Grand Theft Auto IV Hands-On

At last, we get to play the biggest game of 2008.

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Our third mission was called Final Destination. We met up with some Russian mafia types who are based around Broker. These guys are extravagant and cold blooded. The scene starts with one Russian gangster called Dimitri, who makes his way into a private club. He approaches Michael, an associate who's chilling on a luxury sofa with a pair of sexy brunettes. Niko is introduced to Michael, who it quickly becomes evident is higher in the chain of command than Dimitri. The girls are asked to "get out of here" and so ensues their paranoid discussion about police trouble, tapped phones and feds being all over them. They are not sure who to blame, and the only way for Niko to prove that he himself is not the rat is for him to get rid of Dimitri's cousin's boyfriend, Lenny,, the only other possible snitch. Dimitri begs Michael not to assign Niko to this mission, but Michael's mind is made up. "He's too loud, and knows too much", he concludes. He's not the kind of guy who has to state his decision twice, it seems.

The story at this part of the game, some half way in, intrigues us. Could the friendship element go deeper than we've seen so far? We speculate that maybe Niko IS in fact the snitch and perhaps he's working undercover for more pay from some other entity, maybe even Officer McReary. We already know that someone in McReary's family is related to a thug, who we meet later in this demo. After all, does Niko need to worry about morals? Niko's ambiguous personality and back-story are elements that we think are going to make the game enjoyable to play through, as the story unfolds with more texture than seemed to be on offer in San Andreas.

We're told that this is one of the first times we'll be heading into Boham. We cruised over in our Banshee (a vehicle that bears a resemblance to the Dodge Viper) as Niko made his way to Guantanamo Avenue in Boham, where Lenny lives. We actually tried the mission that ensues twice, each time travelling across East Borough Bridge to get to Lenny - once at sunset, and on our second try at night time. It was amazing to see how the spectacular bridge view looked different at these times.

We arrive at an overhead train station and enter it (the first time we've been on the subway) after going up some stairs to the platform. We find Lenny and his cronies, and a shootout begins, complete with trains hurtling past. He makes a dash down the stairs on the opposite platform, so we jumped onto the track to chase him. On our first attempt this turned into a road chase and he got away, but on the second time, we took him out quickly with an SMG while he was still on the steps heading down to street level. If we had stayed on the platform, Rockstar told us that we would have been able to wait for a train and get on, if we wanted to. We'd then be able to skip the journey or watch it, like a cab ride. Apparently you can't steal trains though...

Our final mission is named Harbouring a Grudge. We're off to get some Irish thugs - just for money, we're told, not out of any sort of allegiance (so we're not sure what a grudge has to do with it). We travelled to Algonquin out near the docks, taking the scenic route through Star Junction on the way. Our comrade on this mission is named Packie (seriously), short for Patrick - Francis McReary's cousin, we think. Approaching the docks quietly was essential; all kinds of things could go wrong if we're not careful, not least of all accidentally triggering car alarms.

We climb and shimmy our way over to the hostiles, who are in the middle of a drug deal and in possession of some meds we need to steal. We're tanked to the brim with all kinds of weapons including Molotov cocktails and a seriously bad-ass rocket launcher, which we killed Niko with by accident at one point. On our second attempt there was torrential rain and the weather was dull and overcast - just the setting for the most fun shooting session we had in our two hours with the game. It was a careful and tactical shootout into an open space outside a warehouse opening. Baddies were all over place, really making us target and use what limited cover we had effectively. Once they were all taken out Niko was off with the goods in the "truck of the Irish" (I'll get my coat).

The missions were challenging in a good way; in this development build Rockstar was able to help us by using debug shortcuts on a USB keyboard to do instant 'cheats', giving us extra health or getting rid of cops at crucial moments. Unfortunately, Rockstar stressed that they would only tap these cheats in if we specifically asked them to, but typically when things got heated during gameplay we were too engrossed to notice the danger and ask for a cheat.

The build we played is exactly three weeks old as of this preview going live and obviously very close to release. No noticeable improvements in the technical quality have been made since the version we saw and discussed in our last preview, which is no bad thing because we're happy with the way it performs now. It's in shippable condition right now if you ask us.

Rockstar isn't revealing how many missions there are in total, but provided the whole game is as meaty as we're hoping, it seems certain that there's nothing to stop GTA IV scoring very highly indeed. We'll have a Multiplayer hands-on for you to check out (probably next month), and we may still yet get a first look at the PS3 version, as our coverage enters the final stretch before review time.

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