GTA IV has some great reviews. Not greatly written, but everyone pretty much slobbered all over the game with more love…than Ocarina of Time. Didn’t see that coming, did you? I’m having a lot of fun with GTA IV, but there are some serious flaws. And right now, before I go any deeper, let’s discuss these flaws.

Controls. It controls like a GTA game. This wasn’t bad five years ago, but things have changed. There are many sand-box style games that have come out since GTA, namely Crackdown and the True Crime series, and they have both introduced some amazing controls. I’m assuming Rockstar just rests on the name, spending their time creating a huge world, but no time refining how you spend your time in it.

True Crime allowed me to tackle people I was chasing. It also offered a robust hand-to-hand combat system. You could pick up melee weapons, use holds, and unlock special moves to be used later on for the tougher enemies. GTA’s h2h combat system is just laughable. I know some of this can be opinion…but I would hope people would grasp the controls of the True Crime series and understand that future GTA’s need to evolve with that refinement in mind. Now, the controls could still be bad in GTA, but my main gripe is options of manipulating my character in the sand-box world.

The thing is, GTA is out now. It’s the biggest and deepest sand-box style game we have right now for the next-gen consoles. Anyone will jump on it. But that doesn’t mean it should be getting almost perfect scores from all the big-name reviewers. GTA IV is far from perfect. But, I am having a lot of fun with it. It truly is fun. It just feels way too primitive. And this is where it all comes together.

The gaming world is different. Reviewers review based on what’s generally accepted in the gaming world. And this acceptance is largely made up of that casual gaming population that buys games, but doesn’t necessarily get into them. GTA became popular because it revolutionized. These other sand-box games step in to refine the genre, yet without the GTA name, this largely casual gaming market doesn’t care. They don’t know how much better they can have it. So over time, this market is what most developers and publishers have been developing for. The big name publications review games with this market in mind. This might be how the “machine” has to work, but it sucks.

But back to the reviews. GTA IV in no way deserves perfect scores. Yes, it is a fun game with a fantastic and deep world, but the actual game play experience is missing behind it. Now I could be getting into opinion territory here, but basically, GTA is simple and easily accessible. That’s fine, but I enjoy deeper game play, and maybe now it’s all about simplicity. That’s why it has perfect scores. Name and simplicity. But as a hardcore gamer, that sucks.

At this point, there’s nothing I can do. I feel like I’m regurgitating what I said in my Turok reviews piece, but gaming is changing. Deep and engaging game play is now most certainly being put aside by the looks of GTA IV’s review scores.