Its really funny that people are freaking out about GTA. It IS fun. Much more fun than any Nintendo game (sorry). Just because its based in a real city and doesn't have wizards, aliens, or a douchebag plummer doesn't mean its not fun.

But hating on GTA kinda makes sense when you think about the fanbase of this site. You can't expect people who chose games like SSB over Call of Duty to appreciate more mature games. For many having Mario run around this world doing the same crap over and over again just got old. Gaming evolved in to a more acceptable form of entertainment for older people, and not just for little kids and complete nerds.

You have to expect some people "against the man" would hate mainstream games, no matter how good they are. GTA sells so much because its good on so many levels. If you just want to screw around and kill, steal, beat up hookers its got that. If you just want to complete mission after mission and finish the game, thats possible too. If you only wanna listen to the radio, the radio has awesome music/ hilarious radio talks shows which you can literally listen to for days without even having to play the main game.

No other game is this epic in size. Its not hard to pick up the game and play at all, yet the game is rewarding if you're skilled. I mean I can't say enough about these games. They simply are the best game ever made. Sure they have glitches, sure they are lacking a bit graphically, but they are more fun playing alone than any other game I can think of.

Neos why start a thread inviting people that haven't played a game to gather and speak about how it's overrated? In fact, how can you disagree with a review score if you didn't put your own time into the game to judge for yourself?

On the subject on every game not being perfect, I agree. However you're coming really late to the party with this argument because games have been getting perfect reviews since the dawn of videogamedom. GTA IV just happens to get more of them.

As for your argument that GTA IV is reality and not escaping reality, get real. Maybe your daily regiment is jacking cars, juggling postitutes and girlfriends, taking criminals to bowl, outrunning the cops on a daily basis, doing dug runs, etc. etc. but for most of us GTA is no more realistic than Mario and Sonic are. I mean you can't even get stopped by the cops for running into cars or driving through red lights.

If you go back to IGN's Ocarina of Time review, you'll notice they picked out audio problems, frame rate issues, and screen muddiness in towns and yet still scored it a 10, regardless of those technical issues. Sound familiar?

Also if your rationale for Mario Galaxy deserving high review scores is just because Miyamoto made it, and he saved the whole industry, then you're just being silly.

@Rath-Yes that's very likely that an embargo got placed on GTA IV, as it happens with most publishers that give out advance copies. It doesn't hold weight though because the embargo is a site needs to wait until after launch if it's giving a game a poor review. I don't think anybody expected this game to get poor reviews anyways, just not such astronomically high ones. If it were true and Rockstar actually pulled off buying 10's with that strategy it wouldn't matter. Only 20 reviews got in by launch time, and another 80-100 are on their way within the next two months, so they will easily knock the score down if this were true. 

 Where were all of you when I compared OoT to GTA-IV, and got flamed by everyone :p. Thanks for leaving me out in the cold guys :).

Last night I sat in the safe-house, and watched TV for 30 minutes or so. Some funny shows on that too. They even had a standup comedian come on, and play at a club you can drive too. It's amazing to see that kind of detail in a game.

Kyros said: they're the ultimate escapist game You mean like a role-playing game. Hey that sounds like something that should have no place in computer games . and the average angsty teen Ah the good old people who play games I don't like are angsty teens so lets defame them approach. See Okey a Nintendo fanboy should behave like that, makes it far easier to make fun of him.

What did I do? :3

In my humble opinion the sheer volume of perfect score reviews shows the current videogame market trend if nothing else. There were actually some reviews that criticized Super Mario Galaxy or Ocarina of Time while none thus far on GTAIV. This game sure has a vastly wide appeal...

I am glad this is getting the attention it deserves, both positive and negative. I see there are some people that agree with me, which shows there's definitely a lot of potential to start an anti-gta group =D. Riot don't even bother posting, i always skip yours, mostly because of the high nonsense factor in it. Not even talking about rock_on lol..

*Sigh*

The thing that makes Grand Theft Auto so fun is that it takes reality, and gives us what we can never do. Sure, you can run around in a city, and climb up stairs. But can you take a helicopter, go to the top of a building, and use a rocket launcher to blow up cars?

Well, good luck trying!

I thought a lot of Nintendo fans were preaching tolerance for casual gamers. Since this game is now considered casual by many people, I should just go around making a thread for every single casual game I don't like because they are so often so freakin' damn stupid. 

I can't really relate to making a "hate group" for a game, that seems like a waste of breath and thought process to me, but I will say this;
I'll postpone my eagerness for this game until I've played it myself, after those "incredible" games last year that turned out just mediocre (to me at least) I'll not pass judgement or fall for hype that easily again.
I'll probably love it, seeing as how I loved all the other GTA's, but I'll wait even still.

I played about 2 hours of GTA IV so far. Thus far, I recall laughing a great many times. I'm pretty sure that would imply that I'm having fun.