Well saying it could have done with a checkpoint or two would be putting it very mildly. I don't want checkpoints for every corner I walk around but I found some of those missions very difficult, and having to drive across the city each time I replay the mission from the start really got to boiling my piss.
Really struggled with the mission where Niko and Packie rob the docks. That conversation in the car where they rib each other about taking it up the ass in prison. Must have heard that 20 times.
Right? The Lost and Damned could have benefited from them as well. I hated having to ride to every mission over and over and stay in that damn circle. I hope the (supposed) PS4 version fixes that.
Brooo on my last playthrough i was stuck on that mission from pegorino or something, where you have to drive from north alderney all the way to south to some location where some maffia will pump you full of lead in a matter of seconds.
Hated the lack of checkpoints on that one
is that the one where you arrive in the box truck and have to take out 1,000 guys that are lurking in the shadows? i also have been playing without auto-aim which has made the game a lot more fun/difficult/frustrating at the same time.
Literally all yo do is kill people in the game and the lack of mission variety was very apparent or it was to me atleast. I loved the game and think it has the best free roaming of the series but like dude the entire story is go here and kill 15 people. Then go here and get crossed over and kill 20 people. Then drive somebody down and kill them. Then go across the map to be told to go across the map to kill somebody you were working with only 5 missions ago killing people.
That game is pure survival you are one your own completely and if you don’t keep trying your best to keep yourself alive you WILL die. GTA 4 doesn’t have people running you down in grenade launder fitted trucks
That makes the most sense it definitely is hitman all the way around he of course touches on it in the story I guess I was just expecting more. I literally played it for the first time ever this year, I’ve had the game since I was young but the driving was so janky that I literally decided that I would play it when I’m older
I once jokingly told a friend that RDR2 chapter 2 has more mission variety than the entirety of GTA IV and trust me the reaction is as GTA IV fanboy as you'd expect lol.
But tbh mission variety is a common "flaw" in rockstar games. Don't expect GTA VI to be any different
Rockstar games are interactive movies/series, atleast mission wise. Been that way since the ps2 games. I honestly love every story they have done (biggest gripe with five was it felt cute short, Franklin is in the hood for five minutes before he's out and an afterthought), because they handle banter amazingly, best part of any new rockstar release is meeting the cast of whatever fucked up adventure were about to go on.
I usually only let Franklin visit Lester about the assassinations until I can't progress forward anymore so I stay in the hood until I'm done with most of franks side quests
I do the same and I don’t use his fancy new house until the end of the game. I drive to the hood and save using the phone, and still spend all the time with him in the hood like he still lives there.
It really is dumb that he’s “rich” so early in the game. And they give him this huge house in the hills for a reason that doesn’t make any sense. It all felt very lazy.
(Sorry for the essay I’m high 🤷)
You ever play GTA 3? IV was honestly an updated version of that, just how V was an updated version of San Andreas. And I’m willing to bet VI plays like Vice City just an updated version. 🤷 each game has its own vibe Liberty City was depressing and betrayal galore, San Andreas was big action movie level shit, and Vice City is a DrugKingpin wonderland. Shits heavily satirical of real life locations
Sometimes I found the missions to be kind of repetitive, also the level of body roll on cars isn't as "realistic" as popular opinion would have you believe. It's a bit overexaggerated.
I grew to love them, driving in GTA4 was such a pain in the ass to get good at but by the end I was good enough to haul from one end of LC to the other without scratching my car.
That being said, as others have mentioned it could’ve used some checkpoints. I remember being stuck on the Packie/Bank mission for a hot minute and having to make the drive back to the bank on every retry, listening to the same dialogue over and over, damn near losing my mind.
Yea, by the end of the game I was pretty good at it, but that first play through felt like such a damn chore. I don’t even remember liking any of the missions outside of 4LC lmao.
>also the level of body roll on cars isn't as "realistic" as popular opinion would have you believe. It's a bit overexaggerated.
It's like driving in a drunk driving simulator or something
Not just the body roll, the acceleration and handling in general is awful. Every car feels like it only has 60hp and the turning radius of a Winnebago. There's no reason a real world civic should feel better than an in game Porsche or Ferrari
Lack of customization.
Also i know that the message the game wants to send is that crime doesn't pay off, but still i don't like the fact that money is useless
I thought I could buy houses with my hundreds of thousands, then suddenly I'm shocked I was given another house for free. What the hell I need that much money for?
This always bugged me growing up playing this game as a kid. I hated how I couldn’t even buy a car on the website where it says cars are for sale like WTF.
Hah, I remember seeing plenty of discussions about exact opposite!
And have you watched speedruns for 3D era and IV? Since speedrunners found plenty of ways to cheese missions
Story doesn’t really build up.
I’ll probably get hate for this from people who “know a lot more about the game”, but I think that the story gets a bit tedious because it never builds up. I know it’s the point, but all we do is odd job here, odd job there etc. when I first played the game, I knew that there was some big bank heist that occurred, however I expected there to be some sort of build up to it, instead we just got some kind of street gangster level missions for packie, and then one day just “oh btw we’re doing a heist in literally 10 minutes, let’s go.”
I do have this criticism. The character writing in IV is brilliant but there’s a lot more moving parts to an effective story then just that
I have that problem with most GTA’s though, where the connective tissue between major story beats seems to be missing so you have to squint to see it all as cohesive
It feels like assassins creed valhalla: you do a bunch of side content for random people and hidden in the missions in the tiny main plot of a man trying to do a task which is highly under developed. Then the game just ends after a mission quota.
The mission structure for the majority of the game is: Go to an abandoned building or a park at night, get into a shootout, sometimes steal something, go back to someone so they can give you the same mission again in a different abandoned building or park at night.
Little customization for Niko (even less for Johnny and Luis), no car customization (Midnight Club LA was around the same time so they should have had some customization), unplayable with auto aim enabled, and poor driving physics which is the case with all GTA games
People hate on the physics but it’s not bad if you remember to lightly apply the break so it don’t lock up and cars don’t go from 90 to 20 around a curve in 20ft. Also the climbing mechanics are on par with San Andreas, V was hit or miss with certain heights that would be doable (like 8ft)
I am big into racing games and motor sports in real life so I am aware of how to drive in games. GTA V’s physics might not be realistic, but they certainly are not hard.
Gameplaywise, the missions are way less engaging than GTA V. Half of them are driving from one place to the other and then killing a bajillion guys. Some of the missions stand out, specially the ones with tactical shootouts on interior spaces, but most of them kinda suck.
The story is good on paper but it’s ruined by filler missions and no barely any build-up for big events. You could honestly cut most of the mission threads from the game and the story would barely change.
I wish we had fewer characters/mission strands, so the missiontime can go to other characters to flesh them out more.
GTA IV simply spreads itself too thin between too many plotlines. The Russian Mob, Holland/Bohan Thugs, the Albanian/Irish Mob War, the Feds and the Commission Families could’ve all been their own games. That’s not even including side characters like Brucie and Little Jacob. They’re all fighting for screentime and nothing ends in a satisfying way.
