I’ve been playing GTAIV for just over a week now since I bought it at midnight at my local EB Games. I can safely say that it is definitely up there for my ‘best evar games’. It definitely lived up to the hype. The gameplay is just so addictive it is hard to put down.

I am really impressed with Euphoria, the games physics engine. It is so lifelike that you almost feel sorry for the people you kill. Just almost. It puts the ragdoll physics engine to shame and I really hope that other game developers use Euphoria for their games. Just compare when you ran someone over in Vice City or San Andreas to GTAIV. There is no comparison though, because Euphoria kicks the crap out of all the rest of the engines out there.

The taxi system is really cool, in my mind. Some people are complaining that people overuse it and just take taxis to their destinations instead of the games original focus, jacking cars. To each their own I guess. That is the type of freedom the player gets when they play this game. If you want to jack cars, you can do it. If you want to have the cab driver take you somewhere whilst you look around at the beautiful city, you can do that too. Choices can make a good game great, and Rockstar definitely knew this when making GTAIV. You’ve probably noticed if you’ve played deep enough into the game already you’ve had to make some choices, some more important than others.

The one thing that bugs me about this game is that I can’t really see myself memorizing the city’s layout like I could with all of the other GTA’s. Like when you’re at a certain spot and you can link the sections together in your mind and think to yourself “OK. I’m at this spot, now I know I can go east half a click for a really cool jump.” Or something of that nature. But I guess that is the price you pay for having a city with so much depth. But then again, I have only been playing for a week. Maybe I’ll have more places memorized when I’m not constantly looking at my radar at the GPS.