GTA IV
How Rockstar North can keep on improving on what has consistently been a landmark series in the sandbox canon is nothing short of amazing. Another year, another sequel, more powerful and impressive than what has gone before. It's only natural then, that this is the series high point, a true classic of our time, raising the bar for everything else to follow.
The anti-hero this time round is illegal immigrant and general hard-man Niko Bellic, travelling to Liberty City to sample the American dream with his cousin Roman. However, things are not that simple and he finds a place full of prejudice and hate, a real urban jungle where only the fittest and most ruthless survive.
After a brief intro you get to explore the city at leisure. The first time you step out of your safe house and on to the street is simply breathtaking. Pedestrians walk around drinking coffee, chatting on their mobile phones or sweeping the pavement. Bang into a person holding shopping bags and they will stumble and drop them on the ground; likewise, knock into someone at the top of a flight of stairs and they will trip and bounce down them, reacting to each step on the way down.
This is the power of the game's new Euphoria Engine at work, a true innovation which renders animation in real-time. If Niko gets hit by a car for example, his body reacts and bends realistically with a sickening thud. Pretty brutal, but bloody impressive. This makes the city more believable and gives Niko and the other inhabitants much more character than the static avatars in previous games.
While the overall playing field is smaller than those found in similar 'sandbox' games, the density of missions makes up for it. For example, one task sees you raiding a drug dealer's apartment complex where you can utilise the new cover system by hiding behind walls and blind firing, or going mano-a-mano with the neat new fighting system. The number of ways you can tackle missions, coupled with many other factors, make this the biggest game in the series.
If you want to forget about crime for a bit, you can use the in-game mobile phone to call up a buddy and go bowling, play darts or shoot some pool. Even these minigames are perfectly developed and great fun in their own right. Buttering up your friends like this unlocks special skills. For example, get in your cousin Roman's good books and he'll let you take his cab for a spin to earn some extra moolah. You can even go on dates and depending on how they turn out, you might just get some action at the end of it.
This is merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of what makes this game smash convention into little bits, shoot it with a double barrel shotgun then piss on the remains. This will be a reference point as one of the great milestones in the gaming industry, truly and utterly the dog's bollocks.