With the impending arrival of one of the most widely loved and purchased game franchise’s new title, I thought it was time to take a look at Grand Theft Auto IV. I am excited for it, which is really weird. I haven’t played a GTA title for an extended period of time since the GTA III proper. I spent a few minutes with Vice City until I realized that it was the same game with a talking protagonist and then I completely skipped San Andreas for similar reasons. But everything I see and read about GTA IV excites me more and more. It looks like this game will be “next gen” in more ways than one. Which made me wonder, will GTA 4 (I’m just going to use real numbers from here out) show some real maturity or beat it up, throw it in a car and use it to regain some health?

First, let’s take a look at Rockstar’s past with helping mature the industry. The former GTA’s haven’t really done anything for the cause. They’ve been great at propelling the sand box, open world game into the spotlight thus giving us wonderful games like True Crime. While some good things have definitely come out of it (Crackdown), most people just think of GTA as the game where you hop in, toss on some weapons codes and the blow the fucking hell out of everything in sight until the cops stop you.

Recently, Rockstar has had one big up for advancing the medium and one even bigger down. The high point being Bully. I’m yet to play this game as I don’t have a PS2 and haven’t picked up the 360 version yet. This is the game that was mostly famous for letting you (a school age male character) kiss other boys. I think this is an amazing choice and an awesome nod to the gay gaming community. There are very few things for them in games unless you count Mass Effect, but they didn’t even go as far as to include a dude on dude relationship. On the way low other end of the spectrum is Manhunt 2. This has been talked about to death, but it needs another quick word. The original Manhunt was a great suspense/horror game and one of the few that really got into my head and scared me, not with gore but with atmosphere. Manhunt 2 took this idea and made it into a gore fest with a crappy story. You can only justify the kind of game that it was with the right tone and story, it lacked both. The entire debacle with the AO rating knocked Rockstar down a peg, unless you believe in vast conspiracy theories.

With Rockstar already expecting controversy over GTA4, I get a little worried. It seems like they could just be up to their old shock and awe tactics (see: drunk driving), but I think they have more up their sleeves this time around. And if they are just going to shock and awe, I hope they get the jump on Fox News and make fun of them in the game, looking at the GTA 4 site’s conservative talk radio station I’d say there’s a good chance.

The game now has a much less cartoony look overall.  There are still the gag store names and such, but that’s the better end of their joke spectrum.  With a less cartoony look may come a less cartoony story.  This is a game about an immigrant coming to America.  That is an amazing launching point for a game that prides itself on satire.  If done right, the story could have an amazing amount of depth while still being funny and entertaining.

Also, the more real it looks, the more real people may act in the world.  Maybe people won’t just blow shit up constantly.  Scratch that, I’m sure they will, but maybe there will be reason to care about the story or the world.  Reason to investigate it and become part of it.  Better play mechanics can lead to a much more involving game.

I’ve talked about Bioshock’s contribution to gaming maturity a lot, but where it failed is that it’s not a household name.  Everyone knows GTA.  If you mention games they think of Mario, GTA, WoW or Pac Man.  If GTA becomes an example we can point to and say, “That is a great game in every respect” then people will actually understand what is going on.  Other GTA’s are hard to defend, yes it’s harmless silly violence, but that’s a crappy excuse.  If the violence in this one has a real story or message to back it up, then we have a good example on our hands.

It’s April.  It’s almost here.  We will wait and see how the shit hits the fan this time around.  But at least it will have achievements.