Game of the Decade?

Grand Theft Auto IV is in a word....wow.

I have been playing the GTA series since the very first one. Yep, the PC version with all its two-dimensional glory was quite fun to play over a homegrown TCP/IP network and the 2.5D GTA 2 upped the anti with real internet support. GTA III made things even better but ever since then multiplayer has been missing...but I'll get to that in a few paragraphs.

What GTA: San Andreas did for massiveness in its recreation of Los Angeles, San Fransisco and Las Vegas GTA IV does for depth in its remake of New York and New Jersey. Sometimes while playing this game I lose myself in it and forget that I'm playing a game. It recreates modern day life with all its electronics and constant communication that although it is a "sandbox game" it feels much like reality.

People communicate with you by calling your cell phone, text messaging, and email. Missions are activated this way and sometimes people just want to hang out/date. While you're hanging out with male buddies or dating girls the conversations are that witty/hilarious GTA stuff that is a hallmark of the modern day series (GTA 3 and up). You can play darts, billiards, bowling and various other forms of recreation.

And I haven't even talked about the main game yet!

If you've never played or heard of Grand Theft Auto the basic premise is that you are a poor guy trying to make it in the big city through any means necessary. So inevitably you come across the Mob (Italian and Russian, in this case) along with all kinds of other corrupt individuals including a police chief and your own cousin who has his lots of financial "problems".

In GTA IV you are a Serbian named Niko Bellic who is literally right off the boat when the game starts. From there you are trying to live the American dream and are thrown into the craziness that is Liberty City.

There is a story to be played but you don't ever have to complete it if you don't want to. In fact you can turn your cell phone, which is a central part of the game (just like it's now a central part of many American's lives), into Standby mode so that no one bothers you as you explore the islands and do whatever you want around the area.

Thanks to the new generation of gaming hardware the graphics and sound quality are much improved over the past versions of GTAs that needed to accomodate the older systems. The audio quality is superb and ever little thing that can be smashed with your vehicle makes a different sound. Pedestrians speak to you when you blow your horn at them or try to run them over. If you brush up against them they yell at you and you'll rarely see a similar face/body the next block over unlike in the older games. GTA IV has taken realism to new levels.

Some like it, some hate it. I'm speaking of the new vehicle/driving physics. They are much more realistic and each different vehicle you "borrow" has a different feel. The trash truck is slow and clunky while the Dodge Viper wannabe can speed through the streets and take turns like nobodies business. When on a motorcycle gravity has its way and it feels like you're on that bike. When I'm messing around and decide I want to run straight into a wall my body tenses up because the sense of speed is just there! To go along with the much more mature/realistic feel of GTA IV it only makes sense to make the driving much more true-to-life.

The new Euphoria physics adds even more realism to the game. Every other game out there uses what's known as ragdoll physics to simulate how a body will react to different stimuli. The problem is the engine doesn't change...which is not how things happen in real life. The Euphoria engine solves this by creating animations on the fly...so you may never see the same two animations ever. So when you hit someone going 60 mph and they fly into the air it will be different everytime. VERY cool stuff! (Sorry if I sound sadistic but violence is a very important element of the game).

The water physics in this game are stellar. Water actually looks and reacts like real water now! If you speed past a boat or go past it head-on you will go over its wake. The light reflections look amazing and were very impressive! I haven't been so impressed with water since Waverace 64 on the Nintendo 64.

In the old GTA games characters would speak but did not move their mouths. Now not only are their lips moving but people move their hands about and their facial expressions change depending on what/how they're saying something. With all these minute details put into the game its no wonder it cost $100 million+ to produce this game.

I could go on and on about the hours and hours of entertainment you can get from the radio stations, TV shows and everything else but I don't want to give everything away in my review. Lets just say I've been put over 45 hours into the game and still have over 40% left to complete. I've been playing a lot of the side missions and just messing around the city in general!

Remembered that multiplayer thing I talked about earlier? It's finally back! And it was definitely not an after thought...thank you Rockstar! There are tons of modes to play including Rainbow Six type missions, deathmatch, free mode Turf Wars (a king of the hill type mode) and my favorite Cops N Crooks. So if the single player stuff isn't enough for you GTA IV multiplayer will have you playing into the wee hours of the night. The menu system/adminstration needs a bit of work because sometimes teams get stacked for reasons unknown but its a lot of fun but a bit laggy at times. For such a huge game I'm surprised there's not MORE lag.

Now, here are the negatives:

Missions vary from easy as pie to frustratingly hard. If I had one wish it would be for mission checkpoints. Thanks for the quick mission restarts but for those LOOOONG missions check points would have been a very welcome addition to this already stellar game. Maybe next time, eh?

The targetting/stealth controls can be annoying. You'll want to target an enemy but it will switch to a pedestrian. Then you're dead. Or you'll have to hide behind THAT side of hte pillar but it will put you on the side where you're exposed to enemy fire. LAME!

I often hear the same songs on the radio. Looking through the track listing in the game manual there are plenty of songs that I have yet to hear. San Andreas was much better in this respect, for whatever reason.

GTA IV is an awesome fast-drivin', prostitute ridin', machine gun sluggin', dead body luggin' thrill ride that is not to be missed BY MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY!!!!