Grand Theft Auto IV: Kikizo Preview 2

Unfortunately for Niko on this second play through he dies; battered from the shootout and outnumbered by aggressive LCPD cops, he falls to the ground and the camera pans high looking downwards to show that you've botched the job up.

Interestingly, between the second and first play through, we had to leave the room while Rockstar went through some "secret menu stuff". It makes us curious what could have followed the reboot sequence and title screen (which our sound recorder picked up)- it makes us think there's still a lot we have to learn about in this epic title in the run up to release. After all, Rockstar confirmed to us that this whole demo only showed off one third of Algonquin, and when you consider there are five boroughs - Broker (Brooklyn), Dukes (Queens), Algonquin (Manhattan), Boham (Bronx) and Albany (New Jersey) - it's about 1/16 of the full game map we saw here. Combine that with the area we saw of Broker last time, and we reckon we've seen only about 15% of the full playground that is Liberty City 2007. But we bet there are some surprises in there too. How cool would it be to go see how CJ is getting on in next-gen Los Santos a decade later?

GTA is quite a unique series for the games industry today. It has the ability to excite a massmarket, and not many games can boast that. Using the cellphone interface in GTA IV, people should automatically know what's going on, and the same goes for the Internet usage in the game. GTA IV could be a release that convinces people to buy next gen consoles; Rockstar probably deserves to be in this fortunate position owing to the quality of the series to date. There's no doubt in our minds that GTA IV will set new standards here, and frankly, it's tough to predict anyone outdoing them right now.

And yes, Rockstar again reconfirmed to us that it is still on course for its stated release dates. Only three months to go!

Stay with Kikizo for unrivalled depth of GTA IV first-hand coverage anywhere in the world, as we follow up with continuing previews, which will most likely include PS3 impressions, online features, multiplayer modes, and pre-release hands-on impressions, before our final review in October.

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