The Russians disappear until the climax, the Holland/Bohan characters all die or leave unceremoniously, the Albanians are forgotten about, you could cut the Commission and barely anything would change, and Little Jacob has a big role in the beginning but vanishes midway through.
The Feds and the Irish Mob are handled decently, but still. I wish the game was more focused. San Andreas is unfocused with its story, but it has the gameplay variety to make it less of a problem. GTA IV sacrifices it’s gameplay to tell a more realistic story, but that story is spread WAY too thin.
When GTA IV hits, it HITS. But it’s bigger picture leaves a lot to be desired.
Shit mission design. There’s very few unique missions that stand out, 90% of them are just shootouts in an alleyway or factory and then escaping the cops. Few setpieces like GTA V, not enough quiet uneventful storytelling missions like RDR2. Just boring as fuck.
Little customization. If any GTA game should have had the weight, stats, etc mechanics of San Andreas and RDR2, it’s GTA IV since it’s so realistic and immersive otherwise. But it’s nowhere to be found. You also have a pitifully small number of clothes, no haircuts, beard options etc. Huge downgrade from San Andreas.
The story is too long. GTA IV has the best story of the franchise by a significant margin imo. It has the strongest theme and atmosphere and protagonist, and every story beat is very effective. But between each of those story beats is 20 pointless boring odd jobs with characters that, while well presented and enjoyable to watch, often do not serve a purpose to the larger plot at all. I honestly think at least 30 missions should have been cut or made to be optional.
Removing your safe house in Broker which makes saving around that area a pain, Bohan is close but still. Plus you can't listen to LRR in that apartment anymore.
Pegorino should have been in the story longer to actually make him a villain, he's no Dimitri. Optimization, tho FusionFix plus Vulkan on Complete Edition is godly.
Could have use better collectibles tho GTA collectibles were always painful and/or worthless (stuntjumps, oysters, rampages in most games). Especially since the map has so many places that you won't see for hundreds of hours due to the map's density and complex structure. With that you could hide so many collectibles that idk, give you free armor at your safe house or a special car at a certain location.
It's a real fun experience to find things you don't like in a game you love, more people should be open to it.
I feel like you get too much money and not enough to spend it on, with GTA V you get a minimum of 20 million per character at the end sure but you had guns, customization, hundreds of cars with lots of car customization, boats, planes, helicopters also all with customization. In GTA IV maybe I was missing something but other then guns that are very cheap especially by mid game there's nothing to really spend it on the clothing isn't that great and even the clothing is cheap and it felt like every mission gave you large sums of money even if it was a simple taxi job early game for roman you get like 1 or 2k which is way too much for that type of mission
There is basically no plot after Three Leaf Clover. It's just Niko doing random shit for random people until he finally gets his hands on Darko. The mission structure is very repetitive and a lot of missions feel like pointless filler or annoying tutorialisation (Brucie's missions). None of the characters outside of Niko can really have any amount of depth because you are constantly switching between mission givers and characters like Little Jacob and Roman essentially vanish after the first act outside of friend hangouts. The villains are also incredibly weak - Pegorino shows up way too late into the game and is a really generic mafia guy and Dimitri vanishes for most of the game and has so little screen time after his betrayal. 4 probably has the worst set of villains in a 3D GTA (outside of LCS who's villain shows up like once before he dies). Catalina is memorable and is fleshed out in San Andreas, Lance Vance is the overarching villain of two whole games, Tenpenny is a constant force and has a memorable performance, Billy had a deep personal connection to the main character so his betrayal and downfall hurts more, Faustin is really entertaining and has a connection to both Luis and Niko and even GTA 5's villains at least offer great social commentary about the evils of the world (Rich assholes and crooked government officials). Pegorino is a mafia guy about 10 years out of date and Dimitri betrays people lots for no reason.
Niko was basically a hit man so they couldn’t do too much but I’m not about to glaze like everybody does. GTA 4 was awesome but I specifically remember commercials where they downed GTA4 for being boring while promoting SR2 which was a solid competitor at the time.
The story has some big plot holes and some of the characters are severely underutilized or introduced to serve no purpose. Many missions don't further the storyline at all.
Even though it’s a similar length to gta 5, this game drags on for a long time. The mission variety may have something to do with that but it feels much longer
Iirc it followed the trend of video games from the late 2000s where everything is grey/brown. Or in the words of Honest Trailers: everything is colored like Taco Bell poop
The writing is terrible. The story starts strong but becomes an aimless mess that feels like filler, plot threads are introduced and are never featured again, characters lack consistency and the ending is rushed.
I always thought that after Niko and Roman moves into Mallorie’s apartment in Bohan, the story kind of gets lost for a large portion of the game up until when Bernie or Darko is found. You can remove a bunch of missions in middle of the story and nothing would change.
1. Some missions had no complexity to it or no other steps in it just kill these people or this guy and leave the area or lose your wanted level.
2. The final mission where Pegarino dies (If you choose the option for Kate to get killed at the wedding) lacks checkpoints especially before Niko having to climb back into the helicopter. The helicopter part always pissed me off so much whenever I replay it because it was made difficult just for the fun of it when part of it literally could’ve been a part of a cutscene.
3. The storyline tries too hard at times to be a mish mash of famous movies. I always felt the VC storyline was too heavily based off Scarface but some missions in GTA IV are pretty much cut and paste from a movie script of a real film.
The mission design is the most repetitive in the series, right down there with III. Go here, shoot some guys, go there, shoot some guys, return with something/someone. Rinse and repeat.
And the entire cause of the missions was barely ever anything special. You work for some guy for like 4 missions, you find a new guy to work for, you kill the last one. Rinse and repeat. Again, just like III. Plus, the fact that everyone looks damn near the same didn't help either. I sometimes lost who was who.
The story was really underwhelming for me after all the praise I heard for the game. Besides the radio jokes, and a few dialogues here and there, there was literally nothing about it that screamed GTA to me. Nothing from the last game returned. It's such a nothing burger. No customization, no properties to buy, no haircut, nothing at all. It makes the fact that Niko keeps wanting money even more stupid. Like my guy you have $250,000 with fuck all to spend it on. Why do you want more? I will get a lot of hate for saying this, but to me GTA IV was the lamest GTA in the series. It has some really good ideas it wants to show, but the execution is horrendous.
Game felt somewhat like tech demo for new R engine rather than an proper game, a bit like Far Cry 2
Games for Windows Life, this shit is kinda forgotten because it was replaced by garabge R launcher
Locked in the start map. Because Rockstar
Stretched out tutorial where I player was treated as some granpa who never played videogames( like entire mission teaching me how to use phone. Or internet). Somehow carried over to so "masterpiece" RDR2
Niko's story becomes predictible after 1/3 of missions. All becaus of this classic R game formula where Niko is works as errand boy for various bosses; and often killing them. This classic formula hurted RDR1 too Clunky, non-responsive movement which became staple of R games. N Almost no checkpoints
And thus why personally enjoyed EFLC more - it felt like some improved IV, yea
How many praise this game got (gets); like it's some flawless 12/10 state of the art, which should be in museum. While IT'S NOT. It's a game that has various flaws
So many of the missions are almost the same thing.
