History YMMV / GrandTheftAutoIV

* PortingDisaster: The PC version of the game does a poor job of translating the controls to a keyboard and mouse configuration, has a horrible software protection scheme that requires the installation of near-useless bloatware in order to use multiplayer, has very demanding system requirements out of line with similar titles, ''three'' instances of [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil DRM]] [[note]] Games for Windows - Live, [=SecureROM=], and the Rockstar Social Club [[/note]] attached to the game, and a multitude of {{Game Breaking Bug}}s if your system configuration is cursed. It also runs like molasses even on all but the highest end [=PCs=] of its time (and even then the frame rate is still a little iffy), until technology finally caught up ''in 2017''. Luckily, patching has fixed many of these problems; a healthy [[GameMod modding]] community has aided its reputation further, and it has stopped using Games for Windows - Live [[note]]As the service lost support in 2013 and went completely defunct by 2019.[[/note]] with the cost of losing multiplayer support since January 2020.

** On the other, there are many fans that think this game has the best story in the series in part due to the darker setting on top of having well crafted characters, antagonists and the tone in general. Not to mention [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny at the time]] it had one of the most (if not the most) complex representation of [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity a real-life city]], with outstanding attention to detail. Also the [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheLostAndDamned downloadable]] [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheBalladOfGayTony expansions]] reintroduced a lot of the side activities (including gang wars) that were lost in the transition, alleviating this a little bit.

--->'''AAAAAAAARRGH, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!'''

** The friendship system. On paper, it sounded a good idea to help immerse the player into the game by allowing them to hang out with characters outside of missions. However, the hangouts largely consist of being called when you're in the middle of something, requiring you to drop everything you're doing and meet them in a location potentially on the other side of the map within one in-game hour lest you incur a relations penalty. As you progress through the game you have to juggle up to six or seven of these relationships, and it's a ''lot'' more annoying than it sounds. Luckily a quirk in game mechanics allows you to offset it by accepting their invitation and then calling them to cancel a hangout safely.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeLevels: "Three Leaf Clover," the bank heist mission based on ''Film/{{Heat}}''. The mission was so well received that ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' was built around several heist missions.

** The Creator/FoxNewsChannel {{Expy}}, Weazel News features a commercial that touts their diversity by introducing an [[TokenMinority Asian news anchor]] with an oriental gong sound. In October 2016, ''Series/TheOReillyFactor'' correspondent, Jesse Watters, filmed a segment in New York's Chinatown that many people saw as extremely racist. Here is a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX8jZTN0CdU rebuttal]] from ''Series/TheDailyShow''.

* BestLevelEver: "Three Leaf Clover," the bank heist mission based on ''Film/{{Heat}}''. The mission was so well received that ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' was built around several heist missions.

* {{Narm}}:
** Niko will often yell random obscenities at enemies during missions. The level of rage and profanity is just hilariously at odds with his normally cool and collected personality during cutscenes.

** From "The Lost and Damned" DLC, there is the cutscene if the player fails the mission "Shifting Weight." Malc comments that he knew [=DeSean=] "since diapers." It ruins the tragic factor of the cutscene and turns it into something unintentionally humorous.

** Given that the plot involves two Eastern European siblings immigrating to America to escape their traumatic wartime past and getting themselves caught up in the criminal underworld, it's the best Western remake of the Russian movie ''Film/Brother1997'' and especially it's [[Film/Brother2 sequel]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyqOA4h_lZI This video by Russian YouTuber NFKRZ further highlights the similarities between the two works]].

* ThatOneLevel:
** Several levels have the potential to be this depending upon the player's skill with gunfighting or driving certain vehicles. The mission "No Way on the Subway" is spectacularly difficult as it requires riding a poorly handling motorbike while trying to shoot down two guys riding motorbikes, all while avoiding traffic (and, later, subway trains). Oh, and if you don't take out the bad guys fast enough you have to jump your bike off bridges, and if you don't know how to handle a bike in the air, sayonara.
** "Three Leaf Clover", [[BestLevelEver despite its reputation]], could be this due to not only multiple officers shooting you and the brothers, but the most of the [[{{Mooks}} NOOSE officers]] can kill you very easy with their rifles if you're not careful. To top it all off, after exiting the subway underground, you still must escape the 3-star police pursuit using a 4-door car and you must be quick to escape.
** The finale mission definitely qualifies, not because it's difficult (as you'd expect it to be) but because regardless with option you take, the mission is extremely long, with no opportunity to save and no checkpoints. Both versions involve a very long car chase, then an intense gun battle, then a chase in the water or in the air, and then finally a footchase. Not to mention, during your first time of this finale, it's easy so mess up during the chase if you don't know the scripted sequences or signs of them.
** "Catch The Wave" is extremely frustrating, first off you have to make a long drive to your destination that you cannot skip, then you end up in a garage with very limited cover with enemies around every corner, and to top it off it's an EscortMission, and your escort Phil is prone to occasional bouts of stupidity like running directly into enemy gunfire. If you take your time too much you risk Phil getting killed, if you're too reckless you'll get killed in no time, the most reliable way to do the mission is to park the truck a certain way so that Phil gets stuck, giving you time to clear out the building without having to worry about him getting killed.

