Since I couldn't resist writing my Developer for a Day 6 entry as a project, rather than a entry, and ending up rushing like a madman. To cut the story short - I'm out of time, and I'm 2/3 done. I figured I'd put it all in one, and get a finished result of KREMLIN.

All in all, this October I'm going down to L.A to "show off" Kremlin, and possibly Drive or Die.

KREMLIN

The story is alike to XIII, I don't know if you ever played that game(or read the comics) - But that storyline and the plot twists, for the lack of better terms; Kicks the living hell out of any other story, even GTA IV looks like a run-from-the-mill emotional story.

But back to Kremlin, from reading it all back from square one, to the end again; using the changes I've made while writing the D4aD6 contest - I'm so proud of myself, I'm currently giggling like a little schoolgirl. I should mention it's a game designed for those who use their... well... brain... A tiny bit, while gaming.

Y'know, the kind of game that have plot twists so sudden, you'd be slapping your own cheek for not expecting it.

All in all, the concept for a solid first person shooter, with an actual storyline, set in modern combat, with plot twists that have more reasons than "war". Hell, the finale is one you wouldn't see coming even if irony was slapping you on the cheek. Oh, and there's quite a few controversies tied to it already; Something that'll definatly cause a stir.

To begin with; It's a story of how a nuclear war could finalize the world once and for all. With the motto "Ask yourself; If all goes wrong, who's going to save you? - It's simple; No-one."

New York City, Montreal, St. Petersburg, Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Vancouver, Toronto, and various other cities will be set back in time by Tactical Nuclear Missiles. All in all; Who doesn't love to see cities vaporize? I'll take it that Bloomberg's going to be proud of this New Yorker.

Political judgementing - Well; Seeing as the communists v.s capitalists is a political issue - Yeah, commies are bastards in the game. But, knowing how it'll come to a conclusion; You'll think differently, you sure will.

Economics - "Money changes everything, your allies, your enemies, your goal, your history - It's the most damaging source available to anyone. It is capable of bring anything down to it's knees.".

All in all, yes. It ain't a happy story. And completing it isn't gonna make you feel like G.I Joe. I'll upload a PDF giving you a quick read through the story, soon.

DRIVE OR DIE

Back to Drive or Die, my dear little GTA rip off.

It's what I want to work out;
- Making all use of the BluRay player, and it's massive storage space.
- Proving that bigger, is better. (Long story, if you want to know - Ask).
- Interactive to a new level.
- Alive, while being enormous.
- Bringing ideas together from the community.

I think I've said enough when saying "GTA rip off", but yes... It's a freeroam action game, aka "Sandbox Action". But, seeing as I've said so damn much in the past about this - I'll leave it be.

Hell, to be honest - There you have it, my two topics for the failed video blog/podcast/misc. I tried to record. I was gonna give it another try, considering that people actually read my blogs(I noticed that quite a ****ing lot of people visit this page, a helluvalot more than I expected atleast) - But, Y'know. Podcast v.s Audio Blog, I'd need two people for this.

I'm a lone soldier out in the big wide open world. Huh.

Ah well, I think I'm gonna put through with the audio-things(There's no actual term for something that lies between podcast and audio-blog?). Also, seeing as I'm still open for suggestions when it comes to free-roam games. I've finally got a way to shove it up with the publishers; So do me a favor, and just say so.

And still, in the end, I've got to say this. Writers ARE underrated. We drive what they create, and we don't even get a sore mention.

"Winner."

Looks like Rockstar Games is up to date. This stuff is priceless. I have no clue whether it's an actual company within GTAIV, all I found was the boxtruck... Hell, I know it's a spoof on IKEA, but you try it yourself - Try to say KRAPEA, without saying Crap-E.A. or even thinking about EA.

Hell, I even have a checklist that I went through;

- Webcam, cheap and looks like it's from the early 90's; Check. (Trust T-something).
- Headset-like-thing, tough I sound like I'm one mile away; Check.(Logitec Game Headset/Xbox Live Headset, yes I was wearing two headsets to get some decent sound)
- Any ideas on what to say; Check-ish.
- More complaining about GTA; Check.
- A recording device(As I have NO idea on how to capture and record using this webcam otherwise, it's no camcorder); Fail/Check(FRAPS and GunCam running at the same time).

