Hangman's NOOSE
Petrovic is back in the country, but there's a warrant out. Help him escape the NOOSE.
I don't care what anyone says, this one is hard. The opening cinematic informs you that Petrovic has landed at Liberty City Airport, and before he can so much as touch American soil, the plane is surrounded by a swarm of law enforcement officers, and you're tasked with taking them out and finding some transport. The idea here is to hold off the law long enough to get a decent-sized truck from out the back of the airport, and hot-foot it back to Petrovic before getting shot about a million times in the process. Once Petrovic is on board (conveniently, no matter how many times he's shot he never seems to die) you must then leave the airport and make your way to another location on the map, with literally hundreds of cops chasing you.
It's a challenge, but one that ultimately becomes tiresome after a while. Not our favourite, but your results may vary.
Bomb da Base II
"Fireworks in Liberty City, nothing like watching the competition go up in flames."
Personally, I loved this one. It combines everything that's great about GTA in one package. You start by jumping in a car and tracking down an armoured vehicle, which must be damaged just enough so that it will stop, and you can steal it. Your team mates have your back on this one, and it's great fun blasting around Liberty City and shooting out your side window while some other poor sap drives. Once the armoured vehicle has stopped, one of your team must steal it and drive to another location, dodging police along the way (there are a lot of them).
Once the safe location has been reached, and all your remaining team-mates have arrived as well, you get given a helicopter which you can fly to your target. Once everyone is seated, you take off and head across Liberty City with your gun-toting, drive-by-shooting team, taking pot-shots at anything that moves along the way. In one epic match we played, we reached our target (the good ship Platypus) and spent quite a while picking off the armed henchmen on the deck before storming on-board and planting our explosives.
This multiplayer option plays out like a fantastic mission from the single-player, with the added benefit that your mates can lend a helping hand.
Free Mode
"Kick back in Liberty City."
The final multiplayer option has proven to be one of the most popular, probably because like the single-player, it's really sandbox mode. Simply spawn, and do anything you like in Liberty City. There are no teams, no loyalty, and no chance that you'll be alive much longer than a few minutes on a full server. Hugely entertaining, and a great place to start if you want a quick introduction to the world of Grand Theft Auto IV multiplayer.
So...
Does Grand Theft Auto IV multiplayer stack up? Well, you're certainly spoilt for choice. Most (if not all) of the options will provide you with hours of fun, and the chance to share this with your friends across Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network is the icing on the cake.
We think it’s fantastic that Rockstar has built in a Call of Duty 4-style levelling campaign too – the more money you make from your multiplayer endeavours, the higher rank you gain, allowing you to unlock more clothing features for your character.
There are some glitches, and whilst lag isn't really a major problem on either console, it can be annoying sitting in a game lobby waiting for the host to launch it. We also really hated the fact that you have to go back to single-player every time you want to switch servers. Another annoyance is the seemingly random nature of the server you get dropped into. There's no indication of nationalities - one server appeared to be hosted in Eastern Europe, and whilst the accents of the players provided an authentic Niko Bellic experience, it would have been nice to play slightly closer to home. These sorts of things should have been picked up in testing and altered, and it's somewhat puzzling that they weren't.
As for favourites - well, we particularly enjoyed Bomb da Base II, GTA Race, Cops 'n' Crooks and of course, Free Mode. If you've been playing the single-player campaign and are in need of some welcome hilarity, pick up your phone and dial up an online game, you won't regret it.
