Games Magazine Preview

The UK's Games™ magazine is the first to have tested the gameplay of Grand Theft Auto IV, and at least a dozen journalists noted down every little detail:

• Times Square is called Star Junction in the game.
• Only a few pedestrians were wandering the streets, which is probably down to the early stage of development.
• Niko ordered weapons through his mobile phone, calling an arms dealer named Little Jacob. Jacob told him where to meet, and that was the end of the conversation.
• The player can even travel from one place to another by taxi, and during the ride we can look at the city through the passenger's eyes.
• In one mission, Niko had to get a chip holding important data from an unknown man. The only problem was that this person was standing in a large crowd, and Niko didn't know exactly what the target looked like. So he took out his mobile phone, called the chip's owner, and whoever reached for his pocket got a bullet in the head.
• Missions can be interrupted, so you can have several missions on the go at once in the game, and you can drag out completing them over days.
• Later Niko got a call from a lawyer named Goldberg. In this mission Niko had to upload his résumé to the website of the firm Goldberg, Ligner & Shyster, have a conversation, and kill Goldberg.
• Niko went to the TW@ internet café, known from GTA III, and uploaded his résumé, later bought a $2,000 suit in a shop called Perseus, then talked over the intercom with Goldberg's secretary, who let him into the office. The lawyer welcomed his guest with open arms and a wide smile, whereupon Niko pulled out a gun and shot his host in the head. The secretary heard the gunfire and called the police, and our hero went up to wanted level 3.
• For every crime and offence we commit, the cops will be on our tail.
• Your current wanted level determines how alert the cops are and the size of their search area, and if you manage to escape from it, your wanted level will go down as well.
• As usual, we can hear the cops talking about us and announcing where we're heading, but now the cops will know exactly where you're going, since the new GTA episode will have street names too.
• The draw distance is unreal.

Players have never been able to browse the net inside a GTA game before, but now that's becoming reality too! The police also seem to be getting smarter and better organized, and it's also worth noting that both times Niko murdered a man, he immediately got wanted level 3!