GTA IV Preview 5: Multiplayer Hands-On

The wait is nearly over. We entertained ourselves in GTA IV's vast multiplayer world to make the time pass faster...

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We are not AS won over about some of the other modes we played, but this is only because we enjoyed GTA Race and Deathmatch so much (I mean come on - it's like proper deathmatch action except in GTA Liberty City world instead of generic WWII or Space Marine World! We've wanted this FOREVER!). However, many of the other multiplayer games are definitely going to win fans rapidly when the game launches, as they do almost everything that serious online players need them to do. There's a lot of team-based and squad-based stuff, there's seriously tonnes of variety - and we still have eight multiplayer game types we know nothing about yet (Rockstar discouraged us from even writing down a list of all multiplayer game names - though we must say, Car Jack City sounds particularly intriguing). We just view Deathmatch and Race (and their variants) as the real bread and butter here, and the rest - we could be wrong - seems to be icing. Lots and lots of icing.

Anyway, the first of the other games we were allowed to play is Team Mafia Work. You're a member of a crew doing contract work, and have to complete a series of tasks as notified by the boss on your cell phone - for example, pick up grenades, take out crack dealers, and so forth. These are all marked out on the radar. Anything that's red - kill it. At the end, the 'crew' with the most cash wins.

Cops and Crooks is another mode that sort of works like CTF. One team plays the cops, the other plays the crooks. One of the four crooks is the 'boss', and the team is responsible for getting him to safety in order to win the game. If the boss is killed, the cops win. The game can last a fair while, or it can be over in seconds - it all depends on the cops' skill (and, occasionally, a bit of blind luck).

The team mechanic works well here; one player drives while all the rest of your teammates can get in as passengers. The driver can concentrate on the driving (often under pressure - bad driving will be criticised by all your team mates, so don't drive like an AI driver in Halo!) while the passengers concentrate on selecting a waypoint for the GPS system in the menu screens and, of course, shooting out of the windows. If the driver is killed, a passenger can simply press Y to take over the driving. And, straying from GTA IV singleplayer's physical world, each player can choose radio stations independently of everyone else in the car. This is proper next-gen online multiplayer, and the trash talking over Live is essential. (Being able to set your GPS on a moving target would be nice, although that would perhaps make things too easy!)

Hangman's Noose was the final 'other' multiplayer game we played, in which we have to get our boss out of the airport to the safe zone, working together as a team and avoiding all the cops. I'll be honest: I didn't really have time to figure out what the hell was going on in this game before the session ended. Something to pull my socks up for when it comes to review time, perhaps.

By the looks of it, there is no 'server browser' or clans as such, it's all just based on friends lists and match-ups, so it's not clear how things like outside leagues might work. Ranked matches go up in lights on the multiplayer leaderboards, while a 'Rockstar Games Social Club' will allow everybody's singleplayer stats to be viewed and analysed - the usually crazy stats, everything from distance travelled, to (presumably) headshots, kills, deaths, swimming, total play time - you name it. And the first ten people in the world to complete the game apparently get a very special prize. (Presumably the reviewers are going to be exempt from this!)

One obvious addition that we would like to have seen to multiplayer that is definitely not in the game is replays and replay analysis, in the vein of Halo 3's Saved Films, something that has proven extremely popular with the Halo community since it allows you to dissect exactly what happened in a match and even make films out of the game world. It strikes us as a slight missed opportunity but hey, it's tough to complain with some much else on offer.

Although we had a good five hours with GTA IV multiplayer, we're obviously going to need to put in much, much more time with all the different game types to form a conclusive opinion on the absolutely huge multiplayer side of the game as a whole.

And for that, you'll want to check out our review, which is not far away now.

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