Gawker
The Liberty City of Rockstar's crime-celebrating Playstation game, Grand Theft Auto, was always based on New York. In the videogame's fourth outing next week, the city is much more fully realized—but intriguingly off-kilter. For example, Liberty City (like the metropolis upon which it is modelled) has five boroughs. Broker is the equivalent of Brooklyn, Queens is Dukes, the Bronx is Bohan and Manhattan is Algonquin. And the fifth? Staten Island was too dull, so the makers of Grand Theft Auto have annexed New Jersey, renamed Alderney. (Both Jersey and Alderney are islands in the English Channel.) As you can see from these screenshots from the game below, Liberty City is recognizable, but altered, disturbingly. Of course, the screenshots we want are from the live gameplay. The central character of Grand Theft Auto, a tough immigrant called Niko Bellic, has in this latest version of the game the ability to perform new actions, such as calling women for dates. He can also become intoxicated, causing him "to stumble and the camera to blur and bounce about". Any GTA fans: please send video of a drunk Niko on the equivalent of the Lower East Side. After the jump, spot the differences between the real New York, and Grand Theft Auto's vision of the city.
Comments
No strollers!
Have to admit, this shit is dope.
@Ed: Forget BugABoos, where is GTA's version of "Gossip Girls" filming?
That diner is being moved to Wyoming or Red Hook.
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
The Museum of Jewish Heritage, that is. Also, the proportions of the Woolworth Building are not nearly as beautiful as the real thing.
Niko can call women for dates? Another video game that is better than my real life.
Jesus, it is the 29th yet?
I can't say I notice any disturbing differences, but then again I try to never, ever look up when I walk.
Well, OK, the second one: Chinatown isn't as far down as Chambers Street and the Municipal Building.
A Serb getting drunk? Getouddahere.
Not to be a, uh, nerd, but it's also coming out for the Xbox360, which is getting the only exclusive downloadble content! Er, carry on.
The cab in the Chinatown screen shot is driving alongside the police car and not cutting it off.
Also, in the second-to-last-one, most of the tall buildings around Wall Street--1 Wall Street, the Manhattan Company Building, the Equitable, 140 Broadway, Chase Manhattan Plaza, the Park Row Building--don't seem to have any GTA analogue.
But who cares? When this comes to PC I'm going to waste a month or two on this baby.
Where are all the hot dog carts?
I kind of recognize the church. Is it supposed to be St. Thomas on 53rd Street?
Which bridge in NY has quaint old-timey houses underneath it?
I heard the real challenge in this version is a mini-game in which Niko has to try and find an affordable apartment in Liberty City. Talk about MURDER!!!!
It's more realistic than the NYC in most TV sitcoms and dramas, so we're all good.
Can someone explain how a sailboat off of North Cove Marina is involved in Grand Theft Auto? What, are the hijacking jet skis now?
@Hiphopopotamus: The one we'd like to sell you.
Liberty City has impressive pigeon exterminators.
@sassypants: um, they. I meant they. (Dipshit).
...and Gawker headquarters are where? i have a package to deliver. you can sign for it...IN HELL!
Where are the clots of stupid tourists who walk in a clusterfuck and stop for no reason in the middle of the sidewalk? MOVE YOU FUCKERS!!!
Helicopters aren't allowed to fly over NYC airspace. That's all. Everything else is the same. (Except for no babies -- good eye Ed)
Yes, because New York women respond so well to late-night phone calls from drunken immigrants.
why don't you try this game instead, nick?
[mightygodking.com]
One of the screenshots has a few cops running. To my knowledge, that has never happened in NYC.
I love that they renamed the Lincoln tunnel - the Booth Tunnel
@allyzay: oh my god your picture function is really lame, gawker!
Ooh...so now you can drunkenly beat up hookers for money. Awesome.
@pleppy: Helicopters fly over NYC all the time. Just two days ago I had one hovering right outside my window at work (I work in Times Square, so we get news copters hovering around all the time).
The NYPD has at least four police copters - you think they're not allowed to fly around their own city??
As for *real* differences, a lot of this stuff is pretty accurate but it's obviously going to be ultra-compressed. New York City is hundreds of square miles in area. I'd doubt GTAIV is going to be more than 50.
One thing is the subways don't have any graffiti on them anymore (and haven't for almost 20 years now). I'm sure the Rockstar guys just thought it was cool.
Niko is hot. That is all.
I'm pretty sure Chinatown doesn't lead straight up to those civic center skyscrapers.
That jogger isn't being raped.
@SheLaughs: Taken out with a blowtorch methinks.
@Nick Denton: Yeah, that is the view down Chambers St. in real life. True story: I got married in that building at the end of that street.