* CompleteMonster: [[spoiler:[[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Dimitri Rascalov]] presents himself as a reasonable man in the criminal world, but he is actually a duplicitous, [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] snake with no sense of morals, empathy, or honor. Having created the [[Characters/GrandTheftAutoIVRussianMafia Faustin crime syndicate]] with his best friend Mikhail, Dimitri uses Mikhail's violent ways to profit and oversees a wide variety of brutality, extortion, and murders through the likes of Vlad. When Mikhail [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlives his usefulness]], Dimitri tricks [[Characters/GrandTheftAutoIVProtagonists Niko Bellic]] into murdering Mikhail, abandons Mikhail's wife and daughter to homelessness, then tries to kill Niko himself before burning down the business and entire apartment building of Niko's cousin Roman. Dimitri is revealed to be in cahoots with [[[[HumanTrafficking Ray Bulgarin]], who Dimitri empowers for further mayhem while also beginning a country-wide cocaine operation that threatens to destabilize the whole nation. Running his criminal empire far more brutally than Mikhail ever did, Dimitri tries to massacre a Senator's convoy to silence his campaign, blackmails Bernie over his sexuality, and tries to torture Roman to death. In the "Deal" ending, Dimitri feigns agreement to a heroin deal only to turn on and slaughter the buyers, kill his ally Pegorino, and orchestrate Roman's death at his wedding, proving himself to be a spiteful opportunist that every other criminal views with disdain.]]

* CompleteMonster: [[spoiler:[[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Dimitri Rascalov]] presents himself as a reasonable man in the criminal world, but he is actually a duplicitous, [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] snake with no sense of morals, empathy, or honor. Having created the [[Characters/GrandTheftAutoIVRussianMafia Faustin crime syndicate]] with his best friend Mikhail, Dimitri uses Mikhail's violent ways to profit and oversees a wide variety of brutality, extortion, and murders through the likes of Vlad. When Mikhail [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlives his usefulness,]] Dimitri tricks [[Characters/GrandTheftAutoIVProtagonists Niko Bellic]] into murdering Mikhail, abandons Mikhail's wife and daughter to homelessness, then tries to kill Niko himself before burning down the business and entire apartment building of Niko's cousin Roman. Dimitri is revealed to be in cahoots with [[[[HumanTrafficking Ray Bulgarin]], who Dimitri empowers for further mayhem while also beginning a country-wide cocaine operation that threatens to destabilize the whole nation. Running his criminal empire far more brutally than Mikhail ever did, Dimitri tries to massacre a Senator's convoy to silence his campaign, blackmails Bernie over his sexuality, and tries to torture Roman to death. In the "Deal" ending, Dimitri feigns agreement to a heroin deal only to turn on and slaughter the buyers, kill his ally Pegorino, and orchestrate Roman's death at his wedding, proving himself to be a spiteful opportunist that every other criminal views with disdain.]]

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Ray Boccino [[SmugSnake of]] [[JerkAss all people]] gets this from fans. He’s meant to come off as a massive HateSink and is constantly described by other characters as being an untrustworthy backstabber and snake, with Niko even calling him “a rat doing an impersonation of a man”. While Ray is an asshole, he never actually betrays Niko or anyone else throughout the game. [[spoiler: He keeps his word to Niko and helps him find Florian Cravic and even provides him with a free safe house in Alderney. He was planning to share half of the diamond money with Johnny until Klebitz decided to betray him and steal all of it, forcing him to retaliate. He is killed by Niko under orders from Pegorino, out of paranoia of him being a rat despite there being no evidence of this whatsoever. He never demonstrates any of the untrustworthiness he is constantly described as having, and in fact ends up getting double crossed by almost everyone he works with; Luca and his gang, Niko, Johnny K and even his own boss along with dying in a completely [[AntiClimaxBoss anticlimactic]] and [[DroppedABridgeOnHim unceremonious]] fashion as if he was just a random enemy NPC. All of this results in Ray being a character many ended up feeling unexpectedly bad for.]]

