Friday the 13th is a day which is usually associated with misfortune. This year, Friday the 13th falls just a day after Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots’ release day. Is it really that much of a misfortune? Not so for PlayStation 3 owners, that is.

MGS4: Guns of the Patriots

You can certainly argue that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the biggest PlayStation 3 exclusive video game release to date, just like the Xbox 360’s own Halo 3. But does Metal Gear Solid 4 live up to the hype? Clearly, it does.

I’m sure many of you who are reading this have already read a great deal about this PlayStation 3 exclusive title, whether you’re a PlayStation 3 owner or not. I can’t really share the happiness of Metal Gear Solid 4’s release with you PlayStation 3 owners, because I don’t own a PlayStation 3. However, as a gamer, I’ve got to dedicate today’s post to Hideo Kojima’s great work.

Metal Gear Solid 4 would be very worth purchasing if you have already gotten a PlayStation 3 console, but it is also a really good deal as a console-game bundle. If you’re deciding wther to get it, the reviews speak for themselves. It sales might not beat Grand Theft Auto IV’s, but it’s still worth trying out!

Xbox 360 doing well, more coming up

The NPD market research group has released its May retail sales data, and Xbox 360 continues to lead the current generation of gaming consoles. It is noted that the Grand Theft Auto IV sales “continues blistering pace” on the Xbox 360, beating the PlayStation 3 version by a ratio of 2:1.

It is also stated that the Xbox 360 generates more dollars at retail for third party publishers and that Xbox 360 games outsell and outplay the competition. Among 10-26 year olds, it is also found that the Xbox 360 gets more playing time than the Wii and PS3.

Microsoft also confirmed the video games to be showcased at this year’s E3, listing Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Halo Wars, Too Human and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise as its first-party offering for the Holiday season.

Crysis Warhead coming to the PC this fall

EA and Crytek have officially announced “Crysis Warhead”, which is currently in development. It will be “a parallel story” to Crysis to be developed by Crytek’s Budapest studio using an optimized version of the CryEngine 2 technology.

Crysis Warhead will unfold from the eyes of Sergeant Sykes, nicknamed “Psycho,”. He learns that “life on the other side of the island is even more intense and explosive than they ever could have imagined.”

Crytek president and CEO, Cevat Yerli, found the original Crysis’ reception by gamers and the media to be quite pleasing, but noted to the studio’s intention to raise the bar with Crysis Warhead. “With Warhead, we are focusing on refining our storytelling and game performance, while also delivering more of the visually stunning graphics and immersive, free-roaming gameplay everyone loved in Crysis,” he said.

Crysis Warhead debuts this fall, expected to come with new weapons, more vehicles and more multiplayer content. It is expected to be a hit just like it’s predecessor. More information will be released on the game closer to its launch, so stay tuned!

So, here’s the end of our Friday the 13th Video Games update! Click here for Grand Theft Auto news if you need any of it to curb your video game needs, or check out the various sections over at the sidebar! Stay tuned for more Grand Theft Auto and Video Game news!

Jokos Roadtrip video parodies Grand Theft Auto IV

MTV Germany has done a parody of Grand Theft Auto IV’s European Grand Theft Auto IV TV advertisement for one of their upcoming TV shows, “Jokos Roadtrip”. It is in the same style and uses the same song as the Grand Theft Auto IV advertisement.

The songs used in both trailers in mention is called “Get Innocuous” by LCD Soundsystem which can be found on the Radio Broker station in Grand Theft Auto IV. You can listen to the full song and watch the original Grand Theft Auto IV advertisement here, if you haven’t.

Brotha strikes back at Saint’s Row 2 with a new video!

Read the secondary title above. Remember the video THQ/Violation released? It was a “Activities” trailer for Saint’s Row 2, which tried to bash Grand Theft Auto IV for its lack of childish and immature features.

Brotha - a self-appointed Grand Theft Auto video guru - has created yet another video, this time to give Saint’s Row 2 the bashing it really deserves. Watch the video over at GameTrailers, or use the embedded YouTube player on this page. Great job on the video, Brotha!

