Grand Theft Auto IV: The Story So Far

Niko begins the game working at the behest of a bent cop called McReary, who seems to have information that would cause Niko some bother. Dressing up to fool the people at Goldberg, Ligner & Shyster, a law firm, was McReary's idea, and killing one of their top lawyers was his instruction. Arriving in the lawyer's office, Niko stalks his unsuspecting prey as he's given a sermon, allowed to move freely while he's addressed, before pulling a gun. What follows is the sequence that caused Take-Two's nemesis Jack Thompson such consternation: a line about admiring the principle, and how "guns don't kill people, videogames do", culminating in a bullet that sends the Not-Thompson stumbling backwards, tumbling through a glass window and plummeting to the street below. If you like the sound of that, that word verticality springs up again - you'll be able to throw people off the buildings you scale, before descending the fire escape to beat a path away through the back alleys.

Mandarin Mayhem

When you get caught in a firefight, the rules are different too. Although hand-to-hand combat is still under wraps, ranged weapons are given greater conviction by a cover system similar to Gears of War or Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Automatic and manual aiming are available, with gunplay handled over-the-shoulder rather than from directly behind, and if your enemies get close you can blind-fire from safety. How you get those guns is also different. Similar to car-jacking, you're no longer given the luxury of sauntering into an Ammunation and waltzing off with a carbine. Now you make a call, and Little Jacob turns up with a boot full of weapons. Presumably the arsenal develops over the course of the game, but in early instances you can pick from a 9mm, a sub-machine gun and a micro sub-machine gun.

On the surface of it, it's change for a greater sense of realism's sake. With travel tougher, you'll also find yourself hailing cabs, wherein you can relax and watch the city crawl past the windows, skip the journey to your destination, or double the fare to go twice as fast. Jacking cars is still possible, but under the scrutiny of mobile-phone-equipped bystanders with fingers itchy for 911, and police who investigate what you do rather than waiting to catch sight of you, or coming in waves, the difficulty of remaining at large - and realising the American dream Roman outlined for you - ought not to be understated. When you do get behind the wheel, as is your wont, the most noticeable difference will be the viewpoint - offset slightly to the left to give things a driver-side bias - while a new "vehicle physics package", in Rockstar's term, will add depth to a driving experience that is likely to borrow from more recent Hollywood riffs than Bullitt.

And this, for now is what Rockstar is telling us. The absence most keenly felt in the above is the previous games' sense of humour. Those satirical elements are certainly not absent, Rockstar says, but will have to find a new context. TW@ probably isn't the end of it. Nose around the real net and you'll also find your way to WKTT Talk Radio, where you're invited to call a real US phone number and rant about your health, the world, America and anything else that catches your attention. Rockstar saves these recordings and may use them in the game. With Lazlow Jones (favourite host of the original in-game talk radio) inevitably connected with the project, as reported by IMDB, and the same IMDB cast-list listing Joan Baker as a "Vice City TV Reporter", it seems the game's relationship with the media and the media's relationship with the public will once again come under the scrutiny of a writing team headed by Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser.

Heist Almighty

Beyond that, much is still hearsay. Journalists who have seen the game in action have been quizzed by fan-sites, revealing all sorts of tangential ancillary information: you can go on dates; you can fly helicopters, and possibly in other ways, but there are no planes; you can't build up a property empire the way you could in Vice City and San Andreas; it takes about an hour to cross the city; Hollywood talent is likely to be ignored in favour of less established talent; the soundtrack will reach beyond 2007 for its influence, and beyond the back catalogues of the MP3-hating RIAA for musical content; some characters will return, but others won't ("virtually none", in the words of Dan Houser, "as a lot of them are dead anyway"); multiplayer will be included, possibly for up to 16 players, but not persistently, and away from the single-player. Rockstar echoed some of this, and hasn't denied any of it, but has called some of it "rumour and speculation".

Speculation has been fuelled too by the two trailers Rockstar has officially released. The second plants the idea that Niko isn't just in America for the sake of a better life, but that he's looking for someone, and has been for some time. The first trailer - shot in a style that many observers have likened to 1982 documentary Koyaanisqatsi, not least because it shares the Philip Glass music that backed it - talked about Niko's past. Or rather he did. "I killed people, smuggled people, sold people. Perhaps here, things will be different."