Steal a glimpse inside 'Grand Theft Auto IV'

— -- It's expected to be the biggest event of the year for gamers: Grand Theft Auto IV launches April 29 for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Some analysts predict publisher Rockstar Games (rockstargames.com) will sell more than 6 million copies in Week 1 and up to 9 million by fall. At Rockstar's headquarters, I got an early look for USA TODAY.

Story

You're Nikolai "Niko" Bellic, who leaves his rough Eastern European town to pursue the American dream. His American cousin, Roman, promises that the streets are paved with gold; but Niko discovers he was lured here to work for Roman's small cabstand and help him get out of debt with loan sharks.

To survive, Niko makes money, connections and a name in the criminal underworld. As you'll discover, Niko had his own reasons for wanting to leave his homeland.

Location and look

Players return to Liberty City from 2001's GTA III, modeled after New York City and New Jersey. (Manhattan is called Algonquin, Times Square is Star Junction, Central Park is Middle Park.)

Every time you hop into a car you'll have access to many local radio stations, each with a different music genre and humorous DJ.

And while the game world is smaller than the cities found in 2004's GTA: San Andreas, it is fleshed out with incredible detail, realistic graphics, motion-captured videos, more verticality (such as access to skyscraper rooftops) and a 24-hour day-and-night cycle (two minutes of game time equals one hour).

Game play

As with past GTA games, IV can best be described as a non-linear "sandbox" world, populated by pedestrians and cars that obey traffic lights, in which you can go anywhere and do anything.

Players will take on dozens of missions over the course of this game, assigned by the characters you'll meet. One challenging mission is to get the address of an informant, and you must carjack a cop cruiser to gain access to the police computer.

How you accomplish this task is up to you: You can call 911 on your mobile phone so an officer comes and then take his car; shoot at pedestrians until the police arrive; or stealthily steal a cop car from a police station.