Grand Theft Auto IV (PC)

Hire an exterminator for this bug-ridden port.
12/8/2008 7:02 PM | 2 Comments | Page 1 of 3

Writing for Crispy has a raft of benefits, but when it comes time to address Grand Theft Auto, there's nothing better than sheltering under the umbrella of our rating system, away from the argument about whether Grand Theft Auto IV deserves a perfect rating. I went into this review excited to engage some of the topics that came up when the game first hit consoles, but without the burden of having to decide between a 9/10 and 10/10.

There were questions like: In retrospect, does the lack of mission variety and disappointing final act damage the game enough to knock it off the "perfect" perch? Does having one of the most immersive game worlds ever seen mitigate the fact that an explicitly story-driven game has a weak ending? What does 32-player multiplayer add to the equation? I couldn't wait to get into this stuff.

And then I couldn't install the damn game.

When I'm dodging error codes like Niko Bellic dashing through a hail of bullets, when I've got to wrap my hands like a sparring boxer so I don't actually break anything when I inevitably punch a wall, the other questions don't matter as much. They're about art and achievement. These issues are real-world, "I spent 40-some bucks on what might as well be a blank disc" sorts of problems.

Because those problems were eventually surmounted, I'm going to be kind and talk about the game first. But not with any of that arty crap thrown in.

(OK, here's the arty crap: The game is endlessly impressive, simply because of the detail with which Rockstar created Liberty City. Even though the mission structure is unimaginative and the ending is lame, by the time I got to that end I'd had more highs and lows than I could get out of a weeklong movie marathon. I'd enjoyed great dialogue and engaged memorable characters on my own terms, and run so many cars into the Swingset of Doom that I lost count. Coming back to the game on the PC, all that immediately came flooding back.)

On the PC, you won't find the mission structure improved out of the blue. You might, however, find the immersion factor has been deepened thanks to improved graphics. Even slightly gimped, as the graphics often feel on my middling PC, GTA IV looks better than it did on the Xbox 360. The draw distance enabled by loads of dedicated RAM and a serious GPU really is a thing of beauty.

Now, it would be a much better story if Rockstar had taken more care with the game and made it for modern computers instead of ones brought back in a DeLorean going 88 mph. The test rig for GTA IV ran Crysis Warhead and Left 4 Dead just fine; why did I have to dial down so many settings to get a stable frame rate out of this port?