@NoClass77January 31, 2025
GTA IV is, in my opinion, the pinnacle of the Grand Theft Auto series and perhaps the best and most innovative game of the seventh generation. GTA V was bigger, but felt like less of a leap forward from it's predecessor and did a lot of things worse (physics and melee combat for instance).
It's surprising that GTA IV hasn't been re-released due to it being the highest selling game at the time of its release, it's since been surpassed, but it was a huge success critically and commercially in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Some features of GTA IV have been lost to time. When the Lost and Damned expansion pack first released as DLC it did an interesting thing with the in game radio stations, the new radio content from the DLC and the base game merged together so when you played Lost and Damned you'd still be able to hear all of the music and radio shows from the base game. This feature doesn't exist in the later Ballad of Gay Tony or the Episodes From Liberty City release of GTA IV which included both expansions. In the EFLC releases, the expansion packs contain the music and radio content from each other but not the base game. If this game comes to GOG, I would love to have an option to play Lost and Damned as it originally operated as a DLC integrating with the main game, not the way it does in EFLC.
GTA IV is an essential title and a game I have a lot of nostalgia for. I lived in New York City in 2008, so a lot of the locations and the cultural references really connect with me. The hipster jokes really take me back. I've seen most of the bands on the NYHC station, and even met members of several of the bands. I've been to Brighton Beach, the Coney Island Projects, the Statue of Liberty, Asbury Park, the Brooklyn Height Promenade, the elevated Subway station in Forest Hills, Dumbo, Prospect Park and numerous other locations in New York City and Jersey that are recreated in the game. I'd love to play it again, it's a great cultural artifact of the time and place.