So here we are a couple of weeks after the release of Grand Theft Auto 4. This game has really lived up to all of the "hype" in my opinion. I'm still not very far into the single player campaign and have yet to unlock very much of the city. I usually don't finish games in the GTA series, but I think this will be one I see through until the end. The story has been cool so far, and I really have thoroughly enjoyed just about everything this game has to offer. Most of my time has been spent in the multi player part of the game though. I've been playing online console games for a few years now, I've enjoyed myself but have always craved more. By more I mean, bigger in scope. Most of our current online shooters exist in a "box". You guys know what I mean. While I can't tell you how much fun I've had, I still hoped for more. I just finished a few games of Call of Duty 4 this morning and it was a blast! All for just one thing, the size of the battlefield and what I expected from it. One thing in general bothered me. Because of the smaller size of the gameplay area,things get predictable quite fast. I forget what map I was playing at the moment but that's irrelevant. It happens time and time again in these games, some guys run to a choke point and post up, Others seem to wander randomly around the map, sprinting and looking for kills. Other games have people camping weapon spawns, hoarding vehicles and such. But, rather than complain about other shooters, that I still do enjoy, I'll tell you about a match I had in GTA's multi player.

This might sound crazy but I swear it really happened! After spawning into the game as a crook, everyone dashes around looking for weapons and maybe getting a vehicle for transport. Our goal this time is to get to a waiting getaway vehicle. It's every man for himself, and if you die you end up a spectator until the next round. So we begin our journey to the extraction vehicle. Almost immediately we run into the cops! Some of the crooks engage the cops right away, others run for their lives. After a crazy shootout with the cops a few of us bandits break free! The few of us that were left jumped in a car parked at the side of the road and sped off, I was the driver. Weaving in and out of traffic and swinging my car around corners, crushing helpless civilians along the way. The waiting escape vehicle was getting closer on my GPS. We came upon a long bridge that looked like it headed exactly were we needed to go. With the remaining crooks yelling for me to hurry, I slammed on the gas! Problem is, the bridge ended up not leading us directly to the extraction, we were above it. The police cruisers that were pursuing us were closing fast! We had to make a decision quickly. If we took the bridge it was either double back, and head directly at the cops, suicide! We could also try to head across the bridge but those cruisers are fast. As the sirens closed on our position, I thought this is it, we all die in a hail of gunfire. But wait! I see it now, we can jump off the bridge and swim to the waiting speedboat. Just as the cops came barreling into our car with guns blazing, I JUMPED!!! As my avatar sprung over the guardrail, I saw one of my cohorts get hit by a passing minivan, CRUNCH! I fell a couple hundred feet before splashing safely into the water. I heard the remaining two crooks heatedly trying to decide if the jump was safe or not. From the water I looked back up to the bridge. The second guy misjudged his jump and came to a thud on one of the bridge's concrete supports, INSTANT DEATH! With automatic gunfire pouring in his direction the remaining thug jumped! SPLASH! We made it! The two of us that were remaining started laughing hysterically at the moment that just took place, this is the best game ever!!! We both began swimming towards the boat that was now only about fifty feet away. All of a sudden, three more splashes erupted near us, it was the pigs! They were too late though. As they began to swim toward us we hurriedly loaded into the boat. As we started to pull away from the shore one of the cops made one more effort. He had climbed onto the shore and was now firing in desperation trying to nail one of us. A few bullets ricocheted off the side of the boat and some plunged harmlessly into the water. I once again mashed on the accelerator and we sped off into the sunset...

No shit! this all took place in one game of Cops and Crooks in GTA's multi player. With a whole city at my disposal, online or off, single player and sixteen game modes to play online, this game has filled a void. So it's not the profanity, the sexual stuff, or the drug and alcohol references that make me love this game. It's the shear possibility of all the crap that can take place in Liberty City. Thanks Rockstar, for making one helluva game! I'll still play my other games, just maybe not as much anymore. Here's to hoping Liberty City will become a permanent destination on XBox Live, kinda like an MMO or something. Add on more content from DLC. Cars, guns, clothes and hopefully whole new sections of city! I'm sold, and I hope it will only get better in the future.

Well, I hope some of you are enjoying this game as much as I am. Now, I'm off to Liberty City, the streets are calling me...