Grand Theft Auto IV

Multiplayer Grand Theft Auto

After spending time with Grand Theft Auto IV, playing Vice City, San Andreas or Grand Theft Auto 3 feels much more shallow and less involving. When you’ve seen what the world of GTA looks like with things like random encounters and a local mock-up of the Internet (complete with a dating site), it becomes impossible to imagine the series without these elements.

All that and we haven’t even touched on multiplayer yet. Multiplayer Grand Theft Auto – one made by Rockstar itself, not modders of the PC versions that is – has long been held up as one of the holy grails of modern gaming. What could possibly be better than a free-roaming, multi-vehicle, multiplayer sandbox game within an emergent world?

Actually, quite a lot. Multiplayer is easily the biggest weak point in Grand Theft Auto IV. Not because it’s bad necessarily, but because it doesn’t quite live up to the expectations. It may have a huge play field and a clever in-game interface via your mobile phone, but Grand Theft Auto multiplayer is pretty run of the mill for most game types.


The problem is that multiplayer is never really as subtle or variable as a singleplayer game. In a singleplayer game if you see an enemy then they might run away, pull a gun, go for fisticuffs or recruit help from friends or the police. It isn’t always the same and importantly the actual mechanics of shooting are never a huge problem.

The combat mechanics of the GTA games have always been a little clunky, but at least the game design compensates for that somewhat in singleplayer.

In multiplayer, all that is done away with. Humans are predictable and when you catch up to them with help from your radar (which also means it’s nigh on impossible to get the drop on observant players via a sniper rifle in a high place) they invariably act the same. Backpedal and circle strafe, constantly shooting.

The result then is that fighting against actual humans in the multiplayer game starts to feel a lot blander than fighting the AI. Humans ironically act more like simple computers and the design and expectations surrounding GTA IV multiplayer make that fact incredibly obvious.

At the same time, the combat controls in Grand Theft Auto IV make fighting human opponents a lot less fun than it should be. Niko’s new abilities for hopping in and out of cover do help, but also ram home the fact that multiplayer battles just aren’t as smooth and polished as in something like Gears of War.



Now, again, that doesn’t mean that the multiplayer is bad. There’s a great capacity for fun here and the sheer size of the playing fields means that you won’t get bored of playing it too quickly. Also, if you’ve got some like-minded pals on your friends list then there’s a chance for you to set up some really interesting battles and player-stories. Say first to ten kills, but you’re only allowed to kill using helicopter rotors? Now we’re talking.

Still, although it isn’t all that bad, the multiplayer of Grand Theft Auto IV is a little disappointing and the bare reality is that although the game works easily as a singleplayer game, having fun in multiplayer requires a little more ingenuity and effort from players.

If you’re willing to pony up those extra resources to get a game that is really awesomely fun then Grand Theft Auto IV can be so good you’ll be telling stories to fellow gamers for years to come; waving your hands and drooling as you describe how you spent fifteen minutes in a helicopter, dodging sky scrapers and gunning down at a man on a motorbike until you finally snared him by detonating the petrol station as he passed by, showering the streets with flames and fumes.

On the other hand, if you just want to literally boot up and gun about the town then you’ll probably find the game a little staid after a while. The combat is still a little clunky and unoiled, plus battles are over so quickly a lot of the time that GTA IV multiplayer doesn’t really break the mould enough to be interesting.