Grand Theft Auto 4 » ChannelFlip

games: Grand Theft Auto 4

June 6 2008 | ChannelFlip

Hello and welcome to the new show! It’s all very exciting to be back up again and I hope you like the new site. Do please get in touch with any feedback and let us know what you think.

Today’s show takes a look at Grand Theft Auto 4, the record smashing game that redefines the concept of video game immersion. It has its controversies, but it is definitely going to be a contender for game of the year. One of the few games I would ever say you absolutely ‘need’ to play. Tbh, I was dreading writing this review as the game is so enormous, but as soon as I sat down and started playing it, I was so excited about the world that I just wanted to scream it from the rooftops.

Oh, and btw, GTA4 has strip clubs so some of the content of this video might be deemed NSFW.

Enjoy!

-Katharine

comments

Jon

June 6th, 2008 - 4:24am

Woohoo! Welcome back! Enjoyable, informative review as usual.

Jeff

June 6th, 2008 - 8:00am

Yeah your back. Should post something on Playdigital or a redirect if its all going down on channelflip now. Good stuff. Hope the new studio is working out.

Santi

June 6th, 2008 - 11:00am

Yay!! You guys are back. Been waiting for months for ya to return. Great review as always..

Ryuzaki

June 6th, 2008 - 8:01pm

OMG KATHERINE! I haven’t seen this in months. It kinda feels different to see you with a white backround.

0bso1337

June 6th, 2008 - 9:45pm

great show and great host
im glad your back

Ronald

June 7th, 2008 - 7:58am

Lovely, have been waiting for months, welcome back, nice work

Wayne Naylor

June 7th, 2008 - 1:34pm

Hooray gameflip is back and yet another great review that was very balanced considering that everyone who i have asked about this game has almost done 7 backflips explaining how good it is. I like this review a lot and glad to have you back,you were missed. Peace T.A.

kel

June 7th, 2008 - 2:24pm

wooh your back!! Gta is defiantly a must buy… then again i did play it a month before it came out :p (i know people at R*) although i think the hype made it a little disappointingly, it didnt do as many things as R* said it would, great game nonetheless

Schmung

June 7th, 2008 - 4:18pm

Huzzah, the return of playdigital!

I loved GTA and blasted through the story mode pretty rapidly, but I can’t help but think that it suffers slightly by it’s more realistic pitch Part of the pleasure of the previous games was just firing it up and causing some carnage and generally arsing around a bit, but that seems to be somewhat more muted in this version. I’m also a tad disappointed by the way the game railroads some of your decisions and occasionally forces a mission on you without letting you save.

I’ve not had much of a go with multiplayer, I spent a few hours playing on release day, but my xbox bricked just after I finished the story

soapyfish

June 8th, 2008 - 6:41am

Welcome back. I’m loving GTA IV. It took me a while to get used to the driving, it seems a little ‘heavier’ and more realistic in this version, along with everything else, but now I’m bombing around like there’s no tomorrow! No online play for me yet, need to get Live sorted, can’t wait for the Downloadable Content though.

With previous versions of GTA I’ve not really had any incentive to play through them more than once but I can see myself doing just that with this latest offering because all the characters are just so good. I genuinely enjoy watching the cut-scenes before missions and the interactions between the different characters and personalities.

Great show.

Neil

June 8th, 2008 - 6:43am

Yay! Welcome back!

Charlie

June 8th, 2008 - 8:51am

Nice stuff - great review! loving the yoda in the background!

tom s williams

June 8th, 2008 - 2:19pm

Dear Katharine, WELCOME BACK I missed seeing you at playdigital.Did you ever give a think about the play digital tee-shirts?If I could get a autographed picture of you that would be very cool! what do you think of the ghost busters game comin out in the fall?I hope you give it a honest and fair review as always.looking foward to seeing you soon and yes you are still very cute and hot!!!!! later tom williams

Katharine

June 9th, 2008 - 11:30am

Hey guys - thanks for all the comments, it’s so good to see you all again! I’m so glad you’re liking the new site and show.

Jeff - good catch, thanks, we’re fixing that. Somehow with everything else going on we forgot to update the old site!

Kel - nice connections very jealous you got to play it so much earlier! You ever want to send/lend me advance copies drop us an email!! You’re right, hype was insane, and always hurts a game in some ways, but if you try to ignore that when you play it is awesome.

Tom S Williams - We do like the idea of eventually doing our own shirts, but I think that’s going to be on a backburner while we’re getting the new site sorted. Don’t worry, I won’t forget and will keep bringing it up until we either do it or I get fired for disrupting company meetings! I really like the idea of the ghost busters game and am definitely looking forward to it. I’ll of course be reviewing it with an open mind though

Cheers everyone,
Katharine

Andrew

June 12th, 2008 - 3:13pm

Good to see the show back - really pleased with the new layout as well. Welcome back!!!

In terms of GTA4, you got the graphics part spot on as when I first loaded this game in, the graphics was totally amazing. It is a style of art that looks vibrant and colourful, making me wanting to stare and look at all the amazing details R* has put effort into. The number of things that can be done is a lot and just like every other GTA game, the possibilities comes close to endless.

You got everything spot on in the review. Looking forward to your next game review.

Gabe Jacobs

June 30th, 2008 - 11:36pm

Wow, these videos are well done. Can you say subscribed!

Gabe Jacobs

July 1st, 2008 - 12:38am

I’m not joking, you are seriously one of the coolest girls I have ever seen online. I hope your not reading from a teleprompter….

KatharineFletcher

July 2nd, 2008 - 11:07am

Gabe - thanks, that’s so kind of you to say! I must confess since the launch of the new site I have been using a teleprompter (well, a Macbook balanced on top of two cans of paint…) but given that I’m reading scripts that I’ve researched and written myself I figure that’s allowed! In the playdigital days (i.e. all the videos up to GTA4) I used to memorize a chunk of script at a time to deliver to camera, but that takes too long, and given that we have one production dude to film and edit 9 shows per week, we had to think of ways to get more efficient. Ad libbing, with all of its ums and ahs and repetitions and thinking time is fine if you have an 8-10 minute show, but we aim for 3-5 minutes as you guys have busy lives, and it is very hard to get a meaningful review down to that time span without a tight script!

Match

September 4th, 2008 - 4:08pm

Wow, that’s the first review by you I actually disagree with, or at least the first one I remember. I found the tutorial missions really tedious. I rented the game and played it about 3 hours or so with a few friends around to check the game out, but after those 3 hours we just quit and were really bored. What had we done in those three hours? Bowling, dart, billiard, a bit of driving from A to B.
Also, it’s a shame that this is the fourth (if I counted right) 3D GTA and they still didn’t nail the controls. I played the PS3 version, btw, and the idea to have free-aim and auto-aim distinguished by how far you press that trigger button sounds nice in theory. However the range in which I got to aim myself is so small on the PS3 controller that it becomes painful to even try. The cars’ handling is pretty ridiculous and the switch to a more realistic approach for the rest of the game toned down the fun aspects of GTA drastically for me.
So… for me GTA IV was sorely disappointing in about every aspect, except for the visuals.