Required: GTA IV Post

Since last week's release, I think that there must be some requirement for anybody that both games and blogs write a post about GTA IV. So this is mine.

I'll start out by saying that I have not yet bought a copy of the game, nor played it, nor seen any actual game play besides what they show in the commercials. So -- you must be asking -- what could the content of this post be, if I've never played the game?

I've purchased and played each of the Grand Theft Auto III series games. With III and Vice City, I played all the missions that I could find, found all the briefcases or whatever stuff is hidden around the city to give you bonus weapons, spent a lot of time seeing how high I could get my stars before the army was able to take me down. I've used guides, codes, I've caused mass havoc and chaos in the tank, I've even managed to get the invincible car that you can manage to get in that one race near the beginning of GTA III. One of my favorite things to do was to fly the difficult to get off the ground Dodo.

Sometimes it felt like work (when trying to collect all the cars for the dealership or down by the docs) but that work had a feeling of reward to it. I've never been one that would be content with just driving a sports car for hours off bridges to see how many times I could get it to flip in mid-air (like one of my roommates). But the missions and the plot were usually pretty solid, and kept my attention enough to drive me (pun!) to see what's coming next.

After my 40something's hour of playing San Andreas though, I think I just lost steam. The map in that game was so large, I think it took upwards of 10 minutes just to drive through the country from one big city to the next. I think that really large scale and time involved in each mission is what made it the most difficult to keep my attention. One mission, I recall, was a truck delivery from one big city to the next, which of course was a timed mission. Not only would it take 15 minutes to get to the other city, but failing would mean that you would have to drive back to start over again, putting a singly retry and completion at 45 minutes. That kind of time sink, ceased to be fun for me so I stopped playing.

Now, I understand that IV takes place in a fictionalized version of New York City, which actually sounds pretty good. I've been to NYC a few times (not that I would pretend to know the layout) but I'm certain that there aren't huge stretches of farmland in between the Statue of Liberty and Times Square. The reviews for the game have all been favorable, and I know that its still open ended enough that really its up to me to enjoy the game however I see fit, and the suck I can just skip.

But its been out for a over a week and I still haven't picked it up. Will I at some point? probably. For now I'll just be content to use my time playing World of Warcraft, trying to get enough pvp Honor Points and Marks of Honor to buy some Epic Gear when I hit lvl 70. =)