PITY video game players under age 17, the cutoff to purchase and play "mature" rated games. And weep for gamers with high moral standards who turn their nose up at games with lax ethics.
They'll miss out on one of the best gaming experiences of all time.
Amazingly, the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV, which comes out today, manages to live up to its monumental hype. It shows the world the amount of depth that is possible with the technology of the current generation of game systems. While some might argue that games as morally bankrupt as the Grand Theft Auto series are leading to the demise of society, those who can appreciate decency-eschewing escapism will find nothing better than this one.
Fresh off a boat from Eastern Europe, Niko Bellic arrives to find a world of crime and opportunity in the vast metropolis of Liberty City, complete with endless roads, numerous buildings and thousands of vehicles ready for him to, uh, liberate. Niko hits the streets to chase the "American dream" by beating, crashing and shooting his way to success. It's a savage, animalistic kind of fun.
This re-imagined version of Liberty City is a lot closer to the real New York than its predecessor, 2001's groundbreaking GTA III, creator of sandbox-style video gaming. ("Sandbox," or "open world," gaming features nonlinear stories with numerous missions and events to be played in any order the gamer chooses. Often duplicated in titles as diverse as the futuristic Crackdown to the comical Simpsons Hit and Run, GTA III changed gameplay forever.) There has never been a sandbox so massive and detailed as this one.
Besides the New York-inspired landmarks, what also separates this Liberty City from the last incarnation is the amount of people wandering the streets. In the older version, there was maybe a person or two every few blocks. Here, the streets are littered with an entire population made up of disgruntled citizens. (Pick a fight with one and beware: Others might join the donnybrook and turn the tide in their favor.)
GTA IV is also a lot more realistic than past titles. Here, the real-life-inspired cars (such as Hummers, Hondas and Corvettes) drive more authentically, the inevitable crashes are more accurate (cars dent and people fly through the air upon impact) and there aren't a lot of weapons lying around in easy-to-find places.
