Massively hyped games are the polar opposite of buses – you wait ages for them to arrive; they never, repeat never, turn up on time and when they eventually do they’re often not heading where you wanted to go in the first place.

Yeah, it's a lame analogy, but we were hoping – beyond hope, evidently – that the same wouldn’t be true of forthcoming smasheroos Crysis and Grand Theft Auto 4. Alas we have since found out it ain’t going to be so in either case as both have moved from their original expected release dates. Bah!

So what d’you want first, the good news or the bad? Well the bad news is that Rockstar’s epic GTA IV has been delayed due to “additional development time required to complete the title”, according to publishers Take Two. Ach, fair enough, we suppose. But very disappointing given that we were all-but promised that it would launch some time in mid-October. Instead, and notwithstanding any further delays, it’ll now hit the shelves until Q2 2008 which, as far as Take Two is concerned, ends in April. Curses!

And so to the watery grey lining of this story. PC killer-app Crysis has also slipped – ‘round about two months, in fact – but EA confirmed late last night that it’ll still launch this side of Xmas ’07. Heck, they’ve given specified a precise day, the cocky buggers. November 16th is your date with what promises to be some of the finest blasting action since, er, the last half-decent PC FPS came along. Now they really are like buses...