What does the American dream mean today? For Niko Bellic fresh off the boat from Europe, it is the hope he can escape from his past. For his cousin, Roman, it is the vision that together they can find fortune in Liberty City, gateway to the land of opportunity. As they slip into debt and get dragged into a criminal underworld by a series of shysters, thieves and sociopaths, they discover that the reality is very different from the dream in a city that worships money and status, and is heaven for those who have them and a living nightmare for those who don't.
Cool game, as the other GTAs, but not as cool as the previous ones.
Pros:
- what you'll find in any other GTA
- the humor is there, most of the NPCs have charism, the story is quite rich (basically: nice long cutscenes)
- clear improvement concerning the engine, especially for physics and movements, but the actual two only fun new things there are:
1- the ability to use guns from cars in about any direction. Makes the car pursuits much funnier than in the previous games.
2- accidents. I always laugh when Niko gets ejected from his car, shouting.
Cons:
- poor optimizing.
- enemies on radar. Probably the worst thing in modern gaming.
- most of the missions the player will fail won't be failed because of their difficulty (the missions are too easy), but because of stupid unpredictable behavior (such as starting a roll after a 10cm jump at the top of a building and finishing like a pizza on the ground).
- all the pseudo-social stuff (friends and lovers) is just plain boring. Always the same thing, and it never stops. Don't want to do it? Everybody will hate you and you'll loose some bonuses.
- the other cars keep changing lane for no reason, and that sort of detail can get pretty annoying.