1. Keep Things Serious
Hitting people with dildos is so 2004; Grand Theft Auto is different now. With sandbox romps like Just Cause 2 and Saints Row: The Third still touting the go where you want, do as you please freedom that made San Andreas a hit eight years ago, its up to Rockstar to transform the open-world crime caper. And theyve made a great start. Taking more cues from David Chase and Tim Van-Patten than its Scorsese-esque predecessors, Grand Theft Auto IV is a gangster drama for the 21st century. Instead of Cosa Nostra wiseguys, your bosses are Slavic immigrants; rather than slick, hard-boiled aphorisms, Niko and company trade personal problems and troubled pasts. Its a very welcome shift in tone, well worth swapping for RC car bombs and tank rampages. We need another Niko; former GTA leading men have been larger than life caricatures. Claude Speed was a mute, leather-jacketed badass; Tommy Vercetti and Carl Johnson were more at home spitting one-liners than anything substantial. Niko is conflicted and bitter, unable to reconcile his propensity for violence with his desire to live a better life. Hes the embodiment of Rockstars broken America, unable to properly identify his problems, let alone deal with them. To watch him swoop over Liberty on a stolen jetpack would feel very unnatural; to use him as an example of what the GTA series should be aiming for feels very right indeed. The GTA series has grown up. The cartoon violence and zealous swearing that used to send tabloids running for their superlatives, has been dumped in favour of social commentary and high drama. Rockstar haven't quite done it yet (for all its steps forward, Grand Theft Auto IV is still very childish) but with Grand Theft Auto V drawing ever nearer, there couldn't be a more exciting time for everyone's favourite crime sim.