Some people have asked what took me so long to cover anything Grand Theft Auto IV related. Where’s the Top 10 Reasons to buy GTA? Where’s the GTA Preview? Haven’t you all gotten enough GTA preview buzz from just about every other website known to man?

Nevertheless, its time is now. I have had 2 nights to overwhelm myself with The Sims: GTA Edition and I’m ready to write. Let first say that Grand Theft Auto 2 was my favourite one in the series until Vice City showed up, and none of the others have really been that spectacular. This however does not imply that I wasn’t looking forward to Grand Theft Auto IV.

After a minor disappointment and not illegally receiving a copy on the Monday, I got the chance to sit down on Tuesday and play for pretty much all night. What are my initial impressions? Fun, funny, entertaining, deep, great game. What are some words that don’t initially come to mind? Spectacular, mind-blowing, best game we’ve ever seen. Don’t get me wrong, it is an excellent game with loads of detail. But is this the greatest thing since the Canada Day Umbrella Hat? Probably not.

I won’t bore anyone with “The game starts out with…” or “You can even do…” because that has pretty much been covered in every write-up or review for the last 12 months on any website. I will however cover a few things that have stood out to me.

Mini-Games: One of the items that I have been reading great things about are the sheer amount of mini-games (although usually not referred to as mini-games). These include the ability to find and date women, go play pool, play darts, watch a show and many more. I have to say these are neat/cool/fun/insert mad lib here. Its fun to call up my cousin and take him to the strip club no doubt. But on the other hand, I find it slightly annoying that as I progress and make

more and more “friends”, I’m constantly being pestered and asked to go hang out. Is it a good thing that I just feel bad because I’m turning them down over and over because the game is “so realistic”. Or is it just an annoying thing that I’m trying to play the game how I want to play it and I’m being harassed. I haven’t actually checked to see if turning them down affects my likability in their eyes but regardless… how about I call you when I want to hang out. Leave me alone.

Police: The best part about this game so far is how easy going the cops are. I can run red lights, speed, and get in to minor fender benders without worrying about catching the attention of the clone-like policemen. They’ll still get upset when I run someone over, steal a car, or get in to a serious accident - but that is expected. I’m glad I don’t have to be overly careful while just trying to play a game.

Television & Internet: Possibly one of the coolest and less talked about areas of GTAIV. You can literally sit down and watch TV instead of playing the game. Funny shows about American right-wing extremists, cartoons, stand-up comedy specials and even hilarious satirical news broadcasts. Fun and entertaining. I don’t know how much total content there is, but I’ve watched for maybe 90 minutes so far and haven’t had a repeat that wasn’t a commercial. Internet is similarly entertaining for the sole reason that there is no spyware. I finally opened a Viagra email and was able to satisfy my burning inner desire to see what their website looks like without the fear of trojans and PC slowdown. If you didn’t read already, you can also just spend time surfing the Internet 1995 style.

Accurate level of realism in strip clubs: Similar to my most recent experience in a strip club, one stripper lead me to believe that she was in fact going to hang out with me later in the evening - for a price. After the dance ended I spent around the same amount of time trying to walk in to the stripper mashing LB trying to somehow get her number in to my cell phone as I did in real life actually TRYING to call that lying bitch.

What I really wanted to cover was the Multiplayer. Sure its been covered time and time again, but I think its time for my opinion. The best part about this multiplayer is that it is the perfect counterpart to the single player. It gives you a quick 1-2 punch of fast paced short lived action. In other words, its a blast to play for short periods of time. I like to play a good few hours in the single player campaign then mix in a little MP at the end.

Multiplayer begins with you and your friends in a lobby-like area of Liberty City. You have a helicopter, some boats, a motorbike, some cars, and all the guns you want. While you and your friends decide what you play, you can get in one of those cars with a friend and go run a drive-by on your unsuspecting victim friend who just joined the lobby. Or maybe they deserve an AK-47 in the mouth.

After you’re ready you can join one of about 15 different modes. So far I’ve most enjoyed the Cops N Crooks game. In this game I was the leader on our team of 4 criminals. I could see all of the cops on the radar - as well as all of the escape routes, but unfortunately no one else on my team could see either. It was pretty exciting to pack all 4 of us in to an SUV in a mad dash attempt to reach our escape point. All the meanwhile me shouting “SERIOUSLY THEY ARE RIGHT BEHIND US… THEY ARE GAINING IM NOT EVEN JOKING” while the rest of my crew is yelling (mostly because we didn’t know who could see who on the radar) “WTF I CAN’T SEE ANYONE, I’M SHOOTING BLINDLY”. It was chaos, in a good way.

We also did a race, which just as what I read, turned out to be a lot more fun than I was expecting. Machine guns out the driver side window as I round the corner while watching my friends head explode in red as his face plasters forward in to the horn of his car and he skids off in to a lamp post was a blast.

Tested a few other modes such as multiplayer co-op, car jack city, and team deathmatch which were all pretty fun. The major issue with multiplayer is that it is the worst culprit of screaming 14 year old boys yelling OWNED BITCH OWNED SERIOUSLY WTF PWNED.

I will also add that the primary negative that I see for the multiplayer is that it seems like it would get old fast. This applies to both consecutive hours played in 1 night, as well as overall level of boredom.

All in all I think the game is well deserving of all of it’s praise. Unsure of if it deserves the 100% 10/10 reviews that seem to be running rampant - but it is worthy of a 90-95% in my books. I just hope I can play it out before Age of Conan comes out later this month or else I’ll be extremely overwhelmed.