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The story begins with the main character, Niko, getting off a boat from Russia, to America. He has been receiving letters from his cousin in America, with the cousin claiming that he has plenty of money, women, a fancy car, and a huge mansion. When Niko greets his cousin, he finds this not to be the case, as his cousin lives in a dirty little apartment and taxi's for a living. Niko is disappointed, and in the beginning of the game, you can actually see some remorse in his tone and behavior. He talks about how he was in Russian wars, had to do some bad things, and regrets it. In fact, one of the main reasons he came to Liberty City was to have a clean start. But, as the game progresses, he loses sight of that goal (or maybe never really had it), and becomes further corrupt and desensitized, turning into a blind, selfish, and (in my opinion) a wholly unlikable person.

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Blood effects: When you shoot, hit or run over an enemy, blood spurts/puffs in moderate amounts and splatters/smears on nearby floors and walls. Blood also splatters on screen and stains your clothes, to show when Niko’s low on health. Although, the blood effects in cutscenes are quite a bit more pronounced. There is no option to turn blood off in this game.

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Physics: The game uses a new physics engine called the NaturalMotion engine, which was originally meant to study the movements of humans and animals. Here's an excerpt from their site:

"Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) is NaturalMotion's proprietary technology for synthesising animations on-the-fly. Previously, animation data had to be manually created (through key-framing) or recorded (through motion capture). This is often expensive and laborious, and results in static non-interactive data. DMS is instead based on a full simulation of the 3D character, including body, muscles and motor nervous system. This creates fully interactive animations that act and react differently every time."

In other words, when you kill an enemy he contorts in pain and struggles to get up in a very real manner. Or when you drive over a person, their blood splatters on your windshield, as they fly through the air or are crushed by it. Or, just when you or other civilians run through the street, every reaction and movement looks and feels real; furthering the attachment to Grand Theft Auto's violent situations. The cars are using the NaturalMotion engine also, and when you knock into other cars, paint scrapes off and individual parts tear and fall off, depending on how hard you hit. Cars can also explode, and if you hit things at the right speed, Niko will be flung out the front window onto the pavement. The physics engine has to be seen to be fully believed.

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Driving: You most often have to drive around traffic by driving on sidewalks, in the wrong lane, and between lanes to get around efficiently. You can hit any car or person in the game and create mass damage by knocking into them, as well as things like trashcans, mailboxes, lamp posts, fences etc. However, you can drive like you would in real life, and even stop at toll booths to pay for travel across the bridges. But, it could take you much longer to complete the game and get around, and even the most patient person will probably take the easier route, which is the way of destruction, mentioned above. You can also drive motorcycles, boats and helicopters.

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Carjacking: If you see a car in this game, you can drive it. For parked cars Niko will try the door and see if it's unlocked (which it never will be). He will then look around to be sure no one's looking, and then smash the driver's side window, get in, hotwire the car, and drive away. For cars with people in them, Niko will jerk the door open, and either pull, beat, or if you have a gun, stick up the person inside and throw them out of the car, leaving them on the pavement very vurnerable to traffic, as he drives away.

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