Community:GTA IV Gripes

This is the official Grand Theft Wiki GTA IV Gripes list.

For now, this page is open to everybody. If there is any abuse of this page it will be locked, and all submissions will have to go through the Discussion page.

The "Gripes" on this page are intended to warn new players of things they may not like about the game.

The "Rebuts" on this page are intended to explain to new players why some gripes may not be a "gripe" for all players.

Please do not repeat other people's gripes. Also, no silly/stupid/idiotic/explicit/racist gripes or rebuttals.

How To Gripe

• Find the appropriate section for your gripe.
• Make sure your gripe hasn't already been mentioned.
• Start a gripe with {{Gripe}}, then follow with your gripe.

How To Rebut Gripes

• Rebuttals to gripes should be directly underneath the gripe.
• Start you rebuttal with :{{Rebut}}, then follow with your rebuttal.
• Rebuttals should address reasons it is not a valid gripe, and should not accuse the gripe of being "silly" or "stupid."

Gripes about GTA IV

Gameplay

The feature of calling up a boss to "meet them here", etc. is not in the game, and the same goes for friends.

Minor clothing items are removed during some cut scenes and missions. (glasses, hats)

This can be easily explained by Niko having manners... i.e. he would remove his hat or glasses before speaking with someone.

Still affects realism though because the items just disappear into thin air.

The ability to hang from a helicopter, shown in trailers, isn't seen in-game, nor is the ability to ride in limos.

The last mission requires you to do it. Also there's a glitch in MP that lets you hang on to the heli for unlimited amount of time.

But right after the mission, hanging a helicopter is no longer possible outside of missions. This feature strays away realism.

The cover system is weird, and sometimes doesn't work correctly. Niko will take cover at a corner in plain sight of the enemy, instead of the other side.

No store hold ups for easy cash or burglary missions.

You can't buy real estate like in San Andreas and Vice City.

You can't Own Businesses.

You can't do home invasion like in San Andreas.

This isn't San Andreas.

Still, it's stupid that you can't do something, so cool.

The semicircle health/armor system is weak, and can't be upgraded like in San Andreas.

Friends often call to do things at inconvenient times and are often on the other side of the city.

Choose the sleep mode on your phone.

The sleep mode does help quite a bit. However, the friend system does get rather annoying when you're trying to do missions and sleep mode gets turned off. The feature is a decent start, but it definitely needs some overhauling for the next game. Less frequent calls, offering to meet you some place or maybe picking you up instead of you always driving them around, more places to go (Liberty City only has two places to see a show?), more benefits for keeping constant contact, mini-missions that occur while out and about, etc.

Friends don't give you enough time to get to their location before they become impatient.

You can Hail a taxi, get in it, and do the auto ride feature which gets you there in a matter of seconds, or take a helicopter.

Yea, the taxi actually takes you there faster than you drive to the destination yourself, just skip it. Jack a car and then go with your friend.

The camera angle is too low with no way to change it, I spend all my driving time holding UP, same as San Andreas.

Try different camera angles to find the one you like.

All of them are two low. The only two third person ones are two low to the ground and it is hard to see oncoming traffic/poles and stuff. The other two are cinematic and first person.

I agree--it's annoying that the right-stick camera positioning isn't sticky.

There is no riot cheat! No more chaos.

As posted below somewhere, the cheat may be present, but no one's found it yet.

Well, until then, that's -1 point for GTA IV.

Some missions are somewhat difficult to pass.

Try harder.

Find an alternative way to beat the mission. For the more difficult ones, there's usually at least a few options at your disposal.

Ordering items on TV or at Tw@ does not work. You can't even order vehicles by calling them, even though it says so at AutoErotiCar.com.

The internet site offered a lot of possibilities to expand the gameplay and give you so much more to do on the side. However, it ended up serving as primarily a huge repository of inside jokes...which isn't a bad thing, but there was a lot of missed opportunities. It was disappointing to see so many attractions listed, and finding out you could only make use of a very small portion of them.

Destruction of buildings isn't featured.

Destruction of buildings would permanently(?) alter the area, and make it difficult for normal activities or activities to occur.

But we can destroy street lights, government property (mailboxes, etc.), drive to a different zone, come back, and it's like they were never hit, AND cops don't care. No consistency.

You can longer respond to random comments either positively or negatively.

That was a minor feature, and its removal doesn't affect the game very much.

It is still one more thing that detracts from the game's attempt at realism. And it has a fairly big impact on the free roam part of the game.

You must keep your 'friends' happy to retain their special perks. It would have been preferable to unlock their abilities once and then be left to the player to decide whether they wish to continue the 'friendship'.

Don't you have to keep your friends happy in real life?

But you don't drive them all over town like a soccer mom, especially if you are one of the most in demand hit men in the city. Roman owns a car service business, yet needs to be picked up and dropped off every time he wants to do anything. The friends feature becomes irritating because it lacks realism.

