Grand Theft Auto IV

Even though Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) made more money than the GDP of many countries, it still generated a lot of resentment amongst gamers. Sure it took realism to the next level and was a technical marvel of sorts on consoles, but in many ways it felt like a step back for the series – especially after San Andreas raised the bar significantly.

GTA IV revolved around the trials and tribulations of Serbian immigrant Niko Bellic who after being promised a life of luxury, wealth and women by his cousin, Roman arrived in Liberty City to experience the “American Dream”. Upon arriving in Liberty City Niko finds out that Roman wasn’t as prosperous as his mails and letters made him out to be; in fact he was pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel, barely making ends meet. Instead of kicking Roman’s ass all over the place for lying to him, Niko stuck around to help his cousin out in his time of need. But in doing so he unwittingly became the man he left behind.

Now nearly 8 months later PC gamers have their chance to experience the PC port of this crime saga, sprinkled with crisper graphics, higher resolutions, a brand new video editor and 32 player support (MP). Bbut unfortunately, this isn’t the port you’ve been waiting for and does not reflect the kind of quality we’ve come to expect from Rockstar games.

I’ve heard some pretty horrifying stories about people’s experiences with the game, so I was pretty apprehensive of the whole deal at first. But being a massive GTA whor… I mean fan I went ahead and installed it without reading the minimum system requirements. After freeing up nearly 15 GB of hard disk space I was expecting a bunch of issues to crop up, but luckily the installation went pretty smoothly since I had both a Games for Windows Live (GFWL) ID as well as a Rockstar Social Club ID.

Unfortunately my enthusiasm got the best of me and I skimmed over the part where it said that the game required Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP1 required in Windows Vista) to run, without which, it most unceremoniously crashed to the desktop. Thanks to a nifty little FAQ I scored from Rockstar’s support page (and my MTNL 2 MB connection), I downloaded the 316 MB Windows update in about half an hour and was raring to go.
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Now that I had fulfilled all of Rockstar’s conditions, I finally booted up the game that required me to sign into the Social Club first after which I was automatically logged into my GFWL ID (without which you cannot save your single player progress). Unlike what I had read on numerous forums my game did not crash while logged into the Social Club. So far so good!

After watching the intro movie (once again) I went straight to the game’s Graphics options, where for some reason my Texture Quality settings were locked at medium. No matter what I did, I couldn’t bump it up to high. Later on, I learnt (via the internet) that most rigs on this planet were not meant to play the game at higher settings.

Right below the Texture Settings was something called Render Quality, which is nothing but another name for Antistrophic Filtering (AF). Pushing this bar to the max is sure to cripple your system. Medium or High settings are recommended for most users.

Below Texture Settings, were four more sliders to choose from:

• View Distance
• Detail Distance
• Vehicle Density
• Shadow Density

The game itself recommends you keep the first option in the 20’s if you have anything from an NVIDIA 8800 series to a 9800 GTX. Detail Distance and Vehicle Density don’t affect performance even if you pump them all the way to the max, whereas shadow Density is once again a major b*tch on the system.
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Once you’re done tooling around with your settings, the game allows you to run an in-game benchmark tool that judges your performance based on the selected settings. Off course you (most probably) will not find the sweet spot in the first try, so keep playing with the settings till you achieve the universally accepted 30 FPS.

After nearly half an hour of tweaking, I was ready to head back to Liberty City, but I wasn’t highly impressed with what I saw. Sure the game looked a lot better than its console counter parts, but even with the settings pretty much on the medium side, the game constantly chugged along to achieve 30 FPS. Once it started raining or I started causing some serious mayhem in the city, my frame rates dipped lower than 20 FPS rendering the game unplayable momentarily.

On the plus side GTA IV plays brilliantly with the mouse and keyboard. Lining up headshots feel really easy as compared to the console versions, and even though it took me some time to get used to driving with the keyboard, it became second nature in no time. Control freaks (see what I did there?) need not worry since the game works perfectly with the Xbox 360 controller even allowing you to use your mouse and keyboard at the same time.

Another bonus in the PC version is the fact that you can finally play your own tunes into the game via a radio station called Independence FM. Making matters even sweeter is the fact that you now even have a British DJ on your customized radio station, accompanied by cocky ads and announcements spoofing American culture.

Another aspect that benefits from the transition to the PC is the game’s multiplayer. Originally limited to sixteen players on consoles, GTA IV for the PC now supports up to 32 players over Games for Windows Live. Not only is the sheer size and scope an impressive feat in itself; thanks to the mouse and the keyboard owning people online in Liberty City never felt this right. Independence Radio gets transferred over to MP as well so you can now – and thank God for this – listen to your tunes while indulging in painfully long races. On the flip side there were hardly any servers up and running at the time of writing this review and the only mode being played online was Deathmatch.
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Remember how frustrated you felt when you did something really cool in the game but couldn’t capture your footage or relive that awesome moment that in all probability would never be repeated again? Well now thanks to a nifty little Video Editor exclusive to the PC version, you bloody well can. At the press of a button you can now record up to 30 seconds of mayhem in Liberty City, spruce it up with a bunch of cool effects and share it with the world via the Social Club. It’s not rocket science but it does have a bit of a learning curve so it may take some time before you’re the proud owner of some wicked, well edited footage. There’s also an in-built viewer in the main menu where you can check out the coolest or the most popular videos in the Social Club and rate them.

As far as actual game content is concerned, the PC version is identical to its console brethren so there’s no reason to revisit Liberty City if you’ve experienced it on the Xbox 360 or the PS3. On the other hand, if you’re GTA IV cherry hasn’t been popped yet I definitely recommend picking it up for the PC – as long as you have the required hardware (or you’ll be bitterly disappointed).

Making matters even sweeter for us Indian users is the fact that the game is being sold for as little as Rs 499 here.

As reported earlier on Tech 2.0 , Rockstar’s finished working on the first patch that should be available real soon.

Reviewer’s Rig:

Intel Core 2 Duo
E8200@2.66 GHZ
2.00 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512 MB