Grand Theft Auto IV

NOTE: There were two expansion packs released for GTA IV: The Lost and the Damned, and The Ballad of Gay Tony. These were later rolled together into Episodes from Liberty City, which was released as a standalone game.

The Complete Edition went further and combined the base game with the Episodes from Liberty City expansion on all platforms, replacing both, as of March 19, 2020. Because the multiplayer component of the game was designed to use Microsoft Games for Windows Live, which is now long-defunct, all multiplayer modes are no longer available. GTA IV now essentially a single-player-only game.

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The Serbian ex-soldier Niko Bellic had witnessed the horrors of war, which turned him bitter and cynical. Disappointed by life, he immigrates to the United States, which his cousin Roman enthusiastically describes as a country of wealth and pleasure. However, the reality is quite different: Roman is poor, has no stable job, and owes money to some dubious individuals. As Niko attempts to help his hapless cousin and pave a more secure future for both of them, he becomes more and more involved in the life of crime. A burning desire to find a man who had betrayed him in Serbia forces Niko to make deals with his conscience, and once he crosses the line, there is no way back...

Grand Theft Auto IV is the ninth title and the fourth main game in the Grand Theft Auto series, and also the first for the seventh generation of consoles. Following the tradition of the 3D installments of the series, the game is entirely located in one of the three cities of the original GTA, Liberty City, but now in present time, and with an environment reminiscent of GTA III, though bigger and more detailed. Liberty City is heavily based on New York, where the protagonist has to gain respect, welfare and power throughout the game.

Like in most GTA games, the city map is gradually uncovered during the course of the game. The player starts in Broker (based on Brooklyn), and, in order to access the other three districts of the city (based on the other major boroughs of New York City), has to make progress in the storyline. The game has the usual structure based on missions. The player can sometimes engage in various missions at the same time, and has free access to the non-mission features of the game while being on one.

Most of the usual elements of exploration and interaction with the city are included in GTA IV. Niko can cause mayhem in the city, hijack cars, listen to radio stations, observe the behavior of the citizens, enter thematic buildings, work as vigilante, taxi driver, or ambulance driver, hire a prostitute, go to a strip club, and so on. Among the new features is the possibility to watch television (with several channels broadcasting various fictional programs) and connect to a fictional Internet, with functional websites (mostly of a humorous nature) created specifically for the game, and an e-mail program. Other additions include looking for criminals in the police department database from a police car, hiring taxi cabs to safely travel to selected destinations, extensive usage of the mobile phone, improved A.I. of the pedestrians, and others.