grand theft auto iv grand theft auto iv developers rockstar north publishers rockstar games producers leslie benzies programmers adam fowler alexander roger obbe vermeij artists aaron garbut writers dan houser rupert humphries composer smichael hunter serie sgrand theft auto engine rage platforms playstation 3xbox 360microsoft windows release playstation 3 xbox 360 ww 29 april 2008 microsoft windows na 2 december 2008 pal 3 december 2008 genres action adventure modes singleplayer multiplayer grand theft auto iv is an actionadventure video game developed by rockstar north and published by rockstar games it was released for the playstation 3 and xbox 360 consoles on 29 april 2008 and for microsoft windows on 2 december 2008 it is the eleventh title in the grand theft auto series and the first main entry since 2004s grand theft auto san andreas set within the fictional liberty city based on new york city the singleplayer story follows a war veteran niko bellic and his attempts to escape his past while under pressure from loan sharks and mob bosses the open world design lets players freely roam liberty city consisting of three main islands the game is played from a thirdperson perspective and its world is navigated onfoot or by vehicle throughout the singleplayer mode players play as niko bellic an online multiplayer mode is included with the game allowing up to 32 players to engage in both cooperative and competitive gameplay in a recreation of the singleplayer setting two expansion packs were later released for the game the lost and damned and the ballad of gay tony which both feature new plots that are interconnected with the main grand theft auto iv storyline and follow new protagonists development began soon after the release of grand theft auto san andreas and was shared between many of rockstars studios worldwide the game introduced a shift to a more realistic and detailed style and tone for the series unlike previous entries grand theft auto iv lacked a strong cinematic influence as the team attempted an original approach to the story as part of their research for the open world the developers conducted field research around new york throughout development and captured footage for the design team following its announcement in may 2006 grand theft auto iv was widely anticipated upon release the game received universal critical acclaim with praise particularly directed at the games narrative and open world design however the game also generated controversy with criticism directed at the games depiction of violence and players ability to drive under the influence of alcohol grand theft auto iv broke industry sales records and became the fastestselling entertainment product in history at the time earning us310million in its first day and 500 million in its first week considered one of the most significant titles of the seventh generation of video games and by many critics as one of the greatest video games of all time it won yearend accolades including game of the year awards from several gaming publications a sequel grand theft auto v was released in september 2013 gameplay grand theft auto iv is an actionadventure game played from a thirdperson perspective players use melee attacks firearms and explosives to fight enemies and may run jump swim or use vehicles to navigate the games world there is a firstperson perspective option when using vehicles in combat autoaim and a cover system can be used as assistance against enemies should players take damage their health meter can be fully regenerated using multiple techniques such as eating using medical kits or calling for paramedics combat in grand theft auto iv was reworked to include a cover system the games cover system allows players to move between cover to fire blindly aim freely and target a specific enemy individual body parts can also be targeted the games singleplayer mode lets players control a war veteran eastern european niko bellic during the story niko meets various new characters many of whom he befriends these characters can then perform favours for niko whenever he asks for example his cousin roman who owns a taxi service can send one of his cabs to niko and take him to any destination around the city cabs are always available during gameplay allowing players to quickly travel to a destination throughout the course of the game players are also faced with morality choices which alter the storyline appropriately depending on the players choice while free roaming the game world players may engage in contextspecific activities such as bowling or darts other available activities include a vigilante minigame and ingame television programming the online multiplayer mode for grand theft auto iv allows up to 32 players to freely roam across a recreation of the singleplayer world synopsis setting grand theft auto iv takes place in 2008 in a redesigned version of liberty city consisting of four boroughs based on four of the boroughs of new york city broker based on brooklyn dukes queens bohan the bronx and algonquin manhattan plot niko bellic an eastern european niko defends roman from his loan sharks several times but is forced to work for vlad glebov romans russian loan shark niko kills vlad after finding out he slept with romans girlfriend mallorie niko and roman are immediately forced to flee to bohan after their apartment and taxi company are destroyed by dimitris men in arson attacks then restarts his taxi company the paper tracks down the man responsible for nikos units betrayal darko brevic and brings him into liberty city for niko to decide his fate should niko go through with the deal dimitri again betrays him and takes the heroin for himself production development see also marketing for grand theft auto iv mural ad for the game on a wall in new york city july 2007 work on grand theft auto iv began in november 2004 almost immediately after the release of grand theft auto san andreas 2004 grand theft auto iv sees a shift in the series to a more realistic and detailed style and tone the story of grand theft auto iv was written by dan houser and rupert humphries music supervisor ivan pavlovich said the corporate vicepresident of microsofts interactive entertainment business division peter moore announced at e3 2006 that the game would appear on xbox 360 by rolling up his sleeve to reveal a grand theft auto iv temporary tattoo the windows version of grand theft auto iv includes a replay editor the clips interface is used to capture game footage on 6 august 2008 rockstar announced that a microsoft windows version of grand theft auto iv was in development by rockstar north and rockstar toronto episodic content two episodic packs for grand theft auto iv have been released these two episodes were first released separately exclusively on xbox live the first expansion titled grand theft auto the lost and damned was originally released on 17 february 2009 jeronimo barrera vicepresident of product development for rockstar games said that the episodes were experiments because the team were not sure that there was enough users with access to online content on the xbox 360 both episodes were released for playstation 3 and microsoft windows on 13 april 2010 soundtrack like previous games in the grand theft auto series grand theft auto iv features a soundtrack that can be heard through radio stations while the player is in a vehicle liberty city is serviced by 19 radio stations three of which are talk radio stations the