GTA4 Gameplay

Pedestrian Interaction

• Peds smoke cigarettes, read books, and carry on conversations. If you point a gun at a certain pedestrian, they will remember you, and run away next time they see you.
• Peds are SOOOO much more different. The skin of a pedestrian may be the same, but their clothes and style is different.
• Bums can be seen warming their hands in a burning trashcan in an alleyway. Hot Dog Venders scream for people to buy their wieners.
• Not only Niko, but all Peds can store items in their trunks.
• You can be mugged by other criminals.
• You can bribe characters.
• When a near car collided with another, a pedestrian exclaimed "That was f***** up!".
• Niko can use taxis to get around (presumably he can use the phone to call a taxi). The police are much more vigilant in GTA IV, and sometimes it is less hassle using a taxi than jacking someone's car.
• The taxi driver will play a significant roll into the gameplay. If Niko wants to go to point B, from point A, on the map, he can take the ride with just a push of the Y or Triangle button. This time around though, the taxi-driver will fulfill some special wishes. If Niko is hungry, the Yellow Cab will drive him to the next Food restaurant. If Niko is hurt, then the taxi-driver will drive to the hospital. So, each place is reachable by taxi in a few seconds. However, you can't catch a cab, while police are after you.

Police Interaction

• The Police are now more advanced than ever taking after the real world cops of today (NOT!!). Since it is harder to be a criminal in today's world, the police are harder on criminals.
• Cops will sport more than just the nightstick and Colt 45.
• They are more intelligent when it comes to spotting a stolen car. Your broken window will give it away.
• Committing crimes isn't as easy in GTA IV. You gain a wanted level for every crime you commit, as long as there are witnesses present. Once you have gained a wanted level, a visible (circular) search area appears on the radar, and if you escape this area without being spotted, your wanted level will flash and disappear. If you are spotted, however, the search area's position changes, and centers on where you were last spotted. So unlike previous GTA games, the police don't always know where you are. They can't catch you unless they find you first. It was confirmed previously that in GTA IV every street will be named, and this is what cops use to communicate when they are tracking you down. There are no Pay N' Spray's to save you this time, unfortunately.
• Once you gain a wanted-level, the map flashes with circles of blue and red, with each circle representing the line of sight of the police chase. The circles differ in size depending on your wanted-level.
• There are 6 levels to the wanted level.
• Cops now can crouch to improve their accuracy for the long-range shot at you.
• Police will appear on the map as 'dots', while they are on search for you.

Niko

• In GTA IV you have to develop relationships with other characters. Your relationship with Little Jacob, for example, is maintained through phone calls and loyalty. Developing good relationships with different characters can provide different rewards.
• Like in San Andreas, eating and sleeping will allow you to recharge your health.
• GTA IV will include several mini-games, including pool, bowling and darts. "You'll play at least some of these while hanging out with NPCs like Little Jacob."
• You can date girls you meet on dating websites.
• Niko will begin to move differently if he gets shot in certain areas e.g. if he is shot in the leg, he will bleed and begin to limp.
• At least 20 missions are dedicated to controls tutorials.

Cell Phone

Niko now can use the mobile phone. This will be use to make calls to contacts and such. Game Informer describes the new phone as such: "Bellic then pulls out his cellphone, which has options for Phonebook, Messages, Organizer, and Camera on its LCD screen. He selects Phonebook, and he is then presented with another set of options: City Contact, Docks Friend, and Cab Contact." Your mobile phone acts as a calendar, a vessel for text messages, an alarm and even a camera.- Niko Bellic uses his mobile phone and the Internet, on regular basis. Niko mobile phone is a phone, messenger, Organizer, photo camera and GPS - all in one. The map will have GPS, which shows you the best way (will be colored in Yellow) towards your target. If you?re in a mission, the map not only shows a symbol, but even a line with the best route.

Niko doesn't have to accept phone calls if he doesn't want to, but if someone is intent on reaching him, they'll become increasingly annoyed. By the way, the name of the cell network is Whiz.

Internet

Niko can use the internet in GTA4. He heads over to an internet café called the "Tw@ Café," and hops onto a PC before surfing. The web is available from any computer in the game, and provides a hub for all sorts of interactivity within Liberty City. It costs a dollar to get online and is totally wireless. Niko has his own account that is accessible from any computer in the city. Inside the cafe, all terminals are neatly laid out and it is basically the same as a standard looking Cyber cafe. The Tw@ Cafe is located in Algonquin near Middle Park.