Right, so I started off. First thing that goes wrong is the sound, which isn't ... there. Turns out to be that my recording volume settings were off-scale. Well, fixed that and went on. Back to the beginning; Introduction, yada-yada-yada. What did I forget? Oh right, to click "record".

So, finally it went well. I figured it was recording video and sound, so I talked for a session straight worth 16 minutes. Me, talking to a camera as if it's a human being. Lovely.

It goes wrong again. reviewing it - No visual. At all. Cuts out after 40 seconds, then goes black. So, I figured; Screw it. I'll just make it an audio blog, as the sixteen minutes of sound was still there. Instead of exporting both video and sound, I export the sound.

Quickly correct myself saying "Audio Blog" using that Sony Vegas Editing Program(Bought it this afternoon, the Photoshop under Video Editing, figured could come in handy during the editing of the video blog). Paste some pretty pictures, incase some people wanted to watch an audio blog.

All went well, until I decided to export it into an AVI file. Y'know, just actually turning it into a video. The program kept giving me errors until I had enough of it, deleting everything I made and just said "The hell with it all".

Unless video blogging is a sport, I'm doing something very wrong. Maybe it's just that I'm overlooking the obvious?

Hell, the more times I get screwed creating a video blog, the more impatient I get to create one...

Y'know what, I'm at 92% game completion. I'll give the full No Love for Hype Rule review now. And a decent reminder for anyone; Where as editors tell you why you should buy the game, I'm here to tell you why you shouldn't.

By the way, a shoutout to both NeoJedi and True_Blu3. I'm sorry for leaving so suddenly, and the why... Well, it only happens to me; My Xbox stands on a glass table which is 4ft in height, with the cords wrapped tight around the supports. The glass shattered out of nowhere, and my Xbox fell down, dangling from the Internet-cord, the only one holding it back from falling down on a tile floor. I was just playing with these two fella's and all of the sudden I see a blue screen and I slowly look over to a table that lies on the floor.

The white cube of worthless designs still works, for as far as I've seen. Tough, it never has made sounds this ... akward. It's as if someone's kicking it constantly.

But all o' that aside. You're here for the biggest slice of pure hate for everything.

No Love for Hype Rule #15 - GTAIV Revisited.

Right, after a good eighty hours of gameplay, I've played more than enough to have a steady opinion. There's just so much in this game that annoys the living daylight out of me. Sure, the game's perfect in "how it delivers". But here I ask you, what the hell happened to "Fun"?

Like, trashing cars for no good reason, running down people because you feel like it, blowing crap up just because you've got nothing better to do.

Everything that gave me the lasting appeal in GTA: San Andreas has been stripped from GTAIV like a crying baby.

Lemme make one helluva' intro: Realism can go and **** itself. It blows more than your local druggie. It's the anti-Christ of fun. It's the damned republican in a crowd full of democrats.

Who in their right wretched minds would accept realism over pure, old fashioned fun? Who gives a flying **** that Stachel Charges aren't realistic. What does it matter that the police doesn't inmediatly find you once you bust a window? How in the **** does GTA look like the Sims if you can change your characters appearance? Who the **** do you think you are? Was Forza Motorsport not violent enough for you?

I'll give you a quote of a post I made a year ago.

Rockstar Games should accept it; Saints Row was a decent competitor, and most definatly a great game. And in the world of "Originality", you'd be bull****ting the world if you'd say that GTA IS a genre. In all genre's, in this case "Sandbox Action" - The ripping off of one-anothers work is necessary to IMPROVE.

Hell, I'd almost beg on my knees for Rockstar not to follow the path of realism. Not extreme realism, like Driver or The Getaway. But in that direction, too damn far into that direction.

Dude, it's almost that you forget that it's entertainment, not a simulation. The more you cut, like for instance appearance, modding, mini games - The less entertaining it becomes.