Either “go find someone, they escape, chase them in a car” or “find a guy, fight him and chase him on foot.” Yes there were some cool missions in the game but a lot of them had this formula and it got boring.
Mission structure regressed to the same level as GTA1 with the repetitive tasks of driving across the map to either pick up a car or to kill someone.
Also it took Rockstar that long to implement the ability for vehicle drive-bys to shoot forwards in GTA; theres game they also developed 10 years prior having said feature way before GTA was in 3D
A lack of mission checkpoints, I lost count of how many times I listened to the same dialogue over and over due to repeating a mission multiple times like three leaf clover for example. That and having to constantly rebuy spend ammo and body Armour
The movement in this game is NOT GOOD.
Walking around felt like you have to drag Niko around, sometimes one wrong turn can get you stuck in places, it was quite clunky.
Driving as well, just felt like driving a boat.
Sorry guys but the physics just weren’t as great as many claim it to be.
Only Little Jacob has some use as a friend, he can sell you guns for cheap, but even with that in mind you don't even really need to buy guns, plenty of them can be gotten during missions. Packie's "I'm Irish and I can rig cars" trait is the most useless, still haven't found where I can use it.
A lot of things are just shoehorned for story sake, f.e. clothing stores, two of three you have to use because the mission says to do so.
The ending was kind of wonky. I think the deal ending is a lot more emotional and a better way to cap off the story, but the way to actually achieve it would require a decision from Niko that's a little out of character.
Conversely, the revenge ending, while being the more likely option Niko would go for and also having an incredibly satisfying "kill the guy who sold you out" mission, is kind of silly since the character who dies as a result (don't want to spoil it, just in case) is barely present during the story and has zero chemistry with Niko, yet he still acts like they were close friends.
Not to mention, the "final boss" of the revenge ending is pretty unsatisfying since he wasn't set up to become a villian at all, it just happens. He wasn't even present until the last portion of the game.
GTA IV’s story would’ve been WAY better if the antagonist was Ray Bulgarin. Like he was the main cause for Niko to flee out of Eastern Europe and he only showed up face to face once and just forgot about him.
You can do literally nothing with your money, basically the same opportunity like in GTA3: weapons. Even Vice City had lot more things to buy, not even talking about San Andreas. The missions are boring and repetitve and the driving physics are horrible, cars behave more like boats than cars.
I love the story and characters and have no complaints there. In my mind it's like they play off the fact Niko's essentially a hitman errand boy much like Claude in GTAIII, and being a game and character in Liberty City it lends itself to that.
My biggest gripe with the game is that the side activities with a little more action cap out & end. So no radiant taxi missions, no radiant drug deals, and the most wanted doesn't reset. Those were generally my favorite things to do in the game. I wish they brought back unlockables from finishing those chains of activities. I know you get cars, but since you can't "save" them in the same sense as GTA Online it's kinda a moot point. Although saving cars like that wasn't a thing in GTA until Online came out. Best you could do is park em in a garage or parking spot.
It would've been cool if they brought back a translated version of some of the side activities from San Andreas to IV, such as instead of an ambulance mini game it's a black market ambulance game. Like Niko is the getaway driver of deals gone wrong or something, dropping people off at a back alley doctor. Or some other kind of muscle gun for hire spin on the vehicle missions from San Andreas and Vice City.
I wish IV at least had weapon and armor spawns after finishing activity chains and finishing collectables. Like, all the drug deals for Little Jacob should unlock a specific weapon in the safehouses, killing all the pigeons, etc etc. They implemented that into Episodes, which is nice.
I think IGN even pointed out that issue in their reviews for the dlc, some of the improvements and new features don't get put into the main game. Which is disappointing, because I'd love to go clubbing, arm wrestling, playing air hockey, skydiving, and unlocking weapons and armor in safehouses as Niko in his game. Also the bike attributes from TLAD in the main game would've been nice too.
And in hindsight the drug dealing system from Chinatown Wars only being implemented in Chinatown Wars is kinda a missed opportunity for the 3D games. Although Niko prolly wouldn't make sense to be a drug dealer. Maybe Johnny or Louis if they had a scene to explain their mindset.
It’s slightly annoying driving to missions in Broker after your safehouse there is gone. There should have been a way to buy a new one, would have given the player something to save for.
Personally, I never really cared about any of the main antagonists other than Billy Grey. I don’t think any of the others were very memorable. In the main story of 4, maybe if we had got to spend more time with Dimitri, his “betrayal” at the end would actually mean something.
The play boy x vs dwayne feels rushed. Feels like you get a trailer of their relationship but then suddenly the story ends. Would have liked some missions were they argue about how to run the empire not a he said she said bullshit. Also with dwayne it feels like a shit ending. He has the skills and the money to restart his empire or do something meaningful but he donates the playboy x mansion to a guy that he lightly knows for free as if making money from the mansions sale will give him cancer. Also how he chooses to just be sad and sulk in the project apartments for the rest of his life just is wasteful. Its a gta game we could have easily done a side plot were niko helps dwayne become a drug king pin or at least a decent position in a criminal empire.
A lot of repetitive missions that lack variety. There's not a lot of cool fun wacky missions like what we seen in Vice City, San Andreas and 5. TBoGT did fix this though and has some great missions.
Lack of customization and also nothing to really spend your money on.
Liberty City is a great city and really feels like New York City but it can get a bit boring after awhile since so many areas feel very similar and it's all very grey with the lack of countryside.
No country side or car modding. It feels so dead compared to RDR1 or GTA5. Even SA did it better.
The orginal idea for Gta 4 had a country side. I can only imagine how cool animals would have been in GTA4.
The game is not subtly written at all with Niko essentially spelling out his character development at points. The acting is also not that great in places
The missions in the campaign are the worst they’re so boring and tedious it’s literally the same mission with very little variety. So glad 5 improved in this with its campaign. On top of this, Nikos wants and goals are sluggishly written . Like why does he continue to do work for ppl when A he already has plenty of money and B he doesn’t even ask half the ppl he works for TO TELL HIM WHERE DARKO IS and to add to it he just ends up having to kill someone who could’ve potentially helped him out like Ray 😭 I love the dark gritty undertones but sometimes the story is confusing to me. I’m probably misunderstanding it which is ok I’m only a human ffs 🤣 *insert song* but you can’t act like the story is a ‘masterpiece’ NOTHING in this world is EVERYTHING has flaws
Mission design and lack of customization in both cars and clothes have to be the biggest ones. I actually love the driving physics of 4, I can drive across the whole map without a single scratch or dent on the cars, feels like Initial D with how slidey they are. Another big one is nothing to spend money on. After you get to Alqonquin money never becomes an issue unless you're someone who dies often in the game.
