Story Done + GTA IV First Impressions

For whatever reason, I was up until around 3:30AM finishing up that short story I mentioned... So it's done, and if I recall correctly it's around 4,000 words... I haven't looked at it since completion, though, so it probably sucks.

I woke up relatively early (it was like... 10:00AM) to go pick up Grand Theft Auto IV, and since I only had one class - and it was my last class of the semester, not counting finals - I spent the better part of the day playing it.

It's amazing. 7 hours of stealing cars and I don't wanna go out and jack people in real life! Man, who'd have thought that?

But anyways, I'm actually extremely impressed. I think a lot of this is due to the storyline, which is really quite good. Fantastic dialogue, great voice acting... And most importantly, really likable characters. You just couldn't relate to previous GTA protagonists, IMO, but Niko is an extremely interesting character. New to America and Liberty City, he's conflicted... He wants a new start, wants to not live a life of crime, but ever since the war (whichever war he was in... I'm not sure), he finds himself doing nothing but bad things.

The story really has me wondering what comes next. By the end, it might actually rank up there with some of the great crime/gangster movies.

Gameplay is great too... It's weird, on the surface, it feels EXACTLY like a GTA game, which have typically bored me in the past after an hour or two. But I dunno, everything here is just so refined and so polished... It's a great and addicting formula that most certainly goes beyond running around a city causing mayhem.

I also played a fair amount of multiplayer, which is a whole lot more entertaining than I thought. It's chaoctic, but in a very good way. I've only done team stuff so far, but I really enjoy the modes I tried... Which wasn't even half of them.

So yeah. I'm not altogether positive that it deserves the bajillion perfect scores it's been getting from just about every review source in the nation right now, but my first impressions are VERY positive.

Note, however, that it's still very much a Grand Theft Auto game. While the story shows an existance of moral dilemas and an actual concern for doing the right thing (at least sometimes), there's extremely strong language, inappropriate dialogue, strong sexual content (a lot/most of which is avoidable, as per series standard), violence, etc.

'aint for the kiddies, though I really, REALLY hope there aren't still parents out there that think it would be.

But for those of you who are 17 and up? I'm really enjoying it so far. I kind of want to play it more right now, but I'm exhausted, and thus should get some sleep. I'll have more stuff to say later.