Streamer Playing Through GTA IV With Traffic Speed At Max: ‘If Life Is Suffering, Why Not Choose More Suffering – And More Life’

It would not be unfair to call Tom Walker a madman. It would probably be more fair to call him an Australian comedian who streams games on Twitch – because that’s what he calls himself – but actions speak louder than words. And the fact of the matter is, Walker has spent nearly half a year attempting to complete Grand Theft Auto IV with a mod that makes traffic move so quickly that it’s almost invisible to the naked eye. Any step onto a street could be his last. Cars ping off barriers, buildings, and each other with such intensity that they build into weather events, exploding tornadoes of twisted metal. Some missions have taken hundreds of tries, and yet he persists. Why? To affirm his humanity. And because it’s very, very funny.

Walker’s GTA IV playthrough has proven to be a slapstick spectacle for the ages. The sheer carnage of vehicles screaming by at a million miles per hour pairs perfectly with his tentative demeanor each time a new mission begins. Walker will often map out a route that avoids traffic as much as possible, take a deep breath as he begins to shuffle in the direction of his objective, and then… immediately get hit by a car so hard that his ragdolling corpse departs the surface of the Earth. It never gets old.

As far as Walker is concerned, playing GTA IV this way catapults the experience into a different genre altogether.       

"It's more survival-horror than any game I've ever played,” Walker told Aftermath. “Your resources are scarce, your foes are many, you are the only thing in the world made of soft yielding flesh. … Less cars just means the silence between cars is longer, suspense builds, then a sedan slams from the horizon into you in 0.5 seconds. When a car gets into an enclosed space, they slam around as skittish and furious and violent as a necromorph."

Descending into Car Hell has forced Walker to get clever about how he manipulates GTA IV’s systems. For example, he’s learned from speedrunners that he can subtly shift the flow of traffic using just his in-game eyes.

"If you look down a short street, cars won't spawn there,” Walker said. “A long street will still have cars spawning far enough away that you can't affect them, but sometimes when crossing a road you can shut off one source of cars by looking left as you start to cross, then WHIP your camera around to the right as you pass the halfway point."

Walker has also realized that the streets – nearly as much as cars – are his enemy.

“The cars own the ground,” he said. “Take to the air. Take to the earth. Raised railways, bridges with walkways, tunnels, any area with clearly defined paths for the traffic to take where there's a lower chance of it ricocheting into [GTA IV main character] Niko.”

Some missions cause traffic to behave a little differently, a welcome reprieve that’s also taught Walker more about how GTA IV’s engine works.

"Scripted chase missions have what I call a 'sanity aura' around the lead car," Walker said. "The traffic around them behaves normally until they get about three car lengths away [from your position], and then they rocket away as if they've been excused from the dinner table. … Cars don't seem to become physics objects until they're closer; at a far distance, a fast car will slam into the back of a regular car, and the regular car will just tank it. If they get closer, both get completely destroyed."

Though always ready to deploy a well-timed one-liner, Walker rarely laughs during his streams. He takes the act of playing the game pretty seriously, in part because he has to if he wants any chance of ever beating it and getting on with his life. But also, good bits often happen to somebody. Whether they’re getting hit in the face with a pie or a two-ton slab of metal – amplified by Newtonian physics to weigh 1,000,000 tons – it’s funnier when that person doesn't seem to be entirely in on the joke.

"I feel like I'm often too invested to react with anything other than a scream. If I'm close to a mission finish I'm opening my eyes real wide, channeling all my energy into seeing cars and trying to work out what angles could possibly work,” Walker said. “And I think it's funnier if I'm just taking it seriously the whole time.” 

Why subject himself to this at all, though? Why grind his teeth through an endurance test where he, more than any torrential downpour of exploding cars, is the punchline? That’s where things get existential. 

"I get the idea in my head that I will defeat stupid challenges that don't matter pretty often,” Walker said. “To me one of the most human things you can do is commit yourself to a challenge that doesn't matter, that only you care about and that you could stop doing at any time. If life is suffering, why not choose more suffering – and more life?"

Walker has his eyes on the prize. Come hell, high water, or even more cars, he’s gonna beat GTA IV. 

“God help me, but I am so stubborn I will finish this no matter what,” he said. “People liking it certainly makes that easier.”

After that, he’ll probably move onto GTA IV’s The Lost and the Damned DLC. Not Grand Theft Auto V, though, even though a similar mod exists for that game. GTA IV holds a special place in his heart, with car handling that’s “ponderous and boatlike” and areas that are “too big and expansive.” 

"GTA V is not of much interest to me," Walker said, "basically because it's... I dunno, too ‘good’?"