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Grand Theft My Heart
Posted on Wednesday, December 12 2007 @ 03:19:54 Eastern

Last Thursday's new Grand Theft Auto 4 trailer has all kinds of funny feelings spreading throughout my swimsuit area. It wasn't as stylized or flashy as the previous trailer, but it gave me a much better sense of how the game would play and illustrated its relationship to the PS2 Grand Theft Auto entries.

Nine out of ten dentists agree that this game is worth getting pumped about, but I wasn't sure if this next-gen genre bending tale of car jackery would deserve as many plaques as its predecessors. The first trailer left many jaws on the floor with its flashy graphics and far more realistic art style than what Grand Theft fans are used to. While I'm sure these changes got the average Joe six pack all hot and bothered, they were a bit off-putting for my curmudgeonly sensibilities. Grand Theft Auto wasn't about a realistic representation of city life and that's why I loved it.

Grand Theft Auto was about a lone madman rising through the ranks of urban crime society with the help of some whatever wheels he could wrangle and some artillery to boot. Even the poorly named True Crimes: Streets of LA didn't deliver a literal representation of crime in the big city, unless you're the type to buy in to their Walken-plus-demons shlock. The first Driver game delivered high stakes adrenaline pumping car chases that would make Sheriff John Bunnell cream his jeans, but it achieved this by making the police an endless swarm of telepathic *******s who would opt for violating your car's rear end for the slightest moving violation. When you're trying to do something creative in an open world, or even just screw around, you don't want an army of pissed off Professor Xaviers behind the wheel of each black and white. Getting away with your felonious deeds is half the fun, and having cops hamper the planning portion really gimps the possibilities.

That's why the first GTA4 trailer had me worried. GTA lives on the ineptitude of the police force. If you really piss them off, you're bound to have some trouble with road blocks and tanks and die hard armed troops, but you really have to put some elbow grease in to earning such disrespect. They wouldn't ship you to Guantanamo for a rolling stop, so the driving always stayed high speed, reckless and fun beyond all belief.

While everyone's wringing their hands over the indoor environments and gun-paly mechanics, I've chosen to keep my eyes on what's made the 3D third-person GTA games so great; the autos.

This most recent trailer has set my mind at ease. The colors are more saturated, the characters almost painted to life, the animations grandiose and miles over the top and everyone has at least a slice of caricature in their makeup.

There is no longer a doubt in my mind that this game will rule. I just hope the flame-bait issues like gun aiming and story quality are sorted out well enough to shut the gingivitis riddled mouths of all those jaded cynic *******s crowding message boards far and wide.

Here's to hoping that turf war **** doesn't make a comeback...