Apr 29, 2008 9:11 am US/Eastern
'GTA IV' Set To Smash Sales Records
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Picture of 'Grand Theft Auto IV' video games taken on April 28, 2008 in Paris, on the eve of its world release.
Olivier Laban-Mattei/AFP/Getty Images
Grand Theft Auto IV went on sale at midnight Tuesday, and fans waited on long lines to pay up to $90 for a special edition of the game set in a seedy, fictional environment called Liberty City that clearly resembles New York.
Well-known NYC landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and Coney Island are parodied in the game.
To some afficionados, it's sets a new standard for what's possible in interactive arts. They see it as an amusing satire of New York City where Brooklyn is called Broker, a place for churches, hipsters and housing developments, and Manhattan is called Algonquin, described as "expensive, snooty and over."
In previous versions of the game set in Vegas, Miami and L.A., players advanced by killing cops and prostitutes and selling pornography to children.
As the game's trailer says, "Life is complicated."
GTA IV is expected to shatter sales records and reignite the debate over sex and violence and what's appropriate in videogames.
Politicians have already come down hard on the game, a spokesman for the mayor saying he doesn't support any game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers.
But fans say it's only a game.
"The game, you can take out all your anger and stress.... do it in the game," gamer Delio Gautreax said.
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