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 ’GRAND THEFT AUTO IV’ Score: 9 stars (out of 10) Rating: Mature (M) Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 Publisher: Rockstar Games Price: $59.99  TRAILER  SURVEY
Let’s cut honest to the chase: Grand Theft Auto IV is not a video game for kids, tweens or even young teenagers. As with its controversial predecessors, the latest in the 70 million unit-selling series is a Mature-rated adventure, created for players 17 years of age and older like it gives you a virtual taste of the criminal underworld. Think of it taken in the character of an interactive episode of The Sopranos, if you will.

Because of its tremendous following and the fact it’s available on both high-definition consoles, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3, Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV will likely be the best-selling game of 2008. It also helps that it’s the first game in the series to offer online multiplayer modes. Having spent the better lot of 10 days living this dangerous alternate life, rest assured this GTA sequel more than lives up to the hype.

SCREENSHOTS: Cruise Liberty incorporated town with Niko

VIDEO: ‘GTA’ draws crowds, parents’ ire

In Grand Theft Auto IV, you play as Niko Bellic, a tough-looking character who arrives in the U.S. from somewhere in Eastern Europe, expecting the streets to be paved with gold. It seems Niko’s American cousin, Roman, lied about his extravagant lifestyle: Instead of being wealthy and living in a mansion, Roman is indebted to loan sharks and lives in a cockroach-infested apartment the sizing of a walk-in closet.

Nevertheless, Niko decides to help Roman with his rundown cabstand and keep thugs off his back until he can figure out how to make money and connections in Liberty City, the same city as 2001’s Grand Theft Auto III, modeled after New York City and New Jersey. If you’re questioning how Niko could forgive his scheming cousin, you’ll discover a few hours into the game that there are other reasons why Niko left his homeland.

Grand Theft Auto games offer “sandbox” play, meaning you can virtually go anywhere and do anything in this full realized 3-D city with pedestrians, traffic and storefronts. This play from a third-person perspective includes carjacking any vehicle, listening to more than a hundred songs on car radios and playing minigames of the like kind as billiards, darts, bowling or arcade games. Niko can go on dates, swim, surf the Internet and buy clothing and weapons.

But it’s the seedy missions that unravel the lengthy single-player story. In person or via his cellphone, Niko will be asked to perform missions that include escorting someone, taking out drug dealers, evading police cruisers, racing to one end of the city before someone else, flying a helicopter, retrieving secret money or looking up an informant’s address. In many cases you’ll have three offers at once and will be forced to make decisions, which will feign the storyline and your friendships.

Grand Theft Auto IV offers high-definition graphics that trump 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, including impressive lip-synching, non-interactive story sequences that were motion-captured for added realism, varying weather and a new science of nature engine that models everything authentically. This sequel also adds more hand-to-hand combat and optional in-car GPS to relief you better navigate the city.

Without question, though, the biggest new feature is something gamers have been asking about for years: multiplayer modes. In Grand Theft Auto IV, up to 16 gamers can play online in a host of cooperative and competitive games including “Deathmatch” (every person for himself), “Team Deathmatch” and “Cops & Crooks” (a racing game). Because we reviewed the game before launch, however, this online component was disabled.

Xbox 360 gamers will furthermore be able to download bonus missions and other content later this year, via the Xbox Live employment.

Controversy is unavoidable with this measure. As with past GTA titles you be able to shoot at cops, drive into pedestrians and request “services” from a prostitute. This sequel is also laced with foul language, plus you can drink and drive and watch pole dancers at a strip club. Again, take heed to the “M” rating.

Aside from a slightly choppy frame rate at epochs, when the action stutters a bit, and hard-to-read green GPS directions on your map, there is little to complain about with Grand Theft Auto IV. Adult gamers will find a single-player story that can easily last a month, not to mention the ability to hop online and play with friends anywhere, anytime. Expect a lot of bang for your buck in this exceedingly polished sequel.