Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto has, over the years, come to be known as much more than just a videogame series. Not in the sense that Mario the Plumber and Sonic the Hedgehog have come to be franchised intellectual properties, their faces selling everything from lunchboxes to movies to magazines. Rather, GTA’s baggage is of a more ideological variety. Thanks to the irrepressibly controversial settings, tasks and violence, the brand has acquired a heavy kind of infamy: poster boy for videogame aggression everywhere and the threat of teen gaming addicts turning teen murderers.

In fact, the GTA series has been embroiled in so many scandals, legal proceedings and smear campaigns over the years that it’s easy to forget that, at it’s heart, this excellent set of videogames simply focuses on the story of a down-on-his-luck lead character who gets caught up with the wrong people while trying to find a way out of poverty. That’s not to say that some of the tasks you’re asked to perform in the game aren’t morally, um, grey, but much like The Godfather or Goodfellas, the criminal sure supplies a good framework for a story (for players of the appropriate age, natch).

Grand Theft Auto 4 is actually the tenth game in the series and bears all of the family hallmarks described above. We’ve not got an exact release date other than knowing it will arrive somewhere between February and April and is set in a redesigned Liberty City, a place that bears more than a passing resemblance to modern day New York. Liberty City consists of five boroughs also pulled from real life locations: Broker is the GTA4equivalent of Brooklyn, Manhattan is now called Algonquin, Queens is now Dukes, the Bronx is Bohan, and New Jersey is Alderney. Expect to drive your stolen car around GTA-stylised sites such as the Statue of Liberty, Times Square and Central Park.

These areas provide a backdrop to GTA’s well-loved gameplay structure that is based upon a gigantic list of missions which must be undertaken as you take your character up the ranks of the city’s criminal underworld. In GTA4 this character is the recognisable Nikolai "Niko" Bellic, an Eastern European man in his early thirties. He has arrived in Liberty City in search of the American Dream having been enticed there by his cousin Roman. Of course, on arrival it turns out that cousin Roman isn’t leading the life of leisure and pleasure he implied and is instead heavily in debt and in need of Niko’s help. From these humble beginnings it’s your job to carry out tasks as you help hoist your family up the ranks of the criminal underworld.

With the elimination of load times and a host of new actions with which to interact with the world this is a game that is shaping up to defy criticisms that it will be just more of the same. Unquestionably the biggest game of this spring check back here in the coming months to find out if it’s been worth the wait and if it can defy its critics to provide more than just another incredulous headline.