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There are two ways to play a “Grand Theft Auto” game: following the rules or not following them.
On Wednesday morning at the headquarters of Rockstar Games, we took Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers in hand and spent two hours with “Grand Theft Auto IV,” trying both. The result: a better understanding of what “GTA” rendered on cutting-edge video game hardware feels like and how it might impact fans and nonfans of the series in a whole new way.
The game’s missions and the randomness of simulated city life that makes every tour of a Rockstar gaming metropolis a sandstorm of surprises.
We flew helicopters, we returned an in-game text message on our cell phone, we crashed lots of cars, we wondered if the game’s version of the Statue of Liberty was supposed to look like Hillary Clinton (not intentional, Rockstar says), and we earned a five-star wanted rating on the series’ newly expanded six-star police-alertness meter.

First we followed rules, or at least tried to. A Rockstar rep working the MTV News demo turned the lights out and loaded a two-week-old build of the Xbox 360 version of the game, displaying it on a large flat-panel TV. He used a developer cheat to warp the game’s protagonist, immigrant Niko Bellic, to a mission called “Jamaican Heat.” This mission is available early in the game and involves Bellic escorting a gun dealing Rastafarian named Little Jacob to a drug deal gone bad.

These “GTA” games are certainly still not for kids. Little Jacob names the drugs he likes. The game’s improved aiming controls offer smooth, precise techniques for shooting enemies in any body part. The radio stations still lampoon current events and skewer sacred cows. As ever, “GTA” is a crime story, unapologetically profane, irreverently sarcastic.
Following the rules had us pursuing a few more “GTA IV” missions, one involving a shoot-out in a brownstone in the game’s stand-in for Brooklyn, another a shoot-out at a dock, and another that wasn’t a shoot-out. This last mission, named “Call and Collect,” featured Niko helping a dirty cop by shaking down a blackmailer. We did this � almost � without firing a shot, relying instead on the power of cell phone technology. The blackmailer was hanging out near a fountain in a small park, though the game didn’t indicate exactly which person milling about in that area was him. Instead, Niko received a text message on his ever-available cell phone. With a few presses of the controller, we could call the texted number, causing the blackmailer’s phone to ring. Once the call commenced, the goal was to walk Niko through a crowd of people, looking and listening for someone talking on their cell phone. We heard him first and eventually stood face to face, with Niko’s and the blackmailer’s phones to their ears, their voices echoing through the phones and the virtual thin air. The blackmailer almost ran. Niko’s gun stopped him. And then Niko ran from the cops. Mission just about complete.

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While we followed the rules of these missions, it became clear that Rockstar has tried to make “GTA IV” feel like less of a video game, a change that will likely excite fans and further horrify the series’ critics. Shooting a policeman, a criminal or a civilian will cause them to tumble with convincing physics. Shot people look hurt. Cars handle more realistically and more distinctly, depending on the type, making driving feel more true to life. The improved physics and animation make the game feel more real, the player’s actions more fraught with consequence. We stole a car, tried to evade police and fishtailed through an innocent crowd. Our car was damaged. The cops swarmed. And so while trying to drive up a hill, our vehicle simply stalled. The police won that one. When we stole a motorcycle in another mission, we were arrested immediately, without a shot being fired.
“GTA IV” has been designed with the intention to strip away a lot of its predecessors’ video-gameness. Extra guns and health packs don’t float a few inches above the ground, waiting to be walked through. They lie on flat surfaces, waiting to be picked up. A Rockstar rep told MTV News that the developers didn’t even want those found items to glow, as they do now, because that’s not realistic. But a concession was made so players could more easily identify what they could and should try to grab in this world.
“GTA IV” felt less like a video game because there is no “Mission Complete” graphical flourish as there had been in old games, just a brief instrumental riff to indicate a job’s successful finish. Icons in the upper-right corner of the screen still display the player’s equipped weapon and money, but they are reduced in size, subdued to blacks, grays and whites, doing as little as possible to distract the player’s eyes.
In its missions, the game feels less like a game and more like interactive drama. It’s a playable crime story, doing what it feels it should. Get in a car and the GPS system maps you to a destination � and, if you’re in the right car or turn the option on in the game’s pause menu, it talks you there as well. There’s less getting lost, less struggling with the controls, less frustration, at least as judged by a two-hour session.
When the game still feels like a game, however, is when the rules aren’t followed. That’s the way that so many people play “GTA,” when the games become a glorified “Pac-Man,” a sandbox for mayhem or interactive Keystone Cops-style slapstick, pick your metaphor. The Rockstar rep had suggested the missions but humored our dalliances, which broke any illusions of this being completely hard-boiled fiction. We spotted an old roller-coaster and sprinted to its crest, then tumbled down its steepest drop. We sprinted on foot uncommonly fast, tiring less quickly than “San Andreas”‘ protagonist CJ, feeling like a bit of a superman. We took a helicopter for a joyride, in this case, in the PS3 build, traversing the city with haste, thrusting with the R2 button, rudder-turning with L1 and R1. The scenery was viewable from an optional in-cockpit, first-person view, the densely detailed Liberty City rolling by so quickly underneath that it’s little wonder that the private jets parked at the game’s airport are not usable. They’d be too fast for this game’s amount of real estate. Mostly we used the helicopter to land on skyscrapers and in busy intersections, the rotor blades magically hurting no one � not the least of whom Niko, despite what would probably be classified as hard landings. This is not the way a real world would work, and that’s a good thing.

