Plenty of games are amusing. Not many games are laugh out loud funny. Very rarely will a game go beyond a smirk or giggle and inspire a full on rip-roaring belly-jiggling snort like Grand Theft Auto IV has on many occasions. Within five minutes of ripping the cellophane off of my copy, it had me in stitches.

After a drunken night out with Nico’s cousin Roman, they stumble out of a club. The screen swims, and your previously solid control of Nico becomes a wrestling match with the analogue stick just to get him to stand up straight. Baulking at the thought of walking all the way back to Roman’s apartment (read save point) in this manner, Nico jumps into his cousin’s taxi. Unsurprisingly, controlling a car while under the influence is no easier than walking, and it’s not long before the local law enforcement take an interest.

Losing the cops proves extremely difficult for an inebriated Nico, who stubbornly refuses to drive a straight line, instead opting to drive into pillars and lampposts as if they were light-bulbs and he were a drunken moth. One concrete kiss too many and the car succumbs to its injuries. Without the wherewithal to run, and not yet in the possession of any firearms, it looks like internment is imminent. However, as the hapless officer reads Nico his rights, he is struck from behind by a rogue station wagon. At this point I am apoplectic; completely helpless and in fits of laughter. Maybe the cop’s partner thinks the wagon driver is an accomplice, or maybe he hears my guffaws – either way, he opens fire and within seconds Roman and I are dead. I say dead, but this is GTA and a respawn at the nearest hospital is moments away. So I continue with GTA IV’s claws in me deep.

The randomness of these spontaneous, non-scripted events make them genuinely hilarious and the tech that makes them possible is mind-blowing.

Liberty City is a stunning interpretation of New York City, replete with its own Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park and myriad other re-imagined landmarks – albeit with kooky names. However, it’s not just concrete and steel that makes Liberty City such a compelling place to be. It’s a living breathing city where people go about their business, police officers chase crooks, ambulances rush to peoples aid, helicopters buzz overhead and tramps ask for spare change. I could spend hours exploring its nooks and crannies, learning its nuances.

Upon plucking up the willpower to ignore all these distractions, the player is met with a main story that is very entertaining, packed with endearing  characters and some engrossing set pieces.

All is not rosy in Liberty City, however. Reviews published at the time suggesting that each part of GTA IV could make a game in its own right were gushing and overblown. The mini-games (as ever with the GTA series) are a clunky and annoying obstacle on the road to 100% completion. Controlling Nico can be hit and miss at times, too. This is especially evident during indoor combat, where the fiddly controls resulted in a few annoying mission restarts.

The most disappointing part of GTA IV by a country mile is its expansions: The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. The main game left me wanting more, so buying these was a no-brainer. The gameplay for these two chapters is virtually identical barring a few gimmicks, so what went wrong? The problem is that the characters in these chapters aren’t any where near as endearing as the cousins Bellic. Within five minutes of the main game, I was emotionally invested in Nico and Roman, laughing at their banter, and wanting to see what would happen to them next.

This is not the case with the expansions. In The Lost and the Damned you are controlling an idiot surrounded by a bunch of idiots led by an idiot. It’s very difficult to identify with a character you just don’t give a toss about. Similarly The Ballad of Gay Tony manages to have a protagonist completely devoid of charisma (yet you are supposed to swallow that he is a real ladies’ man) that must do the bidding of the idiots around him like some brainless automaton.

The lack of weighty narrative and character in these chapters is a real shame as the new vehicles and weapons they introduce are a lot of fun. The bikes are a lot easy to handle in TLATD, which really makes for some good chase scenes, and the skydiving in TBOGT is a great new way to see Liberty City and be impressed by that tech all over again. Also, checkpoints are more frequent in both extensions, which makes restarts less frustrating. The biggest redeeming feature of the expansions is getting to see the story from different viewpoints, as all three plot-lines interweave and you finally get to see what happens to those elusive diamonds.

Previously, I was a casual GTA player. I completed the original on the Playstation, and briefly played later instalments on friend’s consoles before briefly owning a copy of Vice City on the XBox (fated to be ignored with the release of the 360). GTA IV has ensured that the next in the series will be a rare day one purchase for me. A flawed masterpiece, but a masterpiece nonetheless.