What happens when the game you expect and the game you get are different? For some folks Grand Theft Auto games exist to go on ridiculous sprees where they drive around crashing into things and cause mass chaos without a glance at the story. And thats perfectly acceptable. But in the case of the much-hyped Grand Theft Auto IV, it seems the developers left that large segment of players behind. With Grand Theft Auto IV the Houser brothers decided to attempt a real drama. 'The Great American Tragedy' so to speak. Not content to produce another pulpy, reference-heavy action-movie homage, Rockstar invented a realistic physics and lighting engine, pushed consoles to the brink in terms of graphical fidelity and attempted to bring a mature and nuanced story to a proudly sophomoric franchise. Whether or not Grand Theft Auto IV succeeded in this is up for debate; it was still a critical tour-de-force, generating countless five star and "10 out of 10" reviews. But it seemed gamers weren't ready to take Grand Theft Auto as seriously as Rockstar. It wasn't hyper-realistic, but the bombastic, over-the-top insanity of the previous Grand Theft Auto games felt reigned in. No airplanes, no car customisation, no jet packs, and certainly no purple 'romantic enhancement devices' as weapons. The whole game felt deliberately understated, instead pointing players toward engaging in social interactions with other NPCs who would call you up to go bowling, grab a drink, or take in a show when not doing story missions. Hours of dialog were recorded between Niko, Roman, Packie, Malorie, Florian and other characters for the express purpose of exploring their personalities, wants, needs, and dreams. While all this dialog is wonderfully written and quite insightful (and uproariously funny) - it was definitely not Grand Theft Auto as gamers saw it. Heck, Saints Row 2's entire marketing campaign was focused on pointing out just how droll Grand Theft Auto IV felt, and became a smash hit simply by doing the things old GTA games did that Grand Theft Auto IV did not. Of course, GTA IV is still a great game. It's an important game, too. But at the time of release, it was not the one people expected; they wanted a bigger, better and louder experience from this franchise, but instead Rockstar delivered an uncharacteristic acoustic set.