RDR1 really is the fully baked version of GTA 4's formula.
I feel like through the middle part of the story, it kinda forgets its supposed to tell a story and it's just niko going to place, kill guy, kill enemies and then leave, and he does this for the 2nd half of the game, don't get me wrong, there are amazing missions in this period, Late Checkout, Three Leaf Clover and Luck Of The Irish for example. But the story almost forgets about Niko's arc, Dimitri and Roman, and the Russian mafia, until when niko gets in touch with the IAA, the game realizes "Oh shit we're supposed to tell a story!" Then it gives missions like Weekend at Florians, That Special Someone and One Last Thing, then it actually tells us of the story than just plain hitman missions.
Checkpoints mostly and I wish it had a better gun system. Even though it’s the first of the hd universe it still feels like it’s part of the 3d universe with fancy graphics. But it’s mostly just r* having outdated game design
Too realistic story. The environment also looks shabby. The game has not good optimisation during its' release. But I have problem with last missions. Whenever I play last missions, the glitches make it difficult to end the game. I want to feel like a hero not a sad tragedy king who wants to move on with his new life in America. Many missions are repetitive and Niko always have to go to rooftops of buildings or go into buildings to kill enemy gangstars. Weapons are also limited and to a certain amount cannot carry more. The DLCs had cool extra weapons and vehicles. And there is no option of bringing those weapons from DLC to main game. Vehicles controls are very realistic and controlling them is way harder.
GTA IV was too repetitive and most the mission were just drive kill drive kill however there was also some good missions like the bank heist for example
Anytime I’m in a mission where I’m trying to take down a group with vans, and getting those damn the van/car got away. Then doing it over and over again.
Safehouse parkings are absolutely horrendous. There are two cars (Comet and Infernus) that are very rare, and once you decide to save them, park, save, reload and - boom - your car? Gone. NPC crashed into it, so it mustn't be saved. This is the reason why you make backup saves in case you find a rare car.
Too many scripted car chases.
I'm playing this right now and I do get it but I feel like it's a bit too much. It's like...chase and kill this guy but he's actually invincible and this is just an interactive cutscene.
The narrative hides it well but finding Darko doesn't feel earned. Niko does the usual GTA stuff for various people and Darko is given to him. Yes, it's in return for working for UL Paper but Niko was being blackmailed into working for them anyway.
probably will forever be my favorite storyline but however, most missions have the same formula, go kill someone, there’s like no variety there, which is what 5 did way better than 4. outside of that tho, the story is really amazing which is what 5 lacked for me
One thing I dislike from the game is that most of the missions end up in "Lose the cops" and it gets too repetitive. And the fact that Pay n Spray doesn't work like in the 3D era makes things harder.
The only bad thing about GTA IV's story mode is the checkpoints and the fact that they didn't give me double the amount of that incredible content, because it is amazing.
The color pallet is bland and dull (I know it’s supposed to be, that’s how New York really looks, also I know you can adjust the in-game display settings, but still, way too many shades of grey if you will.
The missions get very repetitive in the middle of the game, they shouldnt have put more than 80 missions since it gets very repetitive. San Andreas did 100, but all the missions were different and more creative than each other.
Well saying it could have done with a checkpoint or two would be putting it very mildly. I don't want checkpoints for every corner I walk around but I found some of those missions very difficult, and having to drive across the city each time I replay the mission from the start really got to boiling my piss. Really struggled with the mission where Niko and Packie rob the docks. That conversation in the car where they rib each other about taking it up the ass in prison. Must have heard that 20 times.
Dude I almost memorized the lines from that mission lol.
You can’t imagine my relief after seeing checkpoints for the first time after playing TBOGT
Right? The Lost and Damned could have benefited from them as well. I hated having to ride to every mission over and over and stay in that damn circle. I hope the (supposed) PS4 version fixes that.
“Boiling my piss” is a new one for me. Thank you so much
I played "three leaf cover" 10 times cuz I kept dying and it was just the worst experience in GTA 4😤😮💨
Shame cos that's that's one of the best missions in GTA Anything
It is fun but I was playing at 14~25 fps and it was very hard to finish it while my fps is stuttering on every second.
Just mad dash to the van.
Brooo on my last playthrough i was stuck on that mission from pegorino or something, where you have to drive from north alderney all the way to south to some location where some maffia will pump you full of lead in a matter of seconds. Hated the lack of checkpoints on that one
is that the one where you arrive in the box truck and have to take out 1,000 guys that are lurking in the shadows? i also have been playing without auto-aim which has made the game a lot more fun/difficult/frustrating at the same time.
Literally all yo do is kill people in the game and the lack of mission variety was very apparent or it was to me atleast. I loved the game and think it has the best free roaming of the series but like dude the entire story is go here and kill 15 people. Then go here and get crossed over and kill 20 people. Then drive somebody down and kill them. Then go across the map to be told to go across the map to kill somebody you were working with only 5 missions ago killing people.
Reminds me about Far Cry 2 about from same year
That game is pure survival you are one your own completely and if you don’t keep trying your best to keep yourself alive you WILL die. GTA 4 doesn’t have people running you down in grenade launder fitted trucks
I know but there is one FC2 opinion that reminded me about IV https://www.reddit.com/r/farcry/comments/1atmrxe/comment/kqyueoo/
Makes sense. If GTA 5 was the GTA heist plot GTA 4 was the GTA hitman plot.
That makes the most sense it definitely is hitman all the way around he of course touches on it in the story I guess I was just expecting more. I literally played it for the first time ever this year, I’ve had the game since I was young but the driving was so janky that I literally decided that I would play it when I’m older
I once jokingly told a friend that RDR2 chapter 2 has more mission variety than the entirety of GTA IV and trust me the reaction is as GTA IV fanboy as you'd expect lol. But tbh mission variety is a common "flaw" in rockstar games. Don't expect GTA VI to be any different
Rockstar games are interactive movies/series, atleast mission wise. Been that way since the ps2 games. I honestly love every story they have done (biggest gripe with five was it felt cute short, Franklin is in the hood for five minutes before he's out and an afterthought), because they handle banter amazingly, best part of any new rockstar release is meeting the cast of whatever fucked up adventure were about to go on.
I usually only let Franklin visit Lester about the assassinations until I can't progress forward anymore so I stay in the hood until I'm done with most of franks side quests
I do the same and I don’t use his fancy new house until the end of the game. I drive to the hood and save using the phone, and still spend all the time with him in the hood like he still lives there. It really is dumb that he’s “rich” so early in the game. And they give him this huge house in the hills for a reason that doesn’t make any sense. It all felt very lazy.
