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Deus Ex, Civ 5, GTA series on sale today on Steam
We know you're probably exhausted both mentally and financially by the onslaught of Steam Holiday Sales, but try to steel yourself: Today's righteous offers include Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Civilization 5 and all of the Grand Theft Auto games in the world. (Well, most of them.)
Grand Theft Auto III now available on international App Stores, coming to US
Rockstar's classic sandbox game, Grand Theft Auto III, is now available on international App Stores in New Zealand and Australia. As the day rolls across timezones, it should be available in Europe and the US later today. Rockstar promised to launch the game on December 15 for both iOS and Android, and it's kept its word. Grand Theft Auto III, the game that brought the whole sandbox experience into the forefront of gaming and arguably did a lot to make games more "adult-oriented," is available as a universal game for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch for just US$4.99. The controls for the game will be fully touch-based, so it will be intriguing to see how well (or how poorly) the full experience of Grand Theft Auto III translates to the smaller touchscreens of Apple's portable devices. I'm sure at least one member of the TUAW team will be happy to give this game a runthrough and review soon after its release. Grand Theft Auto III is supported on both models of iPad, the iPhone 4 and 4S, and the 4th generation iPod touch. It is a surprisingly slim 462 MB download, and while it's not available in the US Store as of this writing, it should be coming out within hours from now.
Grand Theft Auto III anniversary edition for iOS and Android exalts a decade of metropolitan mayhem
Before Niko Bellic, there was a man who was known as Claude, who was just as willing to terrorize Liberty City back in Grand Theft Auto III. If fond memories of carjackings and Flashback 95.6 are starting to rush back, know that Rockstar plans to sell you a fresh copy for your iOS or Android devices come December 15th. And just so we're clear, the $4.99 redux is a full re-release -- not some watered-down version with an alternate story line. Already counting the days? Peep the list of compatible devices after the break so it's not all for naught. Go on, we've left you a surprise.
Toyota Fun-Vii concept car envisions instantly customizable interior and exterior
Look, the reality is that you can't drive your car into a Pay 'n' Spray every 15 minutes or so à la Grand Theft Auto, but what if you can simply change the vehicle's skin at the tap of a button? Toyota certainly likes the sound of that and has thus come up with the funky-looking Fun-Vii concept car. What's more, even the interior can be changed as well, and similarly it can be used as a display space for navigation or even racing simulation (assuming the latter's disabled while actually driving, of course). This is all good and well, but unlike many other concept exhibits we've seen, Toyota's mockup couldn't seat people -- we suspect the "car" only used a back projection from within, so we couldn't get to see what it'd feel like to play a Tron-like game inside the "car." Nevertheless, we look forward to day when this idea becomes a reality -- here's looking at you, flexible OLED! Video after the break. %Gallery-140617%
Grand Theft Auto 3 coming to iOS, Android for 10th anniversary, oh and $150 GTA3 action figure
With this October marking the 10-year anniversary of Rockstar's groundbreaking Grand Theft Auto III, the developer is celebrating by releasing the open-world classic on iOS and Android "later this fall," though no price was given. "Grand Theft Auto III showed us the potential of open world games," Rockstar big boss Sam Houser said in a press release. "It helped set the vision for the company, and we have been expanding on those possibilities with every game ever since." You're probably as curious as we are as to how an open-world title like GTA3 controls on a touchscreen, but luckily the game will be playable at this weekend's New York Comic Con. If playing with bits and bytes isn't your thing, then ... well, why are you reading this website? Regardless, you'll probably be interested in the above 1:6 scale action figure of GTA3 antihero Claude, replete with various outfits, guns, and severed hands. At just $150, we clearly don't understand the economics of action figures anymore. For a full list of supported devices, along with a photo gallery of the action figure, head on past the break.
GTA's Liberty City recreated in Google Street View, reveals your nearest Ammu-Nation
Type "Liberty City" into Google Maps and it whisks you to some place east of Wichita, Kansas. Yup, Wichita, for Pete's sake. No self-respecting Grand Theft Auto fan can stand for an omission like that, and thankfully now they don't have to. Those hardcore Niko-lovers at gta4.net have not only recreated the real fictional Liberty City using the Google Maps API, they've even cobbled together 80,000 screenshots to provide full-blown Street View too. Man, we haven't seen this much Gay Tony passion since the Trashmaster. Oh, wait a minute -- apparently this so-called Street View leaves out a couple of ramps that gta4.net considered to be "not very interesting." Hush, and you call yourselves fans?
