Grand Theft Auto IV is out at the end of the month. Easily one of the most anticipated games in essentially ever, several stores are already groaning under the weight of pre-orders while still doing everything they can to bring in more. The inevitable backlash against the game hasn’t quite started yet, but it’s not hard to imagine the various conservative pundits, parental watchdog groups, and crazed tragedy-chasing lawyers lining up to lay the blame for every bad thing that happens after its release squarely at the feet of the game and its creators. It’s going to be a Big Deal, not just for fans but for gaming as a whole. Each installment has brought with it new innovations and ideas that inevitably show up in other titles a year or so later, and this one’s no different – GTAIV promises not only most realistic take on four of New York City’s (called Liberty City in the game) five boroughs, but sixteen distinct multiplayer modes that set you and a mob of friends loose on all of it, playing cops-and-robbers, racing from one end to the other, or even working through a distinct story mode built just for playing with friends. Best of all, the city doesn’t sleep while all this is going on. All the pedestrians, all the traffic, all the potential for things to change drastically from one street corner to the next is still there. It’s going to be something to see.

The trouble is, I just can’t decide how I feel about all of it.

But then, I’ve always had mixed feeling about the GTA series, or at least the installments from III on. Rockstar’s achievements with the games are undeniable, with each new game expanding upon their idea of a living, breathing city, full of people going about their business, cars on the streets, and even weather. Grand Theft Auto III: San Andreas took things even further, giving you most of a fictionalized state of California to play around in with cities and towns divided by large expanses of wilderness that often held its own surprises. And while it’s something I’ve enjoyed dabbling with before (my fondest memory of the series is still playing San Andreas at Will’s house and discovering that not only could I steal a train, I could run it off the tracks), the longer form of the game has never quite clicked with me. Some of the problem is down to the way it’s built – targeting in the series has always been a joke, and San Andreas took the simulation aspect way too far by tasking you with caring for your character’s overall fitness and keeping him fed. These issues and more are said to be addressed in IV, which makes me happy, but still isn’t quite enough to seal the deal. Ultimately, my problem with the games isn’t in how I move through them, but who I am in them.

I touched on this before in talking about my issues with Assassin’s Creed, but in the case of Grand Theft Auto, the originator of open world sandbox games as a genre, its even more true. For all there is to see in the world, my ability to interact with it is almost completely limited to hurting people. This was particularly true of Grand Theft Auto III, and while Vice City and San Andreas expanded on the sort of things you could do in their world, they were almost always rooted in your character being a criminal with no hope of redemption. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – Grand Theft Auto’s intentions are right there in the name, after all, and I don’t think anybody is foolish enough to go in to one of the games expecting to play a saint. For me personally, though, the problem appears in the contrast between the free-form nature of the game and my severely limited options for playing it. Rockstar have proven themselves capable of creating beautiful worlds for players to explore, cities that live and breathe in a way few other games can match. For them to constantly cast me as a walking cancer cell within them just feels like a complete waste of potential.

I’ve tried each of the GTA games so far, and each one has been sold or given away after a few hours of playing. Partly because of the control issues mentioned above, but largely because I just get tired of hurting people for no real reason. Killing sprees just aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, it turns out, and I inevitably find myself wanting to contribute to the world around me in some way beyond stealing its cars or knocking down its census numbers. That said, GTAIV is an incredible opportunity for the series, with the power of then new hardware it runs on and the time Rockstar have put into it creating the potential for a heretofore unknown level of player freedom. The screenshots and videos of the game so far have been stunning, as have the details on gameplay and the multiplayer aspects. I know several people here in New York who are going to spend their first hour in the game trying to find the Liberty City version of their home or work. If they’ve found room in all that wonder to create a character I don’t mind being, then the game will truly stand apart from its predecessors. I have sixty dollars set aside that could go towards pre-ordering it or picking up something else, and I’m still waiting to find out.

Filed under: Grand Theft Auto IV, talk about games, thinking outloud