Grand Theft Auto IV demo dissected

Charlie: That certainly seems to be a trend in upcoming next-gen games. Assassin's Creed obviously has it. Saboteur has it. Why not Grand Theft Auto? They're all trying to cash in on Spider-Man.

Eric: Well, you know... whatever it takes to get Kirsten Dunst into the sack, right? Seriously though, the buildings are certainly detailed enough for it.

Mikel: Yeah, I could see grabbing onto a ledge and Tomb Raider-ing my way to the roof.

Charlie: But the thought of being able to climb anywhere in the massive New York / Liberty City they've teased is overwhelming.

Mikel: Maybe that's the major innovation of next-gen games. 32-bit gave us 3D graphics, the PS2 generation gave us online, and now every game's going to have buildings you can climb. And we know we can at least fly everywhere, once we get our hands on a helicopter. Except that unlike Spider-Man, this actually looks like you're walking around in New York at street level. Broker really looks like Brooklyn; the width of the streets, the look of the buildings, it's all nearly perfect.

Eric: This brings up an interesting point, though. What do you guys think of the fact that the game world is smaller, but deeper? You think the ability to walk in the front door of a building, do something heinous, then walk out the back door and up a fire escape onto the roof, and so on makes up for the fact that there's only one city again? Granted, we don't know how many buildings will have interiors - we know it won't be every single one - but I'm thinking this is a pretty good trade off. I'd rather have a smaller, denser, more aliveenvironment than a bigger, emptier, less interactive one.

Mikel: I like the idea of smaller-but-deeper, although I wonder how far it's going to go. Are the interiors going to be hidden areas that you have to ferret out? And if not, then we run into the problem of repetition; will every apartment, house and business be independently modeled? And if not, how will they keep it from getting really repetitive? It was a problem The Godfather ran into. The Rockstar guys would probably bristle to see me mention that game here, but it bears remembering. The Godfather interiors were all seamless, but they also felt like they'd been rubber-stamped into the game world. I'd hate to see that happen in GTA.

Eric: I believe they're talking about subtle ways to show you which buildings are accessible, via differently colored doors and so on. I can see both sides of it. Building thousands of interiorsthe playermight never see is silly, but having a few interiors would be less fulfilling too. I'm sure they're spending a huge amount of time finding that balance. I'm really eager to see more, though. WhenNiko shimmied up that telephone pole, I just started envisioning myself sniping everything in sight.