other stations feature music from a large range of genres including tracks from genesis david bowie bob marley the who queen kanye west and elton john grand theft auto iv uses a similar music system to that of grand theft auto san andreas 2004 in other games in the series each radio station was essentially a single looped sound file playing the same songs announcements and advertisements in the same order each time with the radio stations in grand theft auto iv each sound file is held separately and sequenced randomly allowing songs to be played in different orders announcements to songs to be different each time and plot events to be mentioned on the stations certain songs are also edited to incorporate references to the fictional liberty city a variety of real celebrities provide voices for the radio djs in the game including fashion designer karl lagerfeld musicians iggy pop the music of grand theft auto iv is a 2008 soundtrack packaged with the special edition of grand theft auto iv the disc contains several soundtrack selections near the tenyear anniversary of the games release in april 2018 rockstar issued patches to all versions of the game to remove some of the licensed songs from the game which they no longer have licensing rights for rockstar said this was primarily from the russianthemed radio station vladivostok fm and that they were to replace these songs with new music in the patch reception console versions reception aggregate score aggregator score metacritic 98 100 grand theft auto iv was released to critical acclaim metacritic which assigns a normalised rating in the 0100 range calculated an average score of 98 indicating universal acclaim reviewers lauded the open world design some further complimenting the freedom that it allows the player seth schiesel of the new york times named the city the real star of the game reviewers praised the games narrative igns goldstein accepted that the darker tones to the story a break from series tradition jon hicks of official xbox magazine felt surprised by the amount of depth to the story the games protagonist niko bellic with one of the main characters dimitri rascalov reviewers praised the games story and characters commending the morality choices faced by players the games charactersparticularly nikoreceived positive reactions from critics many reviewers found the combat system was more responsive than in previous games particularly praising the addition of the cover system reviewers praised the sound design goldstein of ign praised the actors performances and the use of licensed music gamespots calvert and gamesradars walter also commended the licensed music the latter admiring the humour of the radios talk stations the games online multiplayer mode received positive reactions from critics windows version windows version reception aggregate score aggregator score meta critic 90 100 when grand theft auto iv was released to microsoft windows in december 2008 it received generally positive reviews metacritic calculated an average score of 90 out of 100 indicating universal acclaim based on 40 reviews the ingame features added in the port were well received the ports enhanced visuals were commended by many reviewers gamezones hopper considered the visuals an improvement over the original versions awards list of awards for grand theft auto iv year awards category ref 2008 ign best of 2008 best action game xbox 360 pc overall best graphics technology xbox 360 best use of sound overall best voice acting xbox 360 playstation 3 pc overall best story xbox 360 playstation 3 ign aus 10 best games of 2008 best game of the year gametrailers game of the year awards 2008 game of the year best playstation 3 game best xbox 360 game best action adventure game best story gamespy game of the year 2008 best story character of the year brucie kibbutz gamespot best of 2008 best ukdeveloped game best new character brucie kibbutz best xbox 360 game giant bomb golden anniversary yearend awards extravaganza spectacular 2008 game of the year best multiplatform game kotakus 2008 games of the year awards game of the year best writing teamxbox game of the year awards 2008 best actionadventure best story game of the year spike tv video game awards 2008 game of the year best action adventure game best performance by a human male michael hollick as niko bellic 26th annual golden joystick awards bbc 1xtra soundtrack of the year arvato xbox game of the year g4 gphoria 2008 best new character niko bellic best action game longest lasting game presented by stride the new york times game of the year los angeles times time the top 10 everything of 2008 top 10 video games number 1 video game of 2008 2009 entertainment merchants association home entertainment awards video games actionadventure game of the year video game of the year michael hollick voice of niko bellic won a spike tv award for best performance by a human male following the critical acclaim it received on its release grand theft auto iv has received various awards from various critics and publications it received several game of the year awards from gaming media outlets such as spike tv sales within twentyfour hours of its release grand theft auto iv sold over 36 million copies equating to approximately 310 million in revenue in the united kingdom the game became the fastestselling game of all time selling over 631000 copies in twentyfour hours in the first week of availability the windows version of grand theft auto iv debuted at seventh place on the weekly charts controversies controversies surrounding grand theft auto iv prior to and since the release of grand theft auto iv the game had been subject to a great deal of controversy as was the case with previous grand theft auto titles figures including george galloway jack thompson and hillary clinton have criticised the game as have organisations including new york city officials and mothers against drunk driving madd the initial version of grand theft auto iv released in australia and new zealand was precensored by rockstar to allow the game to meet the perceived requirements of the australian classification system there have been reports in the united kingdom and the united states of crimes perpetrated against people purchasing grand theft auto iv as well as employees of stores selling the game notes footnotes bibliography grand theft auto iv review edge future plc 189 june 2008 archived from the original on 13 september 2014 wikiquote has quotations related to grand theft auto iv official website 2000s portalnew york city portalspeculative fiction portalvideo games portal vtegrand theft auto seriesvideo gamesmain series grand theft auto london 1969 2 iii vice city san andreas iv the lost and damned the ballad of gay tony v gta online handheld games advance liberty city stories vice city stories chinatown wars charactersindividual claude tommy vercetti carl cj johnson niko bellic trevor philips by game grand theft auto iii vice city san andreas liberty city stories vice city stories grand theft auto v music san andreas grand theft auto v development grand theft auto iv marketing grand theft auto v development related media grand theft childhood jacked the outlaw story of grand theft auto the gamechangers related articles grand theft auto clone grand theft auto iv controversies grand theft auto v accolades grand theft auto v controversies modding in grand theft auto hot coffee mod multi 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