"Grand Theft Auto 4" set to entertain and inflame

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Beatings, carjackings, drive-by shootings, drunk driving and hookers. For video game fans, it can only mean one thing: "Grand Theft Auto 4" is here, with all the subtlety of a shotgun blast.

The latest chapter in the wildly popular and controversial criminal action franchise from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc (TTWO.O) is poised to be the biggest entertainment product of the year, with expected first-week sales of up to $400 million -- dwarfing Hollywood's biggest box-office openings.

The handiwork of Take-Two's Rockstar game studio headed by British brothers Sam and Dan Houser, "Grand Theft Auto 4," which will be launched next Tuesday, promises to crank up the thuggish drama that made previous installments the equivalent of "The Godfather" for Generation PlayStation.

"We also felt over the last few years there hadn't been a great standout gangster movie. Maybe we could do something ourselves that would live alongside that stuff," Rockstar's Dan Houser told Variety magazine in a recent interview.

The gobs of processing power provided by Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Xbox 360 and Sony Corp's (6758.T) PlayStation 3 gaming consoles allowed Rockstar to imbue even background characters with personalities and unique behaviors.

"The game just feels like a movie now. The camera angles, the little details and things you look for in a film are things they can do now," said Ricardo Torres, editor-in-chief of GameSpot, a leading gaming review Web site.

CONTROVERSY, AS ALWAYS

Of course, it would not be a "Grand Theft Auto" game without controversy.