Take-Two signs with XLGames to make existing property into an MMO
How would a Grand Theft Auto MMO grab you? Would you play a Red Dead Redemption or LA Noire massively multiplayer title? While the possibility of said games still falls into the rumor category at this point, we can confirm that Take-Two Interactive has entered into a partnership with XL Games to make one of the former's existing properties into an MMO. XL has been in the news recently due to its upcoming ArcheAge sandpark, and the company founded by noted Lineage developer Jake Song will work on the new title with Take-Two subsidiary 2K Games. Kotaku first reported the rumor to the English-speaking world earlier this morning, while the source is Korean website 4gamer. A press release has also been issued by 2K; CEO Christoph Hartmann hints at the company's desire to broaden its horizons. "Our partnership with XL Games underscores our ongoing commitment to expanding 2K's presence in online gaming and the Asian market," Hartmann explains. XL's Song says that work on the new title is ongoing. "We have already been working together for a year on the game, and I can tell you this is one of the most exciting projects that I've ever undertaken," he said.
Grand Theft Auto Classics pack on Steam sale
If you thought Rockstar's crime saga began with the illicit exploits of Niko Bellic, your thumb may have obscured some vital roman numerals when you last picked up a Grand Theft Auto box. We'll just avoid boxes entirely and point you to Steam's ongoing Rockstar Weekend sale, which now has the Grand Theft Auto Classics pack for $7.49 (a discount of 75% off the regular price). The pack contains top-down classics Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2, along with sandbox giant Grand Theft Auto 3 and its follow-ups, Vice City and San Andreas. The deal's making a quick getaway tomorrow, so don't wait too long if you prefer your virtual violence vintage.
Grand Theft Auto character listed in voice actor casting call
You don't have to look like this creepy guy -- you just have to sound like him. James Pedeaston (pictured), a recurring side character in the Grand Theft Auto universe, is listed among several other roles in a voice-over casting call posted on Actors Pages, which could be further evidence that production of Grand Theft Auto 5 is underway. Take-Two was initially named (as the production company) in the posting, according to Eurogamer, but reference to the GTA publisher has since been removed. Pedeaston was the host of "The Wild Traveler" radio show in GTA: San Andreas -- in which he openly recounted acts of pedophilia -- and, in GTA IV, he was "arrested by the Indonesian police after being suspected of child molesting in Bali, Indonesia," according to the GTA Wiki. The casting call describes Pedeaston as a "man-boy love activist who just got released from an Indonesian prison," suggesting that the role would be set in a time period following the events of GTA IV -- in other words, a role featured in the next GTA game. Additional first-name-only characters are listed in the job posting and sound generally befitting of a GTA game -- take "Samantha," for instance: "A young female obsessed with sex parties, always dreaming of being a Hollywood celebrity." The Actors Pages casting call follows a similar job posting on The Agency, for a project named "Rush" (assumed to be a codename and linked to Take-Two), which introduces more puzzle pieces that might fit together into a new GTA game set in Los Angeles -- or "Los Santos," as it's known in San Andreas. [Image source: GTA Wiki; credit: C-d-rom]
Race'n'Chase: Original GTA design docs posted
The original concept for Grand Theft Auto would see players committing only a few crimes, according to design documents posted by developer Mike Dailly that date back to sixteen years ago today. At that time, the early concept was for a game called Race'n'Chase. Its aim was "to produce a fun, addictive, and fast multi-player car racing and crashing game which uses a novel graphics method." The story? "The game will be set in a present-day world." (Period.) While it would take two and a half years -- and narrowly dodging cancellation, by another creator's account -- to flesh out the eventual game, Grand Theft Auto, the designers did have some inkling of the direction they would ultimately take, as detailed in the original pitch. "There will be 3 cities with a different graphic style for each city (e.g., New York, Venice, Miami)," wrote the heads of then DMA Design (now Rockstar North). "There will be many different missions to be played in each city." The initial mission types consisted of "a straight race across the city," a free-roaming demolition derby and a bank robbery. Other seeds for the mega-franchise-to-be were also planted in the early documents: "Pedestrians will be wandering about all of the time," notes one section, suggesting bystander types could include "schoolchildren" and a "lollipop lady." "They can be run over by cars." "It will also be possible for players to get out of their car and steal another one," the designers propose in the opening pitch, adding, "Trying to steal a car may result in an alarm being set off which will, of course, attract the police." Later, it's clarified that "police will be able to get out of their cars and shoot at the robbers." [Image credit: Mike Dailly; source: mikedailly/Flickr]
