As you may have guessed in the run up to GTA IV’s release this past week, all of us here at UltraNinjas were rather excited about the whole thing. So excited, in fact, that we decided to run our first ever competition to give people the chance to score their own copy. Amongst all this excitement I managed to forget to get my personal copy sent to work and instead had to wait until the end of the day to get my hands on Rockstar’s crime-filled epic, and this working day has since been passed down in legend as one that shall never be mentioned again.

It’d be easy to gush on about the history of the series and suchlike, but to be honest I’m sure you’re all sick to the back teeth of reading it by now. What matters is that, through all the controversy, accolades and hype has emerged a very much more streamlined, focused version of Grand Theft Auto than we were given by the rather too bloated San Andreas. Streamlined doesn’t mean we’re missing out on the vast freedom and massive selection of main and side quests, obviously, but this is very much a lean, mean GTA fighting machine and it’s all the better for it.

Telling the story of Niko, fresh off the boat from eastern Europe and seeking his own American dream, IV is set in Liberty City once more, although it’s Liberty City as we’ve never seen it before. Towering, and teeming with life, Rockstar’s pastiche of New York City is one of the most incredible settings you’ll have come across in a video game to date, not only due to how it all looks, but due to it actually conveying itself as a proper living, breathing environment. Never before has city life been so well captured in game form, and that makes the havoc you wreak as you blaze your own trail across it all the more nerve-wracking and compelling.

This havoc is, somewhat unsurprisingly, not all that different in nature from GTA games past. You still control your character around in the third person, running, gunning and stealing cars from pretty much anyone you like. It’s very much in the same vain as the 3D games that came before it save a new gunplay system, melee system, driving model and slightly tweaked drive-by shooting mechanic, and it’s remarkably easy for even series newcomers to get to grips with given that all the various faculties of the control system are introduced to the player via a series of early missions.

These early missions form part of a pretty steady introduction to the world in which you will be battling, and to be completely honest after a couple of hours I wasn’t exactly convinced that I was completely satisfied with how my GTA IV experience was turning out. Niko spends most of his time running little errands for his cousin Roman and a loan shark named Vlad, and with most of these missions being fairly simple and with only one of the game’s islands open for exploration – although in itself vast – it feels as it the game is creeping into life rather than opening with a bang.

Thankfully, the thing finally explodes into life shortly after Niko decides that he’s had enough of his cousin being messed around, and from there it’s a non-stop action fest full of explosions, back-stabbing and the kinds of tongue-in-cheek stereotypes and humour that Rockstar are by now famed for. By giving you a mobile phone early in the game the game also introduces you to what is in effect that main hub of activity; gathering numbers and calling them to initiate quests, go out on dates and nights out or arrange for a number of special favours should someone like you enough all being possible. It’s a clever little system that integrates pretty seamlessly into the action, leaving you to wander around to your heart’s content without having to worry about being in a certain place to talk to a certain person, or having to remember a specific time for a meeting or date off the top of your head.

The ‘wandering about’ bit, GTA’s calmer side if you will, is still as fun as it ever was. Exploring the vast expanses and different suburbs of Liberty whilst shooting pigeons, bumping and jostling with the general public and getting involved in some of the many, many mini games on offer could in theory take you well over fifty hours before you even complete your first run-through, whilst heading into internet cafes to set up online dates and looking after your resulting new girlfriends is a neat little option should you wish to show that Niko isn’t just someone who runs people over and shoots down helicopters. There’s a chance you could get him to score, too, so keep… er… ‘plugging away’.

In fact, there’s so much detail plumbed into general life in Liberty that it’s easy to get completely lost in it. You can play pool, darts and bowling should the fancy take you, and although none of them are particularly brilliant representations of the sports they do their job well enough. Should you wish for something a little more on the wild side there’re strip clubs and bars you can go to, with the latter leaving Niko a shambling corpse of a man who can’t even use his phone. It wears off after a while, obviously, and it makes driving a complete farce (as you’d expect it to, really), but after a couple of times the novelty does wear a little thin. Thankfully you can instead then go on to visit the comedy club that is home to a number of famous comedy names or head back to your pad to watch some amusing television parodies that are all rather amusing, so you’re not short of things to do.

The way the world reacts around you as you’re doing all this is a joy too, with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments coming from simply listening to the public as they have their own conversations and comments on what you are doing. Slide your car around a corner and they’ll yell ‘TERRORISTS!’ and dive for cover, whilst bump into the wrong person and they’ll square up to you and throw a few punches. Simply doing things like firing your gun into the air in the middle of a crowded park will see mass panic and people running in all directions, and moments like that always raise a smile and never get old throughout your time with the game.

