Finished: Grand Theft Auto 4

Tonight will be the end of Grand Theft Auto: IV. I checked the in game stats and saw that I had clocked in just under 37 hours in the game, which isn't surprising considering how often I got sidetracked flying helicopters, shooting tires off of speeding cars, or driving SUVs and sportbikes in skateboard parks.

But as I realized the game was coming to an end (I just have one mission left) I realized that with everything that is so right with the game; all the great voice acting, variations in missions, new physics, better controls, that the story of the game was stretched out too far and too few. It felt like 80% of the missions in the game were spent doing dirty work for someone else so they would give you a tip about finding the people that your looking for in the game. It was very little reward for the work.

And what made it worse is that I knew going into each set of character's missions that I didn't care what their motivation was. One mob boss is having beef with a couple others so you fix things and do one or two ancillary things in between to break them up. But there's no emotional tie-in to their missions. Niko had no real motivation other than a slight greed and the hopes that once he finished working for someone they would tell him what he needed to hear to move his story along.

That's it. My one complaint about the game. I didn't have problems with mission difficulty or repetition. I didn't have problems with the online side of things. Just the story. Now, unless this final mission blows the cap off the mob bosses and all the people you met, which I doubt it will, I'll assume that it's content was foretold by the previous mission and that there are no Shyamalan-style twists.

I wouldn't mind going back into the game once it's finished though and replaying some of the pivotal moments when you choose to save or kill people, at least when you finally do find the guy that you've spent "years" searching for. I let everyone live on my play through. I guess that's supposed to say something about who I am as a person right?

EDIT: Saturday morning I finished the game outright. I chased down the man that killed my girlfriend in a park on the game's version of Staten Island, killing him underneath the giant statue's shadow. Niko's cousin proclaimed that we had won, but Niko wasn't really sure at all. The screen went blank and slow fly-over of Liberty City's different areas with no music and rolling credits ended the game. Very somber. Very emotional. The credits ended with a black screen and Niko's voice saying, "So this is what the dream feels like. This is the victory we longed for", and a consoling phone call from cousin Roman. Then the game opens back up to free play.