PlayStation Magazine - GTA IV Preview

Yesterday a few lucky British subscribers found the latest issue of PlayStation magazine in their mailboxes, and it includes a GTA IV preview. Here's a quick summary:

• Niko (the main character) is a little past the age of Christ and is living his thirties. We learned that we can't change his looks, but we can put him in different clothes.

• Staten Island is the only place in Liberty City that looks exactly the same as it does in New York.

• There won't be any unexplored areas on the streets of LC.

• Once we start playing, there's no loading screen at all, meaning that moving between interiors (that is, inside buildings) and exteriors (outside buildings) is completely seamless.

• There will be street gangs, but they may not play as important a role as before.

• There has been a big step forward in mission gameplay, as the missions have become much more realistic; they last longer, they're more complicated, and our work can have several different outcomes.

• The bridges will be closed off at the start of the game so that we can't roam around other areas, but this isn't a final decision yet.

• The graphics have gone through a significant change too, as the draw distance has increased massively. So much so that we won't see buildings popping up in the distance any more, and "distant textures" (see: the WTC twin towers in Vice City) have been completely "eradicated" from the game.

• Dan Houser said that nobody has tried to recreate an area this large before, at such a high graphical level.

• The artificial intelligence has been through huge testing, so pedestrians go about a wide range of activities on the streets. For example, they even react if someone simply pulls a gun on them.

• Aiming has become more precise than in the previous games.

• Using the mobile phone will be especially important for Niko, since he can arrange deals and raids with his partners and/or associates through it.

• As we wrote earlier, there won't be any planes in the game, but we'll be able to fly helicopters.

• Many more side missions will be added to the game.