Grand Theft Auto IV demo dissected

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We sent three gaming editors to glimpse the most anticipated game in history. Here's what they saw

Charlie: That reminds me - Rockstar seems to be paying as much attention to the sound as they are to the graphics. Most of the voices we heard were temporary placeholders, but I was impressed that pedestrians didn't just react to your character. They would shout at each other on the streets. Even cooler was that you could overhear people's cell phone conversations as you walked by them.

Of course, everyone wants to know about the music. The song playing in the car - some kind of Eastern European techno rock by the sounds of it - was also placeholder, but Rockstar said we could expect to hear similar stuff in the final game. Since the setting of GTA IV is completely modern - October 2007, basically - the soundtrack will match. They even told us that we might hear songs that "haven't been released yet." So will it be whatever's popular this year and this October? Or completely original like in GTA III?

Mikel: Probably a mix of both; everyone and their dog will want to get in on this thing. Speaking of the era - October, 2007 - there's an interesting tidbit that Rockstar dropped, something that might get those knee-jerk "You can't set a videogame in New York! It's super safe here" politicos to shut up. See, Liberty City isn't New York. And while New York went underwent a massive transformation in the '90s that turned it into one of the world's safest, cleanest cities, Liberty City never did. It's still the same grimy, disgusting, criminal-infested place it's always been.

In spite of that, there wasn't any further violence in the demo; once Niko left the car, he just sauntered casually down to the waterfront and pulled out a cell phone. This was one place where we got to see how realistically Niko will react to terrain - while he walked through the gravel leading up to the docks, it made crunchy gravel noises; when he'd walk across a grate, it clank-thumped like someone walking across metal.

Here, he walked up to a short ledge and - once he got close enough - automatically rested one of his feet on it as he made a call to a buddy.

Eric: I loved that foot thing. I've been squawking about the animations looking unnatural in the PS2 series for ages. I love that the newanimations alllook so realistic - it bodes well for all of the other physics-related stuff in the game as well, like car crashes.