We’re a lucky bunch, really. Not us specifically at 360, although the chance to experience Grand Theft Auto IV three weeks before release was certainly a bonus. But no, we’re talking about all of us: gamers. Unlike the movie industry, whose tent pole releases usually amount to unwatchable trash like Pirates Of The Caribbean 3, or records that are micro-marketed to the nth degree, making them near-unlistenable, saccharine-soaked trash, in games, when we’re promised triple-A, nine times out of ten we get it and then some. And, in the case of GTA IV, we’ve been given the most technically impressive, politically witty, mind-blowing, awe-inspiring piece of modern media we’ve seen in the past five years. The word ‘masterpiece’ is bandied around with reckless abandon too much these days, but Rockstar has created an unadulterated, unmitigated, indisputable masterpiece.

Let’s start with an outlandishly sweeping statement: objectively speaking, Grand Theft Auto IV is the best videogame ever made. There you have it. You might have more fun in other games, you might find other games that appeal to your personality or tickle you in ways GTA never could, but in terms of volume, technical achievement and sheer artistry, nothing comes close. Grand Theft Auto IV has the story, the design, the visuals, the characters, the audio, the value, the wonder, the immersion and the awe. It may be borne out of a very familiar template, but trust us, you’ve never seen anything like this before.

It all begins with a fantastic indication of what’s to come: a brilliantly acted, scripted and directed cut-scene, introducing us to our protagonist and probably the best-written character in any videogame to date, Niko Bellic (it’s pronounced ‘Bellik’, in case you’d been wondering). Anyway, Niko is holed up on a freighter just off the coast of Liberty City, and the story starts the second he steps onto the shore. Niko’s cousin, Roman, picks him up in his taxi – pissed, of course – and it’s up to you to drive you both home.

From there, Grand Theft Auto IV never looks back. The opening hours set out to alienate you, to make you feel like the tiniest atom in a vast and foreign land, full of possibility and potential but drowning in decay and with danger around every bend. As is the GTA tradition, only one of Liberty City’s three islands is open from the beginning. Well, technically it’s two – Broker and Bohan – but together they’re equal in size to Algonquin (GTA IV’s Manhattan) and Alderney, it’s not-too-subtle renaming of New Jersey. After games like Crackdown have let us attack their entire environments from the off, you might feel slightly aggrieved at having your explorative side curtailed. But in truth, anything more would be overwhelming.

There’s more activity and interest on one street corner of Broker than there is in some entire games. You can lose minutes, even hours, just interacting with pedestrians, taking in the sights and generally causing mischief, but more on that later. For now, let us revel in the marvel that is Liberty City. Even within the relatively low-key surroundings of Broker and Bohan, the urban sprawl is incredible. Every street has its own personality, its own identity. Broker is dilapidated and dirty, but multicultural and diverse. And if you take a trip to the water, you can see the magnificence of Algonquin’s skyscrapers standing proudly in the distance, tantalisingly just out of reach.

Rockstar has described Grand Theft Auto’s story as ‘rags to slightly nicer rags’, as opposed to the franchise’s traditional rise to ultimate power, which is pretty accurate. Grand Theft Auto IV is a much more personal tale than any GTA before. It’s the story of Niko’s acclimatisation to the monstrosity that is Liberty City, to the life he now has to live and how he has to face up to his past. He’s searching for ‘that special someone’, and as the story peels back the layers and reveals more and more about Niko’s life back in the ‘Old Country’, the intrigue ramps up to unprecedented levels. This is premium storytelling, written beautifully and demonstrating the kind of emotional depth and subtlety that games so rarely achieve.

Grand Theft Auto IV works on so many layers it’s unreal. At any moment it’s a typical free-roaming crime melee, a virtual sightseeing tour, a deeply enthralling tale of alienation and obsession and the most biting satire of modern American culture in years. And it’s uniformly hilarious, from the dialogue to the incidental details to the innate comic timing of the physics engine. Not five minutes will go by without a wry smile or an audible chuckle.

Only after the first ten hours and your first foray into the steel corridors of Algonquin does the true wonder of GTA IV really set in. Rockstar has crafted the most coherent and believable game world in history. There’s a sense that this city existed before you arrived and it functions regardless of your interaction within it. The city streets are full of pedestrians holding their Bean Machine coffee cups and their newspapers, groups chatting, taxis bottlenecking and police roaming. From a distance, it’s GTA as we all know it, but only when you go down to the micro level, get in as close as possible, does the phenomenal detail really reveal itself.