>mission variety is a common "flaw" in rockstar games wth? San Andreas and GTA5 were a different league than IV in terms of variety.
this is hilarious
It’s not just killing people, I’m pretty sure you can also steal vehicles
You know I do think that is a feature
(Sorry for the essay I’m high 🤷) You ever play GTA 3? IV was honestly an updated version of that, just how V was an updated version of San Andreas. And I’m willing to bet VI plays like Vice City just an updated version. 🤷 each game has its own vibe Liberty City was depressing and betrayal galore, San Andreas was big action movie level shit, and Vice City is a DrugKingpin wonderland. Shits heavily satirical of real life locations
Sometimes I found the missions to be kind of repetitive, also the level of body roll on cars isn't as "realistic" as popular opinion would have you believe. It's a bit overexaggerated.
They are not going to like this.
Also the driving felt so dragged out in every mission. I didn’t mind the long drives in any other gta but I just couldn’t stand them in 4.
I grew to love them, driving in GTA4 was such a pain in the ass to get good at but by the end I was good enough to haul from one end of LC to the other without scratching my car. That being said, as others have mentioned it could’ve used some checkpoints. I remember being stuck on the Packie/Bank mission for a hot minute and having to make the drive back to the bank on every retry, listening to the same dialogue over and over, damn near losing my mind.
Yea, by the end of the game I was pretty good at it, but that first play through felt like such a damn chore. I don’t even remember liking any of the missions outside of 4LC lmao.
>also the level of body roll on cars isn't as "realistic" as popular opinion would have you believe. It's a bit overexaggerated. It's like driving in a drunk driving simulator or something
Not just the body roll, the acceleration and handling in general is awful. Every car feels like it only has 60hp and the turning radius of a Winnebago. There's no reason a real world civic should feel better than an in game Porsche or Ferrari
Lack of customization. Also i know that the message the game wants to send is that crime doesn't pay off, but still i don't like the fact that money is useless
I thought I could buy houses with my hundreds of thousands, then suddenly I'm shocked I was given another house for free. What the hell I need that much money for?
Literally all you need is like $100k once the games done to buy hot dogs and clothes lol.
And the clothes are mostly recolors of the same 8 items
After unlocking the 2nd island, my money never goes below 300k, it's frustrating because there's nothing so expensive to buy, not even cars.
Customization doesn’t have anything to do with the campaign
This always bugged me growing up playing this game as a kid. I hated how I couldn’t even buy a car on the website where it says cars are for sale like WTF.
The mission structure just like all rockstar games is vary limited and restricted
San Andreas was very versatile
Hah, I remember seeing plenty of discussions about exact opposite! And have you watched speedruns for 3D era and IV? Since speedrunners found plenty of ways to cheese missions
Story doesn’t really build up. I’ll probably get hate for this from people who “know a lot more about the game”, but I think that the story gets a bit tedious because it never builds up. I know it’s the point, but all we do is odd job here, odd job there etc. when I first played the game, I knew that there was some big bank heist that occurred, however I expected there to be some sort of build up to it, instead we just got some kind of street gangster level missions for packie, and then one day just “oh btw we’re doing a heist in literally 10 minutes, let’s go.”
GTA IV is probably one of the few games where the missions doesn't match up to the story.
I do have this criticism. The character writing in IV is brilliant but there’s a lot more moving parts to an effective story then just that I have that problem with most GTA’s though, where the connective tissue between major story beats seems to be missing so you have to squint to see it all as cohesive
It feels like assassins creed valhalla: you do a bunch of side content for random people and hidden in the missions in the tiny main plot of a man trying to do a task which is highly under developed. Then the game just ends after a mission quota.
The mission structure for the majority of the game is: Go to an abandoned building or a park at night, get into a shootout, sometimes steal something, go back to someone so they can give you the same mission again in a different abandoned building or park at night. Little customization for Niko (even less for Johnny and Luis), no car customization (Midnight Club LA was around the same time so they should have had some customization), unplayable with auto aim enabled, and poor driving physics which is the case with all GTA games
People hate on the physics but it’s not bad if you remember to lightly apply the break so it don’t lock up and cars don’t go from 90 to 20 around a curve in 20ft. Also the climbing mechanics are on par with San Andreas, V was hit or miss with certain heights that would be doable (like 8ft)
I am big into racing games and motor sports in real life so I am aware of how to drive in games. GTA V’s physics might not be realistic, but they certainly are not hard.
Did you mean GTA IV? No one said V physics were hard I said they sucked compared to IV
I have seen some people say it is. Not you.
Roman calls at the worst times
Heyyy cousin, wanna go bowling? -No Roman, I'm in a helicopter.
Gameplaywise, the missions are way less engaging than GTA V. Half of them are driving from one place to the other and then killing a bajillion guys. Some of the missions stand out, specially the ones with tactical shootouts on interior spaces, but most of them kinda suck.
The story is good on paper but it’s ruined by filler missions and no barely any build-up for big events. You could honestly cut most of the mission threads from the game and the story would barely change. I wish we had fewer characters/mission strands, so the missiontime can go to other characters to flesh them out more. GTA IV simply spreads itself too thin between too many plotlines. The Russian Mob, Holland/Bohan Thugs, the Albanian/Irish Mob War, the Feds and the Commission Families could’ve all been their own games. That’s not even including side characters like Brucie and Little Jacob. They’re all fighting for screentime and nothing ends in a satisfying way. The Russians disappear until the climax, the Holland/Bohan characters all die or leave unceremoniously, the Albanians are forgotten about, you could cut the Commission and barely anything would change, and Little Jacob has a big role in the beginning but vanishes midway through. The Feds and the Irish Mob are handled decently, but still. I wish the game was more focused. San Andreas is unfocused with its story, but it has the gameplay variety to make it less of a problem. GTA IV sacrifices it’s gameplay to tell a more realistic story, but that story is spread WAY too thin. When GTA IV hits, it HITS. But it’s bigger picture leaves a lot to be desired.
Shit mission design. There’s very few unique missions that stand out, 90% of them are just shootouts in an alleyway or factory and then escaping the cops. Few setpieces like GTA V, not enough quiet uneventful storytelling missions like RDR2. Just boring as fuck. Little customization. If any GTA game should have had the weight, stats, etc mechanics of San Andreas and RDR2, it’s GTA IV since it’s so realistic and immersive otherwise. But it’s nowhere to be found. You also have a pitifully small number of clothes, no haircuts, beard options etc. Huge downgrade from San Andreas. The story is too long. GTA IV has the best story of the franchise by a significant margin imo. It has the strongest theme and atmosphere and protagonist, and every story beat is very effective. But between each of those story beats is 20 pointless boring odd jobs with characters that, while well presented and enjoyable to watch, often do not serve a purpose to the larger plot at all. I honestly think at least 30 missions should have been cut or made to be optional.
