Well folks... After grabbing a few last straggling achievements in Vegas 2 (The House Always Wins!), I headed out to the mall slightly before 11 PM. I took with me my PlayStation Portable locked 'n' loaded with GTA: Liberty City Stories, and a folding lawn chair. On the way, I picked up some rations - some sour candy, a can of Coke, and a large Tim Hortons™ coffee (double-double). I was in line about 11 PM and they hadn't let us in the mall yet, and the last breath of a long Canadian winter nipped at my face. As I unfolded my chair, I received a few jealous glances as people commented what a great idea it was to bring a chair (n00bs!). Initially it looked like there was only around 25-30 people ahead of me, but when they finally let us in the mall, I saw there was another 15-20 people who had apparently been waiting from as early as 5 PM!



Anyhow, as you can see, things looked promising. I figured I'd be out by 12:30...12:45 at the latest. I ended up leaving the PSP in the car, so I fraternized with my fellow fanboys as the excitement grew in the line. We poked at a touchscreen display advertisement for the new mobile phone company, Koodo (which I learned is really only a thinly disguised subsidiary of Telus), and wondered why they would choose such hideous females to put in their advertisements.

While we waited patiently, the EB Games employees tried to keep us entertained with trivia, querying us on the exact release date for the original Grand Theft Auto - the correct answer would net one lucky fanboy an empty oversized GTA display box (...).  For the first time, Wikipedia failed me and only gave a general release timeframe of "1997". A follow-up trivia question asked how many pre-orders that particular store had for GTA IV (the answer was 335) which the lad in front of me guessed and received a single movie-admission pass (luckily most nerds don't have girlfriends!). Anyhow, if I haven't made it obvious, I was pretty unimpressed with these giveaways (after all, Best Buy was giving away a GTA IV Special Edition 360 Elite, and Future Shop at least had GTA baseball caps). But, as I reminded myself, I came here because it was closest to home and (I presumed) would get me playing the soonest. By that time, the line had grown to a great length of nearly 150 people...


12:01 AM came and went and yet the line did not budge one inch. I craned my neck to look to the front of the line, and saw no activity whatsoever... What was going on? I half-heartedly tried to start a minor stir or at least lighten the mood, exclaiming in a shrill tone, "what do you mean the shipment didn't come in?" By the time 12:10 rolled around, I was starting to get ticked off. Then the EB Games employee came around telling us it would be "just 10 more minutes" because their computers were slow and their printer was jammed. WTF?! Isn't this the kind of stuff you ought check at, I don't know... 11:45 PM? Anyhow, the line didn't start moving until 12:25 or so, but at least it started moving at a good chop.

Anyhow, I was out of there just before 1 AM and I rolled up the complimentary poster they gave me and briskly walked back to my car. Using the trusty scissors I had the forethought to bring, I cracked open that bad boy and popped the soundtrack into my six-disc changer and blasted the first track as I peeled out of the parking lot in full GTA form. After a brief momentary lapse in reason, I decided not to run any red lights, but was still home within about 5 minutes and booting up my 360. I turned off all the lights, turned the volume way up and watched in excitement as the introduction cutscene began.

Initial impressions... The game does an excellent job of capturing the grimy world that Niko finds himself in, from the dank freighter he arrives on, to his cousin's cockroach infested apartment, to the dark streets of Liberty City. The cars handle much more realistically than in the past GTAs, and it's definitely going to take some getting used to in order to nail the fast corners that I used to pull off with ease. There's a wide range of characters and the voice acting thus far has been pretty solid. The classic humour of GTA is present, as a hot dog vendor cries out "you can't beat our meat!". The initial missions do a good job of acclimating you to the controls without overwhelming you with instructions. There has been one instance where I had to make a decision between two missions - and I'm not sure how far-reaching the consequences of these decisions will be.

The mini-games are fairly well-done, and I've managed to snag the darts and pool achievements, but haven't been able to nail a strike in bowling yet, nor have I tried the arcade game QUB3D. I've already had some 'warm coffee' and been invited up to my first girlfriend's apartment. As far as I can tell, the dating system in this game isn't going to be as annoying as it was in San Andreas, but there is a friendship system much like in The Sims with two different scales: level of friendship and respect. So far I've been chased by the cops twice, the first time was after my first 'jacking and I escaped fairly quickly...the second time was during a mission and they were on me for a good four minutes as I tried to escape their patrol radius.

I'm not sure what I think about the radio stations yet, but the soundtrack CD is great. I listed to it all on the way into work this morning and there's a great mix of bassy hip-hop, to high-energy rap tracks, a bit of rock, some reggae, and some really sweet instrumental jazzy tunes. I didn't get a chance to do any multiplayer, and I decided to go to bed around 4:30 in the morning to catch a few hours of sleep before work. (Didn't help!) Anyhow, look for more impressions in the coming days and weeks - though I'm not sure how much playtime I will have seeing as my son coming back today and all. For those of you who have picked it up... what are your thoughts?