Even with all of these patches, there are still some things about the PC port that have us confused. Why do you need to register and sign onto two services (Games For Windows Live and Rockstar Social Club) to play online? Why can't you save a single player game without signing onto Games For Windows Live? Why does the game lack a basic graphics option like turning on anti-aliasing?

The thing is that with all of these performance problems and bug reports, there's actually a good game underneath it all. Grand Theft Auto IV heads back to GTA III's fictionalized and highly satirical version of New York City (Liberty City for you purists). While it's not as big in area as GTA: San Andreas (which had three fictional cities) you wont miss them. The Liberty City of GTA IV is highly detailed with tons of stuff to do in the game's single player mode as you play the role of Russian emigre Niko Belic. Of course, it wouldn't be a Grand Theft Auto game without your character doing some rather bad things but the game world also gives you and Niko plenty to do while spending time in the city, from buying new clothes to taking women out on dates to checking out a comedy club and lots more.
Controlling the game itself is better suited to the Xbox 360 Windows controller than the mouse-keyboard set-up. In particular driving a car with a keyboard can be very frustrating. Firearm combat has also been greatly improved from past GTA games; there's a cover and blind fire system and you can now target individual body parts. The game's physics system has also gotten a revamp with more realistic destructible objects and rag doll character animations.

The PC port has three new features not in the console versions; one is major, one is minor and the other is a moot point now. The major addition is the video editor which allows folks to save the last 30 seconds or so of gameplay into an editor which can be messed with and then uploaded onto the Rockstar Social Club web site. We think machinima makers will go nuts with this addition. The minor new addition is the Independent FM radio station in GTA IV's cars; it basically takes the songs you have on your hard drive making it completely customizable.
The game's many different multiplayer modes have gotten a big boost with the PC version now supporting 32 players versus the console versions' 16 player limit. That's all well and good, but when we tried to play multiplayer (you access it via your in-game cell-phone menu) we couldn't find a game that had more than three players at any one time. Ouch. We have a feeling playing GTA IV's version of Deathmatch or Race would be fun with 32 players but we seriously doubt that will ever happen online.

Again, Grand Theft Auto IV is a great gameplay experience but Rockstar Toronto looks like they were rushed to get this PC port ready before the Christmas shopping season. Even if you have a powerful PC you will still have to download a ton of various patches and then still get miffed as to why your framerate isn't higher. The game's own support site states that the game's highest graphics settings are for "future generations of PCs with higher specifications than are currently widely available." Perhaps Rockstar should have taken its own advice and waited a bit longer before releasing a product that its customers would be able to appreciate to its fullest.