Hey all,

 Well, I successfully got GTA IV ready to go last night, and it's a pretty fun little game. I only had a chance to play it for about 2 hours or so, but just in those two hours I think I got a pretty good feel for at least the beginning of the game. (Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of spoiling anything for anyone who is planning on playing the game. Just some general thoughts follow.)

First off, the graphics are amazing. At one point, I was driving a car under a bridge, and the light was realistically reflecting, shadowed, off the car roof. It was pretty cool to see such great graphics in a GTA game. Secondly, the gameplay is pretty much the same ol', with some nice additions. There's a cover system now, which helps a lot, and the aiming has an auto-lock that is much-improved...in all, I'd say they've done a great job fixing a lot of the problems that were present in previous GTA games with the combat.  The detail in general, as I hinted at yesterday, is also greatly improved. I met a girl, called her up, and we went bowling (which is actually a decent little "mini-game" that you get to play). At one point, I had told her I would show up, but didn't...then, when I finally got around to picking her up the next day, I had to set up another date, and she asked me as we were driving to the bowling alley, "Why didn't you show up last night?", just like any girl would. Nagging? Yes. Realistic? Definitely.

Basically, if you liked the previous GTA games at all, you're gonna love it. Even if you didn't like the previous ones, you might just find you like this one...it's certainly the best in the series so far (or at least thus far it is). I'm only about 2 hours in (and about 4% of the way through the "game"), so I don't know it all, yet...but I'm pretty excited and having a great time.