Keep on going with cutting on entertainment for "realisms" sake, and you're playing a B+ movie you'd see on Action Now.

Ask yourself this; Realism over Replayability? Realism over Fun? Realism over Choice?

Picking realism only makes you a value-hating jackass. Who's saying that YOU should mod cars, get fat, change your appearance? Well? No-one. Bingo. You idiot. If you don't like the extra's, stay away from them. Just leave it to those who do like it. And do get more lasting value out of it.BraindeadRacr

Y'know what. I've made my point. I'll continue.

GAMEPLAY: There's alot I simply hate. For instance, the health. With CJ already having a tiny bit of health, you could improve that. Niko on the other hand, is just as easily killed as your enemies.

There's no variety in clothing. You've got three kinds; Cheap ass, "I figured, I'd spend a fifty on mah pants fo' once" and Suit. And even within the three choices you've got, there's BARELY any variety.

Friends are fun at first, but nearing the end of the story; You'd wish you could shut them the hell up without being treated like some inconsiderate pr*ck.

After the story is completed; You'll feel alone, unloved and lost. There's nothing more for you to do, than trying to achieve 100%(which I already did 90% of BEFORE completing the story) - Other than that, you're left with a few older-than-old minigames and online.

There's no other reward than money for anything. Sometimes a pair of clothes. But that's it. Oh, twice you get a car. But you're not told that once it's gone, it's gone. For instance, during the last drug delivery of Little Jacob you're given a Huntley Sport to complete the delivery - I already ditched the Huntley for a beater Sabre; Then the Jamaican ****er calls that I can keep the Huntley, and then the cheesy mo'fo tells me "Great car ain'it?".

Dwayne is the sole person made out of polygons I'd love to kill slowly, and painfully.

What the **** happened to having a selection between weapons? I wanted more weapons, not "... Stubby shotgun, or riot shotgun?". Jesus, there's 16 guns! San Andreas had 35!

Auto-aim feels like cheating...

It's too damn easy to get cops on you. Can't I just screw around for one second without being hurrassed!?

Hell, there's more. But, I'd like to keep it basic for now.

GRAPHICS: While stunning and all, I'd love to discuss the game engine for a second. I know it's for the sake of realism, but it's too easy to "activate" the ragdolling state. Even a slight nudge pushes you back, and makes you open for that enemy shotgun blast needed to finalize you, for a whole second.

Also, the water looks amazing. But, paying attention to it by flying over it with a helicopter you can see that it's a three layer interactive blob. There's no depth in there at all.

AI: I know J-walking is stupid to do on a street like 7th Avenue, or Broadway. But really; Getting hit by EVERY car, if I J-walk? I always get run over. Also, the AI is careless. They hit everything, nail everything and then continue life as if nothing happened.

It's funny, and forgivable. But it's worth an achievement if you can drive like a normal person, without damage from Broker to Alderney. You'll be screwed without even reaching the halfway point of the Algonquin Bridge, dude.

Also, taxi drivers will most of the time drive theirselves stuck... But hell, everyone skips anyway.

SOUND: No complaining here.

... Heh, like hell there's no complaining. In GTAIV the soundtrack consists out of fairly unknown bands, and hit-after-hit scoring bands. I for one always have Liberty Rock Radio on. And most of the time, I'm switching to Integrity 2.0 or WKTT.

Elton John's Street Kids, Queen's One Vision and R.E.M's Turn You Inside Out are the only songs I can live with, before switching stations. Hell, The Who is one of the underrated bands from the 70's - Yet, while loving their music; Who in the hell wanted the Seeker?

Man, I miss Tom Petty, Skynyrd, Guns N Roses, KISS, and most of the other licenses Rockstar Games scored for San Andreas.

Damnit, I want Free Bird. Freeee Birrd!

MULTIPLAYER: Oh there's so much wrong with this. Tough, expected when trying to render a city for 16 people... Lag is unavoidable. But, why can't I climb ladders before torturing my Y-button? Why is there a MAJOR delay when trying to get in a passenger seat?