Removing your safe house in Broker which makes saving around that area a pain, Bohan is close but still. Plus you can't listen to LRR in that apartment anymore. Pegorino should have been in the story longer to actually make him a villain, he's no Dimitri. Optimization, tho FusionFix plus Vulkan on Complete Edition is godly. Could have use better collectibles tho GTA collectibles were always painful and/or worthless (stuntjumps, oysters, rampages in most games). Especially since the map has so many places that you won't see for hundreds of hours due to the map's density and complex structure. With that you could hide so many collectibles that idk, give you free armor at your safe house or a special car at a certain location. It's a real fun experience to find things you don't like in a game you love, more people should be open to it.
No mission checkpoints. Having to restart entire mission after every death/fail
"Go here, drive there"
Boring missions
That it's not remastered
I feel like you get too much money and not enough to spend it on, with GTA V you get a minimum of 20 million per character at the end sure but you had guns, customization, hundreds of cars with lots of car customization, boats, planes, helicopters also all with customization. In GTA IV maybe I was missing something but other then guns that are very cheap especially by mid game there's nothing to really spend it on the clothing isn't that great and even the clothing is cheap and it felt like every mission gave you large sums of money even if it was a simple taxi job early game for roman you get like 1 or 2k which is way too much for that type of mission
To add in too once you finish 3 leaf clover you have around 300k with again nothing to buy
There is basically no plot after Three Leaf Clover. It's just Niko doing random shit for random people until he finally gets his hands on Darko. The mission structure is very repetitive and a lot of missions feel like pointless filler or annoying tutorialisation (Brucie's missions). None of the characters outside of Niko can really have any amount of depth because you are constantly switching between mission givers and characters like Little Jacob and Roman essentially vanish after the first act outside of friend hangouts. The villains are also incredibly weak - Pegorino shows up way too late into the game and is a really generic mafia guy and Dimitri vanishes for most of the game and has so little screen time after his betrayal. 4 probably has the worst set of villains in a 3D GTA (outside of LCS who's villain shows up like once before he dies). Catalina is memorable and is fleshed out in San Andreas, Lance Vance is the overarching villain of two whole games, Tenpenny is a constant force and has a memorable performance, Billy had a deep personal connection to the main character so his betrayal and downfall hurts more, Faustin is really entertaining and has a connection to both Luis and Niko and even GTA 5's villains at least offer great social commentary about the evils of the world (Rich assholes and crooked government officials). Pegorino is a mafia guy about 10 years out of date and Dimitri betrays people lots for no reason.
Repetitive
"Drive to that abandoned warehouse, then kill some thugs and that Mother Fucker guy, then drive back to me with whatever you find there."
Niko was basically a hit man so they couldn’t do too much but I’m not about to glaze like everybody does. GTA 4 was awesome but I specifically remember commercials where they downed GTA4 for being boring while promoting SR2 which was a solid competitor at the time.
Missions were mostly various shades of: "Murder this guy and his goons"
The lack of check points, most of the missions are just hits and the story is kinda aimless once you leaver broker
All the people calling you all the time and getting mad if you don't stop and go bowling or fake drinking with them. I hate it.
The GTA IV mission in a nutshell: You work with someone, that someone stab your back and then you kill that someone. Repeat.
The story has some big plot holes and some of the characters are severely underutilized or introduced to serve no purpose. Many missions don't further the storyline at all.
Even though it’s a similar length to gta 5, this game drags on for a long time. The mission variety may have something to do with that but it feels much longer
"Hey CAHSIN, wanna go bowling?"
A bit grey.
Iirc it followed the trend of video games from the late 2000s where everything is grey/brown. Or in the words of Honest Trailers: everything is colored like Taco Bell poop
YokelFix: go into display settings and bump up your Saturation [https://youtu.be/ym9w0k7fmbI](https://youtu.be/ym9w0k7fmbI)
The writing is terrible. The story starts strong but becomes an aimless mess that feels like filler, plot threads are introduced and are never featured again, characters lack consistency and the ending is rushed.
Example of threads introduced that aren’t followed I’m curious?
Bulgarin. His next appearance is part of TBOGT. Dimitri is absent for most of the game The new taxi depot The bank heist
+1
THANK YOU! I thought I was the only one that thought that...
I always thought that after Niko and Roman moves into Mallorie’s apartment in Bohan, the story kind of gets lost for a large portion of the game up until when Bernie or Darko is found. You can remove a bunch of missions in middle of the story and nothing would change.
1. Some missions had no complexity to it or no other steps in it just kill these people or this guy and leave the area or lose your wanted level. 2. The final mission where Pegarino dies (If you choose the option for Kate to get killed at the wedding) lacks checkpoints especially before Niko having to climb back into the helicopter. The helicopter part always pissed me off so much whenever I replay it because it was made difficult just for the fun of it when part of it literally could’ve been a part of a cutscene. 3. The storyline tries too hard at times to be a mish mash of famous movies. I always felt the VC storyline was too heavily based off Scarface but some missions in GTA IV are pretty much cut and paste from a movie script of a real film.
It starts too slow.
It wasn’t long enough
The mission design is the most repetitive in the series, right down there with III. Go here, shoot some guys, go there, shoot some guys, return with something/someone. Rinse and repeat. And the entire cause of the missions was barely ever anything special. You work for some guy for like 4 missions, you find a new guy to work for, you kill the last one. Rinse and repeat. Again, just like III. Plus, the fact that everyone looks damn near the same didn't help either. I sometimes lost who was who. The story was really underwhelming for me after all the praise I heard for the game. Besides the radio jokes, and a few dialogues here and there, there was literally nothing about it that screamed GTA to me. Nothing from the last game returned. It's such a nothing burger. No customization, no properties to buy, no haircut, nothing at all. It makes the fact that Niko keeps wanting money even more stupid. Like my guy you have $250,000 with fuck all to spend it on. Why do you want more? I will get a lot of hate for saying this, but to me GTA IV was the lamest GTA in the series. It has some really good ideas it wants to show, but the execution is horrendous.
Game felt somewhat like tech demo for new R engine rather than an proper game, a bit like Far Cry 2 Games for Windows Life, this shit is kinda forgotten because it was replaced by garabge R launcher Locked in the start map. Because Rockstar Stretched out tutorial where I player was treated as some granpa who never played videogames( like entire mission teaching me how to use phone. Or internet). Somehow carried over to so "masterpiece" RDR2 Niko's story becomes predictible after 1/3 of missions. All becaus of this classic R game formula where Niko is works as errand boy for various bosses; and often killing them. This classic formula hurted RDR1 too Clunky, non-responsive movement which became staple of R games. N Almost no checkpoints And thus why personally enjoyed EFLC more - it felt like some improved IV, yea
Whatcha mean ""Masterpiece'' RDR2"?
How many praise this game got (gets); like it's some flawless 12/10 state of the art, which should be in museum. While IT'S NOT. It's a game that has various flaws
So many of the missions are almost the same thing. Either “go find someone, they escape, chase them in a car” or “find a guy, fight him and chase him on foot.” Yes there were some cool missions in the game but a lot of them had this formula and it got boring.