Case in point: after a quick jaunt out to sea, Niko received a phone call – more on these later – and stood happily chatting to his buddy Brucie. Happily, that is, until some random undesirable stood right next to him, eyeballing us and mouthing off directly in our unsuspecting face. So we pushed him into the sea – that’ll teach him. All it took was a tug of the left trigger to target and a quick jab of B to push, and Mouthy McMoutherson was never to be seen again.

There are moments like this every minute in Grand Theft Auto IV. The missions throw up enough jaw-dropping astonishments on their own, but it’s the little things that keep Liberty City alive. Another example: the crazy preacher that took up residence outside our Bohan safe house. Every morning when we woke up, this loud-mouthed, God-fearing maniac would be outside the flat, yelling his zealous diatribe at anyone who would listen. After five consecutive mornings of this idiot’s ramblings, we pulled out a baseball bat, casually strolled up to him and gave him one stern strike across the spine. Needless to say, he never came back.

The NPC AI is so believable it’s incredible. Pedestrians react realistically to your actions, but you can never completely predict what they’ll do. Pull a pistol and aim at the head of a driver, and chances are he or she will sprint out of the vehicle screaming. But they might drive off screaming. Or get out the car shooting. Or drive into a lamppost and kill themselves. Another anecdote: while minding our own business on a quiet street in Broker, a car came swerving down the street, being chased by the police – sirens wailing, tyres screeching – then ‘bang’, the offending vehicle hits a wall, and all we can hear is the dull honk of the driver’s head on the steering wheel. The police took a quick look and drove away, so we sidled up, and who was the driver? An 80-year-old man. So we slung him out the way and drive his car to the nearest Pay ‘n’ Spray. It was a nice motor!

Of course, there’s only so far the random wandering can go. Yes, we only discovered that you can scale the GTA IV equivalent of the Empire State Building after 23 hours of play, and yes, there’s undoubtedly an ocean’s worth of brilliance still to discover, but it’s the missions that gel the whole thing together and really make the masterpiece.

At their core, most of Grand Theft Auto IV’s story-driven tasks are nothing new. There’s a lot of driving, a lot of shooting, a lot of escaping from the cops. But the refinements to the combat, driving and physics, and the pitch-perfect storytelling make everything so much more worthwhile. Most missions involve a non-player character, and the voyage to the crime zone is accompanied by some slick, scene-setting dialogue (which changes if you fail the mission, brilliantly). And when you get there, the execution is superb.

From basic assassinations to all out gun battles, Grand Theft Auto IV’s gunplay is a marvel, and although it can’t quite stand up to Gears Of War or Rainbow Six, it’s not far off. As you probably know by now, Niko Bellic’s army training means he’s a dab hand at snapping and rolling into cover, blindfiring and the good old fashioned pop and shoot. A tap of RB snaps you into cover, and the right trigger fires blind. Hold the left trigger all the way down, and you’ll auto-target in classic GTA style, and you can use the left stick to tweak your aim, à la Manhunt. But our personal combat method of choice comes when you hold the left trigger halfway down, allowing a full free aim. You can pick off body parts, snap off headshots and generally feel like the type of badass that only proper third-person actioners usually allow.

The gunplay also shows off the immense Euphoria animation engine superbly. Hit animations are better in GTA IV than in any other game ever: fact. Shoot limbs and they react exactly as you’d expect. You can send running enemies tumbling onto the ground and even into each other, and if there’s a more satisfying headshot in gaming, we haven’t seen it. The weight and movement of the characters in Liberty City is truly a glimpse into the future. This has set a new standard, and everyone else is going to need to play catch-up.

One particular mission where physics, gunplay and storytelling combine to mesmeric effect is the brilliant ‘Three Leaf Clover’. If you’ve yet to experience it, we’ll offer a spoiler warning here, but for those who have and those who just have to know, it’s incredible. Niko and the McCreary clan set about knocking off the Bank of Liberty. It’s your typical heist-gone-wrong scenario, but the actuality is incredible. A Heat-style gun battle between the cops and the McCreary boys ensues, with exploding police cars and dramatic sprints into cover under heavy fire. The chase carries on down into the subway and out the other side, ending in a terrifying high-speed chase across a Liberty City coloured red and blue with police sirens. Trust us, it’s absolutely incredible.