For more Grand Theft Auto IV updates and information, you can refer to the links on the Grand Theft Auto IV section at the sidebar. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed for instant updates in the event of a new post. Stay tuned!

Apple has officially unveiled the iPhone 3G today. The redesigned iPhone will come in three models - the Black 8GB model, or a choice between Black or White for the 16GB model. The 8GB model will cost US$199 (SG$272) and the 16GB models cost US$299 (SG$410).

The new iPhone, said to be “Twice as Fast at Half the Price”, will come shipped with Version 2.0 of the iPhone’s Mac OS X software variant. The new iPhone 3G is said to “deliver an amazing 10 hours of talk time on 2G networks and 5 hours using 3G, with up to 5 to 6 hours of web browsing, up to 7 hours for video playback and up to 24 hours for audio playback”.

The new features said to be in the upgrade are namely Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support (includes over-the-air push email, contact and calendar syncing as well as remote wipe and Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to corporate networks), a new App Store (to purchase applications and games for the iPhone), the ability to do real-time mapping with Assisted GPS (A-GPS) technology, the option to mass move and delete multiple email messages, the addition of searching for contacts, a new scientific calculator, new parental controls, and more.

The iPhone 3G will be available in the US on July 11th 2008 in both Apple and AT&T’s retail stores and requires a new two year contract with AT&T for qualifying customers. Other selected regions will get the iPhone 3G at a later date. The new iPhone 2.0 software will also be available on July 11th as a free software update via iTunes for all iPhone users.

The new iPhone 3G, costing a lot lesser than most smart phones like the BlackBerry and Nokia handsets, could potentially win over a lot of customers. Personally, I think the new iPhone is a great bargain when compared to the Nokia N95 8GB.

What are your impressions of the new iPhone 3G that’s coming on July 11th? Discuss in the comments! Don’t forget to check out our other posts on Video Games and Technology! Have fun and stay tuned!

This is our fourth Grand Theft Auto IV post-release update. With so much going on about Ninja Gaiden II, Age of Conan and Metal Gear Solid 4, why not take a break for a short update on some Grand Theft Auto?

The guys over at GamesRadar has done a remake of Naked Gun’s cinematic introductory scenes in Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s pretty much creative and cool to watch, much like Brotha’s videos. Click here to watch!

Also, GamesRadar has posted an article discussing the topic of Grand Theft Auto IV’s Xbox 360 Downloadable Episodic Content. It’s really worth a look, over here, along with 100 little things we love about Grand Theft Auto IV! What do you think the episodic content will be? Discuss in the comments!

For those stunt maniacs, BenBuja has done a couple of stunts in Grand Theft Auto IV (Brucie Kibbutz-style) and posted the spectacular stunts on YouTube. There are helicopter bailing stunts, motorcycle stunts and car stunts! It’s pretty much a decent effort and worth giving a look at! Go check out his his YouTube account for really amazing stunts!

Recently, you might also remember in our last update that Take Two Interactive announced a delay in the first Grand Theft Auto IV downloadable content episode fir the Xbox 360. Just a few hours ago, Microsoft has informed several sites that the first episodic content pack is still on track for a “fall 2008″ release.

“The first of the Xbox 360 exclusive “Grand Theft Auto IV” episodes will be available beginning fall 2008,” MS told several video games news sites. This is going to be confusing for us, who are we supposed to believe? Microsoft or Take Two? We’ll wait for an official announcement from Rockstar Games in the meanwhile!

Stay tuned for future Grand Theft Auto IV updates! Also, if you ever need help with any Grand Theft Auto IV missions or have any queries with regards to compelting 100%, you can contact me via the contact form here. You will have to state the mission you have last completed (it’s stated in the save game) and I will try my best to help. I will answer your question(s) in the next update. Cheers, and stay tuned!

