GameInformer: Grand Theft Auto IV

The May issue of GameInformer contains a 10-page GTA IV preview. Subscribers got the magazine well ahead of everyone else, and it revealed some important details about the next-generation GTA:

• The game's main character is named Niko Bellic, who emigrated from Eastern Europe to Liberty City.
• Niko's cousin Roman persuades him to move to Liberty.
• The in-game counterpart of the Statue of Liberty is the Statue of Happiness.
• The bridge called DUMBO is called BOABO.
• Liberty City will be built from the digital counterparts of New York's boroughs: Brooklyn = Broker; Manhattan = Algonquin; Queens = Dukes; Bronx = Bohan; New Jersey = Alderney.
• Liberty City will be smaller than San Andreas and there will be no countryside, but in return the developers promise a very richly detailed city.
• Since there will be only one city, there won't be any planes either.
• Pedestrians will behave much more realistically: they'll smoke, sit down on benches, read, shop, eat and so on…
• Rockstar has worked a lot on the new aiming system.
• We'll be able to call other people on the phone.
• The game will have multiplayer, but it won't be built on an MMO basis.
• GameInformer played the Xbox 360 version and said that the graphics seen so far will keep improving before release.