JaseC said:
The problem with GTAIV is that, mechanically, it's practically GTAIII with better graphics and a mobile phone gimmick thrown into the mix for good measure. Gay Tony is what the game should have been.
I'd disagree pretty strongly with this. On a mechanical level, GTAIV is broken in part
because of its tech improvements. You can do the comparisons yourself: try something like jacking a car in III or VC, then do the same in IV. In the earlier games, you press the button, jump to the door, are in the car and up to speed almost immediately. In IV, they've given the animators many more frames in the name of graphical progression, and it gives the whole thing that moving-in-maple-syrup feeling.
I've got a parallel beef with the story: in the pursuit of an Oscar or whatever the heck, there's just miles of useless exposition. Again, compare for yourself: start up Vice City, and go to the first mission in the law-talking guy's office. How long is that cutscene? Does it need to be any longer? In IV, not only does everyone say much, much more, the cutscenes are essentially taking over the gameplay: if the normal rules of the game are broken, for example, in a chase sequence where the chasee is invincible, why bother giving the player control at all? You can't end it quickly by shooting the dude; this would interfere with the story that has been dictated for you. You can't take an alternate route to cut him off; an invisible wall in the form of "The target is getting away!" stops you. It breaks the illusion of non-linearity, and in a way that detracts from things like character development.
All of these games have been about climbing the ladder in the underworld, and up until IV a fairly ingenious mechanic allowed you, as a player, to parallel this character development: as you figured out the layout of the city, and found hidden stuff that unlocked more stuff, and practiced drills through ambulances and taxis and fire trucks, and discovered exploits that the game happily allowed, you learned and became more powerful on a level outside the mechanics of the game. IV gave no incentives or reward for this, and actively discouraged it most of the time - which is why I don't give two shits about their giant empty city. One part was mostly interchangeable with any other, and you can just take a taxi there anyway.