The soundtrack I found incredibly weak. There are a number of radio stations, but each station only has about five songs on it. They are mostly good songs, but still a small amount.
Another way the game reflects America is through media parodies. The radio stations, TV stations, billboards, and a fake internet are all comments on American entertainment. The parodies are stupid; they writers clearly think they are cleverer than they actually are. America’s Next Top Model is parodied by a show called America’s Next Top Hooker. Elsewhere American liberals and conservatives are parodied by having outrageous talk shows. For examples there is the Weazel news service whose slogan is “It’s not news, its propaganda”. Satire is not funny when it is completely outrageous, it is funny when it just a notch above the truth. The game’s developers just do not get that. It is a shame they made this cartoony version of American life, because it totally clashes with their gritty story of Niko.
After finishing the game, there is some replay value. There are multiple online modes that I cannot really discuss, because I did not play much of them. I will say that during my short experience I managed to find all the jerks on Xbox Live at once. You can also try to complete 100 percent of the game. This requires finishing all the optional missions and meeting all the characters. If you liked the regular game missions you will probably enjoy doing that. You could also go back and replay the main story and make different choices and see how they affect the story.
This game does do some very impressive stuff, but overall it was more of a jack of all trades and a master of none. I was quite impressed by the scope of the city, but almost wish they had just given us one borough and let me interact with every building and every person in it. I think that would have been a more engaging experience than driving around a large city that did not feel that interactive at times. The game's controls and mission structure are hopelessly archaic, and truthfully come across as plain lazy. Giving the option to load from a checkpoint, restart, or quit the mission could not have been too hard to do. First person shooters have had that option for years.
Article comments
1 - John
Lame, Lame, Lame! Weak review for a game that came out three months ago. Get with the program buddy.
2 - seamus
I'm glad you got around to reviewing this game.
Given that the *primary* joy of the game is driving recklessly around a big, realistic city, this game is an A+. Agreed that the missions and storyline aren't anything new or spectacular, but they're always second fiddle to the game's main purpose -- engaging in general criminality and running from the cops.
Also, there are a dozen radio stations, and each play about 10-12 tracks (check the manual), so there's about 8 hours of music in there. That's more than enough not to get bored.
3 - Mark Kalriess
I did see, that the most of the stations had over 10 tracks, but while playing the game for 30 hours I hardly ever heard all 10. I listened to the classic rock station mostly and most of heard "Jailbreak" and "Straight on to You" a hundred times and heard the other songs on that station significantly less. I may be misremembering, but it seemed like in older GTAs you could find a station a you liked and listen to it for hours...