Well, the thing about op-ed pieces is that what's just a nuisance to you, can be ruinous to me. As for you running into exactly one bug...really? Do I just have the worst luck ever? Are you running it on the XBOX or PS3? It seems I literally cannot pick it up for more than half an hour without a distinctly noticeable glitch or game-ending instance of failed controls.

This is much more so for the multi-player than the story campaign - but it's not like they have different controls or physics. It's just that, for the most part, you tend to care less in the single player game if you die to a glitch, because a lot of the single player game is just fucking around on your own. You have nothing to lose. In the multi-player, it tends to actually win or lose you a game, and so you care a bit more.

Unless it's some subconscious motivation that I myself can never be fully aware of, then I don't think I was just playing devil's advocate for the sake of hits on this one. I really feel like the actual gameplay on display here is some of the least functional available for mass-market. The environment, the variety, the scope and scale of the city and its billion interactions make it a must-own for me, and I would easily tell everybody with a console that same thing. You have to have this, to see what they've done. Just try not to play the actual game, if you can help it.

And for the record, just walking around and exploring in the campaign is the single most satisfying experience in gaming on this generation of consoles. I actually didn't say these things make it fatally flawed to me, in the last paragraph I was careful to note that the flaws don't win out overall, but just barely. I thought it most interesting that its environmental and atmospheric aspects make it the best game I've ever played, hands down, while the gameplay mechanics and flawed controls make it one of the worst. The best game wins out, but I couldn't just pretend the other stuff wasn't there.

Playing free-mode in multi-player is still a blast, as is just screwing around in single player. But anytime there's something actually on the line, a win or lose situation (which, for me at least, is an important part of gaming in general,) I think GTA IV falls pretty flat. 

Speaking of the cover system and multiplayer, I have found the use of the cover system much more enjoyable in GTA 4 then in other on-line shooters whose cover system is supposedly better (GOW).  I played a lot of GOW, and while I would never have issues of not being able to blind fire or getting stuck in cover mode, in the on-line play I felt the cover system wasn't used properly.  Matches (this is my experience) in GOW always turned into everyone duck-running towards everyone else with shotguns and using the sniper rifle as a melee weapon.  I've enjoyed fire fights more in GTA, I actually feel pinned down.

Is that what that achievement nets you?!?!  I got it about a week ago but never bothered to look it up.  Sweet.

Huh?

I haven't used it yet, but I did see a couple of them running around today.

I played as the zombie for a while, it was pretty funny. I heard it's not in the 360 version, any 360ers got the game and the zombie skin?

A similar thing happened to me. First or second kill I ever got in cops & robbers, and my first time trying any multiplayer other than a few minutes on free roam and deathmatch, I fired a bullet into a dude's windshield and got the achievement.

The achievement is viral.  Kill someone who already has it and you get it.

Heh, no, he wears bright yellow rockstar underwear (link goes to an image of the zombie skin)

Same here, for a while, I've had less-than-stellar sight. I always wear my glasses when playing GTA4.