There's so much wrong; But most of it ends up getting justified with "Teh st00pit kidz!" and "Dude, it's a whole ****ing city!".

YOU FIGURED I WAS DONE NOW, EH? Seriously, I miss replay value. For as long there's random crap to pull of, yeah I can go on for days. The fun GTASA. The random crap I kept on pulling off. With GTAIV, once you're done - You're done. Like a 35-hour First Person Shooter ends, when it ends.

Well, there's no justifying that I miss the fun. But, knowing how reviewers score and all; Yeah, GTAIV did everything right. That's because after the average 10-25 hour lasting value means "Infinity". If it abruptly stops after that; Well, tough luck. "There's always multiplayer.".

Hmm, I was right afterall. The movie business is taken over by the video game industry. Those epic John McClane "I survived that ****!?" movie moments were gone after 1987. The hyper overly-not-real crap from video games ended roughly in 2007.

... To complete the main story of Grand Theft Auto IV. And quite frankly, I didn't know about having multiple endings, until I paged through the official strategy guide which I first opened after completing the story-mode.

Tough, while taking over four full days to complete the game; I am at 91% game completion. I got 165 "flying rats" shot up, and I'm missing two of the stunts(which I'll be finding thanks to this extremely useful guide). Other than that, meeting those "strangers" and collecting those cars for Steve - I am this close to nailing 100%.

As soon as I got the "Rich" achievement - I went for the Rolled Over achievement. No matter for how long I tried; Getting more than four rolls on the airport was near impossible. Until I could face it that losing money would no longe affect me... I got a decent car(Actually, I drove to the Airport with an Sultan RS, then stole a NOOSE Patriot, then a Police Cruiser, then a Sentinel, then ANOTHER Sentinel and then the final Sentinel), went to the airport - Crashed a ton of times 'til my latest Sentinel was in this state;

No doors, no hood, banged up so bad that the front left wheel was dragging with me, smoking pitch black and one shotgun blast away from a certain one-way-trip to the fiery pits of Hell.

I was in chat with a guy who does have the achievement, and whom kept on going that using the Cabbie minivan was the right car to use; I yelled "THIS ACHIEVEMENT, IT'S A LOAD OF ****ING BULL****!" - "Achievement Unlocked - Rolled Over 30G".

In my banged up Beemer, I nailed it... The statisfaction was more of a damn dissapointment tough. I was trying to nail it for so long, that the Sentinel was the sixth car I was going to trash since I entered the airport, along with the standard 4-star-wanted level.

To cut the story short, I got back on my wheels after unlocking the achievement. But the new damage system in GTAIV makes it sometimes different for cars to die on you. Most of the time it catches fire, and blows up. Sometimes, it just craps out. Leaving you sitting there saying "C'mon! Start!".

With four stars, it only took four seconds for the LCPD to find me and stuff a buckshot up my Slavic ass.

All in all, getting that achievement lost me around 240 grand in total. All of which went to "Hospital Bills". Including the 14.000$ that was apperiantly necessary to fix my Slavic ass.

Y'know what. Once I nail the 100% - I'll give you a true No Love for Hype Review.

For now, I'll have to prove to some certain people that I do see daylight, and that I do have a slight bit of a life.

Well, if you'd put both brands in a battle ring, one would enter the ring in Oklahoma City, and the other in Portland.

Y'know, working for UPS... It's no suprise for me, when I load my truck with my packages - That I find a few that are just totally mis-distributed. The other day, I had a SAMSUNG HDTV in my hands that was supposed to go to Tampa, Florida.

I work for UPS, and well... Everytime I see the words "UPS" and "Issue" in one line, well... You know, you got my attention. And damn straight UPS is crappy. On Xbox.com, never have I seen so many complaints about people not getting their Xboxes back. One time I read that a person from San Diego, California - He used the "track and trace" thing of UPS', and saw that his pacakage was delivered to a person in Syracuse, New York.

While FedEx is flawless, yet civilized. UPS is professional at all grounds; Screwing up distribution(Packages with destinations to Denver and such, ending up at New York), screwing up air mail(JFK is simply put - The biggest delay in the history of air-mail) and screwing up addresses.