Street Gang-Banging and generally street gang-related missions have been dramatically reduced, means, no point in shooting other gang members.

Since Niko is not exactly in one of those 'gangs', I would see no point in earning anything for the deaths of gang members.

The 5 families are crucial to the storyline. Niko is involved heavily with gangland violence in the story, yet outside of missions there is no evidence of any gangland tension. Once again this detracts from the realism of the game. For example; Niko kills 10+ members of the Pavano family, yet there is no consequence what so ever. He can walk into the same mob owned car dealership he has just blown up hours before and nobody recognizes him. This badly affects the attempted realism in other areas of the game.

Only 9 street races available and difficult to access them through the phone system.

GTA is not exactly a 'racing game'. The racing missions are practically just mini games, save for when they affect the storyline.

Racing is one of the few things left to do once the storyline has been completed.

You can always race online.

While it isn't a 'racing game,' it's a feature that would've been nice considering this is the 4th installment of a multi-million dollar series.

No special races that unlock special cars (like Destruction Derby).

There are also other mini-games that earn you special vehicles.

Still, it's pathetic that you don't earn special vehicles that you complete side racing missions, like the Bloodring Banger as well as the Dune truck.

With so little to buy Money is worthless.

You have guns to buy, don't you?

After you complete Steve's missions you can sell cars as often as you want, even spawning them and selling them getting you hundreds of thousands of dollars that for all purposes are still worthless.

Don't bother, kill yourself, get into 6 star chases, die, give some money to the hospital. Buy the rest of the clothes, enjoy your taxis and trains.

There is no need to buy guns because you can find them so easily.

Given that entire storyline is underpinned by the pursuit of money, from the minute Niko gets off the boat to the deal or revenge option at the end. The fact that money plays such a small part in the game outside of the cut scenes hurts the games attempt to provide a realistic experience.

There really does need to be more to do with the money in the game. Buying more safe houses, outfitting them with internet access, more clothing shops, more shows to see, parking spaces to keep cars in, revenue-generating businesses, etc.

No parachute.

there are also, more or less, no aircraft to jump out of at high altitudes.

Plus the 'chute was quite boring to use anyways.

Yet another component that affects the longevity of this game. The fact that Niko can't base jump into Star Junction and start shooting up the area is just another shortcoming of IV in terms of action.

You can't order cars from Stevie's garage once the text message missions he gives you are completed.

That function was specifically for the aforementioned missions.

A useless set of missions at that. You can't access Stevie's Garage after completing the missions, and there is no use for the money you made from the missions. Just another bland effort from GTA IV.

Autosave may not happen all the time. Whenever you complete missions, you are forced to save the game manually instead of having the game to automatically save for you.

Then try saving manually more often; You'll get used to it.

It happens the same thing and much worse than the first one. It would have been better if Rockstar Games would fix this problem, rather than just asking you to save the game yourself too often.

The majority of the good cheats are gone (like chaos, citizens with weapons, cars fly away with hits etc etc etc).

Rockstar never releases cheats they are found by the players most likely the same cheats are there, they just haven't been found yet.

The range of cheats is another source of disappointment. There is no more to be found.

There are only 2 pairs of glasses in the whole game, and both of them are ugly.

That's your opinion.

They are. Both are big "owl" style glasses from the 90s. No actual sunglasses or anything.

I don't think that R* made this game just for the sake of different clothing you can buy for Niko.

Badly affects the realism though. 2 pairs of sunglasses in the whole of Liberty City? Geez...gritty realism if ever I've seen it.

Cheating blocks achievement points

Cheating would destroy the challenge in getting achievement points. Besides, if you want to cheat, just make a separate save file.

The realism of the game seems extremely inconsistent, and if you want examples, just read over a good half of the previous gripes. It would seem to me that a game that sold for 500 million on the first day would have the budget (and let's face it, from previous GTAs Rock* had the budget) to put some more effort and, dare I say, "polish," into the game. For me, it just felt like GTA III all over again--the exception being that some of the characters were more vivid and interesting, and the plotline kept me hooked. If there is a GTA V (and I'm assuming there will be) I really hope they put more time into it. GTA VI just felt half baked, which was a major disappointment. =/

Aiming is difficult when slow-mo is activated during driving and flying thanks to the cinematic angles.

I read that you can do missions outside of liberty city,where????

Vehicles

Crashing on a motorcycle and bailing out of a car aren't fun anymore, and often result in death.

Once more, the game is meant to be more realistic.

But even though you were wearing a helmet, you'd still die from the crash. The game really lacks realistic attempts.

Whenever you crash you go flying out of the windshield.

