GTA 4: What I Did - Finale

No, not being played by the government. But your character is. It's too bad people focus so much on the actions of GTA games instead of the stories.

In GTA: Vice City, you were a run away gangster who's sole goal in life was to take over your ex-bosses territory. In San Andreas, it was your duty to clean the streets of drugs and get the "thug" out of San Andreas. Now, in GTA 4, just trying to make ends meet and "start fresh", the story gets even more interesting (I tried not to read the page actually, but I saw two possible endings as well as where I'm at in the game right now).

As a story-telling medium, GTA is one of the tops. It's the most immersive game series I've ever played. It may not be particularly deep with lure like Final Fantasy or a book like Lord of the Rings, but if there was ever a series to be compared to watching a movie (albeit plus or minus 30 hours), this would be the one.

I'm 26% into the game (maybe 40% of the core storyline). I've passed 36 missions. I've killed 120 people over the span of 29 game days. I've stolen 71 cars, 2 motorcycles, and 3 boats. My longest police chase lasted 5:20. I've spent $82 on food, $180 on dates and only gotten drunk once. I played pool for 7:20 and beaten the high score on Cub3d. I've gotten 34 text messages and surfed the internet for 33:28.

And that's only about a 1/20th of the stats tracked in the game.

I'm going to go ahead and call this game the best GTA so far. They've fixed so many control issues, updated the graphics nicely, gotten top-notch (and non-famous) actors for the voice work, and nailed the cinematography. The map is now nice and tight so your not driving an hour just to get somewhere. The physics on cars and people are perfect. The musical score for the game is inspiring and enveloping (even the pause menu music).

Honestly, if it weren't for the cussing and the violence, this game could probably get some kind of Emmy / Oscar Award. It will clean up in the video game awards, as numerous and flaky as they are. San Andreas won awards. So did Vice City. So who knows?

I do know that I'm looking forward to finishing up the story and generally screwing around in the game online and off.