Police and Thieves

GTA San Andreas, promo artwork, 2004

It would be hard not to notice the landing of a new instalment of Grand Theft Auto if only because the media becomes saturated with moral panic articles on each launch. Not that this bothers Rockstar or Take 2 Interactive who make millions either way. As they say, any publicity is good publicity and it all feeds into the hype. However, in this day and age of aggressive promotion of entertainment products in which the first act of the script of an upcoming episode of an animated show is read by the voice artists at Comic-con and blockbuster films have almost year long mysterious viral marketing campaigns to engage fans, sometimes the meal is overcooked (see Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises, et al). The first trailer for GTA V was released way back in November 2011 - almost two years before release - and since then we've been drip fed screenshots and cryptic twitter feeds with the expectation that the pressure will have risen so much that people will necessarily cream their pants the moment they so much as touch their copy. It might sound like I'm setting up for a scathing review. That is not the case - let's just not pretend this is the perfect game. Spoilers follow.

Learn to Fly

Fireman Sam 2, Myrrien, 2008

After playing a racing game like Gran Turismo 5 I'm always drawn back to Grand Theft Auto for the freedom of the road. After finishing Le Mans I went back to messing about in GTAIV but became bored of going on rampages and aimlessly driving about (especially since it lacks the expansive countryside of San Andreas). I used to do the taxi missions for some mindless escapism in SA, but IV removed that gameplay mode so having completed the vigilante missions and quite enjoyed playing the police I was reminded of back in the days of Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear there was a total conversion mod (The Temporary Tango) that completely flipped the game on it's head. Rather than playing the titular antiterrorism military unit you became the terrorists whom you combat in the first half of the game. It was very weird to gun down the good guys in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and didn't get any less disconcerting through the other missions. I then wondered if someone had similarly flipped GTAIV around. Although no-one has made a true total conversion mod that presents Niko's story from the perspective of law enforcement (because that's quite an undertaking), there is a mod that uses the Rockstar Advanced Gaming Engine as a foundation for something like a police force simulator - LCPD First Response.

The Rising Tide to New York City Did They Ride Into The Street

Send us your brightest, your smartest, your most intelligent,
Yearning to breathe free and submit to our authority,
Watch us trick them into wiping rich people's asses,
While we convince them it's a land of opportunity.

JULY IV
MDCCLXXVI

Engraving on the Statue of Happiness, GTAIV