It's here, the gaming phenomenon of the 21st century. The only game that might dethrone Halo 3's epic first week sales.

Did anybody besides me and Noel get the game? It is indeed excellent, maybe not as much as the hype builds it up. But it's a completely different GTA, a modern videogame with all the fixings. I kept trying to tell myself I didn't like it as much as I thought, until I stayed up 13 consecutive hours playing.

The story and dialogue are the best part for me. I'll do things like take my cousin drinking just to hear what he has to say about the latest situation. My fav characters so far are Little Jacob and Brucie.

The best part is the real world commentary. You can sit and watch the Weezl network, a very very obvious parody on Fox, and catch the latest terrorism scares or feel good news stories. At the start of the game, your experience is limited to the first of three islands, because the other islands are closed due to a terror threat. If you should make the mistake of ramming the police barricade, you'll get an instant six star (max) wanted rating. After all, you're now obviously a terrorist. Little touches like that make me grin.

Of course it wouldn't be GTA without the controversy. This version includes drunk driving, which has MADD all up in arms, wanting the game rebranded AO. Unfortunately, they failed to actually play the game. Driving drunk is HARD, basically impossible to do it without hitting a lot of things, like other vehicles, barriers, people, etc. Also, the cops will come right after you if you're spotted driving erratically, even if you don't commit a crime in front of them, which makes it that much more difficult. Seems pretty accurate to me, and an effective deterrent.

Lastly, something useful: a Liberty City map powered by Google.

Awaken, my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright. Know that I am the Overmind, the eternal will of the swarm, and that you have been created to serve me.

They took out the BMX bikes. Screw GTA 4. (Nah actually the multiplayer looks amazingly fun. I'll play it sometime.)

"Hey, you! If you meet a beautiful, seductive woman who's looking for me, tell her 'hi.' Anyway, I don't think a woman like that would be looking for me." -Guy in Fourside Hotel

They took out a lot of things, actually. I think it cleaned the game up significantly and made it more streamlined. The RPG element of raising stats from San Andreas is gone completely, your skills at the start of the game will appear to be the same at the end too. There does seem to be less vehicles in general, but the ones they do have are all unique and handle differently. There's almost no property to purchase, and not as many stores. But the content and depth is still there, it's just not as crazy. You'll never lack for things to do in the game that's for sure.

I've only put a tiny amount of time into the multi. I'm having difficulty staying connected for a full match, but I think that's just the live service throwing a fit right now.

Awaken, my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright. Know that I am the Overmind, the eternal will of the swarm, and that you have been created to serve me.

Yeah, the live service is going nuts. Most of the time I have difficulty connecting to games, but once I'm in I'm usually set.

At first I was sad that they took some vehicles out(I thought I heard mention of a tank that you can get in one of the modes), but it definitely did "Clean it up" abit. I don't mind not having those vehicles considering I never used them anyways, specifically the BMX, that was fun for about ten minutes.

While I love the singleplayer, I definitely appreciate the multiplayer far more. Almost all of the gamemodes are hilarious in some form or another when you're playing with a large group.

Prime example would be when we were playing Cop's N' Crooks(You try and kill the entire crook team or their mobboss to win) and I was on the cops side and we were all piled into a single patrol car(4 people). So I went speeding down the road, and I missed a turn alittle too much, smashed into the edge of a concrete barrier, which launched the car up into the air where it proceeded to start spinning around, and rolling through the air, we landed flat on our tires and continued on towards the crooks, I'm pretty certain we won that round.

"I'm not a whore, I don't even know her." - somedrunk girl in browns court.

While I like the "cleaner" style, I can't help but think Rockstar pulled a "Madden" on us. Stripping a game down for the new generation seems to be standard now...I'm sure the next GTA will include "brand new" features such as car customization, and taxi missions.

Yousefer Blogged

Having beaten the game, and done a lot of the side missions/extra content, I don't know how one could consider GTAIV "stripped down". I put over 40 hours into this game completing the main story element, and I'm playing a second time to see the outcomes of some alternate choices.

Get all the achievements and then get back to me. There's more than enough game here, and crying about features that were mostly pointless is, well, just that.

Awaken, my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright. Know that I am the Overmind, the eternal will of the swarm, and that you have been created to serve me.

lol, mutant.

"No More Heroes is a really great game. A very amazing game. I think No More Heroes is a great game, there's no other action game like it for the Wii. If it was a band, it would be really energetic, like the Arctic Monkeys." - SUDA 51

I was going to defend the artwork, until I saw this.

Looks like their resident artist just goes finger happy now and then.

Awaken, my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright. Know that I am the Overmind, the eternal will of the swarm, and that you have been created to serve me.

Hah, the first one could have passed, but that second one is quite obvious. Poor guy will never work in the industry again after this!

"Hey, you! If you meet a beautiful, seductive woman who's looking for me, tell her 'hi.' Anyway, I don't think a woman like that would be looking for me." -Guy in Fourside Hotel

I've beaten the game twice now, and while the achievements are fun to get, they have no impact on the game...compared to San Andreas, it just feels like there is a lot missing. Maybe the downloadable content will be that missing content?

Yousefer Blogged