* CompleteMonster: [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Dimitri Rascalov]] presents himself as a reasonable man in the criminal world, but he is actually a duplicitous, [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] snake with no sense of morals, empathy, or honor. Having created the [[Characters/GrandTheftAutoIVRussianMafia Faustin crime syndicate]] with his best friend Mikhail, Dimitri uses Mikhail's violent ways to profit and oversees a wide variety of brutality, extortion, and murders through the likes of Vlad. When Mikhail [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlives his usefulness,]] Dimitri tricks [[Characters/GrandTheftAutoIVProtagonists Niko Bellic]] into murdering Mikhail, abandons Mikhail's wife and daughter to homelessness, then tries to kill Niko himself before burning down the business and entire apartment building of Niko's cousin Roman. Dimitri is revealed to be in cahoots with [[[[HumanTrafficking Ray Bulgarin]], who Dimitri empowers for further mayhem while also beginning a country-wide cocaine operation that threatens to destabilize the whole nation. Running his criminal empire far more brutally than Mikhail ever did, Dimitri tries to massacre a Senator's convoy to silence his campaign, blackmails Bernie over his sexuality, and tries to torture Roman to death. In the "Deal" ending, Dimitri feigns agreement to a heroin deal only to turn on and slaughter the buyers, kill his ally Pegorino, and orchestrate Roman's death at his wedding, proving himself to be a spiteful opportunist that every other criminal views with disdain.

** Some fans think that the DarkerAndEdgier feel of the game gives it a weight and maturity that the other GTA games just don't have. Other fans believe that this game is too dark and depressing even by GTA standards and clashes heavily with the wacky and raunchy worldbuilding that's a staple of ''GTA''. This is partly why ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheBalladOfGayTony The Ballad of Gay Tony]]'' is far LighterAndSofter.

* BrokenBase: Some fans think that the DarkerAndEdgier feel of the game gives it a weight and maturity that the other GTA games just don't have. Other fans believe that this game is too dark and depressing even by GTA standards. This is partly why ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheBalladOfGayTony The Ballad of Gay Tony]]'' is far LighterAndSofter.

* FountainOfMemes: Both Bellic cousins. Roman for his "obsession" with bowling and big american titties, and Niko for his LargeHam combat lines.

* TooBleakStoppedCaring
** The game runs the risk of provoking this reaction towards players and especially GTA fans by being a DeconstructorFleet of the GTA series. The game is relentless about showing how unrealistic and flawed are concepts like EvilPaysBetter, DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster and the anti-heroic characterization of your usual GTA protagonist. The problem is that all this negativism and cynicism comes from a GTA game, a game known for its over-the-top portrait of the organized crime.
** As for the storyline: Niko Bellic moves to the United States for a fresh start at life, but it goes down the toilet when his cousin, Roman, gets him roped up in his debt and antics. The entire story shows Niko doing nothing but trying to please his selfish cousin who always seems to get himself into trouble, while Niko always bitches about it as he continuously helps his cousin out. It eventually leads to Niko being hunted down by a mobster throughout the game, but it doesn't build up from there; Niko just continues doing side jobs for random people while still complaining about his cousin's gambling habits and debt. On top of this, nearly every person Niko meets is either a backstabber or suffers from attachment issues, making nearly everyone unlikable and leaves the player wondering why they should care about a bunch of crazy people.

** On the other, there are many fans that think this game has the best story in the series [[TrueArtIsAngsty in part due to the darker setting]] on top of having well crafted characters, antagonists and the tone in general. Not to mention [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny at the time]] it had one of the most (if not the most) complex representation of [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity a real-life city]], with outstanding attention to detail. Also the [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheLostAndDamned downloadable]] [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheBalladOfGayTony expansions]] reintroduced a lot of the side activities (including gang wars) that were lost in the transition, alleviating this a little bit.

* TrueArtIsAngsty: Widely [[BrokenBase (though not universally)]] considered to have the best story in the series, thanks in part to the [[DarkerAndEdgier darker tone]], its attempt to [[InternalDeconstruction deconstruct the series]] in general, and its sympathetic [[DysfunctionJunction (yet screwed up)]] cast of characters.

-->(after killing two random gangsters) '''AAAAAAAARRGH, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!'''

** Kate [=McReary=] could have been an interesting love interest for Niko as she is the embodiment of a normal life, something Niko wants to have.

