GTA IV is here

The production of the video review is pretty sweet. The Kanye tie-in with the syncopated claps and gunfine is divine.

IGN has an amazing review here, and you'll see that's one of the very few games that they've ever given a '10'.

I remember playing GTA III on the PS2 back in a humble 2 bedroom apartment back in early 2001, and being completely blown away by the graphics, gameplay, and sheer replay value of the title. Vice City and San Andreas were worthy sequels, but I never found them to be all that compelling.

Now that the HD-DVD has gone the way of the dodo, and most games are available for both consoles (only talking about PS3 and 360, here: the Wii is cool, but we're not talking about Mario Kart here), I've serious motivation to take up a paper route to score the PS3 so I can get down with GTA IV. Or at least pick the new gear from the finery outlet at the Rockstar Warehouse.

I'm going to have to bug my colleagues in MIS to procure this one for the game room.

Ironically enough, I'm reading some short stories by J.G. Ballard (the writer probably best known for his work 'Empire of the Sun', which Spielberg made into a movie in the early 1980s). One of the tales is called 'The Subliminal Man', in which the protagonist becomes aware of the large signal arrays that are being erected all over the city. At first, he thinks they're related to airline traffic, and later realizes that they're huge subliminal emitters, blasting the populace with urgent advertisements designed to evoke consumption. It's a great commentary on how the things we own end up owning us, and more deeply embedded, are the pitfalls of extreme instances of capitalism and communism.

Is Sony shooting ads at my brain? Bastards. I'll fool them in the end. I had a lobotomy.