The controversial game, released on the PS3 and XBOX360, was expected to shift a staggering 9m copies at it's launch.

Its impact was so large, in fact, that some Hollywood studios were rumoured to have postponed the release of several movies.

In Leeds, eager gamers started queueing hours before the official release time of one minute past midnight.

At Asda, Owlcotes, Pudsey, queues began forming at 9pm and eventually stretched to hundreds of people.

As our video shows, game fans young and old queued from inside the store tens of meters into the car park.

Asda night manager Mick Goodall said the game's release led to some of the biggest queues since the release of the last Harry Potter book.

He said: "We had an initial allocation of 250 games for XBOX and PS3 consoles and they sold out in 45 minutes. We had people in the store asking about them at 9pm and they started queueing then. Obviously, we couldn't sell the game until after midnight.

"We were quite organised in that we didn't want a stampede come midnight, so we had security guards there, just to help other shoppers and make sure everything was fair and only one copy was sold per person.

"It was the biggest queue I have seen. I think the last time we had something like this it was the release of the Harry Potter book but this was even bigger than that."

GTA IV has been in the making for the last four years and is the latest in the GTA franchise. The game franchise has attracted criticism because of its adult-orientated content, which critics have argued glamourises car jacking, random violence and organised crime.

Previous titles have included GTA III, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas.