Grand Theft Auto IV saw a change to the Vigilante system of previous titles. There are no tanks in IV (with the exception of The Ballad of Gay Tony, of course) so you won’t simply be driving around with every vehicle that touches you exploding instantly. The Most Wanted side missions can also be seen as an extension to this new system.

However, these new Vigilante Missions are much easier than the previous system.

They become available after “Crime and Punishment” in Faustin’s mission line, simply get hold of a Police vehicle, once inside access the Police computer and select “View Current Crimes”. If there are no Police vehicles at your location, either head to a Police station or simply dial “911″ on your phone (the emergency number for the United States, like “999″ for the United Kingdom or “000″ for Australia) and select Police, a Police Cruiser will turn up soon after.

There are three types of crimes you can pursue:

• Criminal on foot
• Stolen vehicle
• Gang activity

Criminal on foot is the easiest and quickest, mostly all you’re going to have to do is simply run over them, if you miss for whatever reason, pump a few rounds into them and off you go to the next guy. If you are looking to hit these as quickly as possible you should choose this option. If the option isn’t available, simply back-out and access “View Current Crimes” again, this will refresh the list of available crimes.

Stolen vehicle will pit you up against a car full of dudes that will shoot at you, not too difficult but the chase may drag out a bit, it’s entirely possible your vehicle will suffer too much damage before you’re able to take them all out.

Gang activity will lead you to a group of “gangsters”, again it isn’t that difficult however they can take you down pretty quickly if you just run in there guns blazing (unless you get lucky).

Once you have selected a crime, your GPS will update to a location nearby and a timer will appear at the top-right corner indicating how long you have left to get to the scene of the crime before the criminal escapes. Once there, it will disappear.

Upon completion of a Vigilante Mission, you will be free to pursue whatever activity you wish, if your car is damaged and you want to continue, it is advisable to locate another Police vehicle before continuing, otherwise you may find youself with a car on fire, an empty road and so no way to get to your target but attempting to run there.

Once you have completed 20 Vigilante Missions you will receive 2.5% towards your game completion, and Clean The Mean Streets ( ).