Features// Pocket Plays GTA IV Multi-Player

We track our foe to a street corner using the GPS system in the menu screen, and take out a few gangbangers (always makes me feel a little woozy when that term’s used). The other team is hot on our heels and screeches around the corner, distracting us just as the last gang members run for it down alleys. I sprint after them, executing them in fine style, before the phone icon pops up again and I'm given the next task.

I find Petrovich really difficult to understand over the ironic strains of One Love and bullet whistles, except for the fact that he seems a little sexually frustrated. So, I opt to wait and read the subtitles instead. For this mission we have to seek out a shipment of vending machines and destroy them.

There are loads of variations on this game plan, and we play a few ten minute games, each comprising of several missions before our dollars are added up and the winning team’s announced. I am very lucky that you still get a (small) fee for killing because I fail to complete any of the assignments. I do play my part, albeit that of the vocally threatening but inconsequential goon, peering over the shoulder of JLR or one of the other boys. “Yah bedder whatch oud. Yes indeed.”

At which point we retire for a spot of lunch, a chance to pick our rep's brain in detail and meet the first of the Rockstars – David – who is a broad-grinned six-footer wearing a Ping-Pong tee that makes my heart flutter (awesome game for stoners!).

I also get to meet the other lucky journos who’ve come for today’s gaming and quickly realise that they are much less giddy than I am about the situation – though just as impressed by the game experience. Everybody vies for the Rockstars' attentions with, from the other reporters, quickfire questions and surreptitious attempts on a scoop, quickly augmented with “Ooh, you’re not giving away anything!”.

I’d like to tell you how cool we SPOnG writers were. And maybe I could, but certainly the overall impression would then be false. JLR asked insightful and genuinely interested questions without trying to encroach on their positions whilst I scoffed bacon butties and scratched notes in my little pad until there was a pause in the conversation and our Rockstar rep accompanied me outside for a cig. Bless him. Doesn’t even smoke. What a guy!

So, what did I glean? It was confirmed that the game modes are all finished and are identical on the PS3 and 360 versions. Co-op is playable in the multi-player mode, like we’ll be doing later, but it’s not a full story like the single-player is. The rating’s all sorted in the UK as an 18 but the problems in Australia are far from over. Despite what certain toolish analysts might have indicated on certain webcasts, the release date is DEFINITE.

There was even a large digital countdown clock flashing the number of hours, minutes and seconds until release in reception next to the multiple fop-haired gold faces of BAFTA awards.

The lag, which we have been so impressed by the lack of, has been searched for across continents and hasn’t been seen as a problem, apart from in a few cases where the cops function is on – but they’re working on ironing this out.

Good, good news is that Rockstar is not ruling out adding new games to the impressive list already completed and ready for the public - but this certainly won’t be too soon. The Rockstars then listen with polite and apparently genuine interest as JLR starts suggesting types that could be added – impressing me both with his imagination and the almost visible bursting sparks around his head.