You can write off individual parts of GTA 4 as simply mini-games, or roll your eyes at the execution-the constant phonecalls from Niko’s cousin, Roman, suggest that in this universe bowling is slightly more addictive than heroin-but in bulk they create a city unlike anything we’d seen before. There’s never a shortage of life to it all, though. There’s a grit to the game that even San Andreas’ gang-focused opening didn’t really offer, with any sense of hope constantly undercut by reminders that the one part of Niko’s past he can’t escape is himself. The opening hours aren’t set in the shining Times Square type parts of not-New York, but the grubby inner city Skid Row parts, where apartment walls rattle to the sound of passing trains and loan sharks and low-level gangsters live like kings amongst the poverty and squalor. Unlike Vice City’s playful psychopathy or San Andreas’ rags-to-jetpacks tale, GTA 4 gives us Niko Bellic-a largely broken man at the bottom of the social ladder, who spends most of the story being used and abused by those around him. Much of that comes from the choice of character. It was arguably the first big city that truly felt alive
