Grand Theft Auto IV nabbed the 2008 Game of the Year slot in Time magazine, the New York Times, the Spike TV Video Game Awards, and in other critical lists, and for good reason.

Rockstar’s newest crime simulator definitely attempted something different than its predecessors. It cast off the minigames and bicycles of San Andreas in favor of realism and immersion. Instead of playing off the strengths of the series, it tried something new and risky.

A lot of what Rockstar attempted with GTA IV failed — the relationship building aspect was distracting and the open world did not fit with the linear storytelling, to name the largest flaws — but it failed in a fantastic way.

Even though your interactions with the world are fairly straightforward, they involve and engross the player. Driving and shooting through the beautiful, vibrant, living playground of Liberty City feels fun and strangely realistic.

The story, mood, and writing are the game’s highest achievements. Missions flow fluidly and compensate for failure with in-game mechanics, and the characters and dialog comes straight out of Godfather and The Sopranoes.

Niko Bellic is a conflicted main character with complex motivation and hard choices to make, a “character that both regrets and revels in the violence he dispatches,” as Sean Sands describes him in an article at Gamers With Jobs.

“Though the execution was imperfect,” added Sands, “credit has to go to Rockstar for trying to create a morally complex character in a world that simulated a spiral of inescapable violence despite illusions of freedom.”

Iroquois Pliskin on the Versus CluClu Land blog added to Sands’ discussion of the game’s “moral dissonance.”

“Rockstar was torn between constructing a sandbox and a stage, and it shows,” wrote Pliskin. “The result was a tenuously fused work of genuine Americana: a disorderly paean to the American city, a bit of ultraviolence, a stonkingly beautiful soundtrack, a fable, a simulation, a gonzo critique of capitalism. It’s a game we deserve.”

Seth Schiesel in the New York Times’ unconventional best of list named GTA IV game of the year because, “Beyond its formidable craft, apart from its well-balanced combat and driving mechanics, what impresses most about GTA IV is its writing. It is one of the few games that even try to take on the real world in any adult way.”

“Penetrating through all the game’s gangster trappings,” Schiesel continues, “is a hunger to engage with the idiocies, the contradictions and even some of the good things in modern America.”