Four.

Four Grand Theft Auto games have followed GTA3 to consoles if you include the "Stories” series on PSP that got ported over to PS2, and it has been nearly four years since San Andreas. Four games, four years, and we're only now just arriving at Grand Theft Auto 4. It's an important point to make, because while Vice City and San Andreas were both fully-fledged stand-alone titles in their own right, neither they nor their "Stories” spinoffs was deemed by Rockstar to be worthy of the title of a true sequel. Think about that for a second, because we're talking about games regarded by many as true classics here, the sort of games that consistently got 9s or 90s in reviews, and sold by the truckload.

Of all the hype and expectations that this game has generated, it is that simple digit that has really gotten everyone worked up into a lather. GTA4 is the first ‘next-gen' offering for the series, and is arguably the first in the franchise built from the ground up with our beloved Xbox in mind. And arguably, this review is redundant already: chances are as a sane Xbox 360 owner, you picked the game up at launch. If that's you, feel free to go back to enjoying one of the best games of 2008. If it isn't, you poor sod, then strap yourselves into the imaginary Banshee you just stole, and let's ride.

How do you even start a review for a game like Grand Theft Auto 4? Few series can claim the pedigree of Rockstar's infamous crime saga, which has managed to attain a commercial and critical success rivalled only by the controversy that always seems to follow in its wake. The real challenge comes not from the fact that there's an awful lot of hype and hyperbole – not to mention our own personal expectations and anticipation – but more from the fact GTA4 is a true sequel. It is a sequel that casts aside many of the preconceptions we as gamers have created based on our previous experiences with the series, specifically GTA3 and its spinoffs.

GTA4 is, in many ways, a case of one-step forward and one-step back, yet somehow the sum of its parts pushes it leaps and bounds ahead. It is proof positive that bigger is not necessarily better, that a tighter focus can yield more clarity, and that smaller scale storytelling can create a much more intimate and memorable experience. It is proof that if you strip something back to its gritty heart and trim the fat, you can actually wind up with something much, much better. What you wind up with is GTA4 in all its glory.

Now I'm not going to lie to you, and it's something we need to address sooner rather than later: the truth is that there's a LOT of things missing from GTA4 that long time fans of the series are really going to miss: those paramedic or fire-fighting missions, those crazy remote-control planes or cars, the wild and whacky vehicles, the hundreds of outfit choices, they're all gone. In fact, virtually everything that made the likes of Vice City and San Andreas larger than life have been mercilessly and surgically excised from the Grand Theft Auto experience. Not only that, the deeper aspects of the game like the property and business ownership and role-playing elements have also fallen to the cold steel of Rockstar's scalpel.

There's going to be people who find this to be an unacceptable act of barbarism, and that the GTA they know and love has been ruined. Hell, I'm one of them to an extent – I loved that crazy stuff, I loved the almost endless possibilities and customisation. But we all get sick of playing in the sandbox after a while, even the best sandbox with the best toys. We're much more likely to remember a favourite book or movie, be it the gripping storyline or a particular character we love or hate. And as possibly the most diligent students of pop-culture in the industry, it's something Rockstar realise too, and so they have tightened their focus, refined their gameplay, and delivered the most pure Grand Theft Auto experience since GTA3.

This is not an epic, Scarface-esque tale of one man's rise and fall as a crime kingpin, nor is it an intricate gangland tale: this is the tale of Niko Bellic, a Serbian veteran of the Bosnian war, who has come to Liberty City for two things: a fresh start, and revenge against the men who betrayed his military unit. What Niko learns is that the two things are mutually exclusive, and that no matter how hard or how far a man runs, he can never escape the ghosts of his past. This is a much smaller scale tale than the previous GTA games, although Niko's path will still take him through many twists and turns, working for and against many different people. Ultimately though, this is very much Niko's story.

His cousin Roman plays a large part in this story though; he promised Niko a life at the top, filled with penthouse mansions and sports cars, but in reality possesses only a grimy little cab company and a tiny and equally dirty apartment. Rather than inheriting a fortune, all Niko has inherited is Roman's gambling debts and his problems, but as a born survivor, Niko will make the most of the situation while also trying to achieve his own personal objectives. This is where your time in Liberty City starts: on the bottom-rung, but as a man with a mission.

In some ways, this purity of focus emulates the basic storyline of GTA3, but this is a much more human revenge story, filled with very real choices that you the player will have to make on Niko's behalf. What path you choose will have life and death consequences at times, and in a first for the series, there is more than one possible ending to Niko's tale. Giving the player choices to make about characters they actually care about creates a sense of intimacy and emotional involvement that takes the storytelling for the series in a whole new direction, and it's a great direction.

