I recently got to spend almost 2 hours playing Grand Theft Auto 4.   Now…I give you my impressions.

We bounced up and down as the ferry hit the wake of another boat.  As we were skimming across the water, I tried to see NYC while crossing the harbor between New Jersey and Manhattan.  I realized that soon the city I see before me would be my playground of destruction.  However, the city I would play in is called Liberty City, and the game I’d be playing is Grand Theft Auto 4.  It’s the series that put Rockstar Games on the map, and it’s the game that basically prints money for their publisher, Take 2 Interactive.

I’ll be honest and say that after GTA 3 I was pretty well burnt out on Grand Theft Auto games, only investing a few hours here and there in the game’s sequels.  The story of GTA IV has you taking control of Nico Bellic, a character of eastern European decent, as he comes to America to work for his cousin Roman.  You’ll start the game doing various small missions for Roman’s cab company.  As you begin to make friends and network through these missions your in-game cell phone will be updated with contacts that you can use for future missions.  In fact, the cell phone is your central hub for organizing what’s going on in the game.  Due to the complexity and depth of certain missions, the use of the cell phone is crucial.  For instance, you’ll be given the task to kill a major corporate head of a local company.  The problem is getting to him because he’s not just roaming the streets of Liberty City.  So if you check the in-game internet you’ll notice there’s a job opening at the company.  One quick email and a call later from the company and you’ll have a job interview.   This appointment will be added to your phone, and when the time comes you’ll be reminded it’s time to go.  It’s possible to miss this appointment due to being busy with another mission, but not to worry as you can call back and reschedule for one of the other 7 days of the week the game infinitely runs through.
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There’s a show on TV right now called Pushing Daisies in which the main character talks to dead people to help solve the mysteries surrounding their deaths. Folklore follows a similar premise by having you visit the netherworld to unravel a mystery in the village of Doolin. In Folklore you follow the story and play as two different characters with intertwining paths. Ellen is a distressed young woman drawn to the Village of Doolin by a mysterious letter from her dead mother.

Keats is a reporter at a sci-fi magazine who receives a frantic phone call from a woman at the Village of Doolin. Both arrive to find a woman dead on the cliffs of the town, and murder is in the air. It’s their job to get to the bottom of the crime as well as discover what exactly happened in the village 17 years ago in the Village’s past.

The game itself is broken up into two parts. The first has your character walking around town, talking to townsfolk and looking for clues. The second has your character transported to the land of the dead to talk to a character from village who has since been deceased to fill in a piece of the puzzle. Each one of these sections make up a chapter of the game, and each chapter is played by each character. Cut scenes are played out in a pseudo comic book style look with a mix of frames and real rendered 3d graphics with popup text. This was sort of a disappointment to me as there are a few cut scenes that are actually rendered really well with complete voice overs, while the graphic novel style cut scenes seemed more low budget. With all the touts of Blu-Ray and the space it provides, not having the voice overs in these other cut scenes seems sort of silly. Especially when a huge epic RPG like Mass Effect or even Oblivion has every line of dialog voiced.
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Last week I visited Rockstar Games to check out their upcoming game Bully.

When Bully was announced back at E3 2005 to a small closed door group of press it immediately garnered a ton of attention. Unfortunately it was the wrong kind of attention with numerous groups and a lawyer that should not be named claiming the game was a Columbine
Simulator. These people went as far as saying the game should be cancelled and that it was irresponsible of Rockstar to make such a game. These people are also idiots. They were irresponsible for not getting all the information on this game before making these outrageous
claims. Bully is a caricature of boarding school life. Bully is no more a Columbine simulator than robotic crabs are a part of Japanese history.

Read the full preview at Evil Avatar

Also check out my preview of Vice City Stories.

Evil Avatar - [PS2] - Bully Hands on Preview

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