Grand Theft Auto 4

French gaming site Jeuxactu played a five hour preview of GTA IV and have written their own review of the gameplay. After the wave of previews last week, not much of this may seem new, but here are some points worth mentioning:

* It took 5 years and 300 people to develop GTA IV.
* The smallest details have been taken into account, from non-working bulbs to newspapers flying in the wind.
* Peds live their lives like any other human. Law Enforcement Agencies will be checking papers, a businessman is walking faster than other peds, a woman is making a phone call in a phone booth, and so on.
* They talk about Liberty City being as big as San Andreas.
* Bodybuilding will no longer be in the game and you won't be able to make money by buying businesses anymore.
* If you commit a very serious crime, the army will be against you. You'll see heavily armed soldiers.
* By keeping good relationships, Niko may have some clues for future missions.
* According to the website, it'll take 60 to 70 hours to complete the game.
* Italians, Puerto Ricans, Russians, Jamaicans, Chinese Triad and Mafia are some of GTAIV's gangs.
* It might take more than one try to start a car or a motorbike.


The total time of gameplay in GTA IV has been given some contradictory reports. In 2007 previews reported that it would take 130+ hours, the later previews reported that it'll require 100 hours, while this one states 60 to 70 hours - we can't be quite sure of the actual timing, so take this information for what it's worth.

Recent releases from Rockstar Games have indicated that the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV will be region locked. The news is a bad sign for those living in areas where titles are normally delivered later or where video games carry a high premium.

Microsoft's console employs a system which allows game publishers to choose whether they wish their titles to be locked to a single region. Rockstar Games' only released title on the platform so far, Table Tennis, is locked to the region in which it is purchased. The company's next game for the console, Bully: Scholarship Edition, was today confirmed by VideoGamesPlus to have suffered the same fate.

All titles for Sony's PlayStation 3 are region-free, although many retailers refuse to send PlayStation titles to the European Union for legal reasons.

EGM Live has released a podcast today talking about GTA IV. They say some very good things about the game in it.

* "My God. I was just blown away."
* When discussing worries some people had about the PS3 version, the editors stated this: "I think we can all say the PS3 version is pretty damn good."
* "I was standing in the Times Square equivalent firing rockets everywhere and like pouring rain and things exploding and the [framerate] doesn't slow down."
* They discussed how real the rain looks and how it doesn't look fake at all. "It's not just a bunch of drops falling in a pattern. It feel like weather."
* They discussed how different each area looked in the game and how "each district of the city felt so different."
* When asked if they felt like this new Liberty City feels like the old one from Grand Theft Auto III, the editor said that one part reminded him of the starting point from the old game known as the Red Light District. He called it Hepburn Heights, but he may have made a mistake. Overall though, he said it felt new and not like the old game.
* "Every square inch [of Liberty City] feels different" than other parts of the city.
* They explained that the framerate isn't "silky-smooth" but it's not noticably bad.
* The editors talked about using molotov cocktails.
* The editors believe that the controls will be the "biggest sticky point" in terms of what reviewers will complain about when the game is reviewed in April. "The shooting is good but it won't redefine it."
* The editors talked about how they used a Hummer which is most likely a Patriot.
* One of the EGM players crashed into an edge of a bridge and flew out of the windshield 30 feet down and died.
* "I picked up a cellphone and I called 911 and a cop comes to answer the call. He gets out and talks to people." Then he stole the cop car and pulled up the police database where you can search by name or search by picture. They searched by name and cycled through hundreds of dossier pictures and profiles. They find two results and get the addresses and carry out the mission.
* "I actually was really surprised how much I liked Niko right away."
* "The writing in this game is so freakin' good, top notch and believable."
* They discussed how much they know they will care about the stories and characters in the game and how important that is.

The new issue of the Official Xbox Magazine contained a new hands-on preview of GTA IV with a some new details, as well as this new screenshot of Niko handling a rocket launcher.

* In a dense neighborhood, there will be yellow lines at the curb adjacent to your safehouse that will save your car's placement. This works in place of safehouse garages.
* The traffic is realistically dense.
* Check your money supply at ATMs.
* Girlfriends will work similarly to in how you dated them in San Andreas, but it will be taken to a deeper level.
* You can eat a hot dog from a vendor to heal yourself, but if you bump his cart he will become angry and refuse you service.
* There is an ice-cream truck called Cherry Popper. (the name of the ice cream business in Vice City)
* Refusing to pay a toll at a bridge could get the police involved
* There will be some character platforming elements such as shimmying along a roof's edge to climb to the top.
* You can call up Little Jacob at any time and he will arrive with a trunk full of weapons.
* Niko will not wear the full-face helmet when riding a chopper bike.

With PlayStation Magazine's new preview of GTA IV comes a new screenshot of Niko in the subway and these extra details.

