The latest issue of the UK's Official Xbox Magazine has reached subscribers today and it includes the world's first review of Grand Theft Auto IV. The impression given by the magazine is overwhelmingly positive, with a perfect 10/10 score.
"It says something that even at the end of a three-day session, with every island and a substantial chunk of the sidequests unlocked, I was still ploughing on because I wanted to see how the story ended. And I was still finding new stuff: the way a police klaxon goes strangled and gargley if you dent the light bar, the pedestrian who had the original GTA theme as their phone ringtone, the way that headshot drivers can fall on the horn and accelerator so you're run over by a dead man...This sets the standard for what you should expect from a truly next-gen game. You owe it to yourself to play it."
New information disclosed in this article:
* Skipping a trip in a taxi costs more than simply sitting back and enjoying the view of the driver's head
* The Statue of Happiness is clutching a coffee cup rather than the torch her real life counterpart has
* Some celebrity voice actors play themselves in the game, a first for the series
* Like Crackdown's Orbs, the collectable (hidden packages?) in GTA IV make a soft sound as you get close to them, aiding you in finding them all
* Your in-game email account will get the odd piece of spam
* Driving through flames will set a car's tires on fire, causing them to burst after a while
* One mission involves traveling across town with two bodies in the trunk - if you hit a bump and it opens, you'll have to scramble to close it again before any passers-by notice
* The mobile phone you receive at the start of the game is an old, second hand model capable only of calling and texting. You'll need to wait for an upgrade later in the story to unlock the full functionality that people get from more modern models.
*In some missions you have to decide who lives and dies. 'more time agonising over one particularly tough choice than we did over harvesting Bioshock's little sisters'
*Headshot drivers who fall on the horn and the accelerator.
*In one screenshot, I count 21 cars at a set of traffic lights, and I can't see behind.