Off its rails, the game can be cartoonish. We stood Niko at the foot of Liberty City’s Statue of Happiness and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the statue, sending tourists fleeing and denting the statue not a bit. A tourist had dropped a jug of milk and a loaf of bread. A policeman, sensing cause for alarm, approached and dodged a few shots of the RPG right in his direction. He had a gut but was nimble, and he had a backup fleet of choppers and, across the waterway, armored vans and SWAT teams to back him up, an imbalanced cartoon dynamic of cops vs. robber that saw justice again prevail.
As absurd as some of the moments in our session with the game could be, though, it was clear that “GTA IV” presents a more convincing world than its predecessors did. It presents a place less riddled with imperfect game design and awkward controls, replaced with improved technology and handling. The game lets the content � not the struggle to maneuver through that content � arrest the player’s attention. It’s a realer “GTA.” Is it also a game? Of course. Is it still “just” a game? That depends on your perspective and what your hopes are for how something like this might impact those who play it.

World War II has been done before and done better, but it's never been done like this.
The Good
Addictive RPG upgrades give you tangible benefits on the battlefield
You can have a lot of fun with the time shield
Stylish comic-book-inspired scenes tell the story between missions.
The Bad
Story and voice acting are so bad it's funny
Limited arsenal of weaponry
Autosave system is almost useless
Repetitive trial-and-error gameplay
Extremely shallow multiplayer .
In World War II games, not all Germans are bad. As ubersoldier Karl Stolz in the appropriately named UberSoldier II, you lead the German underground resistance against a dying Nazi regime with its back against a wall. With Soviet and Allied forces closing in on Berlin, the remaining Nazi leaders have fled to a secret base in Tibet to plan a devastating counterstrike. Outmanned and outgunned, only you can save the world from...oh, you know the rest. While UberSoldier II's story is so nonsensical and outrageous that you will openly laugh at--not with--the game during almost every cutscene, some fun gameplay twists and a bargain price make this shooter worth a look.

Use the time shield to queue up a head shot or two… or seven.
Initially, you're not all that uber, and the game immediately comes off as just another generic World War II shooter. Where UberSoldier II finally grabs you is at the end of the first level, where you can distribute experience points in a simplistic role-playing game upgrade system; there, you'll slowly transform Karl into a supernatural force of destruction. For reasons revealed in the original UberSoldier, Karl has several supernatural talents, such as the ability to deploy a time shield, a bubble of energy that surrounds his body and freezes all incoming and outgoing bullets in midair. A self-charging energy meter powers the shield and acts as your stamina when sprinting. This shield can be upgraded with experience points so that you can fire all bullets back toward your enemies. This means that you can fire a bullet into your own shield, where it will wait in stasis until an enemy pops out his fascist little head, and then turn off the shield to score a headshot. Additionally, because any frozen bullets that make contact with enemies are deadly, you can use the bullets as a form of melee attack by running at your opponents.
Balancing the shield use with Karl's other supernatural abilities, Ubersniper and Berserker, is the key to success in UberSoldier II. By scoring four headshots over a brief time period, you trigger Ubersniper and replenish your health. Ubersniper is slow-motion bullet time, and enemies and items such as health packs are brightly colored and more visible. If you make four consecutive knife kills, you trigger Berserker mode, in which you are invincible and slowly replenish your health with each successive knife kill. The key is that each series of three consecutive headshots or knife kills rewards you with experience points. There's no limit to how many you can earn in one level, so the game becomes a balancing act of survival by killing enemies, or earning XP by killing them in style. Your time shield allows you to get in close for knife kills, or queue up eventual headshots. You can still play UberSoldier II as a straight-up shooter, lobbing grenades and taking cover while unloading the contents of your MG42 into enemies--but you'll die a lot and won't have nearly as much fun.
After each mission, you spend XP on increasing your health, energy, accuracy, emotion time (the duration of Berserker and Ubersniper), and stasis shield. UberSoldier II starts off fairly easy if you're using your shield effectively, but the difficulty ramps up quickly. If you don't work for headshots and knife kills, your UberSoldier will never reach the required level of uberness to deal with the deadly, 10-foot-tall, rocket-launcher-wielding Ubermacht supersoldiers found deep within Tibet in later missions. Because you earn XP yourself, rather than being rewarded a set amount after finishing a mission, UberSoldier II's upgrade system is rewarding and quite addictive. It's a shame, then, that developer Burut Creative Team failed to build an immersive or engaging game around its unique mechanics.

