Life is complicated. I killed people, smuggled people, sold people. Perhaps here, things will be different.
--Niko Bellic, Grand Theft Auto IV

When Rockstar Games showed the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV, people marvelled over the detailed environments, thrilled to the series' return to Liberty City and speculated about just how next-gen Rockstar North's Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 debut would be. For us, our sense of anticipation was built around something entirely different: the prospect of an immigrant story. When MTV's Tracey John interviewed us for the Multiplayer blog, we spoke of ourselves as being liminal people, in the following exchange:

Multiplayer: Do you feel there are any advantages [to being black and covering videogames]? Do you feel you stand out more because of your race?

Croal: Well, there are relatively few of us. So I guess in that sense I stand out. But I think also I stand out because of my dreads. [laughs] I stand out because I work for Newsweek. … [Working for Newsweek] opened a lot of doors. I know that’s not really what you’re asking, but in terms of race I don’t think I found a particular advantage or disadvantage. Professionally I think there is a perspective I have but I wouldn’t attribute it solely to race. I would say that I’m--and I hate to use a big word--but I’d say that I’m a liminal person; people who exist along boundaries or lines sort of in between spaces.

My parents are from Guyana, South America. I was born in Canada. I lived a little bit of my life--when I was two to when I was five--in Guyana. I studied French for 10 years. I grew up in Canada. I moved to the United States for college. I’ve lived in California, D.C., and now in New York. I work at a mainstream magazine covering a niche subject within that magazine. So there’s a way in which I have all of these different perspectives. I’m a black, Canadian immigrant living in the United States of Guyanese descent, right? So there are all of these things that I’ve seen and done and by virtue of how I came into covering this, starting out writing about arts and entertainment, mostly movies, some music, some technology, and bringing that to covering games and being very inspired by everyone from Pauline Kael and John Simon and Stanley Kauffmann, Roger Ebert--to people who were writing for the Village Voice like Greg Tate and Lisa Jones and really strong cultural reporters who brought multiple perspectives to things. I try to bring that to games.

Now, we don't want to oversell the cultural differences between the English-speaking parts of Canada and the U.S.--let's face it, you export your Hollywood movies and rock/hip-hop while importing our comedians and news anchors, so pop culturally speaking, there are a lot of similarities--but take our word for it that being a double-immigrant has given us a unique-ish perspective on matters large and small. And because of that, we responded strongly to Niko Bellic in a way that certain others may have not.

We say this in search of a way to write thoughtfully about a subject that Rockstar Games is not yet allowing us to write about in any detail: the opening credits to Grand Theft Auto IV.

 Rockstar promotional party for Grand Theft Auto IV at Cielo in New York City 

In the run-up to the Launch of Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar Games hosted a series of intimate parties at a variety of New York City hot spots. Dubbed "Rockstar Games Presents Music From Grand Theft Auto IV," the events were pitched to us via email by Rockstar PR director Darlan Monterisi as "a rare series of intimate events representing the eclectic musical soundtrack for the upcoming epic crime drama. Each event (listed below) provides an authentic, engaging experience for you to not only experience the sounds of GTA IV first-hand in their organic format, but also an opportunity for one-on-one face time with the artists themselves and select members of the Rockstar Games team." Following a hands-on session with the game's multiplayer back in March (lovingly described in an April post by Kotaku head honcho Brian Crecente), we were given a copy of this flyer...

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