GTA4's mantra could very easily be quality over quantity, but it's really more about attention to detail. The series has always gone to great lengths to create a rich and vibrant world, but like those old Wild West movie sets you see; beyond the facade there was nothing but pure mechanics and framework. It got more and more fleshed out, but it never really felt like a living, breathing organism. Until now, that is, with the new-look Liberty City stealing the show as perhaps the best character in the game. The city is at once familiar and foreign, an inviting mistress and a stern schoolmarm – in short, it feels more alive than ever before.

If you played GTA3, there's a good chance you'll actually recognise some locales and stretches of road, and while Rockstar have changed the names and don't overtly acknowledge it, these subtle nods to the history of both the franchise and the city itself really add to the experience. But more so than ever before, it's a city with its own culture, its own advertisements and celebrities and even its own hilarious TV shows. Very few games have their own fictional reality TV shows, and even fewer allow you to download the novelty ringtone theme-song of said show for your virtual mobile phone. The attention to detail is just phenomenal: you can even hop on the internet and visit websites for the ads, services and more present in the game.

Much of it is a piss-take on modern American culture, of course, which has always been the series' strong point. My favourite nod is probably the reason why access to the other islands has been blocked off: an unspecified, specific terrorist threat. You will spend most of your time in GTA4 getting a chuckle out of both subtle and in-your-face humour of this nature; it's what the fans expect, and as usual, Rockstar certainly doesn't disappoint in this department. And just when you think you've seen or heard it all, you'll spot a funny billboard, or hear something new on the radio, or click a link in your spam email, or hear a pedestrian say something hilarious. More than ever before, GTA's greatest strength is just being GTA.

It has a lot of help though, thanks to a new graphics engine, and with the help of Euphoria, which is a procedural animation package used to make the denizens of Liberty City look and move more naturally. The result is great: people are more expressive and limber, better articulated and of course this means they look much better when they go flying across the road if you run them over! Not that you'd be doing that on purpose, of course. GTA has always had pretty crappy-looking character models, let's be frank, with their shovel-hands and utter lack of expression, and Rockstar have really addressed this and gone one step beyond. The advantages aren't immediately apparent, but you'll soon notice that the game's many in-game cutscenes now get a bit closer to people and to their faces, because it's no longer an embarrassment to do so. Of course it isn't perfect, but given the series used to be renowned for how bad it looked up-close, it's a vast improvement.

Perhaps the biggest improvement is at the macro level though: the city itself is incredibly detailed compared to past efforts, and with a beautifully realised day/night cycle and weather effects, the game world itself has never felt more realistic. Rain falls in great sheets, whipped by the wind, and the distant clash of thunder causes your controller to vibrate fiercely. Morning fog clings to everything, and on chilly nights, Niko's breath will plume as he runs around. It's the sort of attention to detail that you won't really appreciate at first, but the longer you play, the more you'll enjoy the way it sucks you into the city experience.

Of course it isn't all sunshine and roses; the game's framerate seems to hover around 25-30fps, at times dipping quite a bit below that, which can lead to some noticeable slowdown or poor performance. And while it streams the city on the fly pretty well for the most part, at times there is some texture pop-in, particularly when transitioning to indoor locations. There's a lot of minor visual bugs and glitches too, like things clipping through buildings or the camera getting stuck below the surface of the city. This is relatively minor, however, and for the most part GTA4 is a fairly seamless experience. Of course, physics plays hilarious havoc sometimes as is often the case in games of this nature, but this is usually more amusing than it is annoying.

One of the biggest changes in GTA4 is the way the vehicles handle in the game. In the past, the series has been pretty forgiving, allowing you to pull off insane handbrake turns and 180s in a fairly controlled manner...and before you ready the pitchforks, let me just say this is still the case...to an extent! As part of their push for realism, Rockstar has really gone to pains to make each type of vehicle feel unique, and to differentiate their respective qualities. When you first start the game, you'll tend to be driving around in junkers ready for the tip – and they handle like it, with shoddy brakes that lock up and poor handling. On the flipside, now the sports-scars and performance vehicles handle beautifully like they should with anti-lock brakes and insane handling at speed, and this makes driving them more rewarding than it used to be. On the whole, the cars feel heavier and more grounded in reality and it will take a bit of getting used to, but once you do, the driving physics are arguably a lot better than before. Plus you can still do stupid stunts and punish the vehicles mercilessly, which is a must for GTA!

