Previews// Grand Theft Auto IV

Before I take you to Rockstar’s Kings Road HQ in London for Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360 in a large dark room with the controller in my hand, you should know that I don’t particularly like the Grand Theft Auto series.

So, why the hell did I send me to get SPOnG’s first hands-on of the game that – Halo 3 and World of Warcraft expansion packs aside – is the biggest gaming release so far this century?

Simple reasons:

First up, there was a chance that the people who have seen it so far are the same kind of people who – because of their emotional investment - made themselves believe that Star Wars Episodes 1 to 3 weren’t heart-drilling chimeras.

{ The control in GTA IV is remarkably easy to get used to, even for a man more used to controlling PES players than targeting pistols while driving fast and talking on a mobile phone. }

I have no emotional investment in the GTA series.

Secondly, US-facing, car-driving, national stereotyping, gun-shooting, lowest common denominator, creatively deadended franchise extensions are guaranteed to draw my ire.

{ The way that the main character, Niko Bellic, is actually worth spending time with if only for his insouciant outlook on the turmoil that surrounds every step he takes or every corner he drags his car around, is amazingly immersive. }

Thirdly, ‘Missions’!? If I wanted to take orders, I would have joined the bloody army and not got a career that entails doing for a living what most other people consider a golden pastime to be treasured before the daily grind once again intercedes bringing them one step closer to a grateful death. Jesus, it’s not a difficult bloody concept. As far as I can see, all this ‘Mission’ nonsense is just another way to enforce conformity.

{ Like Burnout Paradise – which I love - the missions in GTA IV appear to be there for you to enjoy rather than simply to steer you in one direction, to the end of the game. Okay, I’m aware that, like the aforementioned BoP, if you don’t complete missions in GTA IV you won’t get true value from the game. Fine! For me, simply tooling about Liberty City, swapping cars and radio stations, looking at the lovingly (yes, it’s a cliché!) produced urbanity of this pseudo New York (and Brighton, Sussex) is a downright pleasure in an of itself. }

Fourthly, game graphics, I mean, all this HD… 1080p… 720b… 498b, graphical renderation on a cross-pixellated-base with tempura-ring marred by scrotcherized screen tear and bloody arghhghgh! Like the plot makes the movie, the energy makes the song, it’s the game-play that makes the game. I sent myself to see GTA IV because so much over so long has been said about Grand Theft Cocking Auto IV’s graphics that I was going to be see for myself.