The release of GTA IV on PC!

Got myself a special treat today: my pre-order for Grand Theft Auto IV finally came in so I went to pick it up at the EB Games at Forest Hill!

Now anyone who knows me knows I'm a HUGE Grand Theft Auto (or GTA for short) fan. I played the top-down original Grand Theft Auto years ago on the PC. And then I got the expansion where the setting was in the UK. I missed out on GTA 2 and that was the last of my GTA experience for a while since I came to Australia.

While I was over here, I discovered GTA III, albeit a year or more after its initial release. GTA III is the game that changed free-roaming games forever and spawned so many clones since its inception. Some of its clones were good, some were god-awful but not many reached the same heights as the GTA series. I spent so many long long hours playing GTA III...and I didn't even try to achieve 100% completion in the game!

And then my favourite GTA game of all time was released in 2003: GTA Vice City. It was set in the 80s in Vice City, which was a lampoon of Miami. It had a killer soundtrack of some of my favourite 80s tunes and even the more obscure ones that I had heard little of but grew to love. It had the bright lights, snazzy "disco" colours and stereotypes of American characters that one saw in movies and tv dramas. And it had the classic GTA gameplay...what was there not to love?

After that came GTA San Andreas, which I own a copy of but have never EVER played, believe it or not. Just never had my PS2 with me when I purchased San Andreas and even now, don't really have the time to play it. Then I deliberately purchased a PSP so that I could play GTA Liberty City Stories, which was pretty awesome as well. And then my second favourite GTA game, GTA Vice City Stories was released on PSP and it had an even MORE killer soundtrack than Vice City!

GTA Chinatown Wars will be released on the Nintendo DS sometime in 2009, but that's a whole other story.

In May this year, Rockstar Games released the sequel to GTA III (well, not quite, but at least in sequential order of numbering, I guess it IS a sequel) on both the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox360: GTA IV. I was shattered...only because I didn't own either console and short of actually going out there to buy one of those next gen consoles, there'd be absolutely no chance I'd get to play this game!

So when I found out a couple of months ago that GTA IV was coming to PC, I knew I had to pre-order it. There was no way I'd be getting a PS3 or Xbox360 anytime soon (if ever!) so here was my chance to get in on the GTA IV experience, the game that so many people were talking about, just as if it were the days after the release of GTA III all over again!

So now that I have it, I can't wait to try it...I'm sure I'll have ample time over the Christmas period to immerse myself in the world of Liberty City once again. Reviews once I've played the game or have completed it!