And still, Microsoft uses UPS to ship in, and ship out broken/repaired Xbox 360 consoles.

Reason One: Screwing up addresses.

See, UPS is the biggest parcel service in the U.S, FedEx coming second. And a majority of us UPS employees aren't in the mood to play Sherlock Holmes.

Okay, I'll make some more sense...

I'm from Inwood. That's New York City. It's marked on signs, and it's considered a small town. If it weren't New York. There's already seven Inwoods in the New York State. So, if a package is designated to end up at "Inwood, NY." - We're not the type of people that then go out and get a phonebook, to compare zipcodes.

What do most then? They just say "Screw it", and sort it under a county with an Inwood, which they'll hope is the Inwood they're looking for.

That's one major reason of why your Xbox 360 gets "missing" during transport.

Who's to blame? Not UPS. Dip****. See, all us delivery boys just do what us is told. We pick a pile of packages, we put it in a truck, we make a route out of the addresses - And we deliver them. If the address is just a hint, or just vague as hell - Then my dear friend, you won't get your package.

Reason Two: Closed doors.

It's fairly simple. If we bring your Xbox 360 back, we'd expect atleast someone to be home.

I ring the bell twice, wait a few minutes. And if no-one awnsers, I'm forced to note where I left the package, which mostly is infront of the door.

We're simply not allowed to hand it off to anyone else but the owner, or atleast someone with the same last name. Better yet, if we did. We'd get a whole lot of bull**** for "Giving your packages away to an person we shouldn't have trusted it to".

I drive for six hours. I'm not gonna walk around one house for half an hour, trying to find a bit of life - Just to give my package to someone I can trust giving it to. 459 miles is what I drove last evening.

The Track and Trace thing should tell you when you'd get your package. If it reads "Driver is on his way" - Then be damn ready that I'll be there within four hours. If you're not, well I got better things to do. I'll leave it infront of the door, note that on my notepad and hope for your sake, no-one jacks it while you aren't home.

Reason Three: Crappy distribution system.

Our warehouse is devided in counties, and for some northern and southern, and such. All in all, my route is south New York. Everything from Coney Island, Brooklyn to Yonkers, and sometimes even further. My packages are nicely stacked and seperated.

We also have a space dedicated to "returners". Which are packages that have locations outside the New York State. Sometimes we'd kindly take the New Jersey, and even Pennsylvania. We just note it down, and recieve overtime-pay. But about that seperate space; It's usually filled to the roof. With packages going all over the USA. North Dakota, Oregon, Mississippi, California, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, etc.

Twice a month, two trucks filled with packages have to drive pack to the distribution centre. Adding a whole month of just delays. I think we all can imagine how the person who was going to get the pacakage must feel.

How UPS managed to screw it up, over and over? I don't know. But we keep getting 'em.

Y'know, I think it's safe to say that in the end. Why sometimes it takes 6 weeks to get you your Xbox back; Is mostly dedicated to UPS. I'll bet five bucks on Xbox consoles being fixed within a day, the rest of the time it's with us.

And that's because I just simply suck at it. The last time I nailed a strike was in 2004, after I literally trew the ball down the lane.

The closest I will get to bowling is by watching The Big Lebowski. Anyway, yes, you're right. This is another Grand Theft Auto IV related blog. What a suprise, eh buddy? No, it's pretty much a rant, if you'd like to call it that. I'm talking about the Gobble Gobble achievement.

See, I'm 67 hours into the game(Yeah, I've been playing it all day since the release. I ain't go no life.), 72% game completion and haven't even completed the storyline yet.

I'm trying to squeeze as many achievements out of the game before completing the main story. Mainly, single player. But if I seem to gain one during a ranked match; Bonus round. Now, I'm doing everything legit - No help from achievement websites, just try to pick 'em up, using my own ways of doing so.

And godforbid that I can get the most straightfoward achievement in the entire game.

Bowl three strikes in a row.

