The Big Day: GTA IV Review
Grand Theft Auto IV will be on retailer shelves today; the day that you’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived. Of course I, being an Internationally Known Superstar™, have already played it. I had agreed not to talk about it until it was released. I, for one, am proud of my restraint.
How was it? It was kind of disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, GTA IV is ok. It’s basically the same concept as the rest of all the other games. You run around and steal cars and hit people with shit. So that works, but then again it always has. The real problem with it is that it really doesn’t do anything differently at all. As a result, it’s kind of boring.
I’m glad that the basics are the same. I’m not looking for them to ‘sell out’. For instance, adding features from Cooking Mama would clearly be a mistake. I’d really like them to enhance and expand the existing features. For instance, hitting police officers with lead pipes just doesn’t do it for me anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want them to take that out of the game; I just want to be able to take it a bit further. I’d like it if they’d allow me to say … ‘dismember’ a police officer. I think that would be a great strategy. If you can dismember a cop in GTA IV then you’re happy, and they’ve left slow-roasting and cannibalizing a cop for GTA V. Everyone wins in this scenario (except the cop).
How about some special features? What if they allow you to bang a dog after you’ve beaten the game three times? How about giving players extra points for beheading nuns in front of school children? I think it’s important to go further than last year’s tame ‘Hot Coffee’ mod.
The real problem, and I’m sure you’ll agree, is that Rockstar is content with depravity when they could really be pushing the envelope. It’s time for them to put up or shut up. If you’re going to make cutting-edge video games then people should logically blame you for school shootings. Is anyone going to blame GTA IV when Little Billy goes into his Bumfuck, Idaho elementary school and knocks off fifty of his classmates? No, they won’t. Rockstar played it safe. The made a game for the kind of kids that are loved by their friends’ parents. That’s not for me. I want the game for the kid with the purple mohawk. Fucking pussies.
(I made this entire review up. I’ve never played it. I don’t care about it. I’m just being a smartass. Do whatever you already intended to do in regards to your videogame purchases.)
I am fascinated by the mental disconnect associated with Grand Theft Auto. America cries out that the game is the End of Civilization, and in the same breath we wonder if Iron Man is going to make any money this weekend because everyone is going to be buying it. Is the game being bought by country-ruining elves who live in the shrubbery? No? It’s being bought by tons and tons of normal Americans? I see.
I have pictures of those elves.