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Rockstar boss has pointed towards a more mature iteration of Grand Theft Auto in GTA IV in a demo here, saying the upcoming title’s plotline generation is to be a step beyond that seen in previous games in the series.

“We wanted to make the storytelling more sophisticated and more organic,” said Houser. “We give you choices to really recreate the experience of an immigrant moving to New York in the present time and emulate walking down the street and meeting the freaks that you meet. It’s largely streamlining and adding to the ideas that were there before.”

“If the graphics are slightly cartoony, we make sure the writing is slightly cartoony to match that,” he added. “Obviously, the graphics have gone closer to realism, so we wanted everything else to be closer to realism as well.”

GTA IV will release for both PS3 and Xbox 360 on April 29, and is expected to sell over six million units in six months. Even the confirmation of the game’s release date was enough to heavily boost Take-Two’s shares earlier this week.

Take 2′s stock has risen 4.9 percent to $16.51 today after analyst Eric Handler upgraded the company’s shares to “equal weight” from “underweight,” and boosted his target price to $19 from $17.

Handler’s move came after the publisher announced the release date of April 29 for GTA IV last week. He said earlier today that he thought the fourth instalment in the crime series could sell 6 million units in six months, adding $1.25 profit per share.

US analyst Eric Handler has upgraded Take 2 from “underweight” to “equal weight” on the news that GTA IV will hit on April 29, and has raised his price target for the stock to $19, up $2. Shares in the company rose 3.2 percent in pre-market trading today, up 50 cents from Monday’s closing price of $15.75.

Handler said the release date announcement was a “major plus” for the company and predicted sales of over 6 million units in the first six months, equatable to $1.25 per share profit.

“The recent successes of ‘Bioshock’ and ‘Carnival Games’ demonstrate Take-Two is beginning to see improving results from its studios other than Rock Star,” he said.