Well, the game designers are trying to be more close to reality. I always found it to be extremely far-fetched that Claude, Tommy Vercetti, and Carl Johnson could slam into a brick wall at 100+ MPH and emerge without a scratch.

Not EVERYTIME. Unless it's a high speed crash into an unmovable object(Pole for examples) You would fly out, but if you crashed slower or in a different angle, you would not fall out of the car.

The "flying out of a windshield" thing is seemingly random. I hit a taxicab headon at a moderate speed, and flew out the windshield. I hit another taxicab headon at fullspeed, and didn't fly out.

Cars explode for the stupidest and unrealistic reasons, i.e. shooting the window of a car, shooting the roof.

Didn't that happen in all other GTA games?

I thought GTA IV was about "realism." I guarantee firing a shotgun shell at the windowsill of a car in real-life will not cause it to catch fire.

If GTA was realistic you would go to jail after your first kill and stay there.

No car surfing! In previous GTA games you could stowaway on top of a moving vehicle and ride it to it's destination. Now, if you stand or squat on top of a vehicle and it moves, you tumble off like a quadriplegic. Not very realistic.

There is no Tank in this game, nor are there airplanes.

Tanks would be unrealistic, as the armed forces would not send a tank into New York City after a single man. Airplanes would also be unrealistic because air-travel around New York City is extremely restricted, plus there's really not enough area to need air-travel.

Tanks and airplanes are more realistic than being released from custody hours after being arrested for mass murder / terrorism. If omissions are to be made for the sake of realism then there must be a level of consistency.

There are no car mods or even simply choosing your paint color.

There are special editions of cars. The Pay 'n Spray is suppose to be colour matching, but somehow they just did not do it. lol

The yellow boxes in front of safehouses are stupid and poorly made. Often AI traffic hits them as they're driving, causing the saved cars to disappear. Garages were much better and safer, and less chance of cars disappearing.

Parking spaces are more likely of what you will have instead of a garage. Most preferably a whole car park or something, but not a garage of your own in some poor old space. In Algonquin, probably, but it just wastes too much space of the area. It's simply what everyone will think in real life.

In real life you would have a range of parking options. A garage, or parking space in a multi-deck or underground car park is more realistic, even valet parking. The fact that every safe house just happens to have the same yellow area out the front is just another thing that detracts from the realism. Especially given that in a lot of cases there are no other cars parked in the street. Where do the other residents in the building park?

No "R3" Missions for anything other than the police cruiser.

There are not enough special vehicles like golf carts, lawn mowers, and bicycles. Bicycles are common in NYC, why not Liberty City?

There are fewer cars in the game compared to San Andreas, and no fixed-wing aircraft available to the player. Even though the city is smaller than GTA San Andreas, the designers of the game shouldn't have lost more stuff than they put in, that includes Vehicles and Planes. Just a general mistake on behalf of Rockstar

No there are more cars in GTA IV then in San Andreas. More choices.

The variety of vehicles is greatly reduced. This limits the players experience and hurts the overall playability of the free roam game.

How the Voodoo was changed.

That's your opinion.

In my opinion, rockstar really blew-it by ruining a perfectly good muscle car with Hydraulics. Now, its just as useless as the perennial.

You can't operate trains like in GTA San Andreas.

The Hunter helicopter isn't here anymore.

It's now replace with the Annihilator which is faster but lacks rockets.

The Hunter should have been left in anyway. Since GTAIV isn't as realistic as it seems, an iconic helicopter like the Hunter should have stayed in the game as an option, even if it doesn't fit.

When Niko steers the car in any direction, the steering wheel doesn't move at all, which left Rockstar Games no explanation to this problem.

At least the car turns.

But not the steering wheel. It's hardly even realistic to see how the car turns into any direction, but not the steering wheel.

Airbags do not deploy on any vehicles when slammed head-on at high speeds.

That just brings out the fun of the new physics engine, seeing Niko fly out of the car. Plus I don't really think that it really has to be this realistic. It would just ruin the fact that this is a GAME.

Another area where realism is affected. If realism is to be the justification for limiting the players experience then anything unrealistic becomes a criticism of the game.

You can't attach trailers in the back of your truck like in GTA San Andreas.

What would you do exactly with a trailer on the back of your truck?

Gas Tank trailers, Containers, Car Transporters, etc.

Limits the scope of possibilities in the free roam game. Shortens the lifespan of the game. The RS Haul Missions in SA could provide hours of game play on their own.

Brucie's helicopter is useless. It would have been better if you could fly his helicopter yourself.

There are only two unique helicopters in the game, and only 1 of them is armed.

Rare vehicles aren't here anymore.

There is a Sultan RS which is a rare car. Also the Infernus is rare.

Both cars are extremely rare and are only found online multiplayers. The Comet is nowhere to be seen again, which led me to a huge disappointment, since the Comet is my favorite car.