"The end will be quick and beautiful like the touch of an angel."
The enemy AI performs adequately, making use of cover and throwing grenades to flush you from cover. There are only a few different enemy types and, outside of the hulking Ubermacht soldiers, they all act the same. A battle with entire divisions of female Gestapo troops plays out the same as it does against leather-clad officers or lowly foot soldiers. Your strategy, then, remains exactly the same throughout the entire game: Shoot everything that moves. Unfortunately, the weaponry at hand is limited, from the basic selection of WWII-era pistols, machine guns, and rifles. Don't expect any exciting prototype firearms to spice up the combat. The environments are equally bland, and neither a jaunt through Africa or a descent into a hidden Tibetan village will rouse much excitement. This is mostly because the levels are so linear in nature, and though it may take you an extra minute to find a key or locate a crawl space, there is only one path to take through UberSoldier II. Be sure to use the quicksave feature often because the game autosaves very rarely, and you'll lose hard-earned experience points when Nazis magically spawn behind you for a cheap death.
The atmosphere could have been improved had the artists committed to the comic-book style that it utilizes during cutscenes. The environments have an almost cel-shaded appearance to them, but the effect is so subtle that the visuals appear unremarkable. One exception is the final level, which could only be a secret missile base: It appears as if it were taken straight from the pages of a moving comic book. It's a shame that this vibrant art style was not used throughout the entire game; otherwise, UberSoldier II would've separated itself from the host of generic shooters on the market. The comic-book-themed cutscenes infuse UberSoldier II with some much-needed flavor. But these are soured by the ridiculous dialogue between Karl, his love interest Maria, and the evil enemy masterminds. Fans of campy adventures will get a kick out of the unintentionally funny storyline that is so bad, it's almost good. Almost.
The music is just as ridiculous as the voice acting. The grating rock-and-roll riffs intended to increase the gravity of a challenging battle do just the opposite and pull you out of the action. Instead of knuckling down to take on a regiment of genetically enhanced enemies in a WWII setting, you'll be trying to figure out which '80s TV show the soundtrack was inspired by. On a positive note, the music does raise the unintentional-camp factor.

You're not the only one with a sweet purple time shield.
UberSoldier II features online and LAN play, including 16-player Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and "Uberknife Fight." Strangely, multiplayer features none of the strengths of the single-player game, including the time shield or RPG upgrades in single-player. What's worse, the sprint mechanic is missing, forcing you to circle-strafe your enemies as if in slow motion. If you do manage to trigger Ubersniper or Berserker, you'll become invincible and move much faster. But good luck getting three consecutive knife kills without a sprint button. The multiplayer component of UberSoldier II feels like an afterthought, and an opportunity was certainly missed by not including the core mechanics that enhance the single-player game.
The RPG upgrades and shield abilities help separate UberSoldier II from the wealth of other WWII shooters on the market, but even at a budget price tag it's still not uber enough to be recommended without reservation.

We got behind the wheel of this gorgeous racer at Rockstar's London offices and didn't want to get out of the driver's seat.
Rockstar's other franchise is back and ready to burn rubber through LA in Midnight Club: Los Angeles. The game uses the same Rage engine as Grand Theft Auto IV and Rockstar Presents: Table Tennis, and as you'd expect, it's a visual feast for the eyes. LA hasn't been re-created inch for inch, which will come as a big relief to anyone who has experienced its rush-hour traffic jams. The developers have instead created a virtual city that has the heart and soul of the city of angels, complete with iconic landmarks and real streets--the 101 freeway, Santa Monica Boulevard, Mulholland Drive, and Pacific Coast Highway, among others. The Hollywood sign, Santa Monica Pier, and Walt Disney Concert Hall are all included, and even our favourite haunt, the LA Convention Center--home to the one and only E3 Media & Business Summit--makes an appearance.

