Grand Theft Auto IV & Episodes from Liberty City: The Complete Edition

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List Price: $29.99
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This is a convenient way to have 3 great games on one blu-ray disc. I traded in both the GTA IV disc and the Episodes disc and got enough money to buy this disc on a Lightning deal.

When the disc loads up, you are presented with a choice of which game you want to play.

This product *IS* compatible with any game saves you may have if you've played either of the other stand-alone discs.

If you are playing GTA IV, and want to play TBOGT, you need to exit the game and restart it and choose TBOGT. There is no way to "fast switch" between the 3 games.

Summary: If you have yet to purchase GTA IV and the Episodes, this product is all you need and the price is right.

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Long time fans of Grand Theft Auto know that each of the games in the post-PS1 era is thematically linked to a particular genre of movie. GTA III is heavily indebted to Mafia movies such as Goodfellas and The Godfather, as well as to the cable television series The Sopranos. Vice City is clearly influenced by Miami Vice and Scarface, while San Andreas draws a great deal of inspiration from Colors and Boyz N the Hood.

GTA IV-The Complete Edition carries on this tradition by transforming Grand Theft Auto IV into an homage to Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. As in Kurosawa's film, a set of events is seen from multiple points of view, leaving the player to decide which perspective he or she believes is the most credible. Niko Bellic, Johnny Klebitz, and Luis Lopez, the main characters, each bring a different experience and interpretation to GTA IV's story line. Niko is an immigrant, forced to assimilate and adapt rapidly to a world completely new to him. Johnny is caught in a classic master versus apprentice situation. Luis, who is the only character with any kind of insider status, must choose between building his future and honoring his past.

These are all familiar character situations in videogames, of course, but Rockstar creates deeper and richer stories and characters than most other game developers. The majority of games stick to the bare rudiments of character motivation and development. Rockstar has given us THREE strong stories in the GTA IV series, each with a complex and compelling main character. It was ambitious of Rockstar to release Niko's view of the story first, in isolation, without any indication of what was to come later. Many of the events in the Niko version of the story, in fact, aren't fully explained until the Luis and Johnny episodes. Compare that to the usual rote or clichéd story arcs found in too many games, even multi-episode games. There are a few studios that consistently produce well-written games in addition to Rockstar--Bungie, Valve, and Kojima Productions are three standouts--but the vast majority treat story and plot as afterthoughts.

Story and influences aside, the bigger question is whether or not GTA IV and the two Episodes are fun to play. The answer is YES, even though it is clear that Rockstar devoted a lot more development time to Luis' episode than it did to Johnny's episode. TLAD feels somewhat stripped down and is similar to GTA III in many ways. You'll spend most of your time following the main story, driving or riding to combat missions. If you fully explored Liberty City in Niko's episode, there isn't a whole lot to discover or do that you haven't already experienced. On the other hand, TBOGT contains a much broader variety of missions, side activities, and minigames. Most players will spend more time with TBOGT than with TLAD--but now that they're both part of this value priced disc, it's no big deal. The important thing is to play the series in the order in which it was released (GTA IV then TLAD then TBOGT). If you don't, you'll miss out on properly experiencing how the full story unfolds.

Well worth picking up.

Buy Grand Theft Auto IV & Episodes from Liberty City: The Complete Edition Now

Nice to see that some game developers listen to the gamers every now and then when it comes to the GOTY or complete version's of the game. Unlike other GOTY version's sets you get all 3 games on 1 disk. (2 disk's if your playing the Xbox 360 Verison) Grand Theft Auto IV, The Lost and Damned, The Ballard of Gay Tony no download vouchers at all for around $40 a great deal unless you already own the three games since it is at least 2 year's old but if you rather have all 3 games on 1 disk then your hard drive or if you never tried them before this is a great way to have all 3 in one complete package.

Read Best Reviews of Grand Theft Auto IV & Episodes from Liberty City: The Complete Edition Here

I finally got a PS3 a few months ago and knew from the hype this was a game to get no disappointments here. And with the other two games included in the pack (you load the game and the first menu you get to is which game you want to play) it's well worth the money.

The game is obviously good enough (just look at the reviews like GTA: SA, it's an open world where you can drive around and do what you want) that I figure I'll put down a few minor things that were of note for me personally (may be different for others).

I did set my controls (as is an easy option to do) to the "classic" setting, where 'X' is accelerate, square is break, circle is e-brake, etc., since I found immediately I just could not get down using the top R and L buttons to drive.

For me, the camera view gets frankly really irritating at times when you're driving it doesn't quickly center itself, and you have to double-tap I think select or some other button to get it to do so. So when you're, say, in the middle of a mission and a guy you're chasing hangs a hard right, sometimes it's hard to have the proper depth perception to be able to follow him properly until you're able to get around the corner. You may end up hitting a parked car, for instance.

I did miss the "car customization" shops GTA: SA had. Also there are three different clothing shops total, and the area comparable to Manhattan and Times Square pretty much just looked nice but there wasn't much you could do other than drive around it. I mean San Andreas had little hidden spots where you could play basketball, more obvious spots where you could gamble in casinos, and was massive enough you had to fly to get places faster, for better or worse. It was those small little things where you could interact with that blew me away in GTA: SA but where there aren't as much in this game.

You can visit strip clubs, bars, a comedy show, and play pool though. It's kind of like they got rid of the tiny little intricacies and hidden treasures and turned them into fewer but more grand of activities, which I guess showcases the power of the PS3 more, but at the expense of tiny little nuanced aspects. There are some amazing-for-being-in-a-video-game tv episodes you can watch, and the internet feature was somewhat cool. I also do like the taxi option of being able to get around much much quicker. That was nice.

One thing of note is if you want to explore the map, as you obviously should, you will want to go to the cell phone and turn the missions off, otherwise you will continue getting inundated with phone calls. I don't like talking nonstop on my cell phone in real life, so it's even more irritating to be trying to do something and get calls from random characters wanting to yak and if you dare ignore the call, then you lose respect points.

Frankly I have not even gotten to the other two "Grand Theft Auto filler games" as I think of the smaller games released between GTA: San Andreas and GTA4, and these two, but I imagine they're the standard fare: more linear and smaller than the main game, but still enjoyable in their own right.

So those are not even necessarily CONS as much as just things I noted for myself slightly irked me. But all-in-all, still an amazing game. Maybe not quite as all-around perfect as San Andreas, but still amazing.

Want Grand Theft Auto IV & Episodes from Liberty City: The Complete Edition Discount?

Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition comes with the 2008 release Grand Theft Auto IV, as well as the originally download content from 2009 The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.

For under $40, you cannot go wrong with this purchase. With three games in one, you will get a lot of playime that makes it worth every buck spent on it.

If you have both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, I recommend getting the PS3 version simply because all three games come in one disc, unlike the X360 version which comes with two discs; One for GTA IV and the other for TLaD and BoGT. It is not a deal breaker if you only own an X360 however. So either way, this game is simply worth the purchase!

Now as for the fun factor, compared to all other previous Grand Theft Auto releases, I found GTA IV and TLaD to be rather lacking. Don't get it wrong, all of these games are very polished and worth playing, but compared to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and San Andreas, they are simply not as fun. The graphics are much better here, but there is also less stuff to do and it gives you less incentive to keep playing after you beat the main storyline. However, Ballad of Gay Tony was a step forward from the other two GTA IV iterations, as I found every mission to be very fun in this one. But again, once you finish the main storyline, there is not much to do.

Overall, despise these three games not being as good as VC or SA (in my opinion!), I recommend all of you GTA fans to get this release. They are all still very fun and for the price, you can't refuse!