Introductions:
Grand Theft Auto IV is
a sandbox-style action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North
and released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles in
Europe, North America and Oceania, on 29 April 2008, and in Japan on 30
October 2008. A Windows version of the game was released in North
America on 2 December 2008 and in Europe on 3 December. It was made
available on Steam on 4 January 2009. It is the sixth 3D game in the
Grand Theft Auto series.
Two
episodic packs have since been released for the Xbox 360, the first
entitled The Lost and Damned, released on 17 February 2009. The second
is entitled The Ballad of Gay Tony, released on 29 October 2009. Both
episodes were released for PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows on 13
April 2010[20] in North America and on 16 April 2010 in Europe.
The
game is set in a redesigned rendition of Liberty City, a fictional city
based heavily on modern day New York City. It follows Niko Bellic, a
war veteran from Serbia. He comes to the United States in search of the
American Dream, but quickly becomes entangled in a world of gangs,
crime, and corruption. Like other games in the series, GTA IV is
composed of elements from driving games and third-person shooters, and
features "open-world" gameplay that gives players more control over
their playing experience. It is the first console game in the series to
feature an online multiplayer mode.
As
the first game of the critically acclaimed series to appear on seventh
generation consoles, Grand Theft Auto IV was widely anticipated. A major
commercial and critical success, it broke industry records with sales
of around 3.7 million units on its first day of release and grossing
more than $500 million in revenue in the first week, selling an
estimated 6 million units worldwide. As of 9 June 2010, the game had
sold over 17 million copies. It is the all-time highest-scoring game on
three professional critic review-aggregating websites: TopTenReviews,
GameRatio and GameTab. It is also the highest rated current-generation
game on Metacritic and MobyGames.