* ValuesResonance: For a game of its genre released in 2008, it has a pronounced progressive lean and a highly sympathetic view of the plight of immigrants, nonwhite people, poor people, and drug addicts. Most noticeable over all of this is the game's fascination with gay people; multiple men express attraction to Niko, including ArmoredClosetGay Brucie and ultra-effeminate CampGay Florian Cravic, and [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheBalladOfGayTony Tony]] is the star of one of the DLC packs. While leaning hard into every stereotype imaginable, these and other gay characters in the game are portrayed sympathetically, being obnoxious but well-meaning at worst, and homophobes are among the many people subjected to parodical TakeThat within the story's many in-game radio stations. There's even an absurdly easy mission where you can protect Florian from a violent homophobe in any manner you choose, and in ''The Ballad of Gay Tony'', Brucie finally punches out his homophobic brother. Unfortunately, as any longtime gamer could attest to, the kind of playerbase Grand Theft Auto attracts did not share this attitude and it would be many years before homosexuality in video games was commonplace enough for it to be re-examined.

** There exists a bug that if you try to his someone with a rocket launcher directly, the rocket will bounce off and hit something else, or bounce off the ground depending on the angle. With great timing and luck, you can hit a soldier sitting on the side of the Annihilator helicopter, bounce the rocket off him, and take out the other chopper that appears when you have more than two stars. Difficult to do, but hilarious and awesome if done right.

* SignatureScene: The mission "That Special Someone", where Niko finally confronts the man who killed his squad, [[spoiler:and results in him realizing VengeanceFeelsEmpty.]]

* MagnificentBastard: [[TheSpook The United Liberty Paper Contact]], real name Bernard, is a high ranking member of the United Liberty Paper, a front for the International Affairs Agency (IAA). When Karen meets with [[PlayerCharacter Niko Bellic]] one last time, she introduces him to the Contact, who then proceeds to blackmail Niko into doing his dirty work in the name of stopping terrorism in Liberty City. The Contact has Niko assassinate multiple targets, such as a man who is aware of the United Liberty Paper's true purpose and has been leaking information about it and the owner of an inport-export business funding a terrorist organization. Despite the Contact's cold attitude, he follows through with his promise in bringing Darko Brevic to Niko and part ways with Niko on good terms. In his reappearance in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', the Contact survives the shootout with the IAA, FIB, and Merryweather. Returning once more in ''Online'', he assists the Online protagonists stopping to a doomsday plot of Avon Hertz as well as the Duggan Crime Family from using remnants of Clifford's code to manipulate gas prices.

* MagnificentBastard: [[TheSpook The United Liberty Paper Contact]] is a high ranking member of the United Liberty Paper, a front for the International Affairs Agency. When Karen meets with [[PlayerCharacter Niko Bellic]] one last time, she introduces him to the Contact, who then proceeds to blackmail Niko into doing his dirty work in the name of stopping terrorism in Liberty City. The Contact has Niko assassinate multiple targets, such as a man who is aware of the United Liberty Paper's true purpose and has been leaking information about it and a owner of a import/export who has been funding terrorists plots. Despite the Contact's cold attitude, he follows through with his promise in bringing Darko Brevic to Niko and part ways with Niko on very good terms. In his reappearance in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', he survives the shootout with the IAA, FIB, and Merryweather. Four years later, he would assist the Online protagonists in taking down Bogdan and then Avon Hertz, putting a end to a doomsday plot.

** Given that the plot involves two Eastern European siblings immigrating to America to escape their traumatic wartime past and getting themselves caught up in the criminal underworld, it's the best Western remake of the Russian movie ''Film/{{Brother}}'' and especially it's [[Film/Brother2 sequel]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyqOA4h_lZI This video by Russian YouTuber NFKRZ further highlights the similarities between the two works]].

* UncannyValley:
** The Statue of Happiness is a parody of the Statue of Liberty and has a face similar to UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton's, except it's frozen in a perpetual, creepy smile that makes it look almost inhuman.
** The opening cutscene to Blow Your Cover is a party at Elizabeta's place. Every guest other than Niko, Elizabeta, Johnny, and Playboy has their face locked into an expressionless, unblinking stare. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that the cutscene brings at least two of them into very clear focus.

* StrangledByTheRedString: Any fan who had played this game will tell you they chose the "Revenge" ending. Why? Because while Niko shows interests in Kate, she hardly interacts with Niko outside of cutscenes and dates, which mind you are optional. And regardless of which ending you take, Niko will lose her regardless by either [[spoiler:her getting killed by Pegorino in "Revenge" or breaks off with him in "Deal". To many players, losing ''Roman'', his cousin, is ''far worse'' than losing Kate, since they got to know everything they can about him, since they are cousins after all, and how little they know about Kate]].