Things I Hate About GTA4

I thought I'd add this little follow-up to my previous post.It's frustrating how much this game sucks, because it had the potential to be so amazing.


GTA4 has some of the worst controls I've seen in a AAA title. It's like the developers were designing a control scheme for a game about a guy who calmly goes to his office job everyday and stuck it into a game about a guy who runs around shooting people. Also:

1. Pointing the control stick in a different direction makes Niko amble around in a big loop until he's facing where you want him to go, instead of having him just turn around.

2. Who was responsible for making Niko's default speed "walking?" There is never a single instance in the entire game where Niko walks, so you spend the entire game with your thumb holding down the "run" button.

3. I get that they wanted the driving to be "realistic," but Niko is an experienced driver; he knows how to drift around a corner. There is no reason for me to spin out every time I try to do this.

4. The cover system doesn't work, and you will invariably get stuck to a wall facing the people shooting at you, and you will die before you can do anything about it.

5. The lock-on system will always lock on to whatever enemy is the farthest away and the smallest possible threat.

6. Why, when I try to throw a grenade without locking on to someone, does Niko just drop the live grenade at his feet? When would I ever need that to happen?

7. Why are the helicopters so goddamn hard to fly? It's not realistic; Niko knows how to fly helicopters, so I shouldn't have to.

8. Why does that one military helicopter only shoot in the direction it's pointing? No one has ever hit anything with those stupid guns, you're better off just crashing the damn thing into whatever you're trying to kill.

9. Helicopters usually have parachutes in them. When I jump out of a helicopter, I should get a parachute, not just fall to my death while having some sort of weird epileptic seizure.

10. The only thing worse than the motorcycles in this game are the levels that force you to drive a motorcycle. If I want to drive a car, I should be able to drive a car.

11. You should really be able to blow up subway trains. Saint's Row 2 lets you do it.

12. Switching weapons is incredibly frustrating. The icon is small and hard to see, and you will almost always miss the weapon you're looking for, usually while being filled with bullets by the police.

13. What kind of monster puts a jumbo jet in a sandbox game, but doesn't let you fly it? That's like carrying a cake through fat camp.

14. Niko should be able to turn his phone off. This is GTA; I came here to drive cars where cars aren't supposed to be driven, not go on man-dates with Eastern European stereotypes.

15. Why does everyone on multiplayer only play in the airport? You have the entirety of Liberty City at your disposal. If you want to shoot people in an industrial area with no vehicles, play Call of Duty.

16. For the love of God, who the fuck decided to leave checkpoints out of all the fucking missions? Every time you die, you have drive all the way across the city to get to where the mission actually starts. Every Time. And you will die a lot, because this game is supposed to be realistic, and Niko doesn't have much health.