Before we talk about the different modes, let’s talk about some of the smaller details in the GTA multiplayer. For instance, your name is over your head at all times, except when you’re crouching. Ingeniously simple! This is going to be a great way to sneak up on people or snipe from afar. There’s also the cell phone, which doesn’t play a huge role in multiplayer, but a devious player can have some fun with it. You can use your phone to have a private chat with a teammate, or call up a member of the opposing team, from which you can either mess with the gullible sucker and try to make him do your bidding by pretending to be on his team, or simply mock him just before you take a rocket to his ride.

Getting started

When you start a game of Grand Theft Auto 4 online, you’re thrown into Free Mode instead of a lobby. When the game first starts, all the players are at a stand-off, staring each other down in a circle. I think this is a great way to get the action started. I can see it now in a 16 person Sarcastic Gamer night that starts with a baseball bat beatdown in a back alley of Liberty City. While the savages are beating the pulp out of each other or stealing cars, the host can be back in a corner setting up the game. After that, you do whatever your little heart tells you. Grab a 6-star wanted level and see who survives the longest, race to the nearest hospital, have a shootout in the middle of the street, or see who can make the biggest explosion. The best thing about GTA is the freedom, and this mode brings that freedom to 16 people at once. Booyah.

Game modes

If you get bored doing the random stuff in Free Mode, which I doubt, you might want to have the host start up something more interesting. First stop, the game mode called Turf War, GTA’s own capture-the-point gametype. The regular game has 3 points that two teams are vying for and you’ll get plenty of tools of destruction to hold those points. Expect to see cars piled up in busy intersections to stop your enemy from getting through, or a crafty sniper hidden up on a rooftop with a RPG at his side just for good measure. Capturing points may be in just about every first person shooter out right now, but the freedom of GTA IV seems like it will bring something new to the gametype, especially with 8 vs 8 gameplay.

Now, if you’re looking for a gametype you don’t see every day, Team Mafiya Work may be what you’ve been looking for. While pretty much all the other announced gametypes have you doing the same things, Team Mafiya Work mixes things up with random objectives. This is a gametype more suited to multiple teams, and objectives are given out via your cell phones. Once you have your objective, it’s off to fight the other teams. You’ll get assignments such as: assassinate a target, jack a certain car, or anything else Rockstar can think of. One thing is certain, this gametype is going to lead to some crazy moments that simply can’t happen in other games.

If you’re still with me, why don’t you follow me to the next page?

Tweet This Post

CONTINUE TO PAGE: 1 2 3