Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Let me preface my review with a brief story: When GTA IV came out in May for consoles, I purchased a brand new PS3 just to play it. To this day it's the only game I own for my PS3, which sits largely unused but as a testament to Rockstar's masterpiece. I'm not much of a console gamer, but Sony and Rockstar made well over $500 from me on the release of GTA IV alone... but after seeing this incredible mess pushed out I do not think I'll ever purchase another Rockstar product. I suppose it's also important to say I have not actually purchased GTA IV for PC, although I do have firsthand experience with this travesty. A good friend of mine called me over the weekend and asked if I wouldn't mind taking a look at his computer, because according to him, his rig was running GTA IV very slow. When I arrived I could hardly believe this product was from the same company I gave my money to. Everything you read here is accurate. SecuROM, with or without "teeth," is always to the detriment of honest consumers and here it is in full effect. But not satisfied with that, Rockstar apparently made it possible to play the game if and only if you agree to Byzantine Windows Live and Rockstar Social Club contracts. That is frankly unacceptable by any standard. And to top it off, on a computer with a Quad-Core, two 8800 Ultras in SLI, and 8 (yes, eight) GB of RAM the game runs worse than it ever did on my PS3. And it looks about the same. For a game developer, the words "code optimization" mean very little to Rockstar. Perhaps the most heinous injustice about this whole shameful affair is the warning included that, summarized, warns "... most current hardware will not be able to run this game at high settings." Unbelievable. When did releasing games, especially games which ran acceptably well on inferior consoles, incomplete with a requirement to spend hundreds more dollars on future hardware become acceptable? To me that is the lowest form of terrible work ethic and is the main reason I feel I cannot buy another Rockstar product ever again. Is it not enough to completely ruin a product by making the consumer sign away his privacy just to play it? When did Crysis, whose infamy cannot even measure up to this abomination, become the golden standard for a successful game release? If the market into which you're releasing your product is "unprepared" for the "requirements" of said product, then there is something wrong with your product, not the market. But here Rockstar really shot itself in the foot because the game has already been proven to run, with over 10 million witnesses, on inferior hardware. I told my friend to get his money back and now I'm thinking of selling my PS3. The most successful PC games have always been the ones that are not laden with malware and actually run on consumers' PCs. PC gaming is in dire straits if the biggest developers think people actually want to have to deal with insurmountable mountains of red tape just to play a video game. It's a video game- nothing less, but especially nothing more. Playing GTA IV on PC is worth far less to me than the actual time it would take to accomplish said goal. I consider myself a Grand Theft Auto fan. I played GTA IV an unhealthy amount over the summer. But merely seeing this stillbirth of a title that Rockstar threw onto PC gamers makes me realize I can live without. Do not purchase this under any circumstances. It is far cheaper, in terms of money and life lost in frustration, to buy a new console to play GTA IV. If you want a new PC game, I recommend the excellent Left 4 Dead or any other title by Valve. I beseech you not to give money to companies who treat their costumers like this. Rockstar, you have released an utterly pathetic excuse for a personal computer game. I hate to say this is another nail in the proverbial coffin for PC gaming, but even I feel a little dismayed that almost every new title for computers is burdened with SecuROM, doesn't run well on hefty hardware, or is some unholy combination of the two. In short, Rockstar has taken everything that is "killing" PC gaming and mixed it into one completely miserable experience. Caveat emptor.