From Russia with love........
At the moment your disc tray slides back into your noisy white and green friend you call an Xbox, the loading screen will flash buy and you will be greeted with a very peculiar, very comedic opening of the sight of a man being whipped in a bondage sexicipade with his lover while our main protagonist Niko is knocking on the door to see if everything is ok. With that opening you get the nice and warm feeling that this game is defiantly not going to be o' so serious, but later on in the game you start to understand that the game isn't always going to be fun and games (For Niko that is) and there will be times where Niko and the gang will have go through their little family issues, you really get attached to these characters. The whole story behind this legendary game is Niko, the main character, comes to America, the land of oppurtunity, to see those "round American tities" and live the goodlife with his cousin Roman. Apposed to his old life in Eastern Europe, where he had a relativley nonthing. Later in the game you will find out that Niko has some extra things on his international to do list. Little to his knowledge Roman is in debt with a lowly job and lives in a small run down apartment by himself, a life far from expected, Niko realizes he must build his way up anyway he can to achieve his objectives.
Enough with the games introduction, time for the graphics. GTA's visuals are just amazingly beautiful, sometimes I just like to look at the disgusting waters of the hudson river (something I would not normally do as a resisdent of NY) just because of the way the sun rays bounce off the water. The people in the game look almost real, ofcourse from a distance, and the cars look great. Not to mention the game is almost an exact copy of NYC itself. Now you must be saying to yourself, "wow, this game must look amazing", it does, but with one problem, as soon as you see that computer generated sun set under your virtual NYC, the games visuals start to go down hill. The game doesn't necessarily look like crap at that point, but it does start to look like a very good looking Xbox game (Original Xbox game ofcourse) and that compares almost nothing to the morning to noon visuals. Other than that I see nonthing less than outstanding about the games graphics.
Just to knock this out of the way, the sound is outstanding and to the T, it reminds me of the busy streets of Manhattan like it should, and the people sound angry like they always do in NY.
Last but not least, the reason why I skipped over something as unimportant (imo) as the sound, and the part you've al been waitng for, the gameplay. GTA has always been a game where Fun comes first and Graphics and Sound second, now even with technology's innovation, the graphics and sound still can't keep up. The game handles amazing, running, jumpin, swimming, driving, all perfect. Driving may take a bit of a learning curve but thats about it. Aiming, shooting, blowing up the mafia, all perfect. The game has no problems and a minimum amount of glitches. Your enemies are smarter than they were before, still not too bright, but smarter, enough to get you killed that is. Another new addition to this series is the multiplayer, packaged with a dozen game types including cops and crooks, death match, and some standard vehicle Races, GTA has more than enough to offer in its arsenal of fun.
All in all, GTA came with more than expected, and with only a few minor problems GTA gracefully car jacked its way up to a 10/10.