Pressing LB will make Niko sit down on the terminal, once sat at the terminal, the screen is displayed, as you would see it on your monitor. You can control the (mouser) pointer with the analogue stick of the Xbox 360 controller. R* asked the reporters not to write about some of the web addresses that appeared while browsing GTA's quirky version of the web, "because it's still stuff that's being worked on at the moment"; interestingly they checked out some of the domain names they noted down on WHOIS and none are registered by Take 2 yet.

Missions

• Missions in GTA IV can be interrupted. The interview isn't until tomorrow, which means you can carry out other business until then. This suggests you can do several missions at the same time, and missions can take place over several days, perhaps.
• Determining which figures you need to kill requires perception - there are no arrowheads to direct you like in the previous games.

Call And Collect

• Next in the demo, Niko pays a visit to somebody called McReary, at Castle Gardens, a coast-side hangout overlooking the Statue of Happiness. McReary has had a memory stick stolen from him which contains sensitive data, and he wants Niko to retrieve it for him. He takes another cab to the meeting point, where the target is standing amongst a crowd of people. The problem is he doesn't know which one it is, so he gives him a call to see which one picks up their phone. Niko shoots the target three times in the back of the head, before taking the memory stick and making a run for it. He gains a three-star wanted level as a result.
• Before heading off to the interview, Niko goes to a menswear store called Perseus. After spending $2,000 on a new suit and shoes, his phone alarm sounds and he begins his journey to the GLS offices for his interview. He speaks to the receptionist from outside the building via intercom, before making his way into the building. He enters Goldeberg's office and puts a bullet in his head, which causes his secretary to trigger the alarm. Niko must beat security guards and police in order to get out of the building. Bullets rain down on him, and there's a police chopper waiting outside. It seems as though the more bullets he takes, the more damage he takes, and hence he becomes less able to fight. The damage is actually visible this time.
• Rockstar showed the sequence where he kills Goldberg twice. The first time he fell out of the window, the second time he merely crumpled on the floor.
• If you escape the building the mission is complete.
• Niko instead opts to get his hands dirty in a massive outside shootout, in an area full of opportunities for cover. Cops, pedestrians, traffic and choppers all get in on the action, and Niko even blows up a gas station for the hell of it with some carefully aimed shots at the refill terminal when he switches the weapon to the Micro SMG. Awesome, as it explodes out in different directions out of the pump and the screen shakes with a bassy boom. Eventually, Niko dies in the action, after a while.
• As soon he dies, he falls to the ground and the camera pans high looking downwards to show that you've botched the job up.

Liberty City

• It is possible to rob the many stores that make their way into this game.
• The city will be affected of the time of the day.
• Broken beer bottles and trash litter the floor.
• GTA IV map is confirmed to be the same size as San Andreas and probably slightly bigger.
• Rockstar has decided to completely clog the streets from the times 9 and 5, but at nighttime, it is a dead a dreary city.
• There will be TONS of leisure activities.
• No AmmuNation shops anymore.
• Little focus on building business empires this time - it makes no sense to continue living a criminal life if you're pulling in lucrative results at your pizza parlour, nightclub or taxi rank. Property Ladder aspects from Vice City and San Andreas DENIED in GTA IV.
• You'll be able to reach the Statue of Happiness. You can go over there by swimming or by a boat.
• There's a theater show on called T.S. Pirate at the Thespian Theater, as well as a camera store called Liberty Cameras.
• Niko sets off for Rotterdam on a breezy motorbike ride, and stopped next to a pizza store that sells pizzas at the very reasonable price of 99¢, and a large cocktail bar lit up in fluorescent pink called Bahama Mamas.

HUD and Menu

• The HUD has been streamlined to only a few displays.
• The map remains, sensibly, as does the wanted level and the money
• But visuals on the map in the demo are reduced to mere blips in the top corner of the impressive display.
• The HUD was a streamlined version which just displays the area of the city you are in (for a second or two) and the weapons you are holding.
• The menu displayed: map, game, brief, stats, controls, audio and display.
• Last when demo was paused the map was shown for a few split seconds and from the looks of it, its like 2 huge islands connected in the middle.

Misc.

• Rampages, Unique Jumps and Rhinos MIGHT be cut from the game.
• As could be expected, gangs are in the game.
• Girlfriends are still included in GTA.
• The mob will be featured in the game but not heavily, along with the Russian mafia.
• The mobile phone can be used to gain weapons. In the demo that GamesTM saw, Niko calls his associate Little Jacob, who is a caribbean arms dealer. After a brief chat with Jacob, he tells Niko to meet him in an alleyway in Rotterdam Hill, where he purchases the weapons from him. No more Ammu-Nation it seems.