Grand Theft Auto IV (do you need a better headline?!)

News just in... Grand Theft Auto IV has broken all previous records selling an estimated 609,000 copies since release on Tuesday.
While I don't really care too much about how many copies have been flogged, I do care about the fact I haven't been able to find a single copy!
I awoke on my day off on Wednesday with one task in mind for an otherwise wasteful mid-week day - buy a copy of GTA IV and do some serious sofa time.
The idea and enthusiasm was there... but sadly I was one of the many who were left disappointed.
First stop was Tesco at Roborough (because those Clubcard vouchers must be good for something other than a food shop).
Result? - sold out.
"We were sold out by lunchtime on Tuesday," one friendly member of staff told me.
"Tesco stores across the country have had to order more due to demand."
Ok, game on...
Game in the city centre. Result - sold out.
Zavvi: result - sold out.
By this time I had given up and returned home. Gutted. But at least my day was eventful - and I got out of the house.
And luckily a mate of mine managed to beat the queues and get in there and bag a copy on the Xbox 360. His verdict - absolutely awesome! (see his review below)
GTA may get a lot of grief for its make-up and brutal play but hey, how can so many people be so wrong?
It's fun (hilarious in parts), graphically superior and probably the most addictive thing ever invented.
So here I am, two days later still trying to find time to escape the office and get a copy.
Best bet is the web where you will find it cheaper if you can afford the wait.
In the meantime why not download some free music over the Bank Holiday Weekend?
A radio network is planning to give away the music it plays on air this Bank Holiday Monday free for listeners to download.
In what they claim is a first, GMG Radio’s network of Real and Century stations are set to go 'radio ga-ga' on May 5, with their Free Music Mayday.
The network of stations is one of several using Cliq, a mobile phone application which allows people to instantly buy music by pressing a button on the handset – even if they don’t know the name of the song.
Users normally credit their account online and tracks cost £1.25 to download.
But from midnight on Sunday May 4, Real and Century listeners across the five stations in the UK will be able to own any songs playing until midnight the following day.
They will be sent straight to their computers to be added to their playlist without charge.

So, sorry to rub salt in the wound if you haven't got a copy yet, but here's what you're missing.

Title: Grand Theft Auto IV
Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: Action
Price: £49.99
Hit count: 5/5

It’s no understatement to say that GTA IV is the most eagerly anticipated title that the gaming world has ever seen.
There’s no way you can sum up the amount of laugh-out-loud moments, adrenalin-fuelled car chases, ear-splitting shootouts and other jaw-dropping stand-out experiences that come bundled into the return to a living, breathing Liberty City.
Everything about GTA IV oozes class and that all-important attention to detail and there are few people – Mary Whitehouse characters aside – that can dispute this is the greatest videogame of all-time. Enjoy.


Title: Turok
Platform: PC
Genre: Shooter
Price: £24.99
Hit count: 3/5

Hunting dinosaurs hasn’t been high on the gaming agenda for a while, but it returns to PC with an assault on the first-person-shooter senses, giving gamers carte blanche to go on an all-out attack on the human and prehistoric enemies that lie in wait.
No shortage of fabulous weaponry and killing moves breathe new life into the well-worn genre, but slightly grubby graphics take the tarnish off what is an otherwise, if a little linear, solid shooter.
Rip off your shirt, paint your face, and go seriously native!


Title: Iron Man
Platform: PS3
Genre: Action
Price: £49.99
Hit count: 3/5
Robert Downey Junior has reprised the role of the classic comic character for the latest big-budget superhero movie and here, in this third-person action shooter, you’re thrown into stories from the original Iron Man comic books and given an array of high-impact weapons to annihilate any enemy force standing in your way.
It’s an entertaining attempt to give movie tie-ins a good name and will keep the comic fans pretty happy, but overall Iron Man doesn’t deliver anything to the action genre that we haven’t seen many times before.


Title: My Riding Stables
Platform: Nintendo DS
Genre: Horses
Price: £29.99
Hit count: 3/5

In an attempt to provide some kind of cosmic balance to the gaming world, titles like My Riding Stables take players as far away as they could possibly be from Liberty City, the home of Grand Theft Auto.
Forget the guns and get ahead as a stable hand, raising sweet little foals and taking excellent care of your guests.
Give outstanding riding lessons and prepare your horses and students perfectly, so that they become the riding stars of the future.
If you’re already snoozing, you’ll know this isn’t for you, but gamers too young for GTA may see things differently!


Title: Undercover: Dual Motives
Platform: Nintendo DS
Genre: Adventure
Price: £29.99
Hit count: 3/5

It’s just the kind of point and click adventure packed with puzzles and mini-games that DS gamers have been crying out for, and were probably expecting to have buckets to choose from when the system was announced.
As a prequel to PC title Undercover: Operation Wintersun, you take British scientist Dr. John Russell on a wild chase for a German nuclear bomb in the middle of the Second World War.
It’s classic adventure gaming style, with one particular game requiring you to blow into the DS microphone to fire weapons!
Good, inventive adventure gaming that the DS should do much more often.