Friendship System (Grand Theft Auto IV)

From Atrocious Gameplay Wiki
Hey Niko! It's your cousin, Let's go bowling. Niko had enough times to play bowling. Why can't Niko do what he wants? Police chase, chaos and destruction, hijacking vehicles, murdering.

Friendships in GTA IV are a type of game mechanic in Grand Theft Auto IV. The player befriends several acquaintances over the course of the game's storyline, primarily after performing an adequate number of missions for these contacts.

The friendship system was heavily criticized by GTA fans, because friends may constantly call Niko and ask him to hang out, and it is hard to explore Liberty City without any interruptions. Because of this, the feature was significantly toned down in Grand Theft Auto V. However, the amount of friends was balanced (the player can now hang out with another protagonist), and they will never call the player; they can now only be called by the player, and there is no penalty for not calling them.

List Of All Friends

  • Roman Bellic: Anytime
  • Little Jacob: 1:00pm - 4:00am
  • Dwayne Forge: 7:00am - 1:00am
  • Brucie Kibbutz: 12:00pm - 1:00am
  • Patrick McReary: 4:00pm - 6:00am

Why We Won't Play Bowling With Roman

  1. Everytime you're playing the game, Niko's friends call him constantly in inopportune moments especially Roman making it really difficult to leisurely explore the city to seek the 200 flying rats as well as easter eggs. It even occurs while being chased by lots of police or doing chaos in the city!.
  2. Roman's irritable line "Hey Niko! It's your cousin, Let's go bowling" can get your last nerves extremely fast! just like Big Smoke's irritable line "All you had to do was follow the damn train, CJ!".
  3. By constantly Roman call to you to bowling it feels that you're playing Bowling Simulator 2008 rather than a Grand Theft Auto game (which the main purpose of the franchise is killing pedestrians and hijacking vehicles) as well you could call the game Friendship Simulator 2008.
  4. Think that setting the phone on sleep mode disables the phone calls preventing Roman call to you? Tough luck! The sleep mode only disables the progress in storyline and friends can still call Niko making the game nearly unplayable and boring at times.
  5. Even if you decide to choose "Deal" which Roman dies (and you no longer see his annoying calls let alone play bowling with him), all of his other friends can still call Niko during daytime making killing him somewhat useless.
  6. To make the things worse, the friendship system is very important in this game and ignoring the friends for too long, the "Like" and "Respect" status of your friends will drop to the point you lose the friend's special ability if you consistently ignore the friends forcing you to go the outings constantly in order to reunlock their special abilities.
  7. Most of the friend's locations are located far from the other city (e.g  Roman is located in Bohan, Packie is in Dukes, Little Jacob is in Broker etc) meaning that if you're exploring either Alderney or Algonquin for seeking flying rats, Stevie's cars or even attempting to start a mission and you receive one of those calls, you're forced to abandon the city and meet the friend just for doing repetitive activities especially bowling with Roman causing you to backtracking way too much!.
    • Even worse, there's a unavoidable chance that your friend will complain by arriving him too late which decreases your like and respect status due to the fact that you must take very long trips to see him unless if you pick a taxi (preferably Roman's taxi) and travel to your friend. And worst of all, if Roman is the one who calls to you, you cannot call for his taxi to meet him and you must have to find a taxi on the streets or have a fast car like Infernus, Turismo or Comet.

Redeeming Qualities

  1. Achieving 75% for each friend, you receive special benefits from the corresponding friend.
    1. Roman Bellic: Sends a cab to pick Niko up and take him anywhere for free (albeit at the driver's annoyance). Unlike the other taxis in game, it can be used even if Niko has a wanted level, which can be used to easily get out of range of the police.
    2. Little Jacob: Drives to a secluded location near the player; his car's trunk is full of guns to purchase at a discount (60% off). Niko can do this during a mission.
    3. Brucie Kibbutz: Picks Niko up with his helicopter, and transports him to designated landing zones around the city
    4. Dwayne Forge: Sends a car with two armed men who will follow and help Niko in combat.
    5. Patrick McReary: Supplies Niko with a car bomb which can be placed under any car and detonated using Niko's phone.
  2. Both The Lost and Damned and The Ballad Of Gay Tony DLC episodes from the game are no longer mandatory to the player to do allowing you to explore the city whenever you want.
  3. The line "Hey Niko! It's your cousin, Let's go bowling" while annoying it became a very popular internet meme.
  4. However, there is a simple method of avoiding going on outings without penalty; this is achieved by initially accepting a friend's offer to go out, and selecting the "Cancel Plans" option after the call.
  5. Once you reach 100% respect and like with any of the friends, they will stop calling you and will only hang out if you call them.

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