Grand Theft Auto IV: three points of view

Grand Theft Auto IV. Does any game warrant this level of attention? The few details Rockstar has seen fit to share with us are tantalizing - so exciting that we decided to rope in three editors to pick apart the trailer and try to offer up more insight into its content. Christian Nutt, Senior Editor - not a GTA fan. Brett Elston, Nintendo Editor - a casual player of the series. Mikel Reparaz, Sony Editor - a superfan who's poured hundreds of hours into the titles over the years. These three men bring their varying perspectives to the discussion.

Christian: I've watchedthe trailera couple of times. I've got mixed feelings about it - which you might expect, given that I'm the non-fan of the group. I like the feeling of drama it gives off. But I'm not sure what that means to the series - nobody I know has really cited the drama as a real reason they enjoy it. I know that I find crime stories really hard to take seriously unless they have some compelling drama to back them up, though, so my curiosity is rising.

Brett: All I see in this trailer is a bunch of stuff that I will never, ever notice in-game. All the dialogue, the dramatic camera angles, the close ups, the sweeping views of the city, it's pretty likely none of that will be part of the day-in day-out gameplay.

It's all presentation. While cool and stylized, it doesn't mean anything to me. Hanging off of helicopters and such will be neat, especially if you can hitch a ride on all types of vehicles, but in the end I'll still spend the majority of my time launching cars off of roofs.

Mikel: I think the "drama" has always been a big part of the GTA experience. Maybe not so much the plot itself, but the characters, the dialogue and the tongue-in-cheek black comedy are all integral parts of the whole.

While I love just crashing around and murdering hookers and whatnot, that's only fun in short spurts, and the missions - stripped of their story trappings - tend to be more frustrating than fun. And while you might not have heard people citing the drama as a reason for enjoying it, they'll sure as hell complain when they think it's weak, as a lot of people did when Vice City Stories came along. But really, if the storylines stringing me along weren't interesting and clever, I wouldn't have played these things to the end.

That said, I'm not sure it'll matter if you notice a lot of the background stuff or not. Do you notice when someone walking past you in real lifetakes a drag off a cigarette? Probably not, but you'd notice if they just walked around with the same stiff gait as everyone else. It'd make you think something was up. I don't really think the grandeur of the city is something anyone's going to marvel at after their first few hours of gameplay, but assuming it's as smooth as it looks in this trailer, I think all that background stuff is going to make for a more immersive experience whether you overtly pay attention to it or not.

But yeah, I'm a little relieved to see Niko hanging off a chopper and being dragged behind a truck and such; with all the new emphasis on grim realism over the series' usual cartoonish extremism, I was starting to worry that the usual balls-out insanity was being toned down. If anything, it looks like it's going to be ramped up.

Grand Theft Auto IV. Does any game warrant this level of attention? The few details Rockstar has seen fit to share with us are tantalizing - so exciting that we decided to rope in three editors to pick apart the trailer and try to offer up more insight into its content. Christian Nutt, Senior Editor - not a GTA fan. Brett Elston, Nintendo Editor - a casual player of the series. Mikel Reparaz, Sony Editor - a superfan who's poured hundreds of hours into the titles over the years. These three men bring their varying perspectives to the discussion.

Christian: I've watchedthe trailera couple of times. I've got mixed feelings about it - which you might expect, given that I'm the non-fan of the group. I like the feeling of drama it gives off. But I'm not sure what that means to the series - nobody I know has really cited the drama as a real reason they enjoy it. I know that I find crime stories really hard to take seriously unless they have some compelling drama to back them up, though, so my curiosity is rising.

Brett: All I see in this trailer is a bunch of stuff that I will never, ever notice in-game. All the dialogue, the dramatic camera angles, the close ups, the sweeping views of the city, it's pretty likely none of that will be part of the day-in day-out gameplay.

It's all presentation. While cool and stylized, it doesn't mean anything to me. Hanging off of helicopters and such will be neat, especially if you can hitch a ride on all types of vehicles, but in the end I'll still spend the majority of my time launching cars off of roofs.

Mikel: I think the "drama" has always been a big part of the GTA experience. Maybe not so much the plot itself, but the characters, the dialogue and the tongue-in-cheek black comedy are all integral parts of the whole.

While I love just crashing around and murdering hookers and whatnot, that's only fun in short spurts, and the missions - stripped of their story trappings - tend to be more frustrating than fun. And while you might not have heard people citing the drama as a reason for enjoying it, they'll sure as hell complain when they think it's weak, as a lot of people did when Vice City Stories came along. But really, if the storylines stringing me along weren't interesting and clever, I wouldn't have played these things to the end.

That said, I'm not sure it'll matter if you notice a lot of the background stuff or not. Do you notice when someone walking past you in real lifetakes a drag off a cigarette? Probably not, but you'd notice if they just walked around with the same stiff gait as everyone else. It'd make you think something was up. I don't really think the grandeur of the city is something anyone's going to marvel at after their first few hours of gameplay, but assuming it's as smooth as it looks in this trailer, I think all that background stuff is going to make for a more immersive experience whether you overtly pay attention to it or not.

But yeah, I'm a little relieved to see Niko hanging off a chopper and being dragged behind a truck and such; with all the new emphasis on grim realism over the series' usual cartoonish extremism, I was starting to worry that the usual balls-out insanity was being toned down. If anything, it looks like it's going to be ramped up.