


We weren't given a view of the lobby system, but from Rockstar's hints, it sounds like you will just run around going Bananarama in Liberty City until someone launches a game. Riding+tandem+on+a+bike+is+a+whole+lot+of+fun. It's meant to reward you for playing a lot of multiplayer, but leveling up your character isn't the focus as it tends to be in Call of Duty 4 and Rainbow Six Vegas 2. We didn't get to experience the leveling system, but it appears fairly simple. Cash is dropped by opponents and can be nabbed by anyone and is also automatically earned for performing certain tasks in the various modes. Ranks run from 0-10, with experience earned by collecting cash in multiplayer. While the options we were shown were fairly limited, new clothes and accessories unlock as you rank up. Instead, you'll create a custom character (dude or babe) from about a half-dozen options. You won't play the story mode in multiplayer. And that's what it feels like to have your mind blown. The entire city is open to you and your fifteen friends in apparently every mode. That's right - all the pedestrians, traffic and cops are there. Oh, and the entire world runs at the same time. Multiplayer is accessed from the single-player game via Niko's cell phone and supports up to 16 players. After spending a day checking out four of the MP modes, we're pretty certain Rockstar's succeeded. Here's the challenge for Rockstar: create a multiplayer experience good enough to convince players to leave the single-player campaign for a little while. That always worked well in the past, but Rockstar decided that wasn't enough this time around and added a sizable multiplayer component. If Grand Theft Auto IV is anything like the previous iterations, it will offer a robust single-player experience, the kind that can last several hundred hours.