Chambers St. is most definitely not in Chinatown at all. So that's part of what I said about the city being compressed.
Notice also how the World Financial Center (the left-most buildings in the second to last shot) seems to be about a block away from the Empire State Building. In real life, they're about 8 miles apart.
I don't see any hipsters.
Maybe I'm not looking carefully enough, but I don't think I see anyone peeing in public.
I think I can make that video, but I don't get my copy till the first (seriously Amazon? you can't just fucking drive it across the lake to me? it takes two fucking days?! why?!).
@badasscat: I don't see why they couldn't make it true to scale.
Niko baby you can call me any time,it doesn't even have to be a date,after all dates are boring so let's just fuck I know that's what you want.
@SheLaughs: well, to be fair, we haven't seen a screen shot of times square.
There is no elevated train running between BK bridge and Queens...
and there are no drug running speedboats near the ESB (they're all in Miami)...
and where are all the hookers?!?!?
People have boats in this city? And there are no 8 foot rats lying dead in the gutter.
(There was one two blocks from my apartment. The sheer size of this behemoth rodent caused shock and awe, it actually slowed traffic. I'm thinking someone called 311 to report that the biggest mammal living had invaded Brooklyn.)
@valarmorghulis: Because NYC is fucking huge, as I said. And for every additional square mile you add, you need additional textures, additional 3D work, etc. Someday a game will have a true to life NYC, but that day is not here yet and won't be for some time.
It's not a question of "if" the city is compressed. I am telling you the city is compressed just by looking at these screenshots. This is a similar perspective to the second to last shot above:
[inhabitat.com]
You see how much further away the Empire State Building is? Or for that matter, the Woolworth Building? (It's right next to the WFC in the screenshot; about 1/4 mile away in real life.)
I'm not faulting Rockstar for this, it's just the reality of what the current systems allow them to do in a reasonable amount of time, and plus it means they don't have to fill up as much space with things to do.
That looks fantastic!
@badasscat:
True Life: Streets of LA and Streets of NY were supposedly to scale. I believe the NY version had all of Manhattan.
The LA version covered a RIDICULOUSLY huge area. Like, you'd spend 35 minutes just driving through intersection after intersection before shooting up a school bus full of retarded kids.
I wonder how many office drones will be calling in sick on Tuesday nationwide?
@Spirit Fingers: Actually they do have boats. I knew one guy that parked his boat on the west side and lived out of it while in Grad. School. Cheaper than the rents for that part of the city.
Only problem I see is that the diner on the corner of 69th Street always has a specials board out front.
Wow, Tudor Revival must have been a really popular architecture style in Liberty City.
This game might eat up more of my time than work and commenting combined. My pants are tight.
@badasscat: I think that picture of Manhattan you linked to is actually from a significantly different angle than the one in the screencap. The one you linked to is coming from the Brooklyn side, while the one in the screencap comes from the Jersey City side. The curved building in the center of the actual picture isn't the World Financial Center, which the one in the screencap presumably is.
To properly match it up, use the South Ferry landing, which is at the far right of the screencap and at the far left of the real picture. The ferry landing at the right of the real picture is the Staten Island ferry.
Still compressed, but not quite as much as you're arguing, I think.
@Rizzo88: So, in Liberty City, Kennedy Airport must be called "Oswald Airport," right?
hahahah to the 360 fanboys, GTA4 will always be a playstation title
A wee bit warped, but as much as Christopher Nolan's Gotham.
@MisterHippity: After Woody Harrelson's father died, George H.W. Bush is the only living person who still knows what to name that airport... not to get all trilateral commission-y for that ass.
that diner looks more like mickey's in st paul than cheyenne or munson diners in manhattan.
It looks like a gorgeous landscape for a tacky, juvenile simulated muderous rampage.
@Edgehopper: Yes, perspective makes a big difference. Here, the Woolworth Building looks pretty close to the Financial Center: [www.orbwar.com] (apologies for linking to a conspiracy site).
And in the third picture here, the Empire State Building looks similar in perspective from the downtown waterfront to how it does in the screencap above: [www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com]
@MisterHippity: And Russia's second largest city would be Chapmangrad?
@Dickdogfood: It does have a recognizable 1 New York Plaza though, and the WFC buildings. File this under Things I Actually Like.
Looks like you've made your first post on Kotaku, Nick :)
Am I wrong? In any case, nice article.
Also, I'd note that it's close enough that I think I can see my office building in one of the screencaps. Very cool.
I like that City Hall has been replaced with a Chinese restaurant. And the graffiti-covered subway is a nice nostalgic touch. Oh, 1987 ...
@latinogamer: Um... okay.