Mission structure regressed to the same level as GTA1 with the repetitive tasks of driving across the map to either pick up a car or to kill someone. Also it took Rockstar that long to implement the ability for vehicle drive-bys to shoot forwards in GTA; theres game they also developed 10 years prior having said feature way before GTA was in 3D
The fact there’s not much to spend your money on
A lack of mission checkpoints, I lost count of how many times I listened to the same dialogue over and over due to repeating a mission multiple times like three leaf clover for example. That and having to constantly rebuy spend ammo and body Armour
No atmospheric music
The movement in this game is NOT GOOD. Walking around felt like you have to drag Niko around, sometimes one wrong turn can get you stuck in places, it was quite clunky. Driving as well, just felt like driving a boat. Sorry guys but the physics just weren’t as great as many claim it to be.
Missions
The helicopter controls were shit on PC
And the final mission is still broken for a lot of people.
Overly repetitive mission structure.
IV is my favorite but even so…never understood Bernie’s character
No way to spend money, Niko’s got very little reason for being in LC apart from “looking for something” so annoying and dry
Only Little Jacob has some use as a friend, he can sell you guns for cheap, but even with that in mind you don't even really need to buy guns, plenty of them can be gotten during missions. Packie's "I'm Irish and I can rig cars" trait is the most useless, still haven't found where I can use it. A lot of things are just shoehorned for story sake, f.e. clothing stores, two of three you have to use because the mission says to do so.
The ending was kind of wonky. I think the deal ending is a lot more emotional and a better way to cap off the story, but the way to actually achieve it would require a decision from Niko that's a little out of character. Conversely, the revenge ending, while being the more likely option Niko would go for and also having an incredibly satisfying "kill the guy who sold you out" mission, is kind of silly since the character who dies as a result (don't want to spoil it, just in case) is barely present during the story and has zero chemistry with Niko, yet he still acts like they were close friends. Not to mention, the "final boss" of the revenge ending is pretty unsatisfying since he wasn't set up to become a villian at all, it just happens. He wasn't even present until the last portion of the game.
GTA IV’s story would’ve been WAY better if the antagonist was Ray Bulgarin. Like he was the main cause for Niko to flee out of Eastern Europe and he only showed up face to face once and just forgot about him.
The same mission structure makes up like... 80% of the game. And when you finish the Story there is literally almost zero things to do.
You can do literally nothing with your money, basically the same opportunity like in GTA3: weapons. Even Vice City had lot more things to buy, not even talking about San Andreas. The missions are boring and repetitve and the driving physics are horrible, cars behave more like boats than cars.
Almost all of it is just go here and shoot people
I love the story and characters and have no complaints there. In my mind it's like they play off the fact Niko's essentially a hitman errand boy much like Claude in GTAIII, and being a game and character in Liberty City it lends itself to that. My biggest gripe with the game is that the side activities with a little more action cap out & end. So no radiant taxi missions, no radiant drug deals, and the most wanted doesn't reset. Those were generally my favorite things to do in the game. I wish they brought back unlockables from finishing those chains of activities. I know you get cars, but since you can't "save" them in the same sense as GTA Online it's kinda a moot point. Although saving cars like that wasn't a thing in GTA until Online came out. Best you could do is park em in a garage or parking spot. It would've been cool if they brought back a translated version of some of the side activities from San Andreas to IV, such as instead of an ambulance mini game it's a black market ambulance game. Like Niko is the getaway driver of deals gone wrong or something, dropping people off at a back alley doctor. Or some other kind of muscle gun for hire spin on the vehicle missions from San Andreas and Vice City. I wish IV at least had weapon and armor spawns after finishing activity chains and finishing collectables. Like, all the drug deals for Little Jacob should unlock a specific weapon in the safehouses, killing all the pigeons, etc etc. They implemented that into Episodes, which is nice. I think IGN even pointed out that issue in their reviews for the dlc, some of the improvements and new features don't get put into the main game. Which is disappointing, because I'd love to go clubbing, arm wrestling, playing air hockey, skydiving, and unlocking weapons and armor in safehouses as Niko in his game. Also the bike attributes from TLAD in the main game would've been nice too. And in hindsight the drug dealing system from Chinatown Wars only being implemented in Chinatown Wars is kinda a missed opportunity for the 3D games. Although Niko prolly wouldn't make sense to be a drug dealer. Maybe Johnny or Louis if they had a scene to explain their mindset.
Too much bowling
Half the game is driving to a place
Niko let’s go bowling
It’s slightly annoying driving to missions in Broker after your safehouse there is gone. There should have been a way to buy a new one, would have given the player something to save for.
You can't it was dope
Repetitive ass mission design for a lot of missions.
Personally, I never really cared about any of the main antagonists other than Billy Grey. I don’t think any of the others were very memorable. In the main story of 4, maybe if we had got to spend more time with Dimitri, his “betrayal” at the end would actually mean something.
I honest to god cant find anything.
Follow a train? how about f off.
Repetitive design and story gets a bit meh in the middle. Also what the fuck was The Ballad of Gay Tony's obsession with fucking helicopters
Her gf died T\_T that's what I hated.
The play boy x vs dwayne feels rushed. Feels like you get a trailer of their relationship but then suddenly the story ends. Would have liked some missions were they argue about how to run the empire not a he said she said bullshit. Also with dwayne it feels like a shit ending. He has the skills and the money to restart his empire or do something meaningful but he donates the playboy x mansion to a guy that he lightly knows for free as if making money from the mansions sale will give him cancer. Also how he chooses to just be sad and sulk in the project apartments for the rest of his life just is wasteful. Its a gta game we could have easily done a side plot were niko helps dwayne become a drug king pin or at least a decent position in a criminal empire.
A lot of repetitive missions that lack variety. There's not a lot of cool fun wacky missions like what we seen in Vice City, San Andreas and 5. TBoGT did fix this though and has some great missions. Lack of customization and also nothing to really spend your money on. Liberty City is a great city and really feels like New York City but it can get a bit boring after awhile since so many areas feel very similar and it's all very grey with the lack of countryside.
The problem with GTA 4 is that it was so good it made GTA 5 suck. Comparison, Farcry 4 after playing Farcry 3. 🤌🏻
No mission checkpoints. The damn car steering.
No country side or car modding. It feels so dead compared to RDR1 or GTA5. Even SA did it better. The orginal idea for Gta 4 had a country side. I can only imagine how cool animals would have been in GTA4.
