PHOTOS
Tucker Hottes
This week is like a nerd holiday week. IT and Web departments across the country, nay - the WORLD, are light-staffed, and hundreds of servers across the Internet are sagging under the weight of millions of geeks online at once. The event, my friends, is the release of one of the most highly anticipated games of the year, if not all time: Grand Theft Auto IV. Officially, the game was released Tuesday, but the lines started forming Monday night for midnight releases.
I was among those midnight crusaders, though I was decidedly NOT waiting in line with the masses. The lines were there, of course, but it was mostly those of you intrepid enough to pre-order and wait outside the small(er) retail stores like Gamestop and EBGames. I did drive past the two within a half mile of my house, just to check out the line (it was raining, you crazy mofos, and you were still out there! Props.).
With the game in-hand at approximately 12:05 a.m., I sped back home like so many others for a brief encounter with its wonders. For the perhaps two of you in the audience still not in the know, GTAIV is the latest in the controversial open-world series, and the first to hit the latest generation of consoles. It's also the first in the series to feature online multiplayer. While the media would have most believing that it's all just about killing hookers and cops, there's slightly more to the game than that. Granted, those elements are there, and you *do* take the role of a criminal, but, hey, there's a reason it's rated "M" for the 17+ audience. It's not my fault some retailers don't follow the rules, and some parents don't care, but that's a whole other set of arguments for at least three more columns. Let's stay focused, here, shall we?
In the game you take on the persona of Niko Bellic, a fresh-off-the-boat Serbian looking to start a better life in America in GTA's version of NYC, Liberty City. A brief intro shows Niko's cousin Roman hasn't exactly been forthcoming with his promises of riches and women. No matter, though, it's just a way to set up the ensuing main missions of running errands for gangsters, friends of Roman's, Roman himself, etc., etc. Arguably, those main missions are just the glue holding the game together while you explore and do whatever you feel like, not to mention the numerous side missions (like maintaining relationships with virtual girlfriends and other acquaintances - my second date, for example, didn't go so well. Apparently that chick likes bowling a lot more than a seedy cabaret).
GTAIV is a giant leap forward in the series in many ways, and there are hundreds of reviews by far more dedicated video game nerds than I detailing everything. I have to confess, while I casually played the PS2 releases of the GTA games on friends' systems, I was never that enamored. I couldn't get over the buggy targeting systems and frustratingly difficult, repetitive missions. That's all been fixed, for the most part, and the addition of multiplayer gives a new dimension that will keep the game interesting for people long after they've tired of the single-player mode (which, reports say, will take anywhere from 25-45 hours to complete).
I've played a scant few hours of the game to this point, but the nuances of it as well as the overall humor have me completely enthralled. Upon first hearing that one of the integral gameplay and plot devices is the character's cell phone, I was a little skeptical. The execution, however, is fantastic, and I kid you not when I say I spent a good 10 minutes changing ringtones and playing with the other settings. The level of detail in this game is crazy, and just about every time I've found myself wondering, "gee, I wonder if I can do this…" the answer is yes.
The impact of this game is going to be enormous, and with distributor Take-Two Interactive predicting sales in the 6-million range in the first week, it's undeniably going to make a big media splash. Get ready for the usual "oh my god, it's teaching kids to kill pedestrians" comments, because I can already hear the newscasters practicing their self-righteous concerned tones. It's a shame such a grand (no pun intended) showcase of interactivity and how to do gameplay "right" will get cast aside by many media outlets as just another violent game corrupting our youth, but at least those of us "in the know" will be enjoying the hell out of it until our eyes bleed.