So, what of these new systems that have been thrown into the game? There are two that people will primarily notice; the way cars handle, and the way gun battles work. The former has seen the vehicles given a weightier, ponderous feel, and to be honest this frustrates more than it probably should. Anything other than the top line sports models that you can pick up later on now slide and lollop around rather like buses, with the normal brakes not doing enough and the handbrakes doing too much to slow the things down. Eventually you do hit on a method of keeping the things pointing in the general direction you like, but it certainly doesn’t feel as on-edge or over-the-top as previous titles did.

Likewise, the changes to the gunplay via the introduction of cover is also rather hit-and-miss and likely to cause a bit of frustration. You can now duck behind pretty much anything that the world offers up as a shield, be it cars, walls or pillars, and peeking around the corner will allow you to blind fire enemies or briefly snap out of cover to perform a more risky yet more accurate aimed shot. This tends to work quite well, but rather too often you’ll find Niko clinging to the wrong side of a piece of cover, or getting confused should you wish to switch him from one piece to the next. Another issue is that the game also messes up the auto-targeting system, often leaving you aiming at walls or nothing at all instead of the big mean guy firing an Uzi in your general direction.

The other main issue I have with the new combat system is that it seems to have made Rockstar throw in too many of the same type of ‘go to a warehouse/car park/apartment and clear out dozens of oncoming opponents’ missions. Whilst the combat and the cover work just about well enough to make these missions relatively enjoyable initially, by the fifth or sixth one you begin to become somewhat bored and wanting for a little variety in your missions. There is variety over the duration, of course, but it seems that the above type of mission is somewhat overused. Still, these niggles aren’t complete game breakers, no matter what some would have you believe. They’ll frustrate some more than others, sure, but they are both not big enough issues to ruin the experience.

Of course, the experience of a GTA game is no doubt pinned mostly on the quality of the script, cast and cultural references and music packed into the whole shebang, and for the most part IV doesn’t disappoint. The characters you meet throughout your time in Liberty are a real pick-‘n’-mix bunch of egos in the forms of steroid-abusing muscle freaks, laid-back and generally incomprehensible Jamaicans, sneaky corrupt Irish police chiefs and pretty much everything in-between, and each has been brought to life with some top-notch voice acting and visual mannerisms. Best yet, you’re able to make friends and form bonds with these people, something that Rockstar have cleverly chucked in so that when, a bit later, they start getting you to choose whether to keep certain ones alive or not it is a decision not to be taken lightly. The main story that threads through this is also an interesting one packed full of twists, and quite quickly you’ll realise that Niko is probably the best-realised, most likeable lead character to date, despite his personal troubles and questionable conduct.

Something not quite up to previous efforts – in my opinion at least – is the musical side of things. There may be a vast quantity of radio stations on offer for you to cop a gander at and, yes, the spoken ones with Lazlo and the like are still hilarious (as are the adverts, come to think of it), but only very, very rarely did I find myself really enjoying many of the tunes on offer. A bit of practice led me to suss that Broker Radio – hosted by Juliette Lewis – was my favourite, but even the classic rock channel with Iggy Pop left me a little cold. Perhaps you could say that this is due to the game’s soundtrack not suiting my particular taste, but hey – opinions are fun and all.

What you certainly can’t say about GTA IV, though, is that the visual side of things is a letdown. Using their RAGE engine that powered the stupidly addictive Table Tennis a few years back, Rockstar have given the people of Liberty City a realistic, natural way of walking and performing actions, whilst the buildings and surrounding scenery will occasionally take your breath away. A particularly beautiful part of the city is Star Junction – Times Square for all intents and purposes – at night, with the neon signs and big video boards lighting the streets and the pavements teeming with life. Then there’s the moment you first take a helicopter up and view the city below you, with traffic tootling along the roads and the sun glistening off the water. It’s fantastic stuff, and in my experiences slowdown was only very, very infrequent.

The same can be said, by-and-large, of the whole GTA IV package. Smaller niggles do crop up: Niko’s insistence on using his phone after a mission renders you unable to run or get into a car, leaving you vulnerable to the police, and occasionally bikes and vehicles get jammed in areas that seem escapable but for some reason aren’t. On a personal note the grittier, more realistic vision that Rockstar have headed toward with the game will undoubtedly leave a few people feeling a little cold, although in reality the overblown humour and characteristics are still there as much as they ever were.

It’s also very hard not to award GTA IV a straight 10, given how much scope and detail the whole thing has. There are many more neat moments and touches that I could blabber on about for hours, but with most of you having found them for yourselves and not wanting to spoil all the fun for the rest of you lot I will cease here. Expect a multiplayer review sometime next week, but for now rest assured that in the eyes of at least this critic, GTA IV is worth every bit of the hype, warts and all. If you’ve not purchased it yet, make sure you resolve the errors of your ways sooner rather than later.