"My cousin is here! Niko Bellic! He's the f*cking man, bitches!" The man clad in a silk jacket with an outdated geometric pattern shouts, taking a celebratory swig from a bottle of booze in honor of his cousin Niko, who just set foot on American soil after a long journey via cargo ship. "Where's the sports car?" Niko asks, his thick Eastern European accent unable to hide the disappointment that his cousin Roman -- who just picked him up in a rusted-out sedan -- has been feeding him made-up tales about his life in America.

So begins Grand Theft Auto IV, the newest—and easily the best -- entry in the wildly popular GTA series. The game manages to take the tried-and-true sandbox game experience – take on missions to earn cash and climb the corporate ladder of a criminal operation, or just go sightseeing around Liberty City – and turn it into something that feels, if not completely new, than at least expertly updated.

Whether it's the Hollywood-style plot, the introduction of modern-day conveniences like text messaging, GPS and the Internet into the game experience, or just the fact that the game's powered by more advanced technology, Grand Theft Auto has matured into something that feels as much like a living, breathing piece of interactive art as it does a video game. We have a hard time imagining anyone picking up this game and not feeling like this is one of the best $60 purchases they've made in a long time.

The game starts out slow, easing you into the environment and controls. We appreciated not being thrown into shootouts right away, giving the story and characters a chance to breathe. We were several hours in before even got our hands on a gun.

GTA IV's lead actor is the city itself, beautifully rendered (with different lead artists listed for the different boroughs) and positively bustling with activity. At one point, a hapless pedestrian was hit by a reckless driver (not us, we swear). A minute or two later, as traffic lined up behind the accident, an ambulance pulled up with its sirens blaring. A paramedic actually got out of the ambulance, and while he didn't seem to know what to do at that point and just stood around, it was still an impressive example of how the AI characters inhabit the city as more than just window dressing.

As for the stars in the game, Niko Bellic, his cousin Roman and the other principle characters look great, but some of the secondary characters look a bit like clunky PS2 holdovers. Nico also adds something long missing from games – a decent "walking down stairs" animation.

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