This week brings us to Grand Theft Auto IV’s third post-release update, which probably brings us to the end of our daily Grand Theft Auto IV coverage, and we’ll continue to post news and interesting happenings from around the Video Game and Technology world. We’ll still post Grand Theft Auto news, but it’s not going to be all Grand Theft Auto.

Just this week, Patrick Brown - a Grand Theft Auto fan artist (with superb quality work), has just impressed us again! Some of you here might remember his past art works, but “Grand Theft Awesome IV” is his newest one to add to his collection of works.

Brown claims, the artwork took “about 10 or so hours to create, the background itself took around 8.” Amazing work, don’t you think so? Tell us what you think! Click here to view Patrick Brown’s deviantART page along with the superb full size resolution of the amazing piece of artwork right now!

Also, as part of the Grand Theft Auto fan community, I’m posting this bit of news to encourage you guys (and gals) to support the SA-MP (San Andreas Multiplayer) team in their time of crisis. It seems that they are under attack by a former developer, and we urge you to help them in whatever way you can! Here’s the developers’ message:

A group called Zytronics headed by former developer Jacob is now trying to destroy SA-MP, they are threatening us with releasing the SA-MP source code along with our private encryption keys which would cause a security risk for all SA-MP clients and servers.

This is a serious situation. We are under blackmail threats right now that if we don’t allow him to release the client source, he’ll release the server source. He is using made up information to back up the release of the source code.

So, you know that Grand Theft Auto IV has already been out for a month, now what? Saint’s Row 2? Hmm… Saint’s Row 2 has recently tried to really openly take jealousy shots at Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto. Look at this one - do you think it’ll beat and take over Grand Theft Auto? Tell us what you think in the comments!

In the next piece of news, it was today announced that “in order to provide a better balance in Take-Two’s release schedule”, the first episodic content for Grand Theft Auto IV will now be delayed until the first quarter of the company’s Fiscal 2009 year.

This means that the first downloadable content episode for Grand Theft Auto IV should be expected to arrive between November 1st 2008 and January 31st 2009. It was also announced that Grand Theft Auto IV has sold approximately 8.5 million copies since the release date. The BioShock movie and future BioShock releases were also mentioned in the report.

Also, it has come to our knowledge that many of you has had problems with completing some of Grand Theft Auto IV’s missions and are stuck with no idea of what to do. If you are suffering with this “technical glitch”, I urge you to read every missions’ instructions carefully, because some of them can be spread out into parts and if you do not take the next step in the mission, the game’s story mode will not proceed.

If you still have any problems with completing any of Grand Theft Auto IV’s missions, you can contact me via the contact form right in our contact page. You will have to state the mission you have last completed (it’s stated in the save game) and I will try my best to help. I will answer your question(s) in the next update. Cheers, and stay tuned!

There hasn’t been much news out there regarding Grand Theft Auto IV, as everyone should be busy playing. This quick post is just to let you know that we have updated the Grand Theft Auto IV Cheats, Tips and Secrets guide with a lot of new information!

Since the game has been out for more than a month, many secrets have been found in Liberty City, most prominently of the Statue of Happiness and easter eggs of the previous era of Grand Theft Auto games.

Tips to aid you in your gameplay in Grand Theft Auto IV can also be found under its own Tips section in the guide page. Achivement guides and Cheats can also be found, and they are gracefully listed one by one for your convenience.

Click here to visit our Grand Theft Auto IV Cheats, Tips and Secrets guide today! You can also check out our Grand Theft Auto IV Review and more Grand Theft Auto IV content over at its own section at the sidebar! If you haven’t gotten the game, it’s a good chance to get it now! Stay tuned!

There has been an uproar in the Grand Theft Auto and Video Gaming community recently, with regards to the face of the Statue of Happiness in Grand Theft Auto IV. It seems that Rockstar Games have pulled off yet another spoof of New York City.

Well, the Statue of Happiness isn’t all just about spoofing the real-life Statue of Liberty in New York City. A few of us Grand Theft Auto fans have gotten up-close to the face of the statue, which (unsurprisingly) bears a striking similarity to New York Senator Hillary Clinton.

