Despised by conservative critics and decried by politicians, the Grand Theft Auto series of video games might be the most divisive pop-culture product since John Lennon declared the Beatles “more popular than Jesus”.
Tuesday, the generation of Americans raised on Super Mario Brothers and hip hop will flock to purchase Grand Theft Auto IV, the newest entry in the series, while those who consider the game a gratuitously violent abomination will take to the 24-hour cable-news airwaves to warn parents and scold the game’s creators.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the controversy, GTA IV is poised to become the most critically celebrated game of the series. According to Metacritic.com, a site that aggregates reviews from publications and Web sites around the world, it has the highest average score of any game in the site’s history, 99 out of 100 points.
No surprise, then, that it is set to become a retail phenomenon. Game-industry financial analyst Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets LLC expects GTA IV to sell 10 million copies before the year is out. “We expect about 5 million units in the first couple of weeks and another 5 million units over the course of the rest of the year,” says Sebastian. At $60 a pop, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., the game’s publisher, would be looking at $600 million in sales this year.
Fans of the series will face a choice this time. While previous GTA games were released for Sony’s PlayStation platform before landing on Microsoft Xbox months later, GTA IV debuts on both Microsoft XBox 360 and Playstation 3. The game’s creators have stated that both versions are identical, but the Xbox 360 version will offer exclusive downloadable content at a later date.
GTA IV follows the underworld exploits of Eastern European emigrant Nico Bellic. The game unfolds in Liberty City, a version of New York City featuring landmarks like Times Square, Central Park, Coney Island and the Statue of Liberty.
Aside from the ultrarealistic graphics, what sets GTA IV apart from more confined and controlled popular games like Halo 3 is that players are free to go anywhere and do anything in the city, the focal point of controversy surrounding previous games. But while players can wreak virtual havoc in the streets by hijacking cars and attacking innocent city dwellers, GTA games always center on engrossing stories told through stylish, cinematic scenes in the gangster-movie tradition.
Dan Houser, vice president of series creators Rockstar Games Inc., is also one of gaming’s wittiest scribes. In GTA IV, Bellic, when not gunning down rival criminals at the behest of mobsters and drug dealers, spends his time in Internet cafes looking for love on a dating Web site. The game aims for the nexus between likable characters and detestable actions that made “The Sopranos” a sensation. But where television has earned the right to tackle dark, adult themes, games are widely considered the territory of children and teenagers. Perhaps GTA IV will be the game that finally changes that.
[NY Daily News]
