You're stuck up on a courier ship that is due for a city resembling the likes of modern day New York, can't sleep because you're stressed by a couple who are going on about the birds and the bees in the next room. A look at The opening scene to the forth era of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto (GTA IV) released to the public in 2008, as we are now on the dawn of the fifteen installment and the fifth era (GTA V), I can't help but feel as though GTAIII: San Andreas (2005) was the best yet from the series

GTAIV's protagonist Niko

GTA IV’s in terms of graphics over shadowed that of San Andreas in more ways done one no doubt. It had managed to capitalise greatly on the previous title GTA III’s San Andreas, with features like cover systems and for once you could climb ladders.  But unfortunately it had left a bitter taste to my liking. The previous title's script was not as complicated GTA IV’s but it was on point. You could see where the main storyline was going, working for one or two crime bosses at a time per island, extended with side mission such as races with modified cars and the option of flying the skies with military jets and setting the grounds below ablaze. Also on the third era the progression of their game engine trough out GTA III’s titles was improved. In GTA IV there was none of that, it felt as if though I were playing a bad scripted copy from Lionhead’s Fable. Don't get me wrong I did enjoy playing Fable because it was a good linear game in its own class. With GTA IV it was as if the developer was in competition with Fable and the elder scrolls in terms of script and game time. At most, your time was exhausted trough the storyline with missions from bosses that were dwelling throughout the fictional Island; on top of that Rockstar seemed to have thought of slapping the same irritating physics engine throughout the GTA IV’s titles (try getting them drunk and you'll see).

So great a game is when you enjoying yourself, forgetting all your troubles “nagging girlfriends cough!” leaving your life behind for some couple of hours. But again so bad a game is when you spend the whole day playing it and all the time you feel like you wasting time amidst that your mind is wondering off to thoughts like “how long did it take them to make the game, why Niko has some striking resembles to Johnny and what was the developer doing?!” thus finally leaving you to think, perhaps I'm better off going back to the troubles of my life than playing this game. Although it was not as bad as The Godfather game, I think Rock star could learn a lot from titles such as 2k’s Mafia II. Because Mafia II stuck on its theme; I mean for once you get that feeling from a game that you get from watching classic well written mafia movies such as Scarface, The Untouchables, Godfather, Goodfellas and any good mafia movie of the previous years. None the less I haven't finished any of the games from the forth era some of the discs are still sitting in my brother's room gathering dust.

All in all I hope Rockstar creates a game that is enjoyable and PC friendly; or perhaps it was just me who only experienced this, I couldn't bear the thought of “if I turn the axis of this vehicle the whole thing freezes!!!”. Hope that like San Andreas, GTA V would be a game that I'd dare to play time and time again without the thought of is it really worth it?