Information on the game is coming out slowly. Here is what is out so far:

Main Character:

The main character of the game is called Niko Bellic. He is of Eastern European descent (no specific country is named). The character says the following during the movie:

"Life is complicated; I killed people, smuggled people, sold people. Perhaps here, things will be different."

The trailer ends with the "IV" logo.

Game Setting:

According to Game Informer (May 2007), the game is set in a familiar place. We will be playing again in Liberty City.This is not the same Liberty City that we played in GTA 3. It has been redone, with the Big Apple in mind. New York City has 5 boroughs. In GTA 4, we will have 5 areas to play in, with the exception of a recreation of Staten Island. Instead, (my guess is that a part of...) New Jersey will be there instead. Here is how these places will be represented:

Algonquin (Manhattan)

Broker (Brooklyn)

Dukes (Queens)

Bohan (Bronx)

Alderney (New Jersey)

From the screenshots and trailer, we can see that a lot of the city has been realistically inspired for the game, but thankfully, the city will feel like a game. Case in point: If anyone has has played True Crimes, Streets of NY, you can remember how dull the city seemed after the streets were modeled after the real streets of Manhattan. According to Dan Houser, the creative VP of Rockstar, "We are trying to make a video game that feels like the world, but still plays like a video game."

Timeline

The game also seems to be set in modern times. This can be seen from the cars in the trailer

According to 1up.com, the trailer was inspired by the trailer for the 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi, with angled shots of high rises facing the sky and the sped up civilian movement.

The Power of the Next Generation Systems:

Thanks to the power that the Playstation 3 and XBox360 have, this will be the most realistic looking Grand Theft Auto you have played, with keeping of the typical GTA style humor, thanks to Rockstar Games (like the MetLife building is called the GetaLife building).

According to Rockstar, these are actual in-engine screenshots, NOT CGI rendered screens. The company has not said which system these shots are from though.

The Game actually runs from the company's game engine used in Rockstar Table Tennis.

Xbox360 vs PS3 for GTA 4

Both versions will be nearly identical, but according to Rockstar, it has been confirmed that downloadable content will be exclusive to the xbox 360.

Any more news about this incredibly anticipated game set for a 10-16-2007 release will be put up right here!

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Lanza has been appointed to head a Senate Task force against video game violence. According to the Staten Island Advance, (April 19 2007), Lanza has made statements about the game as if he had actually played it.

"You win by killing New York City police officers," Lanza said, referring to the latest version of Grand Theft Auto. "You score points for picking up prostitutes. The better a mass murderer you are, the better you do at the game."

This group will explore legislation to tighten age restrictions of video games.

What exactly is Euphoria? According to the creator of Euphoria, NaturalMotion, this is a technology that creates dynamic animations, not canned ones that are in games today. They are generated on the-fly by the CPU as the game is played. Every tackle is your tackle, every haymaker is your haymaker.

Rockstar is partnering with NaturalMotion to bring this new technology to use with GTA 4. So imagine, all the things possible with this technology: Cars getting damaged in all new ways, not just the same damage and hood flying off the car. When getting into a fight, the animations would be totally dynamic. Explosions and things breaking would be different all the time. Games that will use the Euphoria engine so far are GTA 4, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Want to see the Euphoria Engine in action? Click the movie below!