GTA in reverseOne thing in advance: GTA IV is still fun to play. The game is good because the developers have stuck to the basic concept of its predecessors – many main and plenty of side missions and the possibility to move freely in the game environment are, after all, part of the GTA series' recipe for success.
A word about the graphics: This is of course better than still in GTA-San Andreas. This is what you could expect, since you are dealing with a game for a next-generation console; however, the graphics are not as outstanding as you might have expected them to be. Should the PS3 really already reach its limits with these visuals, then that would be a bitter disappointment. So I just put off with the fact that GTA has never really been the reference in terms of top graphics and don't mind the flickering edges and the much too dark picture.
What is much more important are some of the following negative aspects: – The main missions are not very varied. You are mostly limited to wild rumblings followed by the elimination of a gangster boss. – The side missions are still there, (car racing, pool, darts, vigilante missions etc).) but they were all together at the same time.B. The firefighting or ambulance games cut down. – Most disappointing is the fact that you can't buy real estate and companies anymore. So after a while you walk around with a bunch of virtual money, but you don't really have any use for it. This has a strong negative effect on the long term motivation, because at the end of the storyline you don't really have something to keep you busy for a while. – There are no more airplanes, parachutes and jetpaks. Only helicopter flights are still granted to the player. However, these flying machines can only be found in a few places in the game. – Annoyingly long dialogues during a mission, which you can't follow in the long run even with a good knowledge of English. (Reading the subtitles or the mission text is a must) – Many characters look rather flat. – Initially the game hung up due to problems with the online mode and the PSN. This has been fixed by a patch in the meantime, but IMO it's an absolute no-go for such a highly praised top title, because masses of players wondered if their PS3 had given up the ghost.
Actually, one could have expected GTA IV to have some innovations with the jump to the PS3. But this is not the case. The player has to do without real innovations – like in San Andreas. Instead, several features from the predecessors were simply left out.
Conclusion: As already mentioned, GTA IV is a good game, but not the best of the series. After 1.5 times of playing through the game, I doubt that this part will keep me glued to the screen as long as GTA Vice-City or San Andreas.