Take-Two registers Grand Theft Auto-esque domains, GTA V shows up on stuntman's resume
Take-Two recently registered a batch of speculation-rousing web domains, each of which sound like possible online extensions of the Grand Theft Auto series' parodic brands and businesses. These include gems like CashForDeadDreams.com, SixFigureTemps.com, LifeInvader.com, StopPayingYourMortgage.net and HammersteinFaust.com. Unless the publisher is trying to earn a few extra bucks by getting into the domain-squatting racket (time to pay up, Six-Figure Temps!), it seems plausible that Rockstar's thought up some gags for the next GTA. Another piece of evidence for a new installment in Rockstar's crime-filled franchise also appeared in the resumé of Declan Mulvey, who apparently did some motion capture stunt work on "Grand Theft Auto V." For what it's worth, Mulvey tells CVG that the listing was simply a "typo," missing the single Roman 'I,' though a little further sleuthing on IMDB.com turns up plenty of video game work and not a single mention of 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV. Sure, that only lends itself to further speculation, but we think we can confidently confirm that, at the very least, the game is almost certain to contain stunts.
Real Racing 2, Grand Theft Auto, others on sale this weekend
A whole slew of apps are going on sale this weekend, including Firemint's Real Racing 2 (which has dropped down to half price at US$4.99) and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (also $4.99, down by the same discount). Adult Swim's hilarious little Robot Unicorn Attack running game is only 99 cents, on sale for both iPad and iPhone. In fact, all of the Adult Swim titles are on sale for just 99 cents, so you can look through those to see what you like. I'm not sure what the impetus is behind this sale, but it's best not to ask questions. If you need a few new games to play this weekend (and honestly, I'm not sure you do, given all of the great titles on the App Store lately -- I'm still loving Battleheart), there you go.
Original GTA developer says game was 'almost canned'
Gary Penn was a developer at DMA Design way back when the British company was working on the very first Grand Theft Auto game -- the top-down, PC-based version, not the 3D console hit you know and love today -- and says that it was "almost canned." Not because of any Hot Coffee-style shenanigans, mind you. Just because (and we're paraphrasing here) it sucked. It was incredibly unstable and "it was awful, it was too sim-y," says Penn. It wasn't until the developer found a bit of fun by turning up the police aggressiveness that it finally landed on the gameplay that's sustained the series to this day: GTA creates a much more manic, amped-up version of the world we actually live in. Once the dev figured that out, it moved on to things like mowing down 2D Hare Khrishnas (Penn's right -- it was really satisfying, moral qualms aside) and just enjoying the world. Penn goes on to say that the series is "stagnating" for him, perhaps because of its success. "It's anything but a lazy game," he says, "but they don't have the pressure if no one else is doing it anywhere near as well as they're doing it."
Feature-length film, The Trashmaster, made entirely in Grand Theft Auto IV
If you're familiar with The Sims-style gaming, where actual life, art, and the game can easily blur, this little story may not come as a huge surprise to you. Grand Theft Auto IV player / enthusiast Mathieu Weschler spent two years making The Trashmaster, a feature-length 'film' made entirely in the game, about a garbage man who has another gig on the side. Now, we'll freely admit that we did not watch the entire thing (yet), but from what we have seen, it actually looks fairly engaging! The film is embedded after the break.
APB's Book-Larsson talks story, game modes
Bjorn Book-Larsson is back! Forgive the exclamation point, but we had to accentuate the latest in the long line of developers with action hero names (and with apologies to Atanas Atanasov and Tasos Flambouras, Book-Larsson has vaulted near the top of the spiffy name list). In any case, the GamersFirst COO/CTO has updated his APB Reloaded blog with some interesting insights into the game's story. Yes, you read that right; we said story and APB in the same sentence, and before you think we've been brainwashed by the likes of The Old Republic, TERA, and other story-centric MMOs in the offing, consider Book-Larsson's assertion that APB was originally designed to facilitate the "open world-ish" nature of the Grand Theft Auto series. "APB actually has the beginnings of a lot of the elements that will make it a really successful game in the long term, and could in theory exploit (maybe complete) both types of interactions [story and shooter elements]; there is actually a giant backstory to the entire city (100 plus pages of it), there are deep anthologies of the various factions in the city, and there is even the foundation for a single-player mission mode," he writes. Whether or not players will care about APB's potential to grow beyond an ordinary shooter remains to be seen. After all, Global Agenda is a similar title with a fairly deep backstory (and one that is summarily ignored by 99.9% of the players fragging it up in AvA and merc matches). The fact that GamersFirst is even considering future additions to APB is relatively exciting news, and we'll be watching with great interest.
