There's a huge amount to cover with Grand Theft Auto IV. In many ways, Rockstar have left the world of video games behind, and have invented a new world - one with real characters, whose faulty lives you get to examine at a microscopic scale, against the backdrop of a city bursting with a level of detail simply never seen before. It's dark, it's gritty, and it's a world of black humour and subtle references, with the added benefit of extreme violence. It provides you with the ability to build a life in a world just different enough from real life to make you want to stay, yet similar enough to make you watch your speed around cops.

It’s all of the little things combined, such as taxi drivers who have their own personalities and are capable of executing flawless three-point-turns, or getting into arguments with other drivers. From the soundtrack to the ambient noise, which is well and truly the sound of a real city, to the character dialogue from random pedestrians on the street. It’s your cell phone that won't stop ringing because you've stood up your friend for a drink. It’s the animated physics that actually imbue people with a centre of gravity, accurate posture and even gait. It’s the condensation on Niko's breath after he's killed twenty mobsters. It’s drifting around a corner and taking out a power pole, but above all else it’s your Liberty City. You make the rules, and every action you take has a consequence.

I suspect I’ve just witnessed what would happen if Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie made a video game together. This is Grand Theft Auto IV, and it's here on the 29th of April.