To the breathless surprise of absolutely no one, the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV has been ripped and pirated and is currently up for grabs on your favourite BitTorrent sites. Before you get too excited, though, it's the PAL (ie. European) version of the game, although since you need a modded Xbox 360 to play it anyway, I'm not even sure if that makes a difference. Can a modded North American 360 play PAL games? No clue.

Really, I don't give a rat's neatly shaved buttocks whether or not freeloaders can grab the game now, and it was absolutely certain that as soon as GTA IV shipped to retailers, some less-than-scrupulous soul(s) would be lifting a copy to rip and distribute.

The bigger issue here, for me and other true fans of the game, is spoilers. With the game now out in the wild (just as Halo 3 was leaked prior to its relase), it's going to mean avoiding gaming forums, YouTube and the like so as not to have any surprises ruined. Hell, I don't even want to see the opening cinematic until I have my own copy of the game in my own hands and it's playing on my own 360 (or PS3, depending which version I can get first.) Just because the Christmas presents are already under the tree doesn't mean you gotta unwrap them.

Six more days to go. I don't even wanna explain how excited I am for this game, lest I come across as an even bigger dorkstick than I normally do. But I really, really am.

UPDATE: Apparently the NTSC (ie. North American) version of GTA IV is now up on the torrent sites as well, so it's game on for pirates, yarrr. I have to say if I had a modded 360, I'd be tempted to download it for the sole reason that Rockstar isn't sending out early copies to the press, as is usually the norm for most publishers' high-profile games. Reviewing this thing in a timely fashion is going to mean hunkering down at home for almost a week straight, plowing through the game in marathon 10-hour-per-day sessions. If anything might diminish my GTA IV enjoyment, it's that.

That said, it should make for some fun (if bleary-eyed) bloggin' next week.