And if you use cover, both your name and dot disappear. However, if you crouch, your name disappears, making you tougher to spot. When playing MP, your names shows above your head along with a colored dot. Before we break down each of the four modes played (Team Deathmatch, GTA Race, Cops N Crooks and Hangman's NOOSE), there is one significant gameplay change from single-player mode. The fact that it's also incredibly fun is just a bonus. That so much can be happening at once without the game breaking in half is an amazing feat. The city is as alive and vibrant as in the single-player campaign - and it's a lot more hectic. You may notice a slight drop in visual fidelity (or perhaps we're nuts), but GTA IV still looks great in multiplayer. And, more importantly, the controls never suffered. At that point, the game just sort of threw up it hands and said, 'Come on, seriously?' Except for this brief moment of slowdown, our hours enjoying GTA IV online were without incident. And that was when all of us were firing RPGs into a crowd of cops. Playing with eight people, we only had one instance of slowdown. We counted sixteen options for one mode and the others had similar amounts. This is everything from turning on cops (yes, you can have a wanted level in multiplayer), adjusting the density of traffic, selecting from several weather options (fog and heavy rain being the coolest), time of day, and even what radio station is playing. The good news is that when a game is set up, the host has a myriad of options depending on the mode. 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.

Gta 4 mulitiplayer