Rockstar’s decision to go with an Eastern European character as the lead to GTA IV is a stroke of genius. In San Andreas, Rockstar didn’t hold back on giving American culture a whipping, but since the game was played through the perspective of someone who ignorantly lived out the very lifestyle to which the game attacked its impact was deadened.

Niko, however, is an outsider. He comes to Liberty City believing the dream, that he has left the corruption, savagery and rustic lifestyle of his homeland for a world of big tits, fancy cars and mansions for all. What he finds is a land equally as crooked, dirty and messed up as the one he left and his distaste for what he sees isn’t held back. And where CJ came from a world of glamorised, even fabricated aggression, Niko comes from a land of primeval atrocity and fear. Cross Niko and he’ll slit your throat and feed you to the fishes with ruthless efficiency: no need to get a flashy sub-automatic, pimped-up ride and four mates to get the job done Hollywood style. If CJ was keeping it real, Niko is real.

With all this in mind, it makes Niko the straight man in an epic joke, where the punchline is the game itself – sharing, if you will, similarities with how Sacha Baron Cohen masterfully opened up America’s underbelly with Borat, without the locals ever knowing. While the ignorant will lament GTA IV for its violence and vulgarity, at its heart the game makes powerful and poignant commentary on the USA and in particular New York while it searches in all the wrong places for the answers to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Through Niko’s eyes, they may find an answer.

Of course it’s all facilitated through brilliant voice-acting and Niko is given some of the best dialogue to feast on in the history of entertainment: film, novel or game. As we’ve now come to expect from Rockstar the script is AAA+, with a city’s worth of rich characters you’ll form resounding emotional connections with. Love them, hate them… even pity them. Despite Rockstar’s unflinching depiction of underground American society, it is not above using subtlety in delivering its power: just witness Faustin’s wife and Niko share a cup of tea in one of the earlier missions to shudder right to your very bones.

Despite all this, some gamers may feel like the cut-scenes are a little underdone. Certainly they don’t feature the stunning character model detail, flashy special effects and fluid animations of the likes of Gears of War or Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, nor the in-your-face impact masterfully handled by Infinity Ward in Call of Duty 4. But if Uncharted was a big Michael Bay blockbuster, then GTA IV is a layered Martin Scorsese drama that builds on you.