It is certainly not a great secret that the big guys at Rockstar Games have a long-time hatred for Hillary Clinton. Personally, I think this is another great easter egg in the game. Also, the guys over at GTAGaming has also done a great comparison of Hillary and the Statue of Happiness. Click here to view it.

Also, I’ve finally managed to complete Grand Theft Auto IV 100% yesterday. Surprisingly, I feel that the game is much shorter than San Andreas. Hopefully, the game’s other areas have made up for its shortcomings in the Story and Side Missions. It’s also more fun than San Andreas, although shorter.

Here’s all there is for Grand Theft Auto IV today! Be sure to check out DLH’s Skit Volume 2 and the rest of our Grand Theft Auto IV pre-release and post-release content. Do not forget to give us your comments too! Stay tuned!

Okay, this update will be longer than the previous one, it’s a summary of news from the past few days. Okay, first, if you have not spotted our Grand Theft Auto IV review, you can look it up here. I gave it a 96/100, which I think will be the best score I will ever give to a video game. Yes, I’m a big fan of Grand Theft Auto, and I love the series a lot, but this review has to be fair, if you have wondered why it was not a perfect score.

Next piece of news — it seems that the voice actor for Niko Bellic, Michael Hollick, is a little bit unhappy about the amount of money he’s been paid by Rockstar Games for providing the voice of Niko Bellic, which he had done a great job with. With so many lines of dialogue, I’m pretty sure it’s a tiring job.

Apparently, since taking on the job in 2006, Hollick has been paid around $100,000 for his work and with it being a video game, there are no performance related payments or royalties in sight. Hollick blames his union for not having proper practices in place when dealing with game voices, but he claims that it’s “tough” seeing the game pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue without getting a cut.

Well, I would be feeling the same way if I were him, too. Anyway, let’s zoom in on to the next piece of news. It seems that the uncut or uncensored version of Grand Theft Auto IV is now available in New Zealand, thanks to Stan Calif, founder and director of First Games, who was the one who spent his own time and money to submit Grand Theft Auto IV to the OFLC single-handedly.

Since OFLC had rated the uncut version of Grand Theft Auto IV and had given it an R18, this means that the uncut version of the game can now be sold legally in the country. New Zealand can now rejoice, expecially Grand Theft Auto fans there! Here is what Stan said regarding the matter:

“First Games are proud to be able to deliver GTA IV uncut to New Zealanders. We have been committed from the outset to provide Kiwi gamers with the freedom to purchase an unaltered version of GTA IV. After much hard work and expense we are now able to deliver GTA IV in the way that Rockstar originally intended”.

The last piece of news is about the Rockstar Games Social Club. The Grand Theft Auto IV multiplayer leaderboard is now live on the Social Club, which is the exact same one you see on the “Stats” page in the game. Click here to check it out!

Finaly, this is the last paragraph dedicated to locals - any Singaporeans here? You can win a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV! I’m not the one giving it away, but Sheylara is (she plays GTAIV!). Click here for the contest page. All you need to do is to write a review of her weekly “Gamer Girl Friday” article and post a comment. Contest ends June 5, 2008. Just to let you guys know, I will be holding our very own Grand Theft Auto IV giveaway very soon too! Stay tuned!

Another one. Cheers.

The black sentinel rolled to a stop in front of Rigano’s Dry Cleaning and Sergio turned the car off.

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Grand Theft Auto IV is the most difficult game you’ll ever play. I’m not talking about the mission difficulty, but the reluctance you will be having when it’s time to put down the controller after a game of Grand Theft Auto IV. Yes, it’s that fun.

So, as most of you noticed, I have taken a long one-week long break from updating the blog, but I’m back today with our own Grand Theft Auto IV review. As much as I’d like to make this article a spoiler-free one, I cannot pass a grade on this great masterpiece without first assessing the Story mode of Grand Theft Auto IV. So, here’s the review…

The Story - 10/10 - Superb Story, Witty Characters, Comedy & More Choices

Grand Theft Auto IV’s main character is Niko Bellic, a Serbian who fought in the war when he was young. Traumatized, he is a good guy forced into doing bad things by circumstances. He was betrayed by a soldier in his old army unit, being the one of the three to survive.

