Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto 4 needs no introduction in today's society. Even outside gaming circles, the game has become quite popular among today's soccer moms and alarmists. One could easily brag about the freedom and open-world gameplay, but those features have been extolled countless times before. What truly needs to be brought to light is Rockstar's impeccable ability to create deeply moving narratives with diverse and interesting characters that not even Hideo Kojima can imitate. Fans of San Andreas and especially Bully will no doubt appreciate their talents in this category.

Niko Bellic is a recently arrived immigrant in Liberty City. Dreaming of escaping his past and finding new life in the city, he is driven by his cousin Roman's letters of fame and glory to go there. However, what he finds is that the American Dream is not as glamorous as he had hoped. What soon unfolds is that Niko quickly descends once more into his past habits. Rockstar has truly outdone themselves with this installment, as all of the characters have evolved from goofy caricatures to deep, diverse characters with background and motivation. Although I will miss the old set of timeless GTA characters, the replacements are no less just as memorable.

However, what's truly my favorite part of the GTA series is its brilliant satire. Underneath the hard chocolaty shell of violence and swearing is a creamy, nougat core of pure political and social commentary. Sometimes I play this game and just get caught listening to the talk radio, which now has a Republican news station so that Rockstar can rip the right wing to shreds. Fans of the radio can also catch some television, which is just as brilliant, if not more brilliant than radio. If the news commentators could only see through to this part through all of the violence, maybe society would finally respect Rockstar as the brilliant storytellers that they are.

The World of Western RPGs
This article is a sequel of sorts to the previous RPG article, by Oleg Roschin, which covered the Asian RPGs.

Drunken Irishman has taken up the humongous task of writing the history of Western RPGs, trying to paint a picture of the evolution of the genre, using only a handful of games, which he describes in some detail to see what game introduced what to the genre. You will get to know the founding games that defined the elements we now take for granted, who borrowed a lot and how different titles can be compared in terms of design.

The article has been split up in large sections, covering everything from the early eighties to today's games.