Reviews from a Casual Gamer: GTA 4

GTA 4 has been reviewed as one of the greatest games of all time. It has made more money in one week than any other media release of all time. That means movies, CD's, DVD's, books, everything. All of that said here is what I think of it.

The cons:
Supporting characters (aka people on the street and driving) are sometimes too dumb. For instance, you walk in to someone, they say "Excuse me" you than proceed to shoot someone right in front of them, and instead of running they say "You're clumsy". There are many more similar situations that anyone who has played the game will have experienced.

One major disappointment for me was not being able to go up the Statue of Happiness. Nuff' said.

The pro's
This is where my title comes in. While many nay sayers will complain that the games graphic content is bad for children, I would like to claim the opposite is true. The obscenely realistic drug addicts and criminals I have seen in this game are disgusting, sickly, and many other undesirable traits. Any child playing this game will have it in their heads that meth heads are horrible people. It will last with them through there teenage years and when offered a drug they may remember back to GTA 4 and refuse it. While anyone who has already done drugs may play the game and not be turned off by them, since they already know the pitfalls but don't care, a child will see these characteristics with innocent eyes and be forever turned off by drugs. Just a thought.

My other pro is... everything else. The cars, the guns, being able to explore the entire city, the collision mechanics, the realistic and diverse responses from people when you bump in to them or rob them, the conversations while driving to missions, the radio stations in the car, EVERYTHING!

Two things I would like to see in future iterations of the game:

This is going to sound crazy but I want to be able to break in to houses, rob everything, kill the family inside, smear blood on the walls. Yeah it is disgusting and violent, but is it that much more violent than shooting someone through their windshield and having their brains splatter everywhere as their head falls to the horn and honks endlessly, or crashing in to innocent pedestrians and having the front of your car plastered with blood, or....any of the many many methods this game allows you to kill a person?

My second wish and hope is definitely further from reality. But I can't wait till the AI in the game is intelligent enough to respond to what you are actually saying. You tell them to duck, they duck, tell them to shut up they shut up. At first the characters will only be set to understand certain sayings, similar to how the DS can do with Brain Age and other games, but eventually the characters will be as lively as online gamers, and give an even more immerse gaming experience.

So there you have it, everything I have to say about GTA 4.