Comparing GTA: IV Single player to San Andreas

[DeeDubb]

I actually posted this review on another forum, but I just wanted to see if other hardcore GTA fans felt that I made a fair assessment

 

Well, I beat GTA: IV. Took me a whole 5 days. (Probably about 30 or so hours of play time). I feel like the best way to review this is to compare it to the previous big release, GTA: San Andreas. Here's how I feel about different elements of the games:

 

Graphics:

This is a no brainer. The graphics are very nice in GTA: IV. A sleek animation style and great shading give the game a cool artistic feel. Also, ragdoll animations, more flinch points, and some other fun stuff. Like when you hijack someones car, and they are brave enough to try to get it back, they will hang on the door handle and you can drag them around for a little while. This really isn't, and shouldn't be close. San Andreas was nice for it's time, but GTA: IV is next gen all the way. GTA IV wins easily, as it should.

 

Driving:

It took me a couple minutes to get a feel for the driving style, but that's probably more from playing racing games than a big change from previous GTAs. Pretty much the same. One big difference is the crashes. Ragdoll animations give a fun and painful look to flying off of a motorcycle. Also, If your windshield is broken in a car, you can also fly through that. Still, nothing is more fun in this game than going full speed on a crotch rocket and hitting a car head on just to watch Niko fly a hundred feet or so bouncing off of a street lamp or two on the way. I'll give IV the edge here.

 

Shooting: This has been upgraded in GTA: IV. Abilities to fire from cover, fire while crouched, locking on, free firing, and sniping have all been upgraded. Shooting through certain types of cover and shooting between cover to pick someone off have all been upgraded. Also, shooting from a vehicle is much, much better in IV. You can control your aim 360 degrees with your right analog while driving with your left. Much more challenging to get coordinated than San Andreas' pull up and fire to the left or the right, but much more fun. Shooting definitely goes to IV over San Andreas.

 

The Story: This one is a toss up for me. As with all GTA games, they do a good job with the main story. I was able to get emotionally attached to Niko the same way as I did with CJ in San Andreas. I guess the edge goes to whether you are less annoyed by a thick Russian accent or an early-90s gang-banger accent. I'll say draw on this.

 

The Map: The map is much, much smaller in GTA IV. Also, it offers much less variation in terrain than San Andreas. Even though San Andreas was larger, I feel lost more often in GTA IV because everything is the same. I liked San Andreas because even though it started in a LA urban area, it went to a mountain backwoods area, then a San Francisco style town, then a desert area, and finally led to a Vegas style area. GTA IV: is just New York City, nothing more. San Andreas gets my vote here.

 

Getting around: GTA IV: introduced the ability to not just steal cabs, but actually be able to use their services legally. When you get into a cab, you can give a destination and then skip the trip, allowing you to travel instantly across the entire map for a relatively small fee. In San Andreas, it would take a lot longer to get across an expansive map. There are some tricks near the end, like hijacking a speedy plane and just hopping out and parachuting wherever you need to go, but GTA: IV gets the edge on speed of travel. Another bonus in GTA: IV is GPS. It shows you the most efficient route to take automatically on misions and you can, at any point, put a waypoint on the map which will be tracked by GPS. GTA: IV gets the advantage for ease, even though San Andreas had more fun modes of travel.

 

Getting away from the cops: This game still has the pay and sprays, but they are not as easily accessed as the ones in San Andreas. This game, instead offers the ability to outrun the cops. Basically, you have an area that you need to get out of. The more stars you have, the larger the area that you have to get out of. If the cops catch up to you, the circle is reset. This offers an easier and more realistic way of escaping pursuit. GTA: IV gets the edge here.

 

Bonus Games: San Andreas had a few bonus games, but GTA: IV has more. You can throw darts, bowl, or play pool. They also added a pretty cool arcade game. Sort of a 3D Tetris thingy. I'll give GTA: IV the advantage here, even though pool and bowling are just annoying.

