by Stan Rezaee

Created on: November 14, 2009

Niko Bellic, a Serbian veteran of the Bosnian War, arrives in the United States in hopes of finding the American dream. When he first steps foot on the docks of Liberty City, he's excited to see his cousin Roman who brags in his letters of his success. Sadly though, Roman's story of fortune is in fact a story of debt.

Hence begins a gamers journey into the grim world of Grand Theft Auto IV for the Playstation 2 and Xbox 360. On its release it was hailed by critics as one of the best games of the year and at the time considered a breakthrough in console gaming.

Yet examining it more thoroughly, there were aspects that both reviewers along with gamers and fans may have missed.

On the surface, GTA IV may look like an amazing work of mechanical and digital art. The new software has allowed Rockstar to take Liberty City and redesigned it to resemble New York City. The image is an artistic yet realistic design that has been missing since Grand Theft Auto III in 2001.

Furthermore, while most games have just been focus on showing off their shiny graphics (and ignore elements of playability), GTA IV concentrated on the smallest of details to provide the player with a spectacularly adventure. Even combat action from bullet holes that look genuine to the inclusion of rag doll physics and realistic blood

Hearing about those visual images would make any gamer excited believing that what they know is a just a tip of the iceberg. However looking under the mighty iceberg their really is not that much to get excited about.

Niko arrives in America and it is assumed with in the dialog that he is on an odyssey to find the American Dream and become a major success like Tommy Vercetti (from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City) or CJ Johnson (from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas). Sadly throughout the journey he only takes orders from a verity of mob bosses and drug lords similar to Claude (from Grand Theft Auto III).

While each character has been designed amazingly very few have their own personality while most of them are sadly too clich form the crime genre. The acting cast plays a major role in this drawback. Unlike past GTA games that have used the voices of actor from classic crime films like Michael Madsen ( from Reservoir Dogs) or Ray Liotta (from Goodfellas) their is none among the cast of GTA IV.

Other features that were brought over from previous installment have not been used to its full potential. Among them is the clothing store which in a fictional city based on the fashion capital

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