Firstly: Thank you for those who commented on my first entry, and for those of you who did, a special prize awaits!!! YOU HAVE BEEN FRIENDINATED. Feel no pressure to friend back or anything like that...I enjoyed reading the blogs and, well....why not? I'm not one of those who must be on friends lists to feel e-famous. But should anyone list me, there will be warmth in the cockles of my heart and all that shit, y'all.

Anyway...getting semi-back to my last post: GTA4.

In short, I think the game is great fun and it's very satisfying, but not perfect certainly. It's strange that I even play the GTA games since, normally, the urban crime motif is an automatic turn-off to me. I guess the type of sandbox, non-linearity and the attention to creating a believable, immersive city environment is what really captured my imagination on the release of GTA3. I liked the fact that, in essence, GTA3 and the post GTA3 games were basically role-playing games. You became the criminal. And not in some shallow, level-by-level, scripted way. But, by allowing you to go at your own pace, you effectively chose your behavior. Sure, by virtue of the story you have to do certain things and complete certain tasks, but how deep you put yourself into the role is largely up to you. When not on a mission do you WANT to commit more crimes to earn more money? Do you want to try and live as honorably as possible? Or you do you want to go batshit crazy and chase down joggers in Central Park with an ice cream truck, laughing loudly over the sounds of 70s disco as the shots from your Uzi echo through the streets?
The choice is yours.

And I think, ultimately, that's the lure of the game. At least a good portion of it. You are given an envionment and some freedom to play with, and that is enticing compared to most video games where you are rigidly set on a path from which you can't stray for a second.

GTA4 is satisfying in that regard and, in general, Rockstar managed to either continue the same gameplay or somehow extend it a little in some different ways. Most people out there know this already, seeing as how the game sold, like, what...50 zillion copies or something in one day.
And, I admit....I like the puerile humor of the game. It's legitimately funny to get blowjobs from random hookers and then shove them into the ocean with your car, or set off a grenade in the middle of a strip club, or just use "Asshole Physics" in general to fuck with passersby. It's dumb, but it's fun, liberating kind of dumb and it's damn therapeutic after a day spent in the real world.
Yes, we'll have conservative blowhards rail on about how playing these games all make us want to go out in real life and maim and destroy, but we're used to it by now. We know it's bullshit, and so does most of thinking society, but politicians and pundits need their scare tactics.

Admittedly, I am only about halfway through the game, if that. So, if I say GTA4 is fantastic, I can only vouch for the first 50 percent. Do I honestly think the second half will go down the toilet so bad I would change my mind? No, but it can happen. But I doubt it.
If I had any gripes, really, about the game it would be that some elements of the gameplay could have been tightened up. Much has been said about how difficult it is to drive cars very well in the game, and that's a legitimate complaint. Cars in GTA have always had different handling styles and, in general, you were better off on a high-speed mission with a good car rather than a mini-van or something, but in GTA4 the physics have become noticeably more annoying. Even the more sporty, fancy cars will spin wildly out of control at the mere tap of the brakes and that corner you thought you were going to conquer becomes your own personal hell. It would make me very mad if it weren't for the fact that on many occasions the computer also suffers from this as well. There's at least two missions I've completed so far where my victory was pretty much because the guy I was chasing hit a wall or another car and fucked himself over but good. And then I laughed over his corpse wondering how many more prostitutes I was going to kill. HAHA. Just kidding. I don't have time for that kind of thing.

I don't like the weapons switching (the dpad?? cmon..) and the cell phone thing is a little over used. I don't like how the cell-phone can just be used to forward the plot at certain points without any interaction from you. It's an interesting idea, and I like how the phone fits into the game, it's just...too much in some cases. And, let's face it, getting constant texts and calls from characters gets really nervewracking.

But maybe in the big picture those are minor complaints, because everything else is pretty golden. Now I must be off....there's hookers to kill and old people to run down with my SUV. YOU KNOW HOW US KIDDIES ARE AND GETTING OF THE HIGH SCORES WITH LOTS OF POINTS!