Now, I don't seem to suck ingame. I've played a whole game of just spares. It's so damn easy to get spares. And it's so damn easy to get strikes. But if I nail two in a row, I screw up the third one. I bowled for three hours straight. And I kept count - 12 times my scoring chart was like this:

X - X - 9-/.

And for twelve times I said "What. The. ****." I play whole games of just spares, and yet I can't get three strikes in a ****ing row!?

Ahh **** it, dude. Let's go bowlin'.

I figured, I'd check up my stats on that Social Club thing from Rockstar Games. Looks like I've driven more miles than my current car has done in twelve years, in less than a week.

350.000 miles by car? 71.000 on foot? 184-****ing-000 by cab!?

And all of that in an amazing time of 000:00:00:00?

No, seriously. I might take the taxi alot in the game, and run like there's no tomorrow. It can be a glitch for all I care, atleast I seem to love the cab in GTAIV, while I hate the Yellow Cab in real life. R* loves me. And irony too.

Y'know, to be frank. It's sort-of a personal blog. Hell, it is a personal blog. But you gotta admit, it feels good vending it all. Knowing that someone else outthere knows that the American Dream is the biggest and best kept lie ever made up.

Basics incase you just know me as that guy.

I'm from New York City, I'm nineteen, live on my own, on Manhattan Island. Oh yeah, I'm also considered an immigrant, without any eductation whatsoever.

What does that tell about me? Im living on the crappy jobs on immigrants can get, like Mexicans, Cubans, or even in my case, Dutch. I can get better jobs, but since as I have homeschooled myself - I don't have a degree. I live on Manhattan Island, the most expensive place to live.

The place I live in now can be considered The Bronx cause of it's run-down services, compared to looking five miles down south, where five-star hotels sit on every corner. Inwood is truely, the ass end of Manhattan. Where you end up because there's nothing vacant in the Bronx, or cause you just can't afford the high-price of Manhattan's southern cl.ass.

Hell, ask anyone. Does anyone even know Inwood? Four out of five will correct me for Inglewood, Los Angeles. Sure, they know Washington Heights - The true hellhole of Manhattan, nothing good can be found there. The fact that I live in a good-for-nothing neighborhood isn't the real issue. The fact of matter that my rent is fourhundred more a month than the same residential buildings a mile north into the Bronx.

Why is that? Because the ground of Manhattan, costs more than the building grounds of the Bronx.

Now, I'll bet you're wondering why I didn't stay in Brooklyn. The reason why I moved out on such an young age(17) was because of the constant fighting between me and my mother. One time she pushed the limit, I packed up, and stayed with a friend who lives in Manhattan.

At some point I couldn't stay anymore, and had to be out of his place within a month. So, I took the first oppertunity of a place to stay for granted. Which was a three-room apartment on Inwood, Manhattan. I had just enough money to get the first month of rent paid off. So the same guy who I lived with a month before, he hooked me up with a job, working as Internet Engineer.

Then a year after he fired me. And since I was an immigrant, finding a new job in a 15-million city was pretty ****ing hard. See, my dad's in the Navy. He settled in the Netherlands for ten years. Which is where I was born. In 1999 we all moved to the U.S, I was 11 at the time.

So, growing up without education. And being a Dutch born. Results in me being unable to get a decent job. The chances are so slim, that I'll have to haggle like my life's depending on it. I figured it all would be easy, as I could simply pay for my drivers ed. With no strings attached.

... So, I ended up at UPS. Doing the "off the beaten path" routes. The detours actual UPS drivers refuse to take. Meaning I'll have to drive 600 miles through New York City and Orange/Winchester Counties, just to deliver half a truck of packages.

In the end, I live a circle. I make just enough money to pay my bills, rent and my food. Leaving me with around 150 bucks to make myself happy. Games, books, pay-per-view, a nice present for my girlfriend. Etc. Sometimes, I make less. Especially during the summer, when people just don't send alot.

I don't make enough money to arrange transport to get my stuff elsewhere, to start a new rent deed somewhere else, to begin a new life elsewhere.

Basically, I'm stuck living like I do now.

