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by Luke Ibbetson
 In
my lifetime alone, games have evolved at a ridiculously fast rate; gone
are the bleeping days of Space Invading and Pacmania, leaving us now to
be faced with an ever evolving world where we can walk down a digital
street practically identical to one in New York City.
Of course, Grand Theft Auto has had its fair share of negative press due
to its violent nature, with lots of media sources claiming violent games
make a violent mind; an ‘I play therefore I am’, kind of thing.
But this is inherently not the case, especially in this recent
instalment of the GTA series.
You get a lot more than explosions and murder.
You play as Niko, an immigrant new to Liberty City who was drawn there
due to his cousin Roman’s over-exaggerated letters of “living the
American dream”.
Upon realising these letters are slightly fabricated, Niko becomes
sucked into the seedy underground world of drugs, money and good old
fashion car theft.
In contrast to all this, Niko is not some mindless killing machine
riddled with clichés; the character questions his lifestyle choice
throughout and is conscious of what is right and wrong. He is constantly
trying to escape but repeatedly gets pulled back in, and these questions
of morality are then projected onto the game player, like you’re some
sort of video-game God.
The storyline of the game is sublime, you feel like you are living some
sort of second life, a much more entertaining and compelling life than
your own of course. This is all complimented with graphics so realistic
I occasionally thought that I was watching Americas Best Car Chases.
The rich texture and detail is so immersive it actually borders on
beauty at times.
The game play is by itself a lot like every other GTA game; nothing has
massively changed there, but this is not a bad thing, after all that was
always the thing that made it such a good game in the first place.
I guess the only criticism of the game is that it’s too addictive, like
a drug it had me waking up in the middle of the night craving one last
hit; I skipped family events to be with it and forgot about friend’s
birthdays. It’s safe to say I have isolated myself from the people who
love and care about me for a videogame.
But damn, it was worth it.
Platforms: X-box 360, Playstation 3
Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar Games, Capcom
Recommended link:
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www.rockstargames.com/IV/
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