Cypress Hill backup singer sees himself in Grand Theft Auto, sues Rockstar
Our friends, this next post is fraught with danger, excitement, and West Coast rappers with names like B-Real, Sen Dog, and Michael "Shagg" Washington. Indeed, the latter is alleging that Rockstar appropriated his likeness for the character CJ, a hood in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas whose life apparently shares many details with his own troubled upbringing, "including how the teen-agers in his gang rode around on bicycles," according to his lawyer. It seems that way back in 2003 the Cypress Hill backup singer met with reps from the game studio for a two hour interview "to talk about street life," and the next thing you know, San Andreas is released and you have criminals riding around on bikes! Coincidence? Mr. Shagg doesn't think so, and he's asking for twenty-five percent of Rockstar's profits from the game -- approximately $250 million -- because they've "stolen his image and never paid him." Now that we think of it, isn't there an obsessive gadget blogger in that game that looks awfully familiar? We'd better call our lawyers.
Grand Theft Auto trilogy finally coming to the Mac
Man, it's about $*#(ing time. The storied (and dare I say classic?) Grand Theft Auto trilogy, featuring GTA 3, GTA Vice City, and GTA San Andreas, is finally coming to the Mac thanks to Transgaming. Of course, it's about ten years late -- the first game in the grouping came out in 2001 on the PS2. On current-gen gaming consoles, gamers have enjoyed Grand Theft Auto IV for a few years, and Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption earlier this year and is priming for a game called L.A. Noire. I'm surprised these haven't been released on the Mac yet; especially with Steam on the platform, you'd think there would have been a port at some point. You can order the Mac versions of the Grand Theft Auto trilogy right now for $15 each online, and in about a month they'll be showing up in various retail stores. If you somehow missed these the first time around, or if you just want a few terrific older games to play on your Mac, you can pick and play these. Just keep them away from the kids -- they're all very mature games.
Steam offering a whole lotta Grand Theft Auto for $7.50
If you've got a handful of change and a heart full of deviancy, you may want to perk up your ears -- for this weekend only, Steam is offering the Grand Theft Auto Classics collection (which includes GTA I - III, Vice City and San Andreas) for $7.50, or 75 percent off the bundle's standard price.
Microsoft Games for Windows Marketplace relaunches in your browser on November 15
Microsoft just announced that its new Games for Windows Marketplace online PC games store will launch on November 15th. Think Steam, but not quite. The store offers online web access from anywhere and features fast purchase and download turnarounds to accelerate the time to game play; discounted games; and game search by title, genre or publisher. Games for Windows Marketplace is integrated with Microsoft's existing Xbox LIVE and Windows Live services and will launch with over 100 titles including "Fable: The Lost Chapters" and "Grand Theft Auto III." Anyone with a Windows Live ID can login. Check out the full press release after the break before heading over to Joystiq for more detailed coverage.%Gallery-105819%
British news outlet apologizes for 'Grand Theft Auto: Rothbury' report
A long, stupid story short: British newspaper The Daily Star recently ran a since-pulled article claiming Rockstar Games was working on a game titled Grand Theft Auto: Rothbury, based on the shooting rampage allegedly perpetrated by Raoul Moat earlier this month. The report was based on a shockingly tasteless and obviously Photoshopped box art for the non-existent title -- though the Star ran the report as cold, hard fact, even going so far as to get quotes from the still-grieving family members of the shooting victims. Rockstar (and, assumedly, its fleet of superhuman lawyers) must have sent some stern words to the outlet, which ran a lengthy retraction (via Rock, Paper, Shotgun) earlier today. In addition to apologizing for the irresponsible report, the paper claims, "we have also agreed to pay them a substantial amount in damages which they are donating to charity." Well, at least something good came out of this situation, we guess. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