It depends on where you are looking for it and what you are driving at that time. You could always spawn your Comet using a cheat code(Which does not affect anything)

You can't go fast when driving boats because even the smallest wave will completely slow you down.

Use the left analog stick to judge the waves. When a wave is coming towards you, push it down. This will raise the nose of the boat and will increase the speed of the boat.

No Hydraulics.

Some car names have been recycled for new cars and the names don't really make sense with the car they resemble anymore.

This adds realism by showing the evolution of cars. The modern crown vic's no longer look the way they did in the 80's, do they?

Yeah but it makes no sense how the Stallion doesn't resemble a Mustang or an Esperanto doesn't resemble an El Dorado from any generation anymore.

No remote controlled vehicles (rc-car/plane etc).

No go cart.

The Quad is absent.

Not a lot of people would be driving a Quad on the beach in NYC, would they.

Most vehicles are very rare like the Infernus which you get only one chance to own, and never see again.

To see a rare car again, you have to use your own frequently. On my completed game, I have FOUR Infernus-es.

Iconic sports cars like the Stinger and Cheetah are nowhere to be found.

They've been replaced by cars like the Sultan RS and Feltzer.

How can you own four Infernus cars if there is only one from the parking space. It only appears in online multiplayer, but not single player. Using more than one Infernus counts as cheating and cheating affects the game, so it's better off not to use cheats at all.

Cheating may be undesirable to you, but for some people, it just wouldn't be GTA without cheats.

A lot of cars that appear in single player, do not appear in multiplayer

Only 1 sportbike is in the game, while GTA:SA had about 6 or 7.

There's the PCJ600, NRG900 and a suspicious bike NRG900RR

There's several variations of the NRG900: NRG900, NRG900F, NRG900RR, but that's it. The PCJ600 is old and not as fast, and doesn't look like a sportbike.

NRG 900, Zombie, PCJ600, Faggio

He's talking about sport bikes. The Faggio, Sanchez (counts as the dirt bike), Zombie and PCJ 600 does not count as sport bikes. Too slow and it has very little use to race. The PCJ 600's speed becomes unstable at high speeds. The FCR-900 and the BF-400 are two sports bikes in GTA SA and Rockstar Games removed it without even explaining why.

Roofs from vehicles doesn't get crushed when you roll over. There aren't any roll bars from any cars.

Theres a roll cage in the Sultan RS. Also, the roof of a car is supposed to be a very protective part of a car.

But all other cars don't even have roll bars and they're not supposed to stay intact even after a hard landing.

The Dozer is gone, regardless on going into any construction sites.

There are only 5 residential vehicle parking spaces, which means you are forced to store few of your favorite cars into the parking space, since Rockstar Games refused to explain why.

There aren't enough 'realism' vehicles i.e. cement mixers, street sweepers, 'meter maids' etc - although not exactly amazing to look at or drive, they do add that extra touch of realism which would have fitted in with GTA IV's atmosphere perfectly.

You don't even have first person mode (without bug) in trains nor possibility to walk in trains.

Both the Sea Sparrow and the Leviathan helicopters were taken away for no reason whatsoever. Both of them are great which are used to land on water, but why remove them? Both helicopters were awesome.

The Vortex hovercraft was taken away for no reason. It was a great vehicle, so why remove it?

The BF Injection was removed. Just because it's a great vehicle and designed for off-roading, doesn't mean they can remove it for no reason at all.

Driving a dune buggy in NYC would be silly

Not true. The BF Injection is a great vehicle that was designed for going off-road at the coast lines and driving around beaches and performing stunts.

The majority of good cars were removed by Rockstar Games and they refused to explain why.

Tow Truck was removed. This was a great vehicle that was used to tow rare vehicles and park into residential parking spaces, but they removed it for no reason at all.

Weapons

Ammo limits are really, really annoying.

This is personal opinion. Ammo limits are not so low that it's difficult to complete missions. In fact, it's more than enough.

What if you are confronted against FBIs and NOOSE patrol teams? If you're very low on ammo, then you're completely defenseless and then you die. Like in GTA SA, there were no ammo limits (you can store 900 rockets, have 7000 pistoms, SMGs, have 900 Flamethrower containers, etc.). Besides, Ammo limits are very humiliating.

After you beat the game the ammo limit is gone, you keep putting them in, after awhile it may saw you have 9999 of 30 for the machine gun but fire and reload and it says you still have 9999 of 30, ammo limit is removed with completion of the game.

Well, by the time the limit is gone, there won't be any real-good reason to utilise it. It would have been much better to just have it on while a person was going through the storyline missions and not after.

I cannot imagine a person carrying 9999 bullets for at least 6 guns. Imagine how many extra ammo bags and storage space you would need, carrying 8 rockets in your Perseus pocket is already quite ridiculous, that's enough bullets for every gun.

