GTA IV Liberty City Minute
Tuesday 11 November 2008 ◷ 15:00
Yes, it's possible to complete the GTA IV story in 30 hours or less. I did it in 15 and a half. First I was afraid I would end up beginning the last mission with less than one hour left and then screw that up so bad that those 30 hours were completely wasted, but keeping a schedule the extrapolation soon showed 20 hours was realistic. The approach is that you do nothing but the story, skip every cutscene, skip though every phonecall and do everything by taxi and skip the ride:
- Miles on foot: 33.67
- Miles by car: 125.33
- Miles swam: 0.03
- Miles by bike: 12.74
- Miles by helicopter: 10.23
- Miles by boat: 8.38
- Miles by train: 0.00
- Miles as a taxi passenger: 380.78
- Taxis hailed: 95
- Bowling time played: 00:00:01
Which means you don't have a clue what the story is about or where you are, and sometimes you get out of the taxi at your destination just to watch someone escape while your trying to steal your taxi to start the chase. With a limit of 30 hours there is enough slack to screw up some of the longer missions in their end. I missed the ramp, but then found out in the current game you don't have to repeat the whole chase from the beginning of the mission. But there are still some missions that involve driving to some far away place (no taxi allowed), taking out a bunch of bad guys, driving to another far away place, taking out more bad guys and then try to lose Babylon. It all adds up when failing those, but nowhere near 30 hours.