The short and sweet version. Kinda.

5. The Soundtrack: No Love Fist?
Music will always be based on preference. That said, GTA4′s soundtrack doesn’t do a whole lot for me. It’s just… there. I remember playing GTA: Vice City and its soundtrack was amazing. Why? Because 80′s music is badass and aside from Deadsy, MSI and some other honorable mentions that I can’t think of right now, most music today sucks. GTA4′s soundtrack isn’t necessarily bad, but it could’ve had a little more variety. I would’ve also liked the ability to stream music from my console.

4. Multiplayer: It doesn’t matter what game type you play – it’s all deathmatch.
As happy as I am to see multiplayer grace a GTA game once again, it saddens me (not really) to say that it could’ve been so much better. The network code is horrible and suffers from frequent lag issues in 16-player games on both the Xbox 360 and PS3. I also wish there was more to do cooperatively. All co-op game types have almost no variety. I would’ve liked the ability to play pool or bowl with a friend in Free Mode, but nooo. That would’ve given the game a little more replay value, but we can’t be havin’ that.

3. It’s Not GTA: San Andreas
GTA:SA had so much to do in it, it was almost ridiculous. Things like vehicle modding, tattooing, building muscle, losing weight, flying planes (see below), riding bicycles, sky diving, jet packing, driving schools, and so on. GTA4 has scrapped all of these things to focus more on the story it would seem. San Andreas also had multiple cities — Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas — whereas GTA4 revisits Liberty City. Nothing wrong with that; the city is very dense and the most detailed in any GTA game. But I’m still sad to see some of these things go. Once the story is over with, I still want things to do. You know, since I can’t play pool or bowl with a friend and all.

2. No Planes: What is this, GTA3?
When GTA made its jump to 3D with GTA3, there were no planes to fly. At all. Unless you count the Dodo trick. This was a common gripe among fans, including myself. GTA: Vice City tried to remedy this by adding helicopters. Flyable planes, ranging from stunt planes to jet fighters, didn’t appear until GTA:SA. This is understandable, considering GTA:SA had multiple cities, but why does it still feel like a step backwards? There are helicopters present in GTA4, but we only get a few varieties of them. Missing are Sparrows, Leviathans, and so forth. At least there’s something to fly.

1. No Army… WTF?!
This is what 6 stars — the maximum wanted level a player can achieve — is all about. But Rockstar, for some ungodly reason, has completely removed the Army in GTA4, which means no military vehicles, such as tanks or attack helicopters (except for the Annihilator, which isn’t military at all and only wields a machine gun). Why there’s even a 6th wanted level is beyond me, as it really feels no different from the 5th. Perhaps GTA4 wasn’t designed to cause so much chaos, hence no real need for the Army. In any case, I was disappointed to find that the Army wasn’t present in GTA4. Boo.

And there you have it. I like to think of GTA4 as a stepping stone for future development now that GTA has finally made the leap to next-gen. Between the Euphoria and RAGE engines, as well as many other improvements, I suppose Rockstar refuses to put all of their eggs in one basket. Not yet anyway.

Top 5 Things I Love About GTA4 coming some time after I beat it.