After the war, he dealt with several Eastern European smugglers. During one of these voyages, the ship unfortunately sunk. His business partner thought that it was Niko who betrayed him. Niko then left Serbia for Liberty City, where the fun begins…

So, the story starts from when Niko and his mother recieving letters and e-mails from his cousin Roman about the good life he has been living in Liberty City. Roman claimed that he had the women, fast cars and a luxury condominium, living the American Dream. Now, with smashed dreams and in hopes of finding new opportunity and “that Special Someone” who betrayed him back in Eastern Europe, Niko goes to Liberty City.

After Niko has arrived in Liberty City, he realises that things are very different from what it seems. His cousin is a poor bloke who owns a small apartment and runs a Taxi business in Hove Beach. Soon after, you realize Roman owes money to some Russian gangsters. You also get introduced to Roman’s girlfriend, Mallorie, and her friend Michelle.

The action starts when Niko fights these gangsters off. To avoid any trouble, the Russian gangster Vlad wants Niko Bellic to work for him, which you do. You work very closely with Roman, and almost everything centers around his debts. You then get introduced to Little Jacob, Roman’s Jamacian friend.

Soon after, Roman becomes aware that Mallorie has been cheating on him by going out with Vlad. Niko decides to go deal with him, but Vlad tries to run away. After which, you need to fight your way thorugh more armed Russian gangsters and chase down Vlad. Despite Roman’s reluctance, Vlad gets killed.

You continue to work with Little Jacob, but soon after, Roman and Niko gets kidnapped by Faustin, which was angry over the death of Vlad. Niko does some jobs for him but Dimitri, his assistant, orders you to kill Faustin later on to make peace with Petrovic, a dangerous gangster you’ll never meet.

Dimitri then betrays Niko after having realized that he was the one whom they thought betrayed Bulgarin, Niko’s business partner back in Serbia. Bulgarin is Dimitri’s new ally, which leads him to be Niko’s main enemy to fight off. Little Jacob helps Niko fight off Bulgarin and Dimitri’s men, but they managed to escape.

Roman’s Taxi Depot and apartment in Broker gets burnt down by Faustin, and they excape to Bohan. There, Mallorie, Roman’s girlfriend, helps you get an apartment and introduces you to Manny and Elizabeta. Roman also calls you to meet Brucie, which you do work for.

After running errands for Elizabeta and Manny, you get introduced to Packie McReary and Frankie McReary, which you later found out are brothers. You do some more work for the McReary brothers including a bank heist, and a point where you choose to kill between two McReary brothers.

Meanwhile, you also discover that your girlfriend, Michelle, is a government agent. Her boss, U.L. Paper, needs some work done, ad you run errands for him, which aids Niko in finding the man who betrayed him.

After doing many errands, you get a call about Florian Cravic’s whereabouts, one of the three survivors of his old army unit. It turns out that he was not a betrayer, and he is now homosexual. You do some work for him, and more for the rest of the McReary family. Ray Boccino, Phil Bell, Jimmy Pegorino and Jon Gravelli also has work for you. You also meet Kate McReary as your girlfriend.

Soon, you find out that Darko Brevic has been kidnapped and brought to Liberty City by your old associate, U.L. Paper. You get to choose to kill him or let him live, but the choice doesn’t affect much of the story. Jimmy Pegorino then asks you tot do a deal with Dimitri. At the same time, Roman is also about to get married with Mallorie.

Niko gets to choose to do the deal or take revenge against Dimitri. If you do the deal, Dimitri betrays you once more. He will turn up at Roman’s wedding and kill him. If you decide to go for revenge and kill Dimitri, Jimmy Pegorino will turn up at Roman’s wedding and kill Kate instead. In the end, Dimitri and Jimmy gets killed by Niko respectively in each ending.

