It's Big, It's Bad, It's Interactive - It's The Future!

By William Barker

There's been a lot said about Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA4) by a lot of people.

From minnows to whales, everyone has an opinion.

Family groups are disgusted by the kinds of things you can do in the game - get kinky with hookers, kill wantonly, gamble, steal, drive recklessly etc - and the Australian version of the game has been toned down because of such protestations.

Yay censorship!

Last night riding my tredley home through the city of Melbourne I was stopped at the busy intersection of Elizabeth and Lonsdale streets for a red light, and I heard three blokes talking about the game. 

They were arguing over which version was better - PS3 or Xbox 360. It's just astounding the kind of street level buzz this game has generated. 

And how's this: box office takings are down in both America and Australia, and some analysts argue that GTA4 is a contributing factor, as young men stop going to the movies while they try to beat the 50-hour long game.

Everyone is talking about this history-making title, and for good reason. 

The game's developer, Rockstar, has crafted one of the best games in the history of electronic entertainment. 

It's as simple as that.

We all play games to do things we wouldn't normally be able to in the real world, like fly a helicopter, dance the funky chicken, eat a plastic bag, sleep during the day and even play basketball. GTA4 lets you do many criminal things in a fantasy world, but a world so believable it truly feels as though it lives and breathes.

You will explore Liberty City, which is loosely based on New York and is a phenomenal work of digital art. 

It's such a dense city, spread across a huge expanse of land and sea, that exploring it properly - going into every building, finding every back alley, driving along all the freeways, flying above it in a helicopter - would take days, if not weeks.

While the game itself is structured in a way that allows gamers to play through the story, or just do whatever they like to make money in a criminal fashion, it's the city that initially blew me away.

Like a tiny plankton swimming about in a huge ocean, the feeling you get as your first walk, ride and drive through the city is mind boggling. 

There have been many Grand Theft Auto and 'sandbox' games before this, but few have captured the feeling of being part of huge and ever changing world.

And how's this for more useless GTA4 trivia: the new game has single-handedly lifted it's parent company's share price by a significant amount, which is making even non-gaming financial dorks and other assorted business big wigs talk about the game. 

It's a great day for videogames, people, a great day indeed.

Expected to be the highest selling game in the history of the plexiverse, GTA4 is a very mature, violent, gritty and sometimes crazed romp through one of the most believable digital world's ever created.

If virtual reality didn't die out in the '90s and there was an option to hook up the helmet and the virtual gloves, this game would destroy lives.

One of the reasons why the game is so engrossing is the graphical quality. 

As well as the high-definition graphics that provide exquisite detail, a huge viewing range and a smooth framerate, it's the smaller things like the way the morning sun hits buildings and casts a ruddy hue across the landscape that impress.

Everything from the way the pedestrians talk and walk, down to the attention to detail on everything from street lights, to cars, buildings, bridges and even the roads themselves, it boggles the mind to think how long it took scores of artists to create Liberty City (four years, it turns out).

There are five sections to the city, not all of which are open at the start of the game, and they have been based on New York boroughs:

Broker (Brooklyn)
Algonquin (Manhattan)
Dukes (Queens)
Bohan (The Bronx)
Alderney (New Jersey)

Liberty City is both beautiful and terrifying at the same time, and you will lose yourself in the digital metropolis on more than one occasion. It's impossible not to.

One of the things that makes the city feel so alive is the population. 

There's always people walking around, some nice, some nasty, and if encountered closely the citizens of Liberty city will talk to you, or more likely yell at you. Just hearing what they have to say is hilarious and adds to the feeling that the city is truly alive.

Okay, the game starts like so: you play Niko Bellic. You're an Eastern European fellow who emigrated to America seeking a better life.

After the attention-grabbing intro concludes, Niko quickly finds out that the big city can be a very dangerous place. 

Niko's cousin, Roman, was the one who persuaded you to come to America and claimed to be rolling in cash. But it turns out the Roman lied, and needs your help to repay debts to some very dangerous groups...

And hence the game begins. 

Throughout the game you'll have to complete missions, which include taking out hits on various characters, stealing cars and other items and so forth, all of which have impressively integrated cut-scenes that further the story.

There's a lot of humour in the dialogue too, and film buffs will enjoy the way the movie sequences are put together and directed. It's a very classy production.

In between missions you can explore the city, try your hand at gambling, play pool, find a girlfriend on an Internet dating website, ring people on your mobile phone - the list of things to do even after you finish the extensive 50 hours of story-based gameplay are almost endless.

Like all good 'new media' desk monkeys, my first port of call in between missions was the bar. First I made Niko have a drink. Then another, and another, and then your vision goes blurry. Just like in real life. I want virtual reality!! Virtual vomit has huge potential.

After this I cruised around the seedy red-light district in a stolen car and picked up a hooker. Finding one, it was time to get down to business. 

While the Australian version of GTA4 has been toned down because we don't have an R18+ rating like the rest of the developed world, Australian gamers can rest assured that most of the 'controversial' aspects are still in the game. 

When you get intimate with a lady of the night for instance, instead being able to watch your character go at it from any angle, you'll only see the car bouncing up and down from the rear and hear a few groans.

After the quick love connection, next up I decided to bash the tripe out of as many innocent bystanders as I could, and after a while the fuzz turned up so I ran away because they threatened violence.

You can run, and also sprint now, which is good for getting away from the cops, the mafia, drug cartels and any other group that carries heavy firepower.

I got my man Niko to steal a car after being pursued on foot for a while and led the cops on a merry chase across bridges, down tunnels, and across sidewalks, splattering pedestrians in the process, they caught me.

