GTA IV - Small Fish In A Big Pond Preview

When TVG last experienced Grand Theft Auto IV in motion, we left protagonist Niko Bellic gazing over the river towards Algonquin (Liberty City's Manhattan), just as sunlight bloomed from behind the district's skyscrapers. Promising to show more of the guts of the game this time around, though still barely scratching the surface of GTA IV as a whole, Rockstar turned the lights down and began our return to the big pond of Liberty City and its equivalent of Times Square...

Where stars come together...

A far cry from the trash-laden, downtrodden streets of Broker, Algonquin's Star Junction is everything that you'd expect from a homage to one of the most recognisable areas of New York City. Giant billboards, multiple roads, and numerous taxis, all feature at the heart of the district, with the added lighting effects working to create the early morning atmosphere in the city - it's the start of another day in Liberty for Niko Bellic. But in a bid to show off some of the fundamental changes being built into Grand Theft Auto IV, the Junction was merely a place for Niko to use one of the newest features of the game: the cabs.

Catching a cab isn't something that's really been touched upon in the franchise before, and whilst it's a mechanic that's been used in other open-world titles, GTA IV's implementation will be far broader. Players will be able to hail a cab when they see one on the road and give a destination, sit in the back in first-person view as the yellow taxi travels through the city, or switch to a more dynamic cinematic view. There's also the choice to 'trip skip' the ride in its entirety, following the 'Sometime later...' option in GTA: San Andreas, or even pay double the fare - making the cabbie put his foot down. For the sake of the demo, taking the cab also allowed us to soak in some of finer details of the city, from small gatherings of people on street corners, to the neon lighting of store fronts bouncing and blooming behind tree branches.

Rockstar's ambition for Grand Theft Auto IV is to create the ultimate next-gen action/adventure, pushing the franchise beyond its past achievements. Whilst some, like the visuals, are there to bring the title graphically into the next-generation, other changes are much more fundamental. For the first time in the series, every street and suburb in the city will be given a name, from North Holland and Varsity Heights, to the semi-precious Emerald Street, Feldspar Street, Jade Street, and Hematite Street. A subtle way of creating the illusion of a real city, the street names will also come in handy when telling a cabbie where you want to go, and will also be used by the police as they try to identify your location and bring you to justice. More on the wholly revised police system later...

GTA Fundamentalists

In their bid to create a much more realistic game world compared to past instalments, Rockstar has dropped two of the trademark companies of the previous GTA III trilogy: AmmuNation and Paint 'n' Spray. With stores on both seaboards of the GTA universe, AmmuNation has always been the one-stop place for guns and weapons, but its supplies now end in GTA IV - you're not going to find a cash 'n' carry gun store in Times Square, so why should you find one in Star Junction or surrounding Middle Park? So how will Bellic get his hands on pistols, sub-machineguns, and other weapons?

Using his mobile phone, an integral part of the gameplay in the upcoming title, Bellic can contact a range of people as his 'inner circle' widens. In the demo, Niko had already established contact with Little Jacob, a part of Roman Bellic's group, and resident gunrunner on the island of Algonquin. Calling Jacob's number, Bellic receives the location of the meeting a couple of blocks away (a dark side alley), and hailing a cab, makes his way to the destination. But establishing relationships with gunrunners is just one way to acquire weaponry; making contact with other underworld types including survivalists or arranging weapons exchanges in dingy cellars and basements, is also available to Niko and the player. The building and maintaining of relationships with people throughout the underworld of Liberty City is key to succeeding the city. For instance, killing Little Jacob is an option open to players, but they'll find themselves subsequently having to take Niko to more dangerous locations like basements in order to get a 'piece'.

But it's not only how players get hold of a gun that's changed; Rockstar North is also working hard to replace the clunky lock on/aiming mechanic of the GTA III trilogy. Taking a leaf from the likes of Resident Evil 4 and even Epic's Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War, the camera angle now switches when a weapon is drawn to a 'slightly behind and over the shoulder' view. Besides aiming, the weapons-based combat is already looking much more developed than the likes of San Andreas, with Niko able to use any object as cover, allowing him to blindfire. The game will also feature both lock on and free aiming, with Rockstar promising that the weapons system (one of the few slight weaknesses in the GTA III trilogy) is an improvement over past iterations.