As you can see from above, the story mode of Grand Theft Auto IV gives the player some choices, a somewhat new form of innovation Rockstar Games have given us. You can choose whether or now to kill some innocent (or not so innocent) people. The ending can also go two different ways, tragedy or not-so-bad tragedy. The cutscenes are full of humor, but do crank that speakers up and turn that subtitles on for the the maximum effect. Witty characters and superb voice actors makes this Grand Theft Auto experience the best ever yet. Better than Vice City.

Controls - 9/10 - Better and More Realistic Controls

The controls are solid and very effective when you get used to them. It certaintly feels natural shooting and driving with the Triggers. The controls don’t differ much in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, and they are mapped similarly to their respective buttons (and triggers).

However, the controls sometimes encounters glitches and bugs, which hampers the experience of playing Grand Theft Auto IV. The control scheme isn’t perfect, but it’s suited to both controllers effectively well. I have to give it a 9/10, because the controls are buggy sometimes.

Graphics - 10/10 - Believable and Breathtaking Views of the City

Everything in Liberty City looks great - the night view of Star Junction and the Algonquin Bridge is magnificent. The Dask and Dawn sunlight effects are just plain beautiful. Everything is made so beautiful and believable by the RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine) graphics engine.

The cars and mirrors also have real-time reflections, and everything in Liberty City is very detailed. There are potholes on the road, simple markings and parking lines. The floor is also littered with newspapers, cups and well… litter.

The road reflects light when it’s raining heavily, and the screen shows blood when you kill someone or are being shot at. The water drips down the camera when it’s raining. The pedestrian also carry umbrellas. Everything boasts of detail. The draw distance, immersive details and graphic filters are superb and believable, which I think it deserves a 10/10 score.

Physics - 10/10 - Euphoric to the core

The Physics of Grand Theft Auto IV is powered by the Euphoria Physics engine, one of the world’s best physics simulation engine for video games. Objects, Vehicles and Bodies now look realistic in motion. This is one of the major plus points for Grand Theft Auto IV, being a sandbox action-style video game.

Some of the really amazing and realistic simulation I’ve seen in the game is that you can actually barge through pedestrians by running through them and they will fall. It’s also very easy to get runned down by a car, fly through the car’s windscreen, or fall off a motorcycle and lose a big chunk of health

Grand Theft Auto IV has random physics and a realistic driving control - every vehicle handles differently and the walkng style and driving control changes with the terrain. Although what this amazing physics engine can do is limited by the game, a PC port of Grand Theft Auto IV would certainly expand the fun factor, if it ever comes out.

Gameplay - 9/10 - 200% Action-Packed Criminal Gameplay

The 90 story missions are scripted and designed very well, which allows for player choices. Kill this bitch or let her live? Go for the money or the man? No matter which choice you choose, the missions are full of action, crime, wit, humor and drama.

The side-missions are also more fun than in previous Grand Theft Auto games. The hidden packages, Taxi, Paramedic and Firefighter missions are gone and replaced with Races, Assasinations, Flying Rats (diseased pigeons, 200 of them to terminate), QUB3D (a fun arcade puzzle game!) and a little more exciting Vigilante missions.

You also get to go and hang out with friends and do some exciting activities such as Boating and going out for a Heli-ride. This version of Grand Theft Auto is much more exciting in gameplay than in any other previous ones too.

Also, the HUD is minimalistic and stuff like weapons and cash indicators and wanted levels only appear when you need them to. The clock can now be seen from your Mobile Phone, and it is much easier to travel around Liberty City now with the waypoint and GPS system. For those who were fustrated with other open-world driving games, this one is the best of them all.

Features - 10/10 - Surprising and Fun Features

The new features in Grand Theft Auto IV are great. They are fun to mess around with, and they’re also surprising. Well, for example we have the mobile phone, which is used for Multiplayer and cheats, as well as for mission purposes.