And for some reason, even while living the miserable life that I do. Just waiting for that sole goddamn oppertunity to get out of this hellhole I call America - I can't get depressed. Strange huh? Exactly why my girlfriend loves me - Nothing brings me down, and giving me all your problems and frustrations makes anyone feel better.

Meh, sometimes I wish I could get depressed. So someone would actually help me dragging my sorry ass out of this miserable nightmare; The American Dream.

Yes! This blog makes me wanna make fun of Lark Anderson, in a weird way. Super Smash Brothers Brawl was an orgy of fighting overaged cartoon characters that live their daily lives like plumbers, by beating the hell out of eachother. Grand Theft Auto IV is a orgy of screwing the politicians so damn hard, that they won't even got the pride to fight back.

Hell, even Thompson's getting sloppy.

Okay, I'll be serious. The game's worthy of it's ten. But there's some things that are just hard to ignore. Easily overshadowed by GTA IV's greatness, and which is completely fair - It remains to be an issue.

I am here to nitpick like picking dust particles of a brand new package of airtight wrapped cheese. I'm only bringing up the BAD STUFF! Got that, you hypocrit? Man, irony. Anyway...

No Love for Hype Rule #14: Grand Theft Auto IV.

Man, this blog is gonna get so much biased comments and so much hate... I'm just gonna giggle quietly everytime someone posts another comment. Well, to start off fair and square. Gameplay. That's why Grand Theft Auto is so great, it's one of the few games to deliver perfect gameplay. Tough, little things like being able to knock over poles made out of two-inch thick iron, like they're toothpicks - Yet hitting a tree results in my being *****slapped by Mother Nature.

Tiny things that will pick your mind like a high frequency noise...

GAMEPLAY: Right, a whole list of tiny things that annoy me deeply.

- Some cars handle like boats on two-inch wheels... I've owned four cars in my history of driving, and none of 'em managed to take a 90 degree turn as if it's a slight bend, at 30MPH, and neither can these vehicles - Hell, it's even worse. Using the E-brake to fix that issue, results in a crash that will make you feel like a crappy driver, and making you see those words "It's a game! What the hell!?" in your mind.
- The pistols' accuracy wants to make me cry.
- If I decline an invite from a friend to do something, the game gives me the impression that I'm a social bastard.
- ...The same friends are extremely needy for attention, I'm an immigrant for crying out loud!
- Toll booths are annoying as hell. I'd give my private parts to get rid of them toolbooths from New York itself, now they're in the game aswell. You'll have to slow the hell down, park, trow five bucks into the bin and wait for the lazy donut-eater to raise the boomgate.
- Everything costs money. I'm a rundown criminal who's killed so many humans equalling Austria and stolen so many cars that could make L.A car-less... How hard is it to jack that 20$ cap I desperatly want!?
- Oh yeah, if a cop shoots the baseball cap from your head(Yes, it's possible) - You'll have to buy a new one.
- Only fat over-priced hookers wanna hump our dear little Niko.
- I need to drive through half the city to get to my one friggin' savehouse. I remember we were promised an pause-screen save...
- When you're taking a friend out, they've got the habbit to run into passing traffic. In 18 hours of gameplay, I've picked Romans drunken ass from the hospital up twice, and Brucie twice. They both get run over when I park my car, and they exit the vehicle. I hear a "*bang* AAARRRGGHHH!!!" - "Your Friend has been injured!". As if it's my fault.
- Taking a yellow cab is pretty expensive, making matters worse that you make such little money - Your first twenty missions involve nothing but driving.
- I can push a Trashmaster dumptruck on its side with a Honda CRX(Blista Compact), yet a decent impact with a tree kills my car.
- It took me ten hours gameplay to find out where the goddamn subway stations were.
- Cars just don't brake. Everytime I slam the brakes trying to avoid hitting the police car infront of me at full speed, my brakes lock up, e-braking makes me slide like I am on ice - I ram the police car at a speed, as if I didn't even attempt to brake in the first place.
- For too many times when I have a green light, a moron from right takes a red-light, I slam into his side at full speed - Killing the driver, and random pedestrians rip me from my car, beating the **** out of me for killing that driver. What the hell!?