"California, California, here we coooooooooooome!"
The environments in Midnight Club looks great, even in this prefinal release, and fans of GTAIV's visual style will appreciate its overall look. The game has a truncated 24-hour cycle, and despite its name, races will take place during both day and night. Weather effects appear to be dynamic; for example, we got drenched by a sudden downpour during a race, which made driving more of a challenge. The weather seems to be persistent across races--though the rain had stopped by our next event, the asphalt was still wet.
We played the multiplayer side of Midnight Club for a few hours, and we're pleased to report that it's just as much fun as single-player. The version we played was for the Xbox 360, but Rockstar has told us that the PlayStation 3 version will be identical. We started off by familiarising ourselves with Los Angeles and the game's controls before jumping into a match. The control system is very similar to those used by arcade-style racing games.
Our first ride was a red 2008 Kawasaki Ninja ZX14--one of the fastest vehicles in the game. At first we found the controls a bit sensitive, but after zooming around the streets for a bit we soon got accustomed to them. Bikes can pop wheelies, and you can also lean your weight to one side to help you corner more sharply. Cars, on the other hand, are able to perform two-wheel stunts. Besides giving you the chance to show off, these tricks stop others from getting a speed boost from your slipstream and can help you get through tight gaps.
We began our multiplayer journey by jumping into a quick match on Xbox Live, using a 2008 Volkswagen Golf R32. Despite being one of the smallest vehicles we've seen in the game, the pocket rocket still has a surprising amount of grunt. You're presented with a view of the entire city before and after each map, which lets you see all the checkpoints for each race, and you can change options and zoom in or out. You'll even see jets flying over the city and hear general ambient noises, which make the surroundings feel all the more like a living, breathing, metropolis.
Like Burnout Paradise and Need for Speed Undercover, Midnight Club is based on an open-world structure, and although each race course is different from the next, you'll often use the same streets to get from start to finish. While we didn't become overly familiar with the layout of this quasi-LA, we began to recognise sections, such as the Pacific Coast Highway and Mulholland Drive, in a short time. One of the races we tried, Laurel Canyon Run, took us through the weaving streets of the Hollywood Hills in a classic 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T. The roads still had water residue from a previous race, and the combination of a muscle car and a slippery surface made things interesting when we tried to weave around traffic at breakneck speeds. We followed this up with the aptly named Downtown Tour and saw the heart of LA, including what looked to be the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall, from behind the wheel of a 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo. The Lamborghini handled very differently from the Challenger, which was a reflection of the effects of modern traction control and steering assists.
While we didn't see much of the game's new story mode, we did get a brief communique from one of the characters who popped up on our player's T-Mobile Sidekick, referring to us as "Booke." Midnight Club appears to have adopted a simliar concept to the Whiz candy-bar phone from GTAIV, and it looks like messages from real and AI players will pop up on the phone from time to time. You won't use it to access everything; for instance, we joined multiplayer games via a regular menu.
A gauge at the bottom of the screen shows vital information, including speed, damage, and boost. If you have too many crashes during a race, your vehicle will reset, and though you'll lose some time, you'll get a shiny new ride and a topped-up boost as a consolation prize. You'll get only a few boosts at the start of each race, but you'll be able to get bonus boosts by driving through garages during a race (visible by a gas-pump icon on the map) or by staying in another player's slipstream for several seconds. A special gauge will flash for a brief moment, and if you tap the boost button at the right time, you'll get a quick surge of speed. Much like in GTAIV, you have a map of the city on the bottom-left of the screen that will show your current location as well as other important information, such as checkpoints and the finish line.
According to Rockstar, Midnight Club will have circuit races as well as the point-to-point street races we played. In addition to races, we got to try the game's battle mode, which we're pleased to report is a blast. The two battle games we tried were Capture the Flag and Keep Away.
Capture the Flag requires you to collect a flag and dump it at a point shown on your map while avoiding other racers. At your disposal are a number of power-ups, and some of the ones we saw could briefly freeze our vehicle into a solid block of ice, make it invisible or invincible, hit it with a magnetic pulse, or send it flying in the wrong direction. The flag holder is visible on the map, as well as in an onscreen list of players, but we found it hard to see who had it when we were focused on the action.
Keep Away is a variation on Capture the Flag, with the winner being the person tagged "it" for the longest period of time in the round without being rammed by other competitors. You won't have to reach a finish line in this mode, but rather you'll race the streets at breakneck speed while avoiding other players. We played Keep Away using bikes, and because of their exceptional handling and speed, we found it a real task to catch some of the better players--although we imagine you will be able to choose vehicle classes before each race, which may even up the playing field.
The soundtrack featured plenty of appropriately fast electronic numbers, although we didn't recognise any licensed tracks in the mix. Vehicle effects sounded accurate, with throaty muscle cars, purring exotic imports, and the high-pitched whines of bikes. Interestingly, we heard pedestrians shouting out to us on occasion when we came close to hitting them (it doesn't seem like you'll be able to hit them), and while we doubt they'll have the same vocabulary range as those in GTAIV, it seemed like an amusing addition to the game.

