Ohhh.... it's amazing! I'm very glad I preordered mine on Amazon--it showed up in the mail on release day. How'd you know I snagged a copy?

Ahhh... well, I give GTA IV a total A+. The only gripe I have is that there's no option to use a custom radio station with music from the HDD, which I strongly suspect has everything to do with their deal with amazon to sell the songs which are in the game through the cell phone--clever, but practically, I'd never use it.

Aside from that, the combat has greatly improved, you can now duck under cover and have a neat change to the lock on feature in that you can flub the aim a bit while maintaining a lock, making things like headshots a walk in the park. They've also changed the way the drive-by shooting works: you're no longer restricted to shooting to either the left or right of the car(or straight forward in a bike). It's tricky to get a hang of at first, but once you get used to it, it's great.

The physics are far more realistic now too, for better or worse. I've seen plenty of people complain about the car being unhandleable, but I find with the added realism, I can drive much better now that I'm used to it. Plus, if you run into something full speed and come to a dead stop, you're likely to go shooting through the windshield! (I was VERY shocked the first time that happened) I guess eastern european thugs don't use seatbelts.

Soooo true. Fwiw, I've been playing video games since I was practically in diapers. I was weened on the atari, and I played zelda 1-3 when they were new. I remember installing Doom off of five 3.5" disks, and being completely dumbstruck that this huge game used up a whopping 20 megs, and required 4megs of memory! ....and I remember when Doom and Marilyn Manson were blamed for the Columbine shootings.

By their logic, I should have become a serial killer by now, wreaking havoc with my bizarre ability to carry 9 different types of weapons and all their ammo and still be able to outrun the cops... I've never even gotten a parking citation.

Um... that's the same thing Amanda posted...