But AmmuNation isn't the only business to have gone bust in GTA IV; Paint 'n' Spray garages are also being removed from the game as a result of the new police system, and Rockstar's strong desire to create a footing in the real world - it's quite simply become obsolete. The six Wanted stars may remain, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. When Niko commits a crime and begins to collect stars, a red and blue radius appears on the map in the bottom-left of the screen, getting larger the more stars players gain. The aim is to escape from the radius, which represents the area the LCPD are hunting you. Offering a much more dynamic system than previous instalments, the radius is reset every time the police suspect you or have Niko in their line of sight. Despite creating an experience more comparable to the real world, the 'line of sight' AI of the LCPD won't be as stringent on minor crimes such as running a red light or speeding, but it's already clear that the cops of GTA IV will prove to be much craftier and realistic than their past-generation counterparts. It also sets up the strategy of quickly changing vehicles out of sight of the police, which (as long as their suspicions are raised) will enable players to drive out of danger.

But Rockstar's desire to create a more realistic setting for the upcoming GTA instalment hasn't meant that the studio is putting aside its trademark sardonic humour. Even during the demo it was abundant, with internet cafes called 'T.W.@' and a radio advert for the Vindication Angel Cursebuster, an anti-profanity gadget that replaces swearing in movies ("It's time to start editing reality"), ensuring that GTA IV won't be wallowing in a newfound serious tone.

A Blackmailer's blackmailer

So that's a partial tour of Algonquin and an explanation of how to get guns and deal with the police, but what about the mission structure of GTA IV? How will it compare to CJ's story in San Andreas or Tommy Vercetti's neon-lit adventures in Vice City? Rockstar gladly obliged to demonstrate...

Blackmailed by a bent LCPD cop called Francis McReary forced to do a few jobs, Niko is sent to infiltrate a Liberty City legal firm called Goldberg, Ligner, and Shyster, which is currently in the midst of a case involving the dirty policeman. Niko's mission is to kill Goldberg, and retrieve a file about the case. Paranoid about security, the entrance to the firm is secure, with people having to be buzzed in by reception, and a scruffy-looking man in casual clothes like Bellic certainly isn't allowed in a place like that, so the East European has to be a bit more imaginative.

Thankfully, it turns out that Goldberg, Ligner and Shyster are recruiting, so with a mocked up CV, Bellic goes to the nearest internet café and submits it into the Jobs section of the company's website. Like the mobile phone, internet cafes will play an important role in the game, not only as part of missions, but also as 'information aggregators' that allow Bellic to keep up to date with the latest news from around the city. How they'll work in that way for now remains unclear, especially with regards to whether certain news will trigger missions, but that's another aspect that Rockstar will surely fill in between now and release. With the CV uploaded, a quick call to McReary confirms that Niko is on track to complete the mission and it's just a matter of sitting back and waiting for the law firm to get in touch about an interview...

For the sake of the demo, time was constricted between the CV being submitted and a GLS secretary contacting Niko to let him know about the interview time, but it was still enough time for the character to get himself ready for the meeting - and also complete a second mission at the same time.

The idea of being able to complete missions whilst other missions are still in play forms another part of Rockstar North's drive to create a more immersive and realistic gameworld. In the case of the demo, Niko answers another call from McGreary, who's waiting for him in the game's equivalent of Battery Park. This time, the cop finds himself being blackmailed by an unknown person with evidence of McGreary's shrouded dealings. With demands for money in return for the evidence, McGreary sends Niko to a lookout point where his mission is to identify and kill the person, and recover a memory stick which holds the information. It's during this mission that Rockstar demonstrated how the mobile phone will go beyond being just an object to instigate tasks, and how it'll be used as an integral part of certain missions. For instance, a camera and calendar will be just two of the features of the mobile, together with GTA IV's multiplayer elements...though as Rockstar representatives were quick to explain, that's for another demo.

Arriving at the lookout spot, Niko receives a text message from McGreary with the unknown blackmailer's mobile phone number. But in a busy park, the man could literally be anywhere, leaving players no choice but to call him, and try to identify who answers a phone. For the sake of the demo, the blackmailer was in a pre-determined spot, though Rockstar representatives did confirm that in the final release, the blackmailer could be in any location within the park, requiring some sharp eyes from players. Having identified him however, it only took a moment for Bellic to sneak up on him, kill him using the pistol from Little Jacob, and pick up the memory stick. So having recovered the evidence and escaped the police (and the flashing radius), it was time to finish off the lawyer, Mr Goldberg...

He might have secured an interview, but if Niko also has to look the part too. Despite GTA IV dropping the character customisation of San Andreas (where eating a few burgers plumped up CJ within a few mealtimes), clothes stores will continue to feature up and down the high streets of Liberty City. A quick visit to Perseus the Tailors to spend $2,000 on a brown suit soon smartens up Niko, and a quick cab ride later, we were walking into the foyer of Goldberg, Ligner, and Shyster. Taking care of Goldberg in his office with a couple of bullets (an opportunity for Rockstar to demonstrate the physics-driven animations powered by NaturalMotion's Euphoria tools as the lawyer slumped down the wall), it was time to finish the demo by making a successful escape from the building, making sure to take a few security guards along the way.