But he could at least hold more than 8 rockets. That's not enough.

There are not enough "special" weapons like the chainsaw, the golf club, the pool cue, or the fire extinguisher like there were in GTA San Andreas.

If you check the page under features it explains why many of the weapons have been removed.

Weapons are now seen on top of buildings, which is harder to find.

Tear Gas and Satchel Bomb was removed.

RPG can only hold 8 rockets.

In real life, an RPG does NOT hold two thousand rockets. Sorry.

Maybe not 2000, but surely more than 8.

Weapons stores are few and far between.

That is explained in game by the mayor's "Crackdown" on weapons

Little Jacob doesn't sell all the weapons, so an expensive trip to the gun store is required.

Later on in game he sells armor, rockets, m16 ammo, grenades etc.

True, but he doesn't sell Combat Pistol ammo, RPG ammo or regular shotgun ammo.

Dual-wielding weapons is no longer possible.

In real life, would you be able to dual-wield a shotgun?

Maybe not a shotgun, but pistols are easily dual wieldable.

You can't use free-aim because the targeting reticule automatically locks on to pedestrians, so you'll have to use your Sniper Rifle to shoot pigeons. Even if you try and force the aiming reticule off of the pedestrians, it will simply lock on to another pedestrians, so there is no way to make the aiming reticule let you aim yourself.

If you hold the aim trigger all the way down it targets a person, if you hold it part of the way down you can move the reticule around to aim how you please, like shooting through the windshield of a moving car to kill the driver.

Where is the fire extinguisher?

No one handed gun use.

Niko is a war veteran and therefore knows how to use weapons properly.

The silenced pistol was removed

In-game World

Even though Rockstar touted the game to have more interiors than SA, there are in fact less, as most of them are accessible for only one mission.

There aren't as many different clothing styles and options as there used to be, especially in San Andreas and theres very few "silly" options like mad hats and such.

At least there are some! Compare GTA IV to its predecessors, except San Andreas, in terms of customizing your pro/antagonist. Also, GTA isn't exactly a 'silly' game.

Actually GTA was always a silly and unrealistic series, and that was what made it fun. Flying airplanes despite having no training, wielding miniguns, surviving car crashes...that was the best part of GTA, and GTA IV just removes all that. Its a bold step, but I guarantee GTA IV would be a lot more fun if the police were a lot stupider, unrealistic weapons were brought back and the physics were toned down a lot.

The airplanes at Francis International Airport are stuck in an eternal taxiing loop: they never take off, and no planes ever land, which detracts heavily from the purported realism of the game. They're invincible also, which is annoying and detracts even more from realism.

There are only 2 comedians in the comedy clubs, and their material is bland and unfunny.

A -5 for realism for only 2 comedy shows. It should've have more shows and humor, but only 2 for a huge Liberty City? Now that's unrealistic.

Yes, I agree it would have been better to have more comedians, but there are much more than 2 comedy shows. Each comedian has around four shows each. And I thought they were really funny. Perestroika's shows are pretty funny too!

No random games like the off track betting, Pogo the monkey or other arcade games save from Qub3d.

No, but the player can play pool or darts, or go bowling. New games for a new game.

True, but I prefer arcade games. They're much better than doing bowling or darts.

Play QUB3D

I'd rather play Duality, Go Go Space Monkey, and They Crawled from Uranus from GTA San Andreas, rather than just one arcade game that Rockstar Games totally ruined it.

The amount of "random games" was substantially reduced. This affects realism, in terms of the player being able to interact with the city and the longevity, with yet another 5 or 6 sources of amusement the game doesn't have.

There are only 3 unique Clothing stores in the game.

Given that a generic interior could be created, there's too few stores and the like to wander into compared to San Andreas (Cluckin' Bell outlets as just a facade with no way in).

But do you remember those loading times when you enter almost every interior buildings? GTA IV has non except for when you are on a mission where there would be a cutscene after you enter it.

{{

Once again, this lacks realistic attempts to this game. In real life, you would have huge range of restaurants, clothing shops, comedy shows, bowling alleys, arcades, etc. The game, however, has few and makes no sense why.

The trees are invincible.

Well Stacked Pizza is missing.

But you can eat at restaurants and off the street.

In real life, you would have a range of restaurants, whereas in this game only has two. This game strays away realism from it's real life counterpart.

But Rock* spent more time improving the exterior, giving great sniping points, stunt jumps, etc plus you have no hunger meter like in GTA:SA which prevents you from passing out, losing money, or wasting time.

Military base is completely gone.

Yes but i dont think there would be a military base in the middle of the city.

There's no military base in New York City, and Fort Dix is a good distance away from Jersey City.

ProLaps are seen at the Starlight District, but is no longer accessible. Didier Sachs may be seen at the same location, but is also inaccessible, including Binco.

