We rounded up some of the best gaming journalists from Gameplayer.com.au, Australian 360 magazine and Official PlayStation Magazine and asked them the big question: what sucks about GTA IV?
Here are the results: the Top 10 reasons why GTA IV sucks – or at least why it gets docked at least that one per cent.
1. It’s got more bugs than The Temple of Doom
Entire rooms will pop in before your eyes and actual geometry, such as trees and staircases keeps popping in as well. We’re on the fast track to a migraine.
2. The environments all look the same
This is meant to be an entire city, based on New York, but aside from Algonquin, Liberty City may as well be just the same block repeated over and over. We’ve seen more architectural variety in one of those new towns that spring up overnight in the outer suburbs.
3. Weird install options
It’s a mandatory install for the PlayStation 3, yet when it comes to the Xbox 360 there’s no install option at all. What’s with that, Rockstar?
4. Repetitive missions
Are we the only ones with a feeling of déjà vu? We swear we’ve played most of these missions before in GTA III, GTA II, GTA . . .
5. The lighting doesn’t exactly shine
Shadows aren’t done properly and the lighting pops in and out more often than your mother in law – and is just as unwelcome.
6. Driving drives us crazy
The physics have improved enough to make a lap around Liberty City enjoyable, but everyone steers like your Grandma on Red Bull. The camera sucks too, and has moments of complete madness when it feels like you’re reverse parking a Camry into a motorbike space on acid.
7. Faces are a farce
Some of the characters look fantastic and really show GTA IV as a next-gen game. Others look like they’ve hopped straight off the bus from San Andreas. Maybe its supposed to delineate Liberty City's surgically enhanced Manhatten types from its beaten down Bronxers. Bronxites. Bronxians?
8. The AI can be less than intelligent
We witnessed a cop car doing a three point turn drive off a bridge into a river, while another drove off the road, down a beach and straight into the water. Yet one managed to drive his car on two wheels through an impossibly thin alley and exit intact to continue the chase.
9. No local multiplayer
San Andreas allowed two people to play on one screen. So taking that away is progress?
10. Sean Connery’s not in it
OK, if we’re honest we only found nine things that truly suck, but tell us his Scots brogue wouldn’t have added a little extra panache?
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What do you think sucks about GTA IV? Tell us in the forums.