Grand Theft Auto IV: Exploring the world
Crackdown spoiled it for me. A vast open area with the same size and scope of Liberty City begging to be explored and the power to go where you want. I don't think I've experienced quite the giddy exhilaration of agility and movement your super-powered hero offers as he leaps and bounds from tall building to tall building with gravity-defying speed and grace as I have when playing Crackdown. It's a great feeling.
In comparison, Niko Bellic's more traditional perambulatory nature is too slow, too frustrating. It's not like Crackdown. Not at all.
Of course, you could excuse his nature by saying that the vehicle empowers the player - as opposed to Crackdown, which made the vehicles the least appealing mode of transport - were it not for the fact that going on foot is an essential requirement to fully explore the nook and crannies, parks, alleys, piers rooftops and subways of this magnificent city.
Now, I'm aware of falling victim to hyperbole now we're on the post-release critical backlash part of the GTAIV experience ride, but I can say in my heart that I think this is the best representation of a city I've ever played in. The attention to detail is astonishing, the diversity of character in the different districts overwhelming. There's an overload of information in every block and a distinct lack of repetition. Stand at any junction and you're rewarded with a unique viewpoint encompassing all that a city should be. Naturally, it's a condensed experience; once you get in the air you realise the city doesn't quite match the scale of its real world inspiration of New York, but when you're back down, immersed in the busy streets staring at the hustle and bustle of city life, there's not much else that matches what it accomplishes.
A place like that, where every location has its own identity just begs to be explored. I turned off the waypoint feature pretty early on. I wanted to find my way through the city on my own terms and to navigate by landmarks rather than led by the nose by a guiding line on a radar (impressive as it is, and I still rely on the radar way too much; there's really no way around it). I want to learn this city, to make it my own. I want to know all the shortcuts and what's round that corner and on top of that building. I've always been a fan of exploring for exploring's sake and the best game worlds, from Oblivion to Thief encourage that desire in me. Here in Liberty City it's no different: each alley seems pregnant with possibility that there's something down there I've never seen before, a little special something that made the trip there worthwhile. Nothing amazing, just a mural on a wall, an interesting piece of architecture or a throwaway gag is enough. Something that makes me think the designers cared that somebody would make the effort to come down this way.
There doesn't really need to be a gaming reason to see what lies there, although I'll admit it does help. Where Crackdown had its orbs, and previous GTAs had their packages (not to mention the dreaded underwater shells in San Andreas), GTAIV has its pigeons. Two hundred of the buggers to seek out and eliminate and only a little red glow and a quiet coo-ing to indicate their presence. Then again, I've only found ten in the thirty or so hours I've played the game. And the reason for that? Crackdown spoiled it for me.
I want to explore, to see everything I can't see by car, but it justs feels so slow and awkward. I want to see it all and yet I'm restricted in my speed. Of all the little disappointments with GTAIV the one I put to the forefront is the baffling decision to make walking the default speed. It's not even a brisk walk, it's a saunter, maybe even a stroll designed to make Niko look good rather than designed to help the gamer move about. Holding the run button speeds things up, but it's not enough. The fastest you can get is sprinting by constantly tapping the run button instead. That's a little more like it but hardly practical for the fingers. And that's not to mention veritcality and how, while the climbing animation is great, Niko's mired in a world where Prince of Persia acrobatics have no place and thus no way to make scaling tall buildings a fun reality beyond a convenient set of stairs or a helicopter.
It's a shame that pigeon hunting, even exploring in general is more of a chore than it should be, then. It's not the central focus of the game, it's just a relatively small thing in a title that still mightily impresses me despite exposing its flaws very quickly, yet how much better it could have been had we been given agility on par with Realtime World's noble effort to take the open world city in a new direction. My one hope from now is that someone knocks up a mod that unlocks this ability in the forthcoming PC release. Do so and I'll praise you to high heaven.