The driving physics in this game are top notch, and simply burning around town is a lot of fun. The car's handle very nicely.

Jump in a 2-door sports coupe and it'll handle well, with strong acceleration, but will come off second best in a collision (of which you'll have many). And the way the cars break up - doors fall off, engine hoods buckle, panels bend - is amazing. Attention to detail? ZOMG!

Jump into a large truck however and it'll handle sluggishly with slow acceleration, sloppy steering and poor brakes. Hit another car though and you'll smash them off the road. It's the old 'greater mass' equation - the bigger you are, the more they'll fall.

One of my favourite things about GTA4 is the AI of the police, which has been sharpened more than any other Grand Theft Auto game. They're pretty cluey blokes with less mercy than in previous games.

The more crimes you commit, the more things you explode, the more laws you break - the more aggressive the cops get. 

Take out a handful of cops chasing you and your wanted level will rise even further, and the authorities will throw increasingly tougher and meaner and more numerous troops and vehicles at you.

In turn, this makes breaking the law feel scarier and more foreboding than in past Grand Theft Auto games, which adds to the realism.

As well as cars and trucks and buses, you can also commandeer motorbikes, boats and even helicopters. You can explore Liberty City and its surrounding suburbs by road, rail, sea and air, and it's a lot of fun.

There's pretty much nothing in this game that isn't fun. Sometimes the missions can be frustratingly difficult, but with practice they can be learned and overcome.

The controls are pretty tight for the most part and not too hard to learn for newcomers to the series. In addition to the sprint move, you can also take cover behind walls and cars and other objects during firefights which is new to the series and a very nice touch at that. It will save your skin more than once, mark my text.

Gunplay has also been tweaked and now players will be able to choose between auto-aim and manual aiming, and Niko has more moves too. He can now blind-fire round corners, take cover, hug walls and that sort of thing. 

At the same token, your enemies will also take cover now, which makes firefights even more intense than before.

It's also more satisfying shooting weapons, as the sound effects are more meaty, and the graphics are far better than previous games both of which combine to make the gun-toting action even more enjoyable.

Like any self-respecting action game, there's gun fights, exploding cars, and serious amounts of bedlam. The city literally lights up at night, particularly when you get your hands on explosives like grenades and rocket launchers. If you're looking for some action, look no further than GTA4.

As well as the engrossing storyline (which rivals a lot of big screen features) the incredibly detailed city, the freedom to do what you want, when you want, and some of the coolest weapons this side of the Thundercats, there's also the multiplayer aspect.

If you tire of the single-player game, which is pretty unlikely, there is a sensational multiplayer aspect to the game. In its first week of sales, some 6 million copies of the game are expected to find their way into homes, and a good proportion of those will be jumping online so their shouldn't be any shortage of players for both the PSN and Xbox Live gaming networks.

As I explained in the preview, there are more than a dozen multiplayer modes, which are available via Niko's cell phone. Most games will allow 16 players, and will include psychotic family favourites such as deathmatch and team deathmatch, Turf War and Race.

In addition to these, a range of 4-player co-op modes will make the cut, including Hangman's Noose, where you and three other gamers have to escort and protect a Mafia crim from the coppers. 

Here's the full multiplayer list:

Hangman's Noose
Car Jack City
Bomb da Base
Bomb da Base II
Mafia Work
Team Mafia Work
Deathmatch
Team Deathmatch
Turf War
Cops N Crooks
Race
GTA Race
Deal Breaker
Free Roam

As predicted, the multiplayer games are insanely fun, letting up to 16 players explore Liberty City and causing more havoc than Niko could ever achieve on his lonesome. 

Car Jack City is a fairly good place to start your online shenanigans, where players have to steal specific cars, and return them to a drop-off point as undamaged as possible. This is made all the more exciting by the cops who try to stop you.

The racing games are also pretty good, but the team-based games such as Cops N Crooks are some of the best, which often require tight team work to accomplish.

It's also a nice little touch that most multiplayer death match type games reward players for collecting loot, and not just straight up kills. 

This means once you've downed another player, you have to run over their body to collect the points. If you're miles away using rocket launchers, this can be made more difficult and means that campers will rarely win.

In multiplayer games you can also choose to play in a closed off section of Liberty City, or the entire thing, which is just incredible considering the amount of ground you can cover. Speeding along in a boat and being chased by a friend in a helicopter is a pretty cool moment, I can tell you.

While there's barely any difference between the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game in terms of visuals, gameplay, longevity and so forth, the Xbox version does get downloadable extras that extend the story further, which will be released down the track, sometime around August they say. Microsoft apparently paid big bucks for that exclusive content.

If there's anything negative to say about GTA4, it's that it's more of the same. 

If you've played any of the other Grand Theft Auto games you'll know exactly what to expect. 

That's not to say that GTA4 isn't one of the best games ever made - it is - but that previous games were also very good, and this is just bigger, better, more polished and more rewarding.

The future of vidoegaming has never looked brighter; Grand Theft Auto IV has single-handedly dealt a blow to all other entertainment industries: tourism, movies, music and possibly even adult entertainment. It will hold the attention of gamers, but also curious pop culturalists and much of societies mainstream for a long time to come. 

This game is better than good - it's stunning.

Grand Theft Auto 4 has been in development for more than four years and across two continents, Europe and America. It's a monumental game that will go down in the annals of not only gaming history, but cultural history as truly visionary and eminently interactive work of art. Highly recommended.

Game: Grand Theft Auto IV
System: Xbox 360
Players: 1-16
Online: Yes
Developer: Rockstar
Distributor: Take-Two

Rating: 95%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)