Kikizo have released an in-depth preview of GTA IV PC, based on a hands-on experience encountered two weeks ago. Here are some of the points of interest:

• "We can say there's no doubt it looks absolutely incredible. But it was only just now, going back to the Xbox 360 version for comparison, that we realised how superior it actually is."
• "We're talking leaves on detailed trees that are individually visible, and it's only just now when I turned on the console version for the first time in months that I said to myself: "Wow. This looks dated by comparison"."
• "The PC version has a fully customisable graphics menu. Texture quality can be set to high medium or low, you can toggle the shadow quality, texture filter quality, reflection resolution and water quality - all of which have four settings."
• "View distance, detail distance, shadow density and light distance can all be set from 1-100, and most interestingly, so can vehicle density, which also changes the way the game plays for obvious reasons, and to give you an idea of how much you can turn it up, Rockstar told us that the equivalent vehicle density featured on the console versions would have been just 33 per cent"
• "...by taking all the settings down, we were indeed able to get the game running at a consistently high 60fps frame rate outdoors, albeit in PS2-o-vision, which put a smile on our face. No, we didn't need a frames per second gage, and yes, we're sad like that."
• "Flying very high over Algonquin, and looking around us, we were blown away by the views of the entire map - all islands. This is not like you remember the helicopters on console. You can literally see everything"
• "Back on the ground, the texture resolution is noticeably higher; you can see (and read) advertisements in the subway station, signs in buildings and logos on merchandise that you wouldn't even have noticed before."

Read the full preview here.