You can't go underwater to see fishes, dolphins, turtles, even sharks.

Would you want to swim under all that poisonous dirty water in NYC?

It looks ridiculous when Niko jumps 20 meters from a bridge only to land on the surface of the water.

The two largest, widest straightaways in Alqonquin are both under construction, leaving no place to really go fast.

Highway, and why not use the straight just right in front of your safehouse in Algonquin. It's REALLY long and filled with cars and two jumps. Very entertaining and useful to train your driving skills.

It's not really safe to go really fast on straightaways. Traffics will change lanes quickly without even seeing you, making the Highways useless even more when confronted by slow moving traffics.

The two widest ones going north-south on each side of Middle Park are the best to go fast, but they end with a construction site about halfway, which is annoying.

Welcome to a city modeled off of New York, one of the world's most unfriendly cities towards traffic.

The construction should progress and finish up, reopening the streets, but it doesn't. Another -1 for realism in GTAIV.

Some areas, like restaurants, aren't denoted on the radar, despite working and accessible, i.e. the Burger Shots in Beechwood City, Westdyke and Northwood.

Alderney doesn't have any food stores and barely any places of interest, making it a useless area to visit.

Strip Club, stunt jumps, pigeons, random peds.

It's still a useless area to visit. Besides, there are'nt any places of interest and there were'nt any shows, bars, restaurants, or even bowling alleys.

There's a chopper for the taking by the tunnel entrance that's worth a visit.

Still very useless to visit, even with the chopper. What's more important that it must feature all accessible buildings, yet strays away realism of all building interiors.

The Bars is inaccessible because you have to be accompanied by a friend.

Rockstar changed the name of the islands(i.e. Staunton and Portland's name are changed).

True the names are changed, But no city would enjoy having it's name in a blow up, cop killing game. Since the September 11th terrorist attacks on New York it would be bad taste to have Niko a soviet immigrant cause hell and kill New York cops.

But in-reality, why would a city just change a whole lot of districts names with-in 7 years. It ruins the game a bit and it's history

It didn't change its name, it has always been that in Liberty City. It is BASED off of New York, it isn't actually New York. With names changed Rockstar can make it resemble NY, but also shake things up.

The Alderney safehouse is crappy and run-down, a downgrade even though the Algonquin safehouses are luxurious and much bigger.

It's just a safehouse that is given to you by Ray, not particular a good one. Especially Ray is not THAT rich. Do you know how your big safehouses came from? Roman, that rich guy after escaping and even changed his taxi to cavalcades. Playboy X, rich and bling.

Alderney is modeled off of New Jersey, so you can't expect much.

But Alderney has rich houses and lets you store cars in the garage. A -3 for having the last and crappy safehouse, instead of a rich and famous house.

Grand Central Terminal isn't accessible, despite being in the game.

ZIP clothing shop is gone.

In a game where money is useless you would think you could use some of that 1,000,000 dollars you make to upgrade the crappy apartments, buy a garage in the alley, add internet, add a big screen tv, pay rent, etc.

Especially when the character's primary motivation is money.

I know, right? I've made 50k and Roman's still whining about people coming after him for money. Why don't I have the option to just pay those people off?

Alderney City has no darn train stations, I thought that New Jersey was full of sub-ways.

It is not EXACTLY ripped off from New Jersey or wherever it originated from.

But I mean in a highly congested city, at least I thought that there should be some sought of rail link to the industrial city.

ATM machines are completely useless and now way of using it. You can only check out balance and not take out money by either destroying it (which dispenses a lot of money) or even use fast cash to earn more cash.

The HUD even shows how much money you have, so yeah, whats the point of ATM machines?

ATM's are handy for making money. What you do is kill other people using the ATM's.

But what's the use of ATM machines? You can just simply check out balance and not take out money by making fast cash or even destroying it. It does nothing. No offense, but the ATM machines are a pointless feature to the GTA series.

Severe weather conditions isn't featured (snow, blizzard, flash floods, tropical storm, etc.)

Especially since it was rumored the seasons would change in-game. Its always autumn in the game.

Considering how Rockstar Games put a lot of good well known songs on the radio in both GTA Vice City and San Andreas (as well as having the Scarface soundtrack in GTA III), I was surprised and disappointed to find out that GTA IV's soundtrack is mostly made up of unknown artists (granted, there are several big name artists but, hardly any compared to previous games) and completely fails to reflect popular music of the current decade, in my opinion. However, the parodies of the war on terror, internet, movies etc on the radio do reflect the decade well.

Listen to an ipod or MP3.

I wish R* would let you add custom soundtracks into the game, much like listening to your own music in the car, yet detracts realism to the game because they somehow forgot to add this feature

The city is grossly under populated. Go to Star Junction at 9pm on a Friday Night and it is deserted. 5pm on a Friday, there is some traffic, but for what it is supposed to be it just falls short again. There are more peds behind the flats in Northwood than in Star Junction. The report that Rockstar modeled the traffic on NYC is pure garbage. Living breathing city....not even close.

