This game isn't just about the cars, though - it's also about the competition. The advanced, lifelike drivers compete with fervor unmatched even by some of your video game buddies. Fueled by the latest advances in artificial intelligence, your digital rivals will react to your every move with behavior modeled after actual professional racers. It may take you weeks to test drive all 700 available cars, but with Gran 4 you'll never truly run out of "new" vehicles. This game is equipped with a multitude of options to customize your favorite cars. Brakes, shocks, and engine components can all be upgraded. You can stylize your car with wings, rims, and color, and you can even change your oil. In short, you can do whatever needs to be done to keep your car tuned and looking hot for the next big race. The Human Element Gran Turismo 4 brings something completely new to your gaming experience. In the stands you'll find spectators who comes to life in 3D before your very eyes. They react with genuine human emotions to your every move, cheering as you pass, and snapping photographs as you cross the finish line. Your next pit stop will take place as if you were really there. You'll watch the process unfold in real-time as your crew rushes to change your tires and refuel your tank. But that's not all. With the new addition of convertibles, you are truly in the drivers seat. Your drivers will react with precise and fluid motions, and turn just as you would if you were behind the wheel. Gran Turismo has never looked so unbelievably real. The Courses Not only does GT4 bring you the rare opportunity to drive hundreds of cars, it also offers you a vast collection of actual racing locations. Rip through the exotic Costa di Malfi in Capri, burn rubber through the urban jungle of Hong Kong, or throw up some serious dust at the Grand Canyon - no matter where you decide to race, you'll love driving any of the game's fourteen tracks. Feeling nostalgic? With Gran 4, you can even race on some of your old, favorite tracks from previous editions. LAN Play Compete against your buddies with the LAN play functionality of GT4. Connect up to three PlayStation 2 consoles and bring together up to six players in a racing frenzy that pits you against your friends. Each console will need a copy of Gran Turismo 4, the proper connecting cables, and all the standard gaming equipment. Once connected, you'll be ready for a life-like battle of driving abilities and mental toughness. With LAN play, the action has never been more intense or more realistic!.

Get behind the wheel and go, SPEED RACER, go! This is the true film experience in your control. Race at top speeds and battle for the WRL cup as you take on your opponents.

The indoor tracks are fairly similar, as they are the same type of supercross tracks that you would see in a motocross game. The outdoor tracks, however, show much more variety in their terrains and backgrounds. From lush forests to harsh deserts all the way to snow-covered tundra, every track provides a different experience. The game's sound is merely decent; hearing those high-pitched engines at full throttle for too long begins to sound like you are being chased by a pack of killer bees. Overall, ATV is a solid game that most everyone will want to try. The multiplayer mode really makes for a great party game, not only for its earnest competitiveness, but also for the entertainment value of the crashes and lunatic jumps and stunts. -Todd Mowatt Pros: 22 different tracks 20 different ATVs Crisp control Plenty of depth and replayability Cons: AI makes for unrealistic races Combo tricks are very difficult to pull off Poor use of the PS2 controller force-feedback feature Players can choose from 11 ATV (all-terrain vehicle) models in three different styles; manufacturers include Yamaha, Honda, Polaris, and Kawasaki. Players can customize their vehicles in the garage by tweaking such options as tire friction, shock reaction, steering, and braking. ATV Off Road Furycontains free-roaming race environments, with courses scaled as large as two square miles in area. The game's 20 tracks feature diverse types of terrain.

