We've seen our fair share of previews on Rockstar's crime drama opus, Grand Theft Auto IV, but we've yet to hear from someone who has enjoyed the bullet-riddled adventure in its entirety -- until Xbox World 360 editor Rob Taylor, after 24 hours of play time, triumphantly viewed the ending credits with the knowledge that he was the first person on the planet (aside from a gaggle of Rockstar employees, we assume) to finish GTA IV. Can someone be envied to death?

Fulfilling his civic duty as a gaming journalist, Taylor gave his impressions of the complete work in a spoiler-free interview with GamesRadar -- unsurprisingly, he was a fan. The fourth installment apparently "craps on all the others" in the franchise, and the main character, Niko Bellic, is "most amazing protagonist in any game [he's] ever played." We suggest perusing the remainder of his colorful commentary to help pass the remaining twenty-three days and nine hours until the game lands in our quivering, anticipatory laps.

Need a refresher on Liberty City? Check out our game page for all things Grand Theft Auto IV. Seriously, this is everything we've written on the game. Bookmark the page, as we'll be constantly updating.

When Take-Two Interactive Chairman Strauss Zelnick spoke to a group of investors on Tuesday, his comments were vague enough to make us wonder if Grand Theft Auto IV would miss its target launch window of February to April, 2008.

However, Zelnick recently spoke with GameSpot to take a more concrete stand on the matter. He said that the company is sticking with the February to April target, and that a firm release date within that three month period will be set when Take-Two knows the game will be ready. While this doesn't set our mind completely at ease, it's nice to see them give us any sweet morsels of certainty in their ocean of ambiguous announcements.

How badly do we as a nation want the next iteration of the Grand Theft Auto series? Glad you asked. Our desire has become so rampant that it has actually broken the fourth wall and is plaguing fictional characters. Take Lynch, of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men fame for example. The guy's so eager for GTA IV that he can't stop jawing about it even moments before he ... well, does something very bad, we're assuming.

The videos a lot of fun, but you may want to watch it quick. Who knows how long it will be before Rockstar freaks out and demands that it be pulled?

[Thanks, Arsh]

Exclusive. The gaming industry keeps using that word. We do not think it means what they think it means. Or perhaps they do -- only the meaning changes from press release to press release, requiring a keen knowledge of context and PR deciphering techniques in order to obtain it. Eurogamer today reports that a source within Rockstar North (probably an exclusive source) indicates that, like the Xbox 360 version, the PS3's Grand Theft Auto IV will receive downloadable and undoubtedly "epic" episodes of an exclusive nature.

Surely this renders Microsoft's previous claims to exclusivity invalid? Actually, no. At this year's X06 event, the Redmond giant touted "exclusive access to two downloadable, epic episodes of GTA IV via Xbox Live, each with hours of entirely new gameplay and available only on Xbox 360 just months after the release of the title." As we suggested before, barring the case of Rockstar releasing only two episodes in the game's lifetime, such wording does not rule out different episodes for the PS3.

Exclusives and tired movie references aside, perhaps our concern should first switch over to the actual game (releasing in October 2007) before discussing the status of microtransacted add-on episodes. Is doubting GTA IV's quality ... inconceivable?

[Thanks, Meh and Ethan.]

A GTA fanboy has posted on the Games Radar forums what could be one of the first images of what Grand Theft Auto 4 will look like. Going by the name of "fishfingers," the poster claims: "With my work as a GTA fansite owner ...  I get a lot of fan art submitted to me. However, this one was different. It came from 'A disgruntled Rockstar Games employee.'" But haven't we been down this fake image road before?

So, really, there's not much to go by except pure speculation. But, the image appears to have many similarities to the GTA franchise -- notice the wanted stars, 3rd person view, and generic street scene. Other than that, it's almost impossible to say. The player character appears to be a female which may suggest a more open world game that some have hinted at. The only potential downsides of this image actually being GTA4 is that it doesn't look as pretty as the engine used for Rockstar's Table Tennis game. Of course, because it's a vague screenshot and the game is still in early development, the actual quality might not be indicative of a final product. Either way, if this thing's real, that ball and chain weapon would be a nice touch ... the dog pissing on the wall is also pretty funny. Mmmmmm, I can smell the litigation now.

[Thanks, DC; via News4Gamers]

[Update 1: Eurogamer says, "Rockstar told us this afternoon. It really is a hoax." We've contacted Rockstar for an official comment. Thanks, Josh.]