GTA 4 Beginner Guide: Your First Week in Liberty City

Liberty City rewards patience and punishes rushing, which makes the first week matter more than any single mission. This plan assumes you arrived through GTA 4 APK download and finished the opening drive. Do these things in roughly this order and the story's hard middle section becomes far kinder.

Days one and two: Roman, rent and the Broker loop

Take every taxi job Roman offers. They pay little, but they teach the Broker and Dukes street grid while the game pays you for the lesson, and they raise Roman's like stat towards his free taxi perk. Save at the apartment after every session; the bed is the only checkpoint outside missions.

Buy armour whenever a gun shop run passes one, and keep a pistol stocked. Early fights are won by cover and patience, a habit GTA 4 Missions builds on mission by mission.

Days three and four: friends are a system, not a distraction

Accept the bowling, darts and drinking invites, at least from Roman and Little Jacob. Jacob's discount gun car is the best early economy in the game, and it only unlocks if he likes you. The full perk table lives in GTA 4 Friend Activities and Perks, and it is worth reading before you start ignoring calls.

One warning: friends also decay. A declined invite costs a little like, a stood up friend costs more. When a call lands mid mission, finish the mission first; the decay for one missed outing is small.

The rest of the week: bridges, armour and a real car

Learn the three ways between Broker and Algonquin before the story forces the trip at speed. Drive them in free roam, in rain, at night. Map knowledge is the closest thing GTA 4 has to a superpower, and Liberty City in GTA 4 maps every borough's character for you.

End the week by stealing something with real pace and parking it at the safehouse. The story is about to introduce employers who pay in thousands, and arriving in a wreck wastes their cut scenes and your armour money.