The only major issue I have is related to combat.

A pistol is a semi-automatic weapon, right? Meaning you'll fire a bullet everytime you pull the trigger. In GTAIV, you're supposed to hold the right trigger until Niko's lazy ass can fire his weapon. Pretty much a three-second delay before you even fire a bullet, then you gotta hold it to remain shooting or you're back at square one.

Oh, and it's too easy to die.

I mean, when I was drunk with Roman, I constantly tripped over his body with a screaming liver, until my tiny bit of health I was given was gone. What made that incident up was when that "death screen" shows, the black and white thing you know - Roman got run over like a flat squirrel by a soccer-mom van. Oh, the joy of life.

Oh, and the game is supposed to jam up every ten minutes, like Bully. I never have had my game frozen in the past 18 hours - So, I figured I'll just mention it anyway.

GRAPHICS: They're above daily standards. Seeing as the Xbox's got one helluva job trying to render the entire city. Unlike your one-straight-level extremely beautifull games like Gears of War, this game earns a decent award for having such great graphics, while holding a decent framerate and almost no pop up at all. Making Gears of War and Halo 3 look like failed overachievers - GTA's got a technical notch, and they raised it higher than was considered possible.

I got no complaining.

It gives me reason to worry. It's got alot of content that is the stuff Jack Thompson has been digging for for years. And it's exactly the stuff that caused GTASA to be re-rated to Adults Only. The great thing of last-gen is that the biggest step they could take was a re-rating. And GTASA was the first to go into the AO-grounds, while being a commercial success.

The current biggest step to avoid AO-rerating; Is to patch/update the game and better censor the game from it's violating content. And if you're an Xbox LIVE player(Or PSN gamer, whichever you prefer) like I am - The government has all reason to screw Take2, to make 'em screw us by updating the game to avoid a heavy fee(remember the million dollar punishment of GTASA that put their profits down on a huge scale?).

AI: They're easily considered stupid when they need to be a source of help. Taxi drivers will hit and crash into everything, random civillians will cause massive gridlocks, allies run into passing traffic, and the list goes on.

But! Considering what they can do when they're not helping you; they're programmed to make the city feel alive. And a job well done. Pedestrian life can't get closer to being New York City than this. No kidding.

SOUND: My only complaint is that thanks to the massive soundtrack, songs I favor are extremely rare.

CONCLUSION:

Did I forget something? No? Yes? Multiplayer? Sorry, I only played free-mode and a bit of Cops n' Crooks, I don't think I've got a decent review for that...

The game's recieved a ten, from most websites. And it earned the score with flying flags. I know there's some people outthere saying "What about SSBB? What about Halo 3? They aren't perfect, why is this one!?". Let me sum it up for you.

- The reviews are directed to the base crowd. Not everyone. If it was directed to everyone, not a single game is worth purchasing according to reviewers. Why? Cause it would rely too much on opinions and tastes. Hence why they always mention "If you're new to the genre, consider renting it if you must.".
- Strange AI, and tiny bits of gameplay dislikes are opinions. For as far as I can judge - I find the AI to be a handfull of idiots, and some gameplay grinds my gears like a piece of sandpaper. But there's tons of people whom won't even be annoyed, let alone, noticing it.
- The game does everything right in it's current genre. Which is where a game like Halo 3 goes wrong. Short single player distracts ALOT of the points. To name a flaw.
- I'll bet you fifty bucks that you'll say "I THINK this game doesn't deserve a ten". With the reason being taste-based. Hence why you're wrong. That you might not like this and that, doesn't mean that the game doesn't deserve it's ten. Like Tony Hawk's game did a long time ago, it made everything perfect in the genre it caters, GTA does it today.

Consider this a pro-GTA review if you wish. Sure. Hell, if I was a fanboy, I wouldn't be here talking crap about it. Saying what I didn't like. Now would I?

Well, now you've heard the stuff you might not like. It's time to read that GameSpot review now to get some backup on why you should buy it.

GS: 10.
BDR: 10.