Snakes and Liberty Ladders

I'd read about the Heart of Liberty City beating away inside Happiness Island's Statue and decided I'd go and have a look. So I borrowed a helicopter, carefully flew over to the statue, hovered gently and precisely alongside it, at the perfect height of course, and pressed Y. Now I've finished the GTA story line, twice to see both endings, so it’s not surprising for me to say that Nico and I have got flying these virtual helicopters down to a fine art. So it seems ridiculous that, once Y had been pressed, that Nico would recklessly launch himself out of the helicopter and land in a slightly bloodied heap high up on the side of the statue. So ridiculous that I've just spent the last hour trying to find out if Nico Belic is the off spring of a pair of Eastern European lemmings.

With Nico back on his feet I pointed him towards the entrance labelled "No Hidden Content Beyond This Point" and walked through.

Inside, the inner walls of the statue vanish into the distance over Nico's head and in the gloom a feint red glow hints at the, not so secret, secret.

There was an obstacle though. A set of ladders were leading up to the chamber containing the heart. Surely ladders should pose no problem to a man of Nico's calibre and my gaming talents.

But could I get Nico onto the ladders? No. 20 minutes later and I’d pressed every button so many times that my fingers were bleeding. I'd approached the ladders from every angle possible too. I even walked in and out of the room numerous times and tried to mount the ladders again and again. I could not get Nico to climb them!

So a man that had just spent 5 minutes surviving on a 6 Star Wanted Level, Achievement unlocked thank you very much, couldn’t climb a set of ladders.

It’s not the first time in Liberty City that I couldn’t get Nico to climb ladders. In fact it’s been quite a regular occurrence and it has to be the most irritating aspects of the game. It could be that I’m doing something wrong and my gaming talent may all be in my imagination but after living in Liberty City for far too many hours I suspect it's not just me.

There are many holes to be picked in GTA IV and yet it still stands up as one of the finest games ever.