January 23rd, 2008

GTAIV Previews Now Online

Published at 2:24 PM PST

IGN, GameSpot, GameSpy, VideoGamer, CVG , GamesRadar, TeamXbox, and Kikizo have all posted their previews of Grand Theft Auto IV. I have collected all the important information below.

  • The sites received a 90 minute demonstration on the Xbox 360 version of the game.
  • Frame rate has now been "smoothed out" and the city is now more populated.
  • The cell phone network is now called Badger. In previous builds it was called Whiz.
  • You can now listen to music while on foot, using the cell phone. The sound quality sounds just like it does on a real cell phone.
  • Two minutes in real time is one hour of game time.
  • It took about 5 minutes to pilot a speedboat around half of Algonquin.
  • Characters clothes are no longer "static" like in previous Grand Theft Autos. They are now dynamic.
  • Some of the activities you're able to do are playing pool, eating, darts, bowling and going for a drink. You use your cell phone to access them.
  • A new radio station is called "IF99".
  • If you fail a mission, you'll be given the option to jump back in using text messages via your cell phone.
  • There is a subway system.
  • The game will now auto save progress.
  • IGN will have a preview of the PS3 build in a couple of weeks.



EDIT:
Thanks to the guys at Kikizo, we now have a pretty good idea of what the map looks like. Note however that a person copied this map down from memory when he seen it in-game. It may or may not be 100% accurate.