 

Bonus missions: IV still has bonus racing missions, vigilante missions, and car collection missions, but it doesn't have courier missions, cab missions, ambulance missions, pimp missions, or bonus dating girl missions (there are still dates, but they are part of the story). However, you can call up any of your friends to go play pool, throw darts, or bowl. If you get your friendship level high enough, you can unlock certain bonuses (sort of like the bonuses you could unlock in San Andreas by dating). They did add more options to dating and more fun to it too. When you go to a bar with a girl, you are both incredibly drunk and stumbling. If you try to drive in that condition, the cops will try to pull you over. It's safer to just catch a cab, which is still a challenge just getting a cab without getting run over while stumbling into the street. Another element that has been a major part of GTAs are the collection missions. San Andreas had Oysters, Horseshoes, Tagging, and photo colelctio missions. GTA: IV still has one, which is killing 200 pigeons, or "flying rats" as they are dubbed, located around the city. Still, the bonus missions that have been lost outweigh the new ones by a fairly large margin. San Andreas gets the edge.

 

Transportation: This game has a few less car and motorcycle models, but that is not really a big loss. The BIG loss is the fact that there are no bicycles and no airplanes. Well, there are airplanes, but you can't get in them. They are just for decoration. I can't even tell you how disappointing this is for me. I loved flying the red baron style planes around and doing tricks, or hijacking a 747 and parachuting out at 30,000 feet. There are only a couple of helicopters and they are hardly used in missions, oh and if you jump out midflight, you do not have a parachute (learned this one the hard way). GTA IV: still has boats, but not nearly the variety. The boat missions are are also lessened severely. There are no go carts, no wind boats, no monster trucks, no tractors, no cement mixers, no bulldozers, and no cop bikes. San Andreas absolutely kills IV here.

 

Character Customization: This one is another huge loss by GTA: IV. There are no skills attained like in San Andreas. Weapon skills, driving skills, motorcycle skills, boating skills, or piloting skills. While you can still dress your character, the clothing selection is less than impressive. You can either go with lazy middle-aged guy in sweatsuit variations, or you can put on various coat/turtleneck combos. They also have a basic suit and tie which is required for a few missions. I ended up just wearing this the whole time. Further modifications from haircuts and working out/eating to modify your character's body type have also been removed. I don't know if players were generally annoyed by these features, but I sure did have fun with them. San Andreas in a landslide here.

 

Mission variety: With the limitations to the vehicles and the limitations of the map, GTA: IV becomes pretty repetitive with it's missions. Chase some guy in on foot or in a vehicle, then shoot him and his buddies up. One thing that GTA: IV does offer is the ability to make choices. You can choose to kill certain people or let them live. The decisions you make can effect the plot of the story. I still don't know how much it changes things, I'll have to figure it out the next time through. However, the overall variety of missions still has to go to San Andreas.

 

CONCLUSION:

 

It my opinion, the game has added a lot of things to make it a sleeker more stylish game, but it sacrificed a lot of really fun things that were added in San Andreas. I'm not sure if Rock Star intended to lower the open sandbox feel of previous games, or if they were merely cornered into it by the limitations of the New York City style map. They may feel that players are more interested in the shooting and driving elements of GTA than the other aspects that were added in San Andreas.

 

This is a great game, and compared to any other next gen game on the market, it is pretty much the cream of the crop. However, as a GTA, I feel it can only be compared to the other GTAs, and unfortunately it falls short of the precedence established by San Andreas.

 

 

______________________________

 

 

[smokeythedemon]

San Andreas multiplayer > GTA IV multiplayer.

[Saintdestroyer]

Good review. Few points. Not all dating is part of the story. Cab missions are in the game, roman gives you the option.

[Swiechu]

First, the driving is much changed from previous ones, and it's way better.

Second, storyline is not even to be compared, IVs wins easily, is much more beliavable and interesting. Also Niko's character is considered best in series, and CJ... well, he's just a little pussy.

Third, LC is much more detailed and interesting compared to useless area i SA (this point is just my opinion, unlike others)

Fourth, how transportation be won by SA? Because it got no lawn mowers? Come on, it's got a very nice variety of vechicles, every sinlge of them is has more character than these from SA, and there ain't no Karin Dilletante in SA. Sure, no planes, but I got over it easily, GTA is all about cars, everything else is just a nice addition.

Fifth, you can't compare the points lke mini-games with points like area. They ain't equal.

