I don't play a lot of video games these days, but GTA IV has me jonesing like a heroin fiend. Besides the addictive gameplay and the pleasure of zooming through the city in stolen cars and beating complete strangers to death in the street with an aluminum baseball bat, the game's storyline and characters are surprisingly compelling. SPOILERS AHEAD:

When Elisabeta (the funloving coke dealer) pulled out that gun and shot Manny (the former rapper who comes back to "clean up" his old neighborhood and making sure everybody knows about it) and his video director in the back of the head, I was totally astonished.

Manny didn't feel like a character in a video game. He was a well fleshed-out character, from the writing to the (I'm assuming) motion-capture acting. He was a vain, self-aggrandizing, ineffectual fool, but I kind of liked him and I felt bad he went out like that. It was the most shocking death I can remember in any medium since Tony Soprano strangled Ralphie in his own kitchen.

And the way Niko disposes of the bodies is noir as shit. When the shady doctor says he can sell their organs on the black market and it'll help a lot of people, Niko says, "Manny always talked about how he wanted to help the streets... maybe now he actually can." Damn. Niko is one ice-cold dude. When they make the movie, I'm thinking... Clive Owen?

Oh, and the music is great too. There's probably more to listen to on the radio in this game than in the real NYC. And I had no idea Russia had rappers...