GTA 4 First Impressions.

I've played GTA4 for about 4 hours today and I have to say that it is fantastic so far. For the majority of the time I played the story, and I have to say that you can tell the demeanor and behavior of a character within the first 5 seconds they are on screen. The way characters move on screen is fantastic. People in passing cars turn their heads to watch you beat up a hobo, if you run into someone they pull out their weapon, and groups of people converse and watch as you crash into walls.

Occasionally I would take a break from missions to go careening down the sidewalk to watch ragdolls rocket over the top of my car. If getting giddy while hearing the screams of the innocent crying out over a cocophany of scraping sheet metal, police sirens, and breaking bodies makes me a bad person then call me Adolf Hitler.

Also, I saw the most painful looking thing ever while attempting to wheelie over the tops of cars. At a certain speed motorcycles cannot wheelie. I did not realize this and thought the idea of launching off of the top of a Ferrari at 90 MPH was too awesome to resist. I ended up smashing into a Ferrari at full speed (which the impact itself killed me), the color washed out, the game slowed down as I careened through the sky; but then the game sped up and I watched my helpless corpse smash into an overpass and I heard the unmistakable sound of every bone in the human body breaking simultaneously. This is the one reason that I wish the game had replay capabilities.

All in all, I love the game so far and expect a full review soon.