One of the many new features is the new cover and combat system. You press LB or L1 to cover behind objects. Any kind of objects: Cars, Walls, and all the sort. Shooting also gives you and over-the-shoulder view and an enhanced damage system. Everything is more realistic - for example, you (and your enemies alike) will have to take cover behind objects during combat, because just like in real life, a few shots can take a man down. To add to the fun, Grand Theft Auto IV has 15 weapons for you to choose from that are all suited for different occasions.

Also, there’s the wonders of the internet that we cannot forget. There are a few hundred webpages in Grand Theft Auto IV’s in-game internet, and there are lots of funny content in there. The guys at Rockstar Games really put in a lot of work into the webpages, and I must applaud them. There’s full of parody of the internet. Amazing stuff. The biggest feature, however, is the Multiplayer option, read about it under its own section.

Of course, there are a lot of other cool features too, like the ability to watch TV. Once again, there’s also lots of stuff in there, which really makes Liberty City feel like a real place. There are mission-specific features too, like the ability to cling off a helicopter and a truck or better still - calling the guy that needs to be killed to identify him. Very interesting features which I feel can be expanded.

Music/Audio - 10/10 - Superb Sound Quality, Best Selection of Music

Few hundereds of songs sit on the radio dial of Grand Theft Auto IV. All of them are amazingly, quality songs. There are big names such as DJ Green Lantern, Nas, Kanye West, Elton John and Busta Rhymes. But, there are also many indie artists which make good music. The 16 radio stations provide a wide selection of music which fit in very well with the games’ ambience.

The Audio is also in superb quality. You can almost feel the ambience of the city. The city sounds real and the cutscene audio is in perfect quality too. For example, you can walk out on the streets and hear a combination of sounds - radio blasting, cars honking, vehicle engines. Actually, it’s the only video game I’ve played with the most superb audio quality.

Cutscenes/Video FX/Animation - 9/10 - Realistic Facial Expressions and Animation

Occasionally, the animations in Grand Theft Auto IV encounters a glitch. Forgive them by all means, and you get superb animations in cutscenes and in the game while you’re on a mission or even driving or running down the street. However, if we forget the glitch, this should be 10/10, but the glitches can get annoying sometimes.

Also, if you’ve played the game, you should have realized that the facial expressions are rather realistic. You can see the emotions of the characters - Happy, Sad, Dissapointed, Angry, Surprised. All of these cool animations are fully realized with the help of Image Metrics. I really can’t help but praise it.

Multiplayer - 9/10 - The best video game that can played on Xbox LIVE or PSN

Grand Theft Auto IV includes the standard modes that you can find in any other multiplayer video game, but with a Grand Theft Auto twist to it. You select Multiplayer from the in-game Mobile Phone, and you can customize your character with a variety of clothing options.

The Multiplayer option expands on the story missions by including co-operative multiplayer missions, although they’re all Petrovic’s mission for each of these modes that you choose. They are repetitive, meaning that the mission structure is the same for the same multiplayer mode everytime you play. It might get boring after a while, but the race and deathmatch modes can make up for this.

The online multiplayer interface isn’t really user-friendly, but the rest of the experience comes from the people (or douchebags) you’re playing with. What’s bad though, is that you can’t play the mini-games such as Bowling, Darts, Pool or QUB3D with people online. Other than that, it’s the best video game you can play multiplayer with your friends on Xbox LIVE or PSN. We hope this goes onto the PC.

Setting/Location/Ambience - 10/10 - Liberty, anyone?

So, I left this to the last, to sum up everything. Grand Theft Auto IV has a great overall New-Yorkish ambience. The graphics, physics, controls, story, music, audio - everything contributed to the amazing ambience of the game.

Liberty City is a cool place, you can really have real fun in any part of the city and there’s really no limitation to the fun you can have. The In-Game TV shows, Radio Stations and Internet Websites are so vast that you cannot really ever get bored. Grand Theft Auto IV, trust me, is the best video game you will ever be able to play this year.

Grand Total Score: 96/100
Fun Factor - 11/10 - The ONLY Video Game you can play for a lifetime and it’s still fun