Grand Bet

If you’re a video game studio, how do you follow up one of the best video games ever made in “GTA: San Andreas”? If you’re Rockstar, you follow it up with the best video game ever made. I know that ever since the gaming media got their hands on “Grand Theft Auto IV” a couple of weeks ago the superlatives have been flying faster and harder than a hail of bullets, but I can’t in good conscience not join the chorus after having logged over 24 hours of play having only had the game in my hands for five days.

What makes “GTA IV” so far beyond any game currently on the market is the sheer level of realism and immersion to be found in Rockstar’s current incarnation of Liberty City. Based heavily on New York City and its outer boroughs, Liberty City is an organic, lived-in metropolis that’s free of load screens and ready to be made your own. You play as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immgrant and gun-for-hire who comes to America striving for success and searching for “that special someone.” Niko is by far the most multi-dimensional video game anti-hero ever seen, and the game’s storyline is feature-film quality and will have players emotionally involved from the beginning.

As always, Rockstar has loaded the game with a wealth of in-car radio stations ranging in genre from ambient electronica to reggae dub, and featuring artists as diverse as The Rapture and Fela Kuti. And if talk-radio is your bag, there are several talk stations that showcase the series’ trademark humor and wit. As for the heart of “Grand Theft Auto IV,” the vehicles are wonders of gaming physics, proving to be as destructible or deadly as you want them to be-and pedestrians (now equipped with ragdoll physics) best beware.

As if all this weren’t enough to keep players’ heads spinning for months, Rockstar has added a fully functional online multiplayer with a dozen different modes and no noticeable lag times. You and 15 of your closest friends can tear Liberty City a new one in free mode, because some spectacular vehicular mayhem in the two race modes, or play as teams of cops and crooks in the aptly named Cops ‘N Crooks mode. It’s yet another added layer of immersion into an already impossibly dense game.

“GTA IV” is a game worthy of a book’s merit of write-up, and in this limited space I have to reiterate that what Rockstar has created here is nothing short of monumental, and will be a game-changing moment for seventh-generation consoles, showcasing not just what a game should be but what a game can be when pushed to its limits. Like Niko’s hot-headed pal Brucie refers to him while on a bullshark testosterone-fueled rampage, “GTA IV” is genetically different.