Grand Theft Auto IV

Also known as: GTA IV, GTA 4, Grand Theft Auto 4

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Grand Theft Auto IV - updated impressions

Rockstar shows off explosive, high-speed violence and awesome new features in our most massive preview EVER

Words: Mikel Reparaz, GamesRadar US

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Once the drunken interlude was finished, we got to see the third and final mission of the demo: "Truck Hustle." This one introduced a couple of Italian-mobster stereotypes, Ray and Bell, who appear to speak in a secret language made up of gestures and half-mumbled nonsense. It's pretty entertaining in the usual clever GTA way, but Bell doesn't waste too much time before getting down to business. After cranking the radio (presumably to foil any FBI bugs), he tells Niko to head out into Alderney and steal a drug-filled truck from the Triads.

The first part of the mission is straightforward GTA fare: Niko tracks down the truck by GPS and then - as the Triad boys stand around talking - he's free to make his move. Said move involved lobbing a grenade their way, which blew up a nearby car and made them scatter. From there, it was all about trading shots with the Triads while cowering behind a low brick wall, and for their part the Triads showed decent strategic thinking by sticking behind their own cover.

Once the first wave was wiped out, however, all those smarts evaporated; the second wave came running up in the distance, single-file and in the open, and Niko easily cut them down with another RPG. He also shot the shit out of a pickup truck, which displayed the damage pretty realistically; tires deflated, the front grill and headlights were completely shot out, the side windows shattered and the windshield spiderwebbed, but didn't break.

A lone Triad survived the assault, and naturally he decided to escape in the drug truck. Not one to give up easily, Niko grabbed hold, showing us at long last what the deal is with those sequences in the trailers that show him hanging from a truck or dangling from a helicopter.

CB: The cutscene was hilarious.
MC: The thing with the badda-bing?
MR: Leave it to Rockstar to turn tired stereotypes into something clever and funny.
CB: Very reminiscent of The Sopranos humor. The guy giving you your mission might as well have been Paulie Walnuts.
MR: The following sequence with the truck, though; that was awesome, but the problems with the AI were really writ large here. The first wave of guys all played it smart, with the ducking and the covering, but then the second wave showed up running at Niko in single file, only to get blown up by a blind-fired RPG round.
MC: This bit was just one big explosion in my demo.