Shaking these pursuers is easily the most fun part of the game, especially when a bunch of friends are packed in the room to witness your narrow escapes. Grand Theft Auto III is fine-tuned to near perfection in every category. All the vehicles, from slick sports cars to lumbering dump trucks, handle exactly as you'd expect and smash apart realistically when abused. The three islands in the game are rendered in terrific detail considering their size, and are packed with traffic, pedestrians, and hidden jumps. The audio is equally amazing. Pedestrians talk, cops scream at you, and you can tune in nine different radio stations whenever you are in a car. It all adds up to a monumental achievement: the rare console game for adults that manages to get everything right. -T. Byrl Baker Pros: Offers an enormous world for players to exploit, rendered in staggering detail Equally fun whether you go on plot-based missions or run around as a freelance crook Cons: Ultraviolence, foul language, and adult situations mean you'll want to keep this far away from kids It takes too long to get from one island to another, making some missions tedious You've been betrayed and left for dead. Now you're taking revenge, unless the city gets you first. Mob bosses need a favor, crooked cops need help, and street gangs want you dead. You'll have to rob, steal, and kill just to stay out of serious trouble. Anything can happen out here. Grand Theft Auto III features a fully 3-D living city, a combination of narrative-driven and nonlinear gameplay, and a completely open environment. Players are put at the heart of their very own gangster movie, in which anything can happen and probably will. With a cast of hundreds, 50-plus vehicles-including sports cars, ice-cream trucks, boats, and buses-three hours of music, (including opera, reggae, house, drum and bass, pop, and disco), a huge array of street-ready weapons, and some of the seediest characters in video game history, Grand Theft Auto III is a sprawling epic that will show you that sometimes crime can pay, and that sometimes it pays you back.

You play as Carl Johnson, known on the street as CJ. This is an honest effort to create an engaging story about sympathetic characters caught up in a brutal environment that is on par with a movie or novel. Gaming Gangsters Where Vice City took its cues, with tongue firmly in cheek, from the 1980s television series Miami Vice, San Andreas is a sincere homage to early 1990s innercity gangster films like Menace 2 Society and Boyz ‘N the Hood. This is an honest effort to create an engaging story about sympathetic characters caught up in a brutal environment that is on par with a movie or novel. If that effort hits a few flat notes (you would have to be totally desensitized not to wonder if it's OK to make entertainment out of driveby shootings), it may also mark the first step toward video games growing up. The first thing that fans of earlier GTA games will notice is the range of action is much wider now: Along with shooting, running, and driving, there's now swimming, eating, working out, shopping, and, yes, getting a haircut. All this means the game has a fairly steep learning curve. But, though the pick-up-and-play appeal of Grand Theft Auto III may be long gone, your access to the action becomes fairly transparent after a little practice. My only serious complaint is that, with the controller now crowded with such previously unheard-of functions like "Gang Active" and "Talk Positive," you can drive only with the left analog stick. A minor point, but it makes cars a lot more difficult to handle. Bicycles take on a surprisingly central role. Vehicular Variety It would be hard to surpass the variety of automobiles available in earlier games, and San Andreas wisely does not for the most part try to compete on that score. Instead, it's bicycles of all things that steal the show. The bikes' speed and flexibility are perfect for many of the missions, and there is something about cruising through the streets and basketball courts on a BMX that just feels right. If you play far enough into the game, you will also be rewarded with the chance to fly a number of aircraft, and flying is something Rockstar makes a greater effort to get right this time (welcome news for anyone who struggled with the planes and ‘copters of the earlier games). Lackluster Graphics-but a Real Feel Graphics-never a huge priority for Rockstar-actually take a step backward from the luscious, tropical look of Vice City. Textures are rendered with only a cursory attention to detail, and contours are often blocky. It scarcely matters, though, because no matter how San Andreas looks, it feels real. This is due in no small part to voice work by an all-star cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Ice T, James Woods, Peter Fonda, and Outkast's Big Boy and a stellar soundtrack with tunes by Soundgarden, 2Pac, Public Enemy, and even a few country classics from the likes of Willie Nelson. But it's not just realistic, San Andreas is also vast, encompassing three big urban centers and huge swaths of rural land (complete with shotgun-toting farmers) between them. This vastness does mean, however, that there can be a lot of tedious driving to get to the missions, which, along with some awkward sequencing of the cut scenes (they are in places stacked one on top of the other), means that there is a bit too much downtime. But never mind the quibbles. Ladies and gentlemen, we have another classic on our hands. -David Stoesz Pros: Astonishingly vast game space Vivid character development Complex, engaging plot Enormous range of available actions Cons: Occasionally awkward game design You can no longer steer cars with the directional buttons Steep learning curve What's Your Strategy? Get mission strategies and detailed maps to achieve every objective with the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Strategy Guide.