To spoil too many missions would be criminal, but be assured that they’re by far the best the series has ever offered. Whenever that sense of over-familiarity creeps in and you feel like you’re back in 2001, Grand Theft Auto IV just knocks you sideways with its ingenuity, be it piloting a chopper over Star Junction (Times Square) or organising a prison break in the Midtown tunnel. You never know where the story is going next, and it’s never anything other than thrilling.

No more so, in fact, when the game throws its sense of morality at you. GTA has never been the most morally sound piece of work – killing hookers and murdering cops isn’t exactly wholesome family entertainment – and by and large, GTA IV is the same. But at key points in the story, it will ask you to make a choice. And what a choice it is. You have to kill one of two acquaintances, and in the first instance, it’s the choice between – spoiler warning – high-flying gangster/real estate mogul Playboy X and his once partner-in-crime, the downtrodden Dwayne. Dwayne’s the good guy; Playboy’s the prick. But it’s never that easy. Unlike, say, Mass Effect, where similar choices felt impressive but ultimately easy to decide, this one had us in turmoil. Thirty minutes of turmoil.

Never has such a simple decision felt so difficult. Such is the sophistication of the characters and the depth of Niko’s own morality, killing off a main character is a huge emotional undertaking. We’ll never forget slowly driving over the Algonquin Bridge in the rain, drifting towards a waypoint we’d placed ambiguously in between the two targets. It was dark, the lights had blurred in the most beautiful fashion, and as the downpour lashed against the windscreen and Kanye West’s infectiously atmospheric Flashing Lights purred out of the stereo, we felt the chill of a cold-hearted killer slide down our spine. There was no right, only the lesser of two wrongs, and when it came to the hit itself, never has a game felt so mature, so real. Revelatory.

Who did we choose? Well that would be telling, but it changed the shape of Liberty City forever, and it’s not the only time it happens. Even at a basic level, your phone book contact list changes. As you’ve probably read in preview coverage, much of GTA IV’s gameplay revolves around your cell phone and the people you can call with it. You begin with your cousin Roman, who you can take out drinking, to play darts or pool, to a strip club or even a cabaret show. Every one of these includes its own perk, be it the hilarious drunk driving physics or the relative merits of awkwardly glancing at a polygonal lap dancer, but the results are what’s important. Get friendly enough with a particular contact, and you’ll receive their ‘perk’.

Little Jacob, the Rastafarian – and brilliantly written – drugs and arms dealer, will gladly drive to your position with a car boot full of weapons if you keep him happy, Roman will provide a free cab service on tap, and the hilariously steroid-addled Brucie will keep you informed about street races going on around the city, which are excellent, by the way, thanks to the weighty but still familiar driving physics. Keeping your friends close is such a clever way of involving you in the city, enhancing your gameplay experience and distracting you from the constant murder and terror. And, of course, it’s entirely optional. Don’t fancy hanging out with your mate? Just tell them you’re busy. Easy.

Almost every character you meet is fascinating to be around and skilfully written, but it’s Niko himself that really steals the show. If the city is the star, then Niko’s the ultimate antagonist. Unlike some games, whose main character is just a blank canvas for you to paint your own personality onto, Niko Bellic is a completely believable human being, driven by sorrow, revenge and bitter disappointment, but with a charming sense of humour and, oddly, a sense of decency. He’s faultless. When he cracks a joke, you’ll smile. When he screams in terrifying Russian, your eyes will widen with shock. And when he slips back into his own mind and recounts a tale from the war that made him and broke him, you’ll actually be moved. As good as the gameplay is, it’s the story that will keep you driving through the 60-plus hours that is Grand Theft Auto IV.

If all of this sounds like a love letter to Liberty City, then that’s because it is. There are niggles to pick, of course: the occasional texture pop-in and frame rate drop break the illusion somewhat; the cover system has imperfections and you’ll often end up stuck facing the wrong way. Some missions are unnecessarily tricky, some are too similar to others and the third island, Alderney, is nowhere near as exciting as the others. But these are grains of sand on a beach’s worth of magnificence. Grand Theft Auto IV is the most complete, intelligent, witty, enjoyable, hilarious, and unbelievably exhilarating piece of digital entertainment this reviewer has ever experienced. Once again, Rockstar has taken the bar and thrown in out of the window. This is as close to true, culture-defining greatness as any videogame has ever come.