Every hardened criminal in Liberty City needs a place to relax after a hard days work.  Safehouses are where you can go to save your game, park cars you have stolen and wish to keep, watch TV and change Niko’s clothes.   The location of a Safehouse is presented by you guessed it: a house icon on the mini-map.

In the begining, Niko will only have Roman’s apartment available as a safehouse, but as the game progresses more safehouses will crop up.  Further more, once you reach a certain point in the game, all safehouses will have a TV in them to watch.

Parking Square:

Infront of each safehouse is a rectangular yellow square marked “parking.”  Any two vehicles parked in here will be saved the next time a game is loaded.  Each safehouse has a parking square infront of them, allowing the player to save multiple vehicles throughout the game.  Use the parking space to save any vehicles that you come across that you would like to preserve.

Changing Clothes:

Changing clothes can only be done within a safehouse.  Pressing L1 at the proper spot in a safehouse will cause the camera to zoom in close to Niko.  From here you can move up and down Niko’s body, select either the torso, legs, head, feet or face and use left or right on the D-pad to cycle between all the clothes you have purchased/found.

Note:  Enemies will not attack you in a safehouse, use it to escape the Police if you are in trouble.

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Niko not ascending those stairs fast enough for your liking?  Try jumping up them with the square button.  Niko will hop up the steps, which is significantly faster than running up them.

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Ever just feel lazy, and don’t want to manually have to drive to a destination?  Try hailing a taxi cab!  Simply hold the L1 button near a taxi.  They will wait for a set amount of time for you to get in before driving off.  To enter a cab as a passenger, hold triangle down near the back seats to avoid accidentally stealing it.

Once inside the cab, you can choose a destination.  If you want to change your destination you can press the left analog up or down to select a new one. Should you wish to exit the taxi cab at any time, simply press triangle.  You can skip through the taxi cab ride at any time..  Also keep in mind that if Roman likes you enough, you can use his taxi cab service for free and skip the ride to arrive at your destination immediately.

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Niko’s health bar is the green bar extending halfway around the radar at the bottom left of the screen.  there are several ways in Liberty City to replenish lost health.  If you go to any vendor (such as a hotdog vendor) or a restaurant, you can replenish your health by buying food for $1.  Vendors and employees will not serve “unruly” customers so bear that in mind if you need health.

There are also first aid kits scattered throughout Liberty City, which when picked up will give Niko full health.  You can also call an ambulance and have them heal you for some cash, or you can steal an ambulance which will also give you full health.

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The first time Niko gets drunk, you will laugh guaranteed.  Listen to Niko’s conversations with various friends when he gets drunk with them, as they are funny in their own right.  Getting Niko drunk is as simple as taking a friend out “Drinking” and then hoofing it over to the nearest bar.

After a brief scene of Niko and his friend entering the bar, they will return completely hammered.  In a drunken state, Niko cannot attack or fire guns.  You will also notice that Niko will be tipsy and fall over a lot when you try to move.  Be careful, as you can sometimes injure Niko and lose health if he falls over while drunk.

The “drunken state” will fade with time as Niko sobers up, however it is advised to either wait a bit or call a cab to drive you around Liberty City.  Should you decide to drive, keep in mind that you will swerve back and forth and will have to fight to stay in a straight line while driving.  Also remeber that any law enforcement official that sees you driving while drunk, will give you a warrant level.

Drinking will increase Niko’s addiction level as well in the stats menu.

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Dieing in GTA 4 isn’t game ending, but more of an annoyance than anything.  Should you die, you will be transported to the nearest hospital with no armor, full health and minus around 8-10 thousand dollars (a percentage of your total cash.)

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Yes, you can view how much health an enemy target has while using auto-aim (L2 button.)  The enemy’s health bar is displayed within Niko’s aiming recticle and shown as the circulor bars around the aiming dot.  The same is true while fighting an enemy using auto-aim with Niko’s fists or a knife/bat.

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If you fail a mission, you do not have to drive all the way back to the mission start to re-accept it.  Simply bring up the cellphone and open up your messages.  Select the mission text message (titled by the name of the mission,) and press either X to accept or circle to decline it.  Keep in mind if you decline the mission from the text message, you will have to go back and re-accept it manually.  Very, very useful if you managed to rack up a high warrant level attempting to complete a mission, as you can just restart it and lose you wanted level hassle-free.

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The way point system is extremely helpful while navigating through Liberty City.  To place a way point, open up the main menu by pressing start.  Select “Map” from the menu.  You will be presented with a map of Liberty City.  Press X to enter the map mode, you can zoom in by holding R2 and zoom out by holding L2.

Select a place to out the way point, and the game will automatically calculate the route there for you.  Exit back out and follow the dark green line on the radar to your destination.  It’s as easy as that.  Note that the route the system uses to calculate your destination is NOT always the fastest way to get there.

Missions will automatically point you to your destination with via a solid yellow line.

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If you want to put on the high beams in the car that you are driving, simply hold the square button for a second or two.  You can alternate between the high beams and the regular lights by holding the square button.  Using the headlights can only be done at night when it is dark.

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