Grand Theft Auto IV Preview

 

The Gist
You are Niko Bellic, an Eastern European transplant who's duped by his cousin into thinking he'll make millions by moving to America. After arriving in Liberty City, modeled after New York, Niko finds out that his cousin's American dream—filled with sports cars, mansions, and other objects of splendor—is actually his small taxi business, where he wants Niko to work.

What You Already Know
GTA IV uses Rockstar's patented RAGE engine, which produced the ultra-detailed character models and environments in Table Tennis. We could show you a million screen shots and videos of the game play—and we do, look down—but take it from us: If you've never been to New York, GTA IV is your $60 ticket to the most beautiful fake city ever created. Other things to look forward to:

Improved shooting that finally allows you to take cover during gunfights instead of running for your life after taking down a target, as in San Andreas

Dynamic weather and lighting, ensuring every mission will look different every time you play it

Each car has its own steering and suspension quirks, which degrade as you run over lampposts, stop signs, and pedestrians

As with previous GTAs, there will be fake everything. Our current favorite is an ad for Liberty City's beer of choice, Pisswasser

Nine different online modes have already been announced, with support for up to 16 players

The Rockstar Social Club, allowing you to check GTA IV's leaderboards, your achievements, and other accomplishments directly from Rockstar's Web site

All of Liberty City is open for use in online play, ensuring that any chaos caused in single player makes its way to Xbox Live and the PSN


What You May Not Know
A hallmark of Rockstar's games is the amount of detail and added value given to things ordinarily ignored. For example, when you jack a police car, you can look up the rap sheets of all known criminals in the game, yourself included. Hopping in the backseat of a cab allows you to go where you need to without the fuzz all up in your business. But that's the least of what surprised us:

 Much like Al Gore, the game's developers created their own Internet. We won't spill specifics, but expect many spoofs of your favorite blogs and Web sites

Lazlow Jones, GTA's resident DJ, recently revealed another tidbit: "There are liberal and conservative news sources, so you can...compare how they covered the same event." SOX News vs. CBNSM here we come!

Over 80,000 lines of dialogue yield over eight days of expletive-laced conversations without a single duplicate line

Calling ZIT-555-0100 on your in-game cell phone allows you to find out the track and artist for any of the hundreds of songs in the game. If you're signed up for the Rockstar Social Club, the game will automatically create a playlist and allow you to buy the tracks on Amazon.com

There are a bunch of hidden areas we don't want to spoil for you, but you're in for a chuckle or two when you do find them. Several are quite heart-pounding! 

         

What Do We Think?
If you haven't preordered GTA IV yet, we hope you have fun playing the other games dropping on April 29. Kawasaki Snowmobiles and Let's Pilates—really?

CHECK OUT ALL FOUR OF GTA IV'S TRAILERS:

"Things Will Be Different"	"Looking for That Special Someone"
"Move Up, Ladies"	"Everyone's a Rat"

OTHER