Rarely will have a title been as awaited as this Grand Theft Auto IV. Messiah for some, monster for others, the brand-new GTA is finally here. Nearly four years after a San Andreas acclaimed by the critics and praised by the big majority of fans, Rockstar renews with its fetish series, for the first time on Xbox 360. By landing on a new generation of consoles, Grand Theft Auto IV of course brings with it new hopes and expectations. In vain?

Where it all began... again

Appealed by a cousin of his a bit too quick on fibs, Niko Bellic leaves his natal Serbia and crosses the Ocean to land in Liberty City, the country of opportunities. Roman promised him a life rhythmed by sports cars and debauched women, far from their Balkan habits. Too bad for the two cousins, the truth is slightly different. Dossing down in a poor flat around Broker, Roman stacks up game debts and, of course, doesn't forget to involve Niko in his mess faster than he needs to sniff up a white rail.

As one could suppose, this new Grand Theft Auto leaves slightly behind the little cartoon effect met in the PlayStation 2 episodes and heads towards a less third-degree ambience. The global realization is thus providing a game closer than ever to a polar: here is some serious dark movie with headshots shared out to all those who dare raising their voices. The seriousness of the ambience may be regretted but the story and the staging, though a bit disappointing, however manages to leave the concurrence a few subway stations behind. And if a GTA's quality must be judged by the hilarity of its characters, this fourth episode would get a rather successful mark, notably with some mails and dialogs from Brucie that will be remembered.

The ambience by the way is heavily supported, as usual, by an excellent soundtrack. The English dubbing is excellent, with a first rank Niko. The usual radios are still here with an extremely diversified selection ranging from Bob Marley to Justice, not forgetting Elton John or The Who. Grand Theft Auto IV also innovates by setting the arrival of TV channels that you can watch without moderation in your diverse hideouts, but unluckily they all are broadcast in their original versions and without subtitles.

Serbian Connexion

If one will have to wait during a little dozen of missions before getting his first firearm offered, Grand Theft Auto IV does not take long before taking back its habits. Scurrying and fleeing, escorts, assassinations, the objectives will really not get the players used to the series lost. The game moreover benefits a novelty looking trivial but renewing a fine part of the gameplay: the mobile phone. If you can of course keep contact with the different protagonists through calls or text messages, the developers also found him some uses during the missions. Taking a gangsta group in photo to confirm them as targets or making a phone close to a window ring to get a nicer shooting angle all are part of the, yet scripted, possibilities offered by Niko's new toy. And this is not all, since the cell phone can also be used to launch back a failed mission, thus taking down to the dealt affairs the sadly famous time losses of the precedent installments.

The possibilities offered by the gameplay, from a more general point of view, are somewhat less numerous than in San Andreas if you compare features like character customization or the total adventure area. One must however say the latter had set the standard quite high with its three cities and its surrounding countryside. But what this opus lacks in diversity, it earns back in complexity. An immense city, whose coherence remains incredible, with a crazy architecture where each street explodes of its own identity and of an astonishing number of details (hot-dog sellers, bus stops, dustbins, magazine kiosks, etc.) that are only waiting for you to reduce them to thousand of parts if you don't drive smoothly enough.

Because the other main novelty of this Grand Theft Auto IV resides in its physics engine, surely the best one for such a dense game. The vehicles' driving is totally renewed and can be harshed to the price of numerous tries and of a nice stack of thrashed metal sheets. One may just regret certain aspects have been slightly too exaggerated, like the handbrake or weigh transfer during the turns. Anyway, some enormities are still to be found disagreeing with the physics (a car lifting another one for example).

You can run but you can’t hide

This new physics engine is also put to use in the gunfights, now at several lightyears from what the former episodes of the series offered. Out with the dilemma consisting in being able to shoot at an opponent without your bulletproof suit spending the worst quarter of an hour of its life. Grand Theft Auto IV got the terrible idea of updating its system by imitating what was presently working best: all those titles betting on cover. The RB button is now used as a does-it-all one to find some cover. Behind a wall or to end a run with a nice effect slide sending Niko hiding aside a vehicle, one quickly gets used and overuses it since it really feels great. If he is not under cover, the game passes to a shoulder view, whose benefits are not to be proven anymore since Splinter Cell. Once covered, Niko can fire without looking by making his weapon pass above his hideout, or stand whenever he wants to send some bullets that will most surely hit. The automatic aim indeed is extremely efficient, maybe a bit too much, but luckily does not take anything back from the pleasure provided by very frequent shooting phases. It by the way is possible to use manual aiming, depending on the pressure applied on the side button.

The gunfights are all the more catchy that they now benefit a graphical engine undoubtedly allowing the developers more freedoms. Thanks to the next-gen'. The different characters aren't chainsaw-modelized any more, the clipping and the frame rate issues, though still present in Grand Theft Auto IV, remain really less important than in San Andreas. Where this new episode impresses most still undoubtedly is in the world's complexity. A gigantic area, a progressing number of interiors, bypassers and vehicles displayed by dozens, the whole without any loading time. The only ones just occur in order to ensure the transitions between cut-scenes and game phases. Let it be said, Grand Theft Auto IV presently is the most technically complete game of the genre, really far above the concurrence.

Then comes the cherry on top of the cake, the multiplayer mode. Not only has it not been done hastily, but above all, its development has not harmed the solo adventure that comes up with some hell long lifetime. In a period during which games tend to show their ends in less than ten hours, GTA IV, as for it, largely lasts further than thirty hours. Moreover, numerous choices will be let to the player and the decisions taken have an incidence on the game's end, which thus offers several alternatives. One must say that money is well spent. Let us come back to multiplayer: it is only playable online, alone on one's own console. It proposes a consequent number of modes. From classical deathmatches or team deathmatches to more original and maybe more interesting modes (cops'n crooks, team mafia work), not forgetting the usual car races, everything is here. There are people and very few lag; in a nutshell, it's just cool.