Somewhere between being attacked by giant rats and making awkward small talk with a trio of passive-aggressive radiation zombies, I began to regret my decision to leave the vault the other day. After all, that cooped-up atomic-bomb shelter was the only home I'd ever known. But when my father mysteriously went missing, I knew I had to put my life of watching I Love Lucy reruns and eating canned beans on hold for a while.

The view from the vault is stunning...
That said, it wasn't an easy decision. I stood in front of the vault door's control pod for what seemed like forever, debating whether or not to flip the switch. When I finally did, I never could have expected the view awaiting me from the outside. Once my eyes adjusted to the burning light, I saw a desolate, burned-out wasteland: to the right, the collapsed remains of a freeway overpass, and to the left, the battered shell of the Washington Monument. Everything in-between appeared to be little more than scattered rubble and charred trees.
I cautiously stepped down from the cliff that I emerged from and began to look for some remnants of a road. I needed to find a path I could follow to a town, city, or any semblance of civilization. Soon enough, I found a small village called Springvale, but the only "life" nearby was a floating robot that I later learned was an Enclave Eyebot. It seemed to be some sort of radio broadcasting a heartwarming story about what life was like when we had professional baseball teams to root for. Being more of a foosball man myself, I walked right on by.
Off in the distance I noticed a school, so I decided to investigate what might be inside. Turns out it was just a whole lot of dead raiders. All right, all right, so they were alive when I first came in, but they were shooting at me! I had to defend myself! Even with my disdain for baseball, I swing a pretty good bat (at least when cornered by an angry raider). But once I took care of the threat, there wasn't much worth exploring inside.
I left the school and wandered around until I came to a great big river. I noticed a fairly large city past the opposite bank, so I decided to swim across. Not a good idea. I should have suspected something odd was afoot when I first noticed the river's greenish hue, but life in the vault seems to have sheltered me from the dangers of radiation. I tried to make it across, but when the sound of a Geiger counter in my ears and the slight trembling in my limbs became too much to handle, I swam back ashore and took the long way around.
The city on the other side turned out to be the ruins of Bethesda, Maryland. Although I'd never been there before, something about the name sounded oddly familiar, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. I spent a good long time trying to figure out where I remembered that name from. My mind was so occupied that I didn't even notice when I strolled right into a camp of vicious raiders. Mind you, these raiders were much tougher than the ones back in the school. (Something about hanging out in the streets rather than the art room will do that to you.) They gave me a pretty good beatdown. I managed to take care of them, but not before I exhausted my entire supply of stimpaks, those friendly little needles that restore my health when I'm feeling a bit down. By the time I took them all out, I had developed a pretty savage headache. I couldn't walk more than 10 meters without suffering a severe fit of wooziness. Nervous, I had a look at my condition on my little wrist-mounted Pip-Boy 3000 computer. Yep, just as I thought: I had a crippled head. No amount of mildly irradiated-but-health-restoring rat meat would help me now. I had to find myself a stimpak and inject it directly into my head.

...and of the local wildlife, slightly less so.
I stumbled my way across the barren nighttime landscape, and just as the sun began to rise, I found a walled-off city called Megaton. The friendly robot patrolling the door could tell I was in a bad way (I think my busted and throbbing face tipped him off), so he let me in right away. Immediately inside, I was greeted by a rough-and-tumble-looking fellow in a cowboy hat. He introduced himself as Lucas Simms, Megaton sheriff and sometimes mayor (but only when the need for civility arises). I chatted him up for a bit, asking about the giant atomic bomb sitting smack-dab in the middle of the city as some sort of twisted town-square statue. Even among the makeshift scrap metal and airplane-fuselage houses, that thing stood out like a sore thumb.

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