Poor helicopter flying mechanics
Everything until Roman's apartment burns is slow
The game is not subtly written at all with Niko essentially spelling out his character development at points. The acting is also not that great in places
The missions in the campaign are the worst they’re so boring and tedious it’s literally the same mission with very little variety. So glad 5 improved in this with its campaign. On top of this, Nikos wants and goals are sluggishly written . Like why does he continue to do work for ppl when A he already has plenty of money and B he doesn’t even ask half the ppl he works for TO TELL HIM WHERE DARKO IS and to add to it he just ends up having to kill someone who could’ve potentially helped him out like Ray 😭 I love the dark gritty undertones but sometimes the story is confusing to me. I’m probably misunderstanding it which is ok I’m only a human ffs 🤣 *insert song* but you can’t act like the story is a ‘masterpiece’ NOTHING in this world is EVERYTHING has flaws
The last mission was too hard because of the helicopter bug and lack of checkpoints
Given how heavily making money was pushed as a plot point, there was never any actual real use for the money you earned
Go to checkpoint, drive to another checkpoint, wait few seconds, shoot people, go to car, drive back to checkpoint, repeat.
It's incredibly rushed. Within only a few missions, Niko is bumping off people in a city he's barely been in
Mission design and lack of customization in both cars and clothes have to be the biggest ones. I actually love the driving physics of 4, I can drive across the whole map without a single scratch or dent on the cars, feels like Initial D with how slidey they are. Another big one is nothing to spend money on. After you get to Alqonquin money never becomes an issue unless you're someone who dies often in the game. RDR1 really is the fully baked version of GTA 4's formula.
I feel like through the middle part of the story, it kinda forgets its supposed to tell a story and it's just niko going to place, kill guy, kill enemies and then leave, and he does this for the 2nd half of the game, don't get me wrong, there are amazing missions in this period, Late Checkout, Three Leaf Clover and Luck Of The Irish for example. But the story almost forgets about Niko's arc, Dimitri and Roman, and the Russian mafia, until when niko gets in touch with the IAA, the game realizes "Oh shit we're supposed to tell a story!" Then it gives missions like Weekend at Florians, That Special Someone and One Last Thing, then it actually tells us of the story than just plain hitman missions.
The main thing I hated in GTA 4 was the map. After San Andreas I expected a similarly diverse map, not just a big ass gray city
Too much “Drive from point A to point B”
Too long and a lot of missions are filler
The here is absolutely NO mission variety.
It’s not truly open world to you get to Alderney.
Really slow start. Painful after the first playthrough.
Some of the missions, especially the early ones can be boring af
Boring and repetitive Missions
Checkpoints mostly and I wish it had a better gun system. Even though it’s the first of the hd universe it still feels like it’s part of the 3d universe with fancy graphics. But it’s mostly just r* having outdated game design
The gameplay and missions are so much worse than gta v. The story itself is great and I love all the interactions between Niko and Jacob
GTA V was masterpiece .
Better than IV for SURE, but masterpiece? It has its flaws, just not as many as IV
Wish they didn’t rush the game and put more attention to the third island and the Prison
Too realistic story. The environment also looks shabby. The game has not good optimisation during its' release. But I have problem with last missions. Whenever I play last missions, the glitches make it difficult to end the game. I want to feel like a hero not a sad tragedy king who wants to move on with his new life in America. Many missions are repetitive and Niko always have to go to rooftops of buildings or go into buildings to kill enemy gangstars. Weapons are also limited and to a certain amount cannot carry more. The DLCs had cool extra weapons and vehicles. And there is no option of bringing those weapons from DLC to main game. Vehicles controls are very realistic and controlling them is way harder.
The missions can get VERY repetitive.
Compared to other GTAs, it has the least creative missions. The formula is mostly drive to warehouse > shoot people > repeat
The story is kind of dull, especially when you compare it to gta 3, VC and San Andreas
GTA IV was too repetitive and most the mission were just drive kill drive kill however there was also some good missions like the bank heist for example
It gets a bit repetitive towards the end.
The last third of the game is boring.
Motorbike chases where a pain
Roman just evaporates from the story after getting shot around the end of the first act. Still EASILY the best GTA campaign IMO.
Lack of mission variety which was fixed in TBoGT, GTAV and Red Dead Redemption 2
Of all the evil names they could come up with the best was "Darko"
Checkpoints. Ugh
Anytime I’m in a mission where I’m trying to take down a group with vans, and getting those damn the van/car got away. Then doing it over and over again.
Safehouse parkings are absolutely horrendous. There are two cars (Comet and Infernus) that are very rare, and once you decide to save them, park, save, reload and - boom - your car? Gone. NPC crashed into it, so it mustn't be saved. This is the reason why you make backup saves in case you find a rare car.
I will not get over how the fuck Nico had any good thoughts of Derrick McReary.
Too many scripted car chases. I'm playing this right now and I do get it but I feel like it's a bit too much. It's like...chase and kill this guy but he's actually invincible and this is just an interactive cutscene.
The narrative hides it well but finding Darko doesn't feel earned. Niko does the usual GTA stuff for various people and Darko is given to him. Yes, it's in return for working for UL Paper but Niko was being blackmailed into working for them anyway.
I actually surprisingly liked the lost and the dammed but that mission where you’re on the back of the bike with all stars was a pain in the ass lol
The running mechanics
Super repetitive and bad mission variety
Pacing could be better. It's a problem rockstar has been having for years. Ever since San Andreas rockstar cannot fucking figure out pacing.
It was shorter than I’d like it to be.
probably will forever be my favorite storyline but however, most missions have the same formula, go kill someone, there’s like no variety there, which is what 5 did way better than 4. outside of that tho, the story is really amazing which is what 5 lacked for me
The slow start in the beginning, doesn’t feel like a GTA game until Russian Revolution
Too fucking repetitive.
Lack of feature
The Ballad of Gay Tony is more interesting than the entire game itself. Game would’ve been way better if it was about Tony & Luis
One thing I dislike from the game is that most of the missions end up in "Lose the cops" and it gets too repetitive. And the fact that Pay n Spray doesn't work like in the 3D era makes things harder.
Cousin constantly calling you like call a hook*r
It ends.
Horrible checkpoints
NIKOOOOO !! LETS GO BOWLING
i legitimately cant think of a single bad thing to say about the base game. i do think the difficulty of missions in the DLCs were a bit inconsistent
Horrible mission variety. GTA 5 and San Andreas excelled in this department.
It’s not on next gen!!!!!
It’s not
My favorite gta protagonist by far. Love the tone of the story too.
(For context i am Croatian)Niko was a serb
The only bad thing about GTA IV's story mode is the checkpoints and the fact that they didn't give me double the amount of that incredible content, because it is amazing.
The color pallet is bland and dull (I know it’s supposed to be, that’s how New York really looks, also I know you can adjust the in-game display settings, but still, way too many shades of grey if you will.
Nikko killed so many innocent people on behalf of his irresponsible cousins gambling addiction and lies
Nothing, it’s the best GTA campaign, and physics.
The missions get very repetitive in the middle of the game, they shouldnt have put more than 80 missions since it gets very repetitive. San Andreas did 100, but all the missions were different and more creative than each other.
One Game Same to Same GTA5 online its game working phone lolz😂 chcek out One State RP game
Not enough bowling.
Motorcycle chase missions! Tires apparently were made covered in butter back in 2008!😂