Well Would You Go Carjacking In A Place That’s Known As A Haven For Organized Crime?

Staten Island gamers take umbrage with the contention of Grand Theft Auto IV creators that there is no there there:

Imagine, if you will, that you are Niko Bellic, the main character of Grand Theft Auto IV, a video game due out in October. With free rein in Liberty City, a meticulously rendered stand-in for New York, you can carjack a hot rod in Dumbo and zoom down the Manhattan Bridge at 140 miles per hour. If you’re short on cash, you can mug a tourist in Times Square or stick up a group of workers on the Red Hook piers.

One thing you can’t do, however, is cruise along Victory Boulevard. Nor are you allowed to wreak havoc in the shops of Hylan Plaza or drop a body in the wilds of Fresh Kills. For all of the game’s fine-tuned detail about New York, Staten Island is not among the locales where players can steal cars, crash into buildings and terrorize local residents.

That has some local gamers upset.

“It makes no sense,” wrote a user named KingGoonie on the discussion board Digg.com a few days ago. In the opinion of KingGoonie, the island’s reputation as a haven for organized crime and under-age drinking makes it an ideal setting for game play. “It is a more relevant borough then Queens and Bronx.”

Players of the game, in which Niko arrives in Liberty City to steal cars, commit crimes and generally move up in the world, may recognize the familiar contours of Algonquin, which looks a lot like Manhattan, and the borough of Broker, dotted with brownstones strikingly similar to those found in Park Slope.

But even though the game includes a place remarkably like New Jersey (Alderney), there is no Staten Island-like level.