It’s midnight in Liberty City and an illegal immigrant from Eastern Europe by the name of Niko Bellic has just dropped off the boat to meet both his cousin, and a new life. Little does he know, it’s going to be hell. He’s the star of GTA4, which, while two GTA titles have been published between it and GTA3, is Rockstar’s official fourth-generation GTA. And it shows. Oh boy, does it show. This game outshines all of its predecessors, and all of its pretenders, asserting Rockstar’s baby as the king of the sandbox.

Liberty City is huge, and utterly alive. Stuff is happening and it doesn’t care what you do, and there is stuff everywhere, just like the little-known town of New York City that it emulates. The citizens have lives, they work, they eat, they drive, the pay attention to each other, and they interact with the world at large in a wonderful smorgasbord of unscripted AI. At least, until Niko asserts himself and begins to cause trouble.

It seems odd to focus on the minute details of the colossal game before addressing the game as a whole, but when there is simply so much content, it must be done. Liberty City does not follow the pre-ordained ‘setting’ culture of previous GTA games. Where San Andreas was meant to recall gang life specifically, Vice City emulated pop-culture bits of the 80’s like Miami Vice, and GTA3 was about the Mafiosos, GTA4 is simply the modern world. And with that broad setting comes all of the modern trappings, the most prominent of which is the cell phone.

Niko receives phone calls and text messages through his phone, notifying him of missions, events, friends that want to hang out, people that simply want to talk, threats, or anything else ranging from a replay-mission notice, to a notification that Niko has a date with somebody online. Wait, what?

That’s right, GTA4 has the Internet. No, not the one you’re looking at right now, but you can nonetheless boil hours away in front of a computer screen, surfing the web, checking mail (and rooting through spam, argh!), and even online dating, meeting some of the sleaze (or class) of Liberty City. Send e-mails of interest, buy stuff online, or even purchase music – yes, real music for your game, through Rockstar’s partnership with Amazon.com. Jump between your phone and your credit card and add real music to your music library.

There’s more. Become a couch potato for a while and watch TV in Liberty City, or just listen to the radio. There are untold thousands of lines of dialogue, animation, humor, and history that is so special because the player may never see any of it. All of it is optional. Nothing is stopping you from simply going to point A to point B, shooting this guy, snagging this car. Rockstar does not force any of the tremendous content it has packed into the game. Change your phone’s ringtone and wallpaper, if you feel like it. Go play pool, if you feel like it. Go date-hunting, if you want. Or pigeon-hunting, if you like hunting for secrets. There are hundreds of hours of potential gameplay that is ultimately not required that set GTA apart from other ‘sandbox’ games.

Games claiming to work on the sandbox model often will still place the focus entirely on the main mission, the reason you are there, be it gang wars, or money. The ‘sandbox’ typically comes from the various diversions scattered about in the form of mini-games and so-what tidbits. GTA shows that a true sandbox game should have something in every corner, not just along the path of the main mission.

These are just a couple of the little details that make the whole of Liberty City feel absolutely alive. There is so much more to discover.