Made by Take-Two's Rockstar studio, the game casts players as an Eastern European immigrant who runs drugs, shoots cops and beats up prostitutes after falling in with a crime syndicate -- stuff that has drawn fire from family groups and politicians.

We usually don’t write many personal pieces here on TEB, but I just have to share the story of my wife playing GTA IV for the first time. I want to make a couple things clear before I start this absurd story. 1. I love girl gamers. I think its awesome when girls get really into video games and break stereotypes by whooping ass in COD4 or GTA IV multiplayer. I’m not trying to hate on girl gamers. 2. I love my wife and she is very understanding of my video game obsession.

Ok, now that the disclaimer is over, I can proceed with the story.

As of late, much of my time has been spent in the friendly confines of Liberty City, and my wife has been extremely tolerant of my gaming time. Last weekend we were about to go out to eat, so I began shutting the game down when the thought popped in my head, “After watching me play for hours, I wonder if my wife wants a turn?” She was sitting on the couch next to me, so I extended the controller to her and asked, “You wanna drive around for a bit?” She replied, “Sure, why not.” During her time in Liberty City, my wife somehow manage to suck all of the fun out of GTA IV.

I was in some ***** coupe when she took over the wheel, and she began tooling around the city in a leisurely fashion. I mentioned that she might want a slicker ride, and helped her exit the car and attempt to jack another one. She ran up to a car with two homeboys in it and yanked the door open, but that’s when things went horribly wrong. She walked away from the car, and one of the gentlemen came chasing with a baseball bat. In all the excitement, she clicked the left stick sending Niko into a crouch then yelled “Why does my guy keep ducking??” I yelled “Click the left-stick” repeatedly without realizing she would have no idea what that actually meant. Attempting to flee the scene, she crouch-walked down the street only to get whipped some more with by the guy with the bat. Miraculously, somehow she ended up punching the guy several times, knocking him out, and getting his bat. After walking around in circles a few times, it was finally time to leave the scene. As she was leaving, we saw the guy she just beat up limping away. I suggested she finish him off and she said “Awww, that’s not nice, he learned his lesson.” He learned his lesson indeed.

After making it through our first big fight, my wife ran up to a trash dumpster and began repeatedly hitting it with her new baseball bat (because she wanted to swing the bat but hitting people is mean she said). This went on for around 2 minutes before I suggested that she moved on to a different, perhaps more entertaining, activity. She ran over to a huge semi truck and jacked it. I thought to myself “This should be fun, there is no way she is going to be able to drive that around and not get in trouble.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. As the semi began to lumber out of its parking spot my wife exclaimed, “Oooh, you know what will be fun, driving around and obeying all of the traffic rules.” Yeah, because THAT’S what makes GTA IV a great game, obeying all the rules! What the holy hell is wrong here!?!?

My wife played this mind-numbingly boring game of obeying traffic lights for around 5 minutes before accidentally hitting an elderly pedestrian while traveling about 2 miles an hour. My wife gasped and lept from her truck to “check and see if she is ok.” I’m not making this ***** up. I asked my wife, “What are you going to do if she is injured…throw her in your semi and take her to the hospital?” to which she replied, “Can you do that in this game?” Sadly…no. (unfortunately, the poor old woman did not make it through the accident.)

After the tragedy of mowing down the old woman, my wife decided driving a semi was a little to much vehicle for her to handle in a safe manner. She jacked a parked car and immediately was pursued by Liberty City’s finest. Amazingly, she was able to escape the grasp of the long arm of the law (I believe she ran some stoplights during the chase.) That may have been a little too much excitement because after fleeing to safety she decided her time in Liberty City was over. She handed the controller back to me, and I immediately began plugging pedestrians with my shotgun because I was full of pent up GTA rage from watching that lame-ass traffic law game. Seeing my murderous rampage, my wife yelled “Stop! Stop! You’re being like that kid from Virginia Tech!” Seriously, I’m not making this ***** up. Chalk one up for Jack-*****-Thompson.