems to love, but he really doesn’t… Join us as he talks us through the critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto IV.

In the interest of fairness, I should briefly mention the wealth of things that GTA IV got right… Now that’s been dealt with, lets get on with the shitstorm of monotony and irritation that makes up the majority of gameplay in this hugely over-hyped, disappointment of a game.

At the beginning of the game, you are thrown into the life of a walking stereotype in the form of one Niko Bellic; he’s an Eastern European war vet, so he must be predisposed to crime right? Okay, I’ll concede the fact that when you play a game within the GTA series, you accept that the protagonist is going to be a criminal; my main gripe comes with the sheer number of times he utters something that, at best, can be described as grating. At worst; his pseudo-american, downright racist version of an Eastern European dialect makes me want to reach into the game and slap the back of his annoying, military-crew-cut head.

GTA IVs protagonist and his elongated head

The moment you jump into a car, and veer off at the first corner into a lamp-post, you begin to think that the driving mechanic of the game is broken. Some hours later, you realise it very definitely is. Whilst no-one can argue that the previous incarnations of GTA could ever be considered driving simulations, the driving served a purpose in that it never got in the way of the fun of the game: the cars generally handled the same, with sports cars accelerating marginally faster than people carriers and vans. With GTA4 however, the developers seem to have forgotten that since their invention, cars have been blessed with so-called ‘steering wheels’ that allow cars to ‘turn’ rather than slamming into the house on the corner. The driving becomes such a frustration that you’d rather hot-foot it around each mission; if only Niko could keep his stupid mouth shut.

Niko isn’t the only character to provide the game with bad voice acting. Almost every other character you meet throughout what I loosely refer to as ‘the story’; is utterly uncharismatic and vapid. Take for example Niko’s cousin Roman; by the third or fourth time you hear him whine about wanting to go bowling, play darts or any of the other badly implemented side activities, you’ll want him dead over any one of the villains you meet. Unfortunately, I couldn’t kill the fat waster without failing missions.

You'll want to shoot Roman in the gut the moment he opens his fat mouth

Side activities such as bowling, darts and pool are available at any time either on your own, or you can take one of your friends or girlfriends simply by calling them from your mobile phone. These didn’t work particularly well in GTA: San Andreas… and they’re even worse now.

Let’s take them one at a time shall we? Bowling can only be described as an extremely bad approximation of Wii Sports: taking away the charm of Nintendo and replacing it with Niko and his stupid horse face. Furthermore, what should be a short and snappy distraction from the main story, is so slow, you’ll feel as if you’re bowling with an elderly relative. Darts and pool have been done much better elsewhere by almost any game that features them.

You can pick up a dreamcast and the original Shenmue for a decent representation of darts, and all for around the same price as this game. I’ve also played far more enjoyable digital pool games on my crappy mobile phone that notably has several broken buttons and still plays better than pool in GTA IV.

Bowling in Liberty City - utterly without charm

Graphically, the developers have made some bold choices within the game. They really manage to implement an air of familiarity with each new area you visit. The old ways of giving individual islands in the game a distinct architectural style á la San Andreas and Vice City are gone, instead opting to make every building look pretty much the same. This not only adds to the tedium of the story, but makes it incredibly easy to lose your bearings.

I enjoyed the feeling that you were really beginning to learn the city in the previous games: developing short cuts and routes that made the missions more involving. By the end of Vice City, for example, you really felt as if the city was alive, and you were its chief resident. GTA IV, on the other hand, had me firing rockets at the curiously indestructible grey blocks that made up the greater Algonquin area. Which building you ask? I couldn’t tell you – it was one of the grey ones that looked like everything else.

Bridges are just about the only structures that look different from everything else

And so we come to the joyous main story. I can’t claim to have played through it all, as about halfway through I turned my attention to GTA: Vice City to remind myself what a good GTA game is like. My research for this article however, confirmed my fears about the ending of the insipid snore-fest I had experienced thus far.

You begin the game searching for the man that betrayed your unit in Eastern Europe. Guess what? You find him. That really is about it. As far as the twists go, if you meet someone that you think will betray you, they probably will at some point, and you’ll probably have the opportunity to get revenge later on. So, eminently unsurprising, somewhat churlish and ultimately boring… What more can I say.

Grand Theft Auto IV is available from all good retailers. Rush out and buy it if you believe the hype…