Return to Liberty City and the cruel streets in this second take of Grand Theft Auto IV. Customizable cars let you design Niko Bellic's ride as he travels the city in search of his fortune and an escape from his past. Intricate maps and the hottest music available on the stereo make Grand Theft Auto IV a wild adventure.
This reviewer is a member of the Best Buy Tech Insider Network Program. This invitation-only program provides BestBuy.com reviewers with manufacturer-supplied products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased and usage-based reviews. Outside of receiving products to test and review, Best Buy Tech Insider Network Reviewers are not compensated in any other way.
Certainly, GTA IV is a great game. Virtually every aspect is solid, and most of it's pretty fun to play. However, the graphics could've been improved. More importantly, there still isn't the kind of immersive level of interactivity with the city environment that would've genuinely made the game feel like a virtual world. Without being able to interact with more of the objects, machines, buildings, people, etc., that populate the city, the overall experience ends up feeling a little shallow, after a while. At the very least, more things should have been destructible.
What's great about it: Good implementation of franchise's formula.
What's not so great: Really didn't raise bar high enough.