US magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly have published a new thirteen-page preview of GTA 4 in their April issue. As I revealed last month, EGM were invited exclusively to Rockstar North’s building in Edinburgh, Scotland, and bagged an exclusive interview with Rockstar Games president Sam Houser. There are also three new screenshots in the article.

A few points worth noting:

• Apparently Niko Bellic was inspired by a favourite driver from “Rockstar Games” car service.
• There are 14 radio stations in the game, not 18 as was previously suggested.
• Niko is an old soldier who spent time in third-world prisons.
• On the subject of multiplayer, Houser says: “I just like running up to a bunch of players with the grenade cooking in my hands and taking them all out with me.” A range of ’standard’ multiplayer modes are available, in addition to some which haven’t been tried before. Nothing else was revealed unfortunately.
• For the new melee-combat system, Rockstar consulted a UFC master of the Israeli special-forces martial art, Krav Maga.
• When GTA IV was first being planned, Aaron Garbut (Rockstar North’s art director) unveiled an enormous map featuring Liberty City surrounded by countryside the size of New York state. This “megamap” seemed the logical step after San Andreas, but “Rockstar” soon decided to change their focus, and work on creating a larger GTA experience instead of just a larger map.