GTA IV Trailer 3 Impressions

The new trailer "Move Up, Ladies" has just been released along with a couple of new screenshots (both shown below).

Everything looks sharper and cleaner than the previous two trailers. Everything looks brighter and shinier too. One thing is certain, having played Mass Effect for 47 hours recently, I have got used to the high level of facial animations and at first glance at this trailer, I was disappointed with the character models. The trailer shows a few ladies from the game. I'm guessing they are love interests. But unlike Mass Effect, I don't fancy any of them (yes Liara is stunning and Ashley will catch my attention too). Obviously, this level of detail in the character models in GTA won't be possible. Maybe I should go away and play San Andreas for 47 hours and then watch the trailer again. That should fix my expectations:P

One thing that looks pretty amazing is the use of the Euphoria animation engine. If you haven't heard of it, it is a procedural animation package created by NaturalMotion. What that means is that characters will react realistically to forces. For example, if you bump into someone, your character will react according to keep his balance without the need of a "pre-recorded" animation. It will generate the animation on the fly. One area where it shows this in the trailer is when Niko jumps away from an explosion and when he lands, he rolls to take some of the momentum. Also, the hand to hand combat, which we've never seen before, shows how a character reacts when punched all with the animations generated by Euphoria. Pretty impressive.

The question is, how far is it from being completed? You can watch the trailer yourself right here.

Edit: Further reaction to trailer 3 here.