The other, perhaps more significant alteration, is the way combat is handled. While people generally liked the driving handling in the other games, combat is one of the areas that always wound up being the most heavily criticised: awkward and imprecise at best, ungainly and un-fun at worst, it just never really came together quite right. GTA4 totally reworks the combat, incorporating a cover system similar to Gears of War, as well as improving the lock-on gunplay, which now allows you to target specific body parts or exposed flesh if an enemy is behind cover. Put simply, it no longer feels like GTA combat, it feels like the sort of third-person shooter combat we've all become used to. It isn't quite perfect yet, with some touchy target-selection when locked on, but on the whole it feels better than GTA ever has.

While almost everything in GTA4 feels like an improvement, the audio is perhaps the only department that feels weaker. Vice City and San Andreas have possibly the greatest soundtracks to ever grace a videogame, and there's no denying that topping or even following such stellar line-ups was going to be a tall order. GTA4's soundtrack isn't really bad, it just doesn't come close to touching the other two in terms of variety or quality. It's very techno/electronica heavy with a lot of jazz, reggae and jazz fusions, so if those are your genres you'll probably be happy. But fans of rock, alternative or pop are going to walk away pretty disappointed. By far the most shameful omission is the removal of the custom soundtrack option: on modern consoles like the 360 and PS3, where people are more likely than ever to be using their gear as a media centre, not allowing people to build their own custom stations is a travesty, and a real step backwards for the series.

Thankfully the rest of the audio is terrific: the ambient sounds and general effects are superlative, and the dialogue really helps the spoken word shine despite a distinct lack of celebrity voice talent in this game. Arguably, the expressive, articulate character models really help to flesh out the dialogue making expensive celebrity voice talent superfluous, but the end result is a game that sounds great. If you like European accents or incomprehensible Rastafarians, anyway!

Much has been made of the supposed length of GTA4 in various previews of the game: despite technically having a lot less random stuff to do, it has been touted as one of the longest GTA games today. The storyline and its associated missions themselves weigh in at around 20-30 hours playtime alone depending on your pacing, and let's face it: it's almost impossible to play a GTA game just focusing on the missions, there's just too much other stuff to do in the sandbox. Despite cutting a lot of the more unrealistic missions and mini-games, GTA4 does have a fair bit of non-story activities to participate in: the new police missions are great, featuring the vigilante missions we all know and love, along with 30 Most Wanted fugitives to track down across the city.

But perhaps the biggest time-sink Rockstar expect you to lose yourself in are the enhanced social functions present. Taking girls on dates was a part of San Andreas too, but this has expanded to other activities and "man-dates” with your buddies to the strip club or to shoot some pool. You can also take in a show or play darts or go bowling, and most of these activities have a fully-fledged mini-game to play. How much you get out of this will really vary from player to player, but if you're one of those people who misses the RC missions or the paramedic/firefighting type missions, these won't really be much of a substitute. The bigger complaint is that the social aspect with your friends extends to them constantly ringing you to do things – even when you're on a mission – and if you rebuff them too often or miss a planned date, they'll like you less. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but they can all provide you with game bonuses like weapon deliveries or a drop in wanted level, and you can lose these bonuses even if you've unlocked them which is a real pain.

Still, all told there is a whole lot of game here, almost as much as San Andreas, and what's here is probably a little more developed than that game's quantity over quality approach. GTA4 is arguably easier than the previous iterations of the franchise, but a lot of this just comes down to the enhanced combat system. The new police wanted system is a nice (if somewhat frustrating) touch – if a cop sees you do wrong, a circle of police presence appears near you, and you need to escape the radius of their search to drop the wanted level. The higher your wanted level, the bigger the circle and the more cops in the hunt; which means more can spot you and reset the circle on you. It can be a bit of a pain during missions, and the police response is fairly arbitrary...getting shot dead for a fender-bender with their car is not a proportional response in anyone's book.

Of course the biggest and boldest addition to the series has been saved for last: multiplayer. We're not talking about some half-arsed, feature-check multiplayer either; we're talking 16 players, over a dozen game modes, and the entire city as your arena. There's something for everyone here really: 3 fantastic, tightly focused co-operative modes for up to 4 players, a wide variety of vehicle races (including boats and choppers!), death-matches, team-based modes, and a very cool cops and robbers mode. All this in addition to free roam, which is basically a bunch of people just running amok doing as they please.

As if the 40+ hours of singleplayer goodness wasn't enough, multiplayer has the real potential to go the distance against the likes of Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 – there's just so many variants and things to do that you'll just want to keep coming back. Is it perfect? Of course not, but as a first effort it's better than anyone would've expected. And most of its issues – which include drop-outs, lag, and an inability to join games you've been invited to among other quibbles – can arguably be blamed as much on Xbox Live as GTA4.