“I Like This Place” [Our Version]

Things Will Be Different

It’s here where as Niko himself puts it figuratively, things will be different. From the missions to the environments, it’s all new. It’s not the same GTA that you should be expecting to find at all. The game’s euphoria engine allows for everything, every time to be dynamic. Every way you hit a person over and over is dynamically calculated in the algorithm of the engine. The way you knock down someone’s hot dog, to the way they scold you when you run by them in an alley is all too real. And we just love it. The intricacies just never end.

Before all that begins though, Niko needs to pop out his old school cell phone to immerse himself into the world to make his new beginning. Unlike the previous iterations to the GTA series, GTA IV finally places the general outlook into something more practical than a mysterious God writing missions out of nowhere in a little screen you have to access. How we ever stood that or overcame it will never make sense to me, but then again I’m sure we weren’t expecting as much back then or really didn’t care. The phone initially begins old school, and can be changed through upgrades as you start rolling in the new 6 figure salary your cousin “promises” you. Inside the phone is a handy interface menu that makes the gameplay as seamless as it is. You can store your contacts for brunches, what you yourself added to your calendar, and check what song is playing on the radio (similar to the Verizon’s newer model cell phone with song recognition) so that you can buy it and play it when you’re at the mansion. The real genius behind the phone is not how it’s used, but how it’s implemented in uniting the story missions to the free roaming world and environment to immerse players.