[DZorro]

Great review. San Andreas became even better after modders took over, there driver mods, that fixed a lot of that in game. Doing drive bye was one of those things. Does GTA IV have drive bye ??

[DeeDubb]

First, the driving is much changed from previous ones, and it's way better.

Second, storyline is not even to be compared, IVs wins easily, is much more beliavable and interesting. Also Niko's character is considered best in series, and CJ... well, he's just a little pussy.

Third, LC is much more detailed and interesting compared to useless area i SA (this point is just my opinion, unlike others)

Fourth, how transportation be won by SA? Because it got no lawn mowers? Come on, it's got a very nice variety of vechicles, every sinlge of them is has more character than these from SA, and there ain't no Karin Dilletante in SA. Sure, no planes, but I got over it easily, GTA is all about cars, everything else is just a nice addition.

Fifth, you can't compare the points lke mini-games with points like area. They ain't equal.

You don't miss airplanes at all? How about the Driving/Cycling/Boating/Flying schools? Racing down Mt. Chilliad on a mountain bike was awesome.

[Swiechu]

Yes, and they're great.

EDIT:You don't miss airplanes at all? How about the Driving/Cycling/Boating/Flying schools? Racing down Mt. Chilliad on a mountain bike was awesome.

No, I don't. I was flying only if I had to, it was boring (unlike Vice City's flying). About bikes, no, I don't miss them, I have one in real life, I ride on it.

And schools were sh*tty, I've done them only cause I had to. In games, I appreciate good storyline, good gameplay, not jumping around from a plane like a reterd.

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2008 by Swiechu

[Copilot]

I don't agree with the customization, especially the gym. It was stupid as hell pressing X over and over again to gain some stupid stat. The hair and stuff yeah I guess it was Ok but generally I just left the hair normal since it was the best.

 

One thing about the GPS is it doesn't give you the most efficient route it gives you the fastest "legal" route. Such as if the place you are going is on a one way street the GPS tells you to go all the way around and onto the one way street the proper way, not the way that goes against traffic.

[DeeDubb]

Good review. Few points. Not all dating is part of the story. Cab missions are in the game, roman gives you the option.

!POSSIBLE SPOILER!

 

I thought that the cab missions ended after Roman loses his business.

[DeeDubb]

Yes, and they're great.

EDIT:You don't miss airplanes at all? How about the Driving/Cycling/Boating/Flying schools? Racing down Mt. Chilliad on a mountain bike was awesome.

No, I don't. I was flying only if I had to, it was boring (unlike Vice City's flying). About bikes, no, I don't miss them, I have one in real life, I ride on it.

And schools were sh*tty, I've done them only cause I had to. In games, I appreciate good storyline, good gameplay, not jumping around from a plane like a reterd.

That's understandable. I mean, it sort of depends on what you enjoy about GTA. IV just lost a lot of the more silly things that I enjoyed doing in SA. All the extra things in SA were not unique individually, but it was the only game that brought all those together. IV is almost limited to an FPS/Driving game, which of course was how GTA started, but I felt like it was going in the right direction with SA creating one of the most open-ended single player games ever. Still, if you don't miss the losses, then IV is probably perfect for you.

[Swiechu]

Yeah, for me IVs the best game I've played. And for a veeeery huge amount of people it's the best GTA in series. I didn't really like SA, 'twas stupid, running around in joke mask and heart boxers.... If I wanna do stupid things, I get drunk with friends, it's much more fun than messing around in SA. And I enjoyed VC much more than SA, mainly because of better storyline and soundtrack.

[jake2000n]

With GTA4, I think they wanted to go down a new path. They didn't want to give you the exact same things as the previous ones. If you steal a helicopter, take a look around. The place is toooo small for planes, it just wouldn't be fun to fly if theres nowhere do it.

[Darkgamr]

Good review. Few points. Not all dating is part of the story. Cab missions are in the game, roman gives you the option.

!POSSIBLE SPOILER!

 

I thought that the cab missions ended after Roman loses his business.

!FURTHER POSSIBLE SPOILER!

 

temporarily unavailable, until Roman collects on the insurance money and rebuilds