* Entering an unlocked borough will instantly put the player on a 5-star wanted level and the fiction behind this is, Niko doesn't have a naturalization papers and is considered as a terrorist threat.
* Pedestrians seemingly have thousands of lines of dialogue
* When asked about how the game begins, VP of development Jeronimo Barrera says, "It sets up your position as an immigrant."
* The cast of characters is guesstimated at being in the hundreds by Barrera.
* Barrera states "We want this game to last for years. I'm sure we'll do another GTA some time in the future, but this one is built to last." They also mention that the PS3 will most likely have their own form of DLC as well.
* Any problems with the PS3 version have been addressed and fixed. Sony tech. was there to help.
* The euphoria engine goes as far as Niko actually stepping up onto a curb and onto a dead body (think Captain Morgan's pose).
* Shots can penetrate some walls.
* Knife: "one slash across the face was enough to drop a bad guy"
* Firetrucks are confirmed. In the preview they state that they set a car on fire, called 911 for a firetruck, and when the firetruck arrived they stole it and drove down the street shooting the water cannon.

Australian gaming website, Gameplayer, has posted a huge 10 page article on their hands-on time with GTA IV. No big new information is revealed, however, it is all described in great amounts of detail. Here's their summarization of details from the end of the article, some you may find new or interesting:

* Explosions are extremely robust and pretty. When we shot down the helicopter, the ball of flame lit up our screen and made a thundering bang before being swallowed in a cloud of black smoke.
* Car damage is quite awesome, from bullet holes in the windscreen, to popped tyres sending sparks flying into the air and damaged bonnets flipping overhead at speed to go spiraling into the crowd.
* In the mission to Live and Die in Alderney, Frankie could have died. We were under no obligation to protect him and had the A.I got lucky he may have expired. This would have affected future dialogue streams, but not the mission. So characters can die if chance doesn’t favor them and the game is prepared to deal with such an event.
* There are so many dialogue streams in this game it is unbelievable. You can learn so much about the characters just from the way they talk shit to each other when nothing else is doing.
* Jacob the Jamaican pot dealer’s accent is so thick and munted you can barely understand a word the dude is saying.
* Niko was offered drugs twice in our play through, but denied them on both occasions.
* We caught a brief glimpse of one of the safe houses in the game. You can change your outfit there should you please, although the options are based on what Niko would realistically wear (i.e. no chicken suits).
* During the mission Harboring a Grudge we engaged in a massive shoot-out down at the docks. It occurred during a thunderstorm. The rain looked quite awesome as it bucketed down, but it was the lightning that was most memorable. As it cracks a flash rattles through the whole world, throwing its own weight behind at atmosphere already encouraged by the bursts of fire coming from everywhere and the environment falling to bits under the combat.
* There is a definite shift in skill level of the A.I as you go up the chain of the law. Get caught in the open while fighting the Feds and expect a head-shot.
* When you die, the screen fades to black and white and the camera shifts to a first-person view of your final resting place – it is quite affecting, and again, not a small bit cinematic.
* A big head-on crash will cause you to go flying out of the windscreen to serious injury and possibly death: Niko ain’t got time for seatbelts.
* Jumping out of a moving car can create a truly awesome ragdoll/Euphoria effect that makes Saints Row’s insurance scam missions look like a piss-weak joke. We wasted a good ten minutes just laughing our arse off driving into busy areas at full pace and then bailing out the door.
* Niko likes the ladies.


You can check out the whole article here: GTA IV Hands-On: The Verdict on How it Plays.

EDGE Magazine's April 2008 issue comes packed with a 16 page article on "The Making of Grand Theft Auto", with its main focus on, of course, GTA IV. The article goes rather in-depth, providing some interesting new details on the game, as well as several new screenshots and new/"complete" versions of artwork. Included in this big batch of new images was a wireframe birds-eye shot of Firefly Island, Liberty City's take on Coney Island

* In GTA IV there are strip joints and, more unexpectedly, comedy clubs , which have been incorporated in a manner that is "enough to make your head spin." Edge aren't allowed to say anything else about it at the moment.
* Jets and planes fly through the airport, and have visible pilots inside them. The tester drove alongside a jet, only to have a 4-star wanted level appear!
* One encounter face-to-face with a cop got the response: "I'm a cop... and you're a dickhead!"
* On the subject of multiplayer... Houser wasn't able to go into much detail, but he did mention being able to get together online in the game with no other goal other than to use it as a meeting place: "I'll meet you in a car and we'll hang and just drive and listen to music, chilling in the car, with your 3D model sat next to me," he says.
* The car paint jobs are noticable from newer cars being gleaming and spotless, to old cars being rusted and dull.
* Bulletholes are permanent, as is dirt on the cars, unless you take it over to the car wash.
* Interior walls can be greatly damaged, "ripping chunks out of the plaster with gunfire."
* Corpse Ride, obviously a ghost train-esque ride, quite a large building next to the liberty eye
* The rollercoaster seen in trailer 1 is not visible, which perhaps means the park is larger than what is seen in the screen
* The rides themselves definitely look accessible, perhaps can ride them for dating etc.