GTA IV: When Hype Makes You Sad

Where hecklerspray and Kikizo contributor Ian Dransfield reviews the previews of GTA IV…

I'm sure you're all looking forward to the release of Grand Theft Auto IV on April 29th, aren't you? Of course you are, you've been told you're looking forward to it by so many bloody magazines and websites out there, as well as by the cavalcade of high street shops telling you to buy the game before it's even been released (the non-idiots among us, however, will stick to buying it online for a far cheaper and without the hassle of having to encounter… ugh… other people).

GTA IV is clearly going to be one of the best games of recent times. We're not questioning that fact. Oh no, not even hecklerspray with its edgy, in-your-face counter-culture culture-commentary and mass-exporter of hyphens-based blogging would be so ballsy as to diss this release.

But that bloody hype. That bloody, bloody hype. That we will diss.

t's not so much that the magazines and websites feel the need to talk about the game all the time, it's more that they've only been privy to the exact same demo across the board. Yet each outlet will tell you that their article provides 'WORLD EXCLUSIVE!!!!!' content, with the WORLD EXCLUSIVE(!!!!!) factor often being something like 'we shot this man that the other magazine didn't, thus making this coverage justifiably different'. Infuriating, I tell you. Thousands of poor words have been wasted on insignificant coverage.

So here we present a review of the coverage available for the upcoming Best Game Ever of Ever All Time Ever, as presented by some of the main gaming outlets out there today. I could cover the thousands of individual pieces all over the intro-speckles-netra-web, but I'm not clinically insane, so shut up.

Gamespot: The well-respected, fair-scoring (especially to Kane and Lynch) and not-at-all-laughable Gamespot cover things in the most basic way you could imagine. No surprise from the site so devoid of new ideas it could be an American Idol contestant. Previews with no personality, videos that are available faster and with less adverts getting in your way anywhere else and recycled press releases of news reports. Must try harder. 2/10 (docked points for awful cover-the-screen adverts that get in the way of everything)

Eurogamer: The lovely kids at Eurogamer have provided an interesting concept on the whole 'preview the tits off something' thing, by offering up one single preview and filling in the remaining blanks with constant, constant news reports, and a few videos of good quality, without the invasive adverts that plagued Gamespot so badly. Basically we don't learn anything different from anywhere else here, but at least the (outdated) preview (based entirely on speculation) is a good read. 6/10 (or 10/10 if I still want to write for them at some point…)

Kikizo: CONFLICT OF INTEREST, DELETED TEXT SO FAT DOREE DOESN'T EAT/SACK ME. 10/10 (extra marks for having a wonderful young stud of a writer working for them)

PSM3: A surprise entrant, which was only picked up when I realised that those triggers for the PS3 pad are actually the most useful things in the world, making the pad 'good', as opposed to 'shit'. Anyway, there is coverage of the game in this extended leaflet of a publication, and it's actually alright. Even if it is interspersed with random 'WE PRESSED X TO DO SOMETHING!' phraseology. You don't learn anything new, shock of all shocks, but they get away with things by coming across as a hyperactive child that you can't help but be impressed by. In a totally non-dodgy way. Obviously. 7/10 (plus a mark for the pad triggers, which make Motorstorm and The Club far easier to play)

GamesTM: The magazine may be seen as riding the coattails of the arrogant overlord that is EDGE, but GamesTM does offer its own benefits. Namely, the Retro section and the Letter From America. It's just a shame that what was once a genuine alternative to the faux-intellectualism offered by Future's flagship has become such an exercise in dulltitude. And this yawn-inducing bore-o-theme carries all the way to the basic, tedious coverage of the Best Game of All Time Ever. You will learn nothing, you will not want to read past a few paragraphs (kind of like this feature, really) and you will want to cancel your subscription. I say you, I mean I will. The cancellation email's in the post, chaps! 3/10 (extra mark for not being Gamespot, then loses two for still having Tim Rogers writing for them)

EDGE: Best, last and all that guff. EDGE may have disappeared so far up its own arse in recent years that it's hard to see where the anus begins and the glossy pages end. Nevertheless, they have managed to provide one of the best recent previews of GTA IV by taking a simple, somewhat ignored route: instead of watching videos and writing about them, or speculating wildly about what may and what could be, the single-minded sentient being that is EDGE (they don't have individual writers, it would seem) travelled straight to the source for an interview with the top bod at Rockstar Games. And it works very well, providing more in-depth knowledge about the franchise as a whole and telling you how much of a berk Ray Liotta was to work with. Lovely stuff. 9/10 (based entirely on their 'History of GTA' stuff, as it makes all the other coverage they've had irrelevant)

Now we all know the real sods in this whole debacle are the (wonderful) gits at Rockstar Games, who drip-feed the information to the public as slowly as they see fit. Everyone's going to buy the thing anyway, so why bother withholding any information? They could release a picture of a dead kitten with a shit on it and the media would go wild, proclaiming it to be the finest piece of post modern games design this side of Killer 7.

Here's hoping that's the next press shot they do release, actually. If anyone wants to get in touch with me, please do before April 29.

[story by Ian Dransfield]