GTA IV - Another Small Fish Preview

Last week I was lucky enough to get a first look at GTA IV, three months prior to release. To my mind, GTA: San Andreas is one of the most complete, and not to mention best, computer games I've ever had the joy of playing. It was hard to think of ways in which the developers at Rockstar could improve the game for the next-gen formats other than producing better graphics, more expansive maps and improved physics (achievable with the more powerful hardware). As far as gameplay is concerned, a simple evolution of the game would suffice for GTA fans but Rockstar have managed to delve deep into their pockets and produce so much more by the looks of things.

The more eager-eyed of TVG readers will have seen a GTA IV preview that took you step-by-step through the glistening missions that we both experienced a week ago. I now have the privilege of telling you lovely people more about the leaps forward in gameplay and style that Rockstar will be introducing in October.

Make no mistake, GTA IV has gone next-gen in a way that few other titles in this sluggish new generation have managed to. Are the graphics a vast improvement? Yes. Are the physics considerably more convincing? Of course. Are character animations more life-like? That's a no-brainer. But, as always, the most important thing about a game is gameplay and this is what seems to be the most next-generational aspect of everything in GTA IV.

We were taken through the same demonstration twice last week, and there was a very deliberate reason for this. It allowed us to see the marked differences that occur by pure happenstance if you replay the same missions. For example, the demo included a point where you have to shoot a big-city lawyer execution style. The first time we saw this, the lawyer took a few steps backwards and fell out of the window to the streets below - I honestly thought this was a mission successfully completed cut-scene. I was wrong. When we saw the execution the second time around the lawyer simply collapsed in his office. Only a combination of utterly brilliant physics and animation of liquid-like fluidity could provide this type of variation in gameplay, and GTA IV has nailed it.

Another striking thing about this part of the mission was exactly how much of it was set indoors. GTA IV will certainly feature vastly improved indoor locations. For example, the transition from indoors to outdoors will be seamless (no loading times or short cut-scenes of CJ pushing a door open). What was noticeable in the demo, though, was how good interiors looked and how realistically you moved through them. In the demo, after Niko shoots the lawyer you become involved in a shoot-out with both security guards and cops where you must battle your way through the Goldberg, Ligner and Shyster building (a law firm - Goldberg is who you execute), into the open and away to safety.

The building is an office block with multiple stories, escalators (which you take on your way up), office plants and quivering receptionists. The stunning thing is just how realistic this interior is as you battle your way out of it. You have to peer down corridors, move cautiously out into a lobby, descend some stairs and duck behind computer panels to avoid police fire at the building's entrance. In short, there won't be one second throughout this feverish affair where you'll question the architectural intricacies of the building you're in. It's as effortlessly convincing as the air I'm breathing right now.

On the second demo play-through, our demonstrator treated us to what a full-on police shoot-out of five wanted stars looks like. We saw Niko crouch for cover, and not in the ways we're used to on the previous-gen games. In GTA IV, Niko will back-up against cars, letting out bursts of blind-fire as he composes himself, or peer over objects to let-out an aimed shot from an above and behind the right shoulder view. Put another way, it's a covering system in the league of industry defining third person shooters such as Gears of War.

Anyway, as this shoot-out demonstration continued it gave us a chance to see the character animations as policeman etc. got shot. In previous GTA games, there weren't really such animations as you simply pumped an enemy full of lead until the three small triangles around them changed from green to red. Only when they ran out of health did they react and fall to the flaw in a blood filled heap, and up until that point they'd simply run away. In GTA IV we saw a security guard run towards us, guns blazing, until we opened fire on him. The effect was like that scene in Platoon where Elias dies - the security guards body contorted in haphazard directions as bullets hit different parts of his body, before he slumped onto the floor. In another example our demonstrator managed to get a shot off at a police officer which went straight into his thigh. The cop's leg instantly fell from under him and he was left crippled while still trying to shoot at us.

It's this sort of an exceptional eye for detail that was spread lavishly throughout the demo we saw and will doubtlessly be present in the final game. This can also be seen in the destructible objects peppered throughout the environments we saw. While destructible objects have not been particular large in number throughout previous GTA games, GTA IV appears to have expanded the library considerably. We saw computer terminals crumple with bullet holes before falling in a crumpled mess to the floor. This is simply yet another tick in the box of a uniquely realistic gaming environment in GTA IV.

Finally, while the preview earlier this week spoke of the new wanted system in great depth, there are a couple of things I thought I'd mention again, just because they're so flingin' flammin' excellent. So, as we already know, the new wanted system will work in the following way: Once you become wanted a circle will appear around you on the map. Every cop in that circle will be trying to sniff you out. The more wanted you are, the bigger the radius of the circle. The AI of the cops is based on a line-of-sight system where, if they can see you, they'll chase after you. You have to get out of the wanted circle on the map to lose the wanted level.

This is simply inspired and goes way above and beyond previous GTA games simply because it's more intelligent, realistic and challenging. It also throws up some amazing gameplay opportunities. So, let's say five cop cars are chasing you up the road and they're about 100 yards behind you. What you can do is take a left and then, before the cops can turn the corner and see you, duck down an alley. Niko can then get out of the car, watch the police cars speed past the alley, and actually walk out of the wanted circle on the map without getting any attention from the pigs. Not only is the AI for this groundbreaking, the idea behind it is simply inspired.

Conversely, in the demo we saw Niko get out of his car and hot-wire a new one while wanted by the police. Our demonstrator hadn't been spotted by the coppers and so, theoretically, he could've driven straight out of the wanted zone un-harassed. Instead, he purposely took a corner a little bit raggedly - with a touch too much speed and over steer - in the line of sight of a police car. Ingeniously, the AI kicked in and the police started pursuing this car as a new suspect vehicle - I was gobsmacked.

Much as I would like to chatter on about the intricacies of GTA IV that I loved so much in the demonstration I saw, I've got to wrap it up. I will, however, leave you with this butchered thought from The Simpsons's Krusty the Clown:

"Once in a great while, we are privileged to experience a television event so extraordinary, it becomes part of our shared heritage. 1969 - Man walks on the moon. 1971 - Man walks on the moon... again. Then, for a long time, nothing happened. Until tonight [now]. Behold the future: of Comedy: Poochie! [GTA IV]"