The moving lights that appear on the streets at night while up in the air (probably to simulate traffic and save memory) are poorly plotted. They go in the wrong direction on the street, go diagonally and do weird things, making the feeling of a heavily populated city vanish.

R* says that "you can finish the game without a single loading screen". It turns out that R* was lying, because there are loading times hen accessing into missions or multiplayers.

Characters

Returning characters are completely absent, such as Claude Speed, El Burro, 8-Ball or even Toni Cipriani. There is little explanation why Rockstar Games did not return older characters from the past GTA eras.

There is an Easter Egg that shows the previous protagonists along with "R.I.P."

Where is the location to this easter egg?

Check the link above

Go watch tv, apparently CJ is on there

Picture please?

Pedestrian conversations are repetitive and are no where near as funny as they used to be.

Isn't the game supposed to be more serious? I mean come on, the games based in poor, old, drug and crime filled New York. Nothing funny about that. But i do agree they aren't as funny as prior games but I understand why Rockstar did that.

Some of the characters are downright painful and tedious. i.e. Brucie, Dwayne etc.

That's just opinion. I like Brucie's style in the game. Dwayne is very depressed though.

Even after she died, you still have to go on a date with Kate.

I think that was just a very bad glitch. or Niko Bellic's into necrophilia!

The girlfriends are just annoying. Michelle is alright up until you find out she's undercover, so then you loose one of two sane girlfriends. Then at the end of the game you loose Kate who's the other sane one. Either she gets killed or just won't pick up the phone and you basically never hear from her again. This leaves you with the three girls online, and they've all got severe issues. Kiki annoys me as she's a pretentious lawyer type who gets on your case about wearing nice clothes, Carmen is self absorbed and refers to herself in the third person, and Alex is the equivalent of dating Paris Hilton.

Story

The humor is weak throughout the game.

That is a personal opinion. I, for one, found many conversations hilarious.

Too bad that there was just not enough of these "hilarious conversations".

Go to some random charater jobs, there are gay guys, stupid guys that just does funny things. Die funny. Watch more cutscenes, some of the mare just funyn as hell.

Rockstar should of at least brung back at least one character from the GTA III era games. I mean, what ever happened to the Leone Family in the seven years leading upto the events in GTA IV]. Stuff like this should of been answered in this game, where I really expected Rockstar to build on a successful era of story-lines instead of taking 100 paces back to a new beginning.

Even though R* said GTA IV is set in a new universe, evidence exists to prove otherwise. Lazlow references Chatterbox FM and Vice City radio stations and San Andreas is alluded to massively in the game.

There is Lazlow He's been in every game so far.

Check some easter eggs, there are graffiti saying that all the game characters before are all dead.

But what are the chances that out of all of the people that you met in GTA III and GTA: LCS, you would not meet, or even here of any of them in GTA IV.

In the Final Interview mission Niko uses his real name to arrange a job interview when he knows he is going to kill the interviewer. Despite the fact he is working at the time for a police officer, it detracts from the credibility of a story which tries desperately to be serious and believable. What sort of hitman would use his real name for this purpose? Realism?

Dimitri & Bulgarin make no attempt to attack or engage the Bellic Cousins outside of a mission. Previous games featured "no-go" areas or random attacks in accordance with the storyline. The fact that the Russian mob are central to the story, but unsighted in the open world portion of the game again hurts the believability of the story.

Technically the story is paused while not on a mission

Yeah, seems as if the "story" is paused when Niko isn't on a mission. So much for a living breathing city, the city is nearly completely insulated from anything that happens in the story. Once again this badly affects the realism, at times the only thing that makes IV an open world game is the Burger Shot. Everything else is basically scripted i.e freinds activities, Stevie's missions, races. The only thing open world about IV is that you can go anywhere, you certainly can't do anything.

According to the police database website, Bulgarin is dead. This is just a stupid idea from Rockstar, because I'm betting that every person here wants to kill him.

Best guess is that Dimintri killed him once he'd served his 'use' (if I remember correctly, the two were associated with each other at some point in the game, and Dimitri has a habit of betraying associates)

I'm just saying that I wanted to have killed Bulgarin myself.

The Alderney State Correctional Facility being in the game along with Gerry getting sent there made for a ton of potential for a jailbreak mission. The fact that the prison isn't featured in any mission aside from getting briefings from Gerry is just disappointing.

Combat

Wish there was the ability to prone and shoot.

When tossing a hand grenade into a gang, some of them still survive the blast, despite being thrown directly at their feet.

You cant fight the cops like in other GTA games.

