Recently in Grand Theft Auto IV Category

IGN is the first online site to have an extensive video review of GTA IV.  It looks fantastic, as I expected.  It seems to me that they are pushing the sexual content even further this time around.  I know that there is an achievement called "Warm Coffee" which you get when a woman invites your character up to her apartment--a comedic backslap against the Hot Coffee easter egg from GTA San Andreas.

There is also an IGN Podcast where the staff (including Hilary Goldstein) talk extensively about their experiences playing GTA IV.  IGN has rated this game a 10 out of 10, their first such rating in many years.  Hilary says this is the best video game he's played since Zelda Ocarina of Time.  Wow, and I thought I could not get anymore hyped up.  Nuff said.

I don't know how this happened. I played GTA 3 and GTA Vice City only for a few hours each. I never bought San Andreas or the PSP versions. But now after reading several articles I am obsessed with Grand Theft Auto IV and I've pre-ordered it from Amazon. Part of the reason for this is that I dug out a game from last year--Crackdown for the XBox 360--and started playing it with the help of a guide, map, and several online video tips. What did we ever do without YouTube showing us how to play video games? It made me think, wow, this world is so cool--partly the coolness comes from levelling up your cop character to do Hulk-like jumps throughout the city--how cool is the city in GTA IV going to be?

GameVideos has an analysis of all 4 trailers for the new GTA game. GameTrailers' Bonus Round program has a discussion between Geoff Keighley, Michael Pachter, and others. Speaking of everyone's favortie analyst Pachter, there's a long interview with him on the Official XBox Magazine Podcast about GTA IV--if you are interested on the business side of things, like how much Microsoft paid for GTA IV's exclusive content downloads. Over on EGM Live's 3/31/2008 podcast, you can here Crispin Boyer talk about his visit to Rockstar North in Edinburgh, Scotland--where programmers work without having any action figures on their desks--go figure that out! Finally, I read a very long and interesting interview with Rockstar's Dan Houser on one of Variety's blogs:

That's how we chose New York and once we'd chosen that, in terms of the character, we wanted something that felt fresh and new and not something that was obviously derived from this movie. We also felt over the last few years there hadn't been a great standout gangster movie. Maybe could do something ourselves that would live alongside that stuff. We wanted someone who felt tough but also like an alien. So we began to develop the character of Niko. The idea of this immigrant story began to seem fun and interesting and he was a good character. On the one hand he's an innocent, on the other hand he's battle hardened and world weary. A modern "arriving in America" story felt very interesting to us.

Cool, I am geeked out about this and ready to play. Especially with so many guides and video tips to help out a lame gamer like me. Decisions, decisions...order the Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition (with CD, art book, Rockstar keychain, etc) or get the Grand Theft Auto IV regular edition? I'm certainly getting the strategy Grand Theft Auto IV Signature Series Guide (Brady Games).

Addendum: IGN's GTA IV: The City That Never Sleeps.

Addendum: Sam Houser Interview at 1UP.