Actually, you can fight cops. Just take out your gun and shoot them. You also fight them in missions, like the Bank Heist.

That's one of the worst ideas you posted on. If you take out a gun and shoot at the cop, you'll get 2 wanted star levels and more cops will swarm in and kill you. And if you attempt to fight a cop, he will easily arrest you and don't even bother holster a weapon. Cops will always shoot back anyways.

All cops attacked you in previous GTA IV games. And if you don't suck, then you are able to survive the cops with no problem. So yes, you can fight the cops.

And you can press A/X button if you are about to kneel down on the floor, gives you 2 star rating. Pretty realistic.

But since the cops don't have night sticks, if you try to punch them, the will just shoot you.

Cops in real life carry guns, and if somebody came and tried to kill you then you would fight back.

So your saying that if someone punched you, you would shoot them?

Combat is unrealistic and hard to attack people. You'll have to use weapons to kill them instead (not meleé ones).

Hand-to-hand combat was meant to injure the victim, without killing him. It's useful for missions.

It doesn't matter what the intent was. The point is, the combat system is horrendously awkward and often, unrealistic.

Still, it's hard to target people you are attacking and it's completely unrealistic while GTA SA had realistic hand-to-hand combat moves.

During shooting missions, you die very easily by shooters before you even run for cover. Enemies somewhat has great aiming, and Body Armor is highly recommended for hard missions.

Once more, the game is meant to be more realistic. If you'd be facing down ten trained gunmen with nothing more than a few grenades and a pistol, do you think you would live?

Yeah, but even during Vigilante missions, the "criminal on foot" seem to survive a shotgun blast to the face. How's THAT real?

The Hand-to-Hand Combat is not as good as in San Andreas.

Stated somewhere else, the hand-to-hand combat has a new purpose: subduing enemies that you aren't meant to kill.

Yes, but that doesn't excuse it for being horrendously awkward and sloppy.

Stealth kills as in San Andreas are no longer possible.

You can perform a stealth kill during Final Interview and walk out without a wanted level.

But on outside missions, you can't. It's straying away realism because it didn't even have the silenced pistol.

In final interview you cannot perform a stealth kill. Even if you use the knife to kill Goldberg, the receptionist still runs in screaming, and a 3 star wanted level is in place.

That is not true. I was able to kill Tom Goldberg with a knife and not receive any stars.

Still does'nt count as a stealth kill, even with a knife, the recepsionist still runs in screaming and a three star wanted level is still present. Besides, he can still scream even with a knife.

Police

Cops manage to shoot your tires out, even if you're going 100mph.

And they have multiple cops firing lots of bullets to shoot your tires down to stop you from running away.

Cops don't deploy spike strips, or utilize special pursuit vehicles for highspeed chases.

No matter how hard players try to get away from the police's radius, cops seem to spawn near the player's vehicle. Hiding is nearly impossible, even on secluded areas.

Rockstar, I believe, was trying to make the game more realistic. It's like that in real life, too.

Yes, especially in Star Junction, there are more cops in that area around than others. Plus the police of course dispatches more cop cars around the radius to search for you.

Once the chase ends (your stars turn grey and there's no cops immediately near you), you should really pull over to jack another car or get sprayed, especially if you're still well within the wanted area.

You can't evade or outrun your wanted level in a helicopter.

It's rather difficult to run away when everybody in the city can see you flying 200 meters up in a helicopter. Don't you think?

You can evade and outrun wanted levels when they are low (i.e. 1 or 2 stars) as not as many police are searching for you.

There is a way, albeit kind of a cheap one. If you have Playboy X's safe house, you can fly low over the roof and bail out onto the balcony. Then you can run inside and save your game, which should clear your wanted level.

Cops somehow manage to stay alive even after multiple gunshots, and their weapons do more damage to the player.

Some of them have body armor. As members of a police force they would have superior weapons and training.

I don't think beat cops wear body armor, and their weapons are exactly the same as the ones the player can use.

Undercover police officers do not appear at 3 wanted star levels or higher.

Pay and Spray has become almost useless. When no cops are around, it's easier to just outrun them. When they are around, you can't spray.

But there's more to a Pay 'n' Spray than losing Wanted Levels. They will change the paint of a car if you don't like it to the color you've driven most, and they will also repair damaged vehicles. It just doesn't make sense for a cop to be right on your tail when you enter a Pay 'n' Spray, only to ignore you when you drive out.

Those annoying pedestrians keep calling the cops whenever I do one small shove, making it harder to score a few bucks without those boys in blue knowing.

Multiplayer

16 online players isn't enough in Free Mode. It would have been preferable if it had up to 50 players, instead of less.

Enjoy your lags.

There isn't enough online game modes

During races, players may tend to warp in order to stay ahead. This has been a major problem and players shouldn't be racing if having bad connections, yet they didn't seem to care, let alone notice.