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Rockstar: GTA IV PC delayed to Dec. 2
Rockstar has confirmed the delay of the PC release of Grand Theft Auto IV, reflected on retailers' sites earlier this week. The game has been pushed from November 18th to December 2nd. The developer did not cite particular reasons for the hold up, reports IGN, but we can assume it's due in part to typical, last minute bug squashing and system optimization. On that note, Rockstar did finally release official system specs:Minimum System Requirements OS: Windows Vista (Service Pack 1) / XP (Service Pack 3) Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 Ghz / AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4 Ghz Memory: 1.5 GB RAM; 16 GB hard drive space Video card: 256 MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900 Recommended System Requirements OS: Windows Vista (Service Pack 1) / XP (Service Pack 3) Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 Ghz / AMD Phenom X3 2.1 Ghz Memory: 2 GB (XP) / 2.5 GB (Vista) RAM; 18 GB hard drive space Video card: 512 MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512 MB ATI 3870
Grand Theft Auto IV PS3 Trophies coming Oct. 27
Someone give Rockstar a trophy ... for finally bringing PlayStation Trophies to the PS3 version of Grand Theft Auto IV. According to the latest GTA mailing list email, the update will be available for download on Monday, Oct. 27.Rockstar has promised 51 Trophies in total, including: "One Man Army" (survive a six-star wanted level for five minutes); "Dare Devil" (execute all of the city's unique stunt jumps); "Chain Reaction" (blow up 10 cars in under 10 seconds); and "Liberty City Minute" (complete the game in less than 30 hours).The official GTA IV site will be updated Monday to include the full list of Trophies ... which, given the ones announced today, will likely be identical to the list of Achievements available in the Xbox 360 version.
Grand Theft Auto 4 Trophy patch coming October 27th
The latest Rockstar Social Club email has finally given us an indication of when we can see the Grand Theft Auto IV Trophy patch. We've known what the Trophies are for a little while now, but we were never quite sure when they'd be coming. Thankfully, we now have a date and best of all, it's soon. You'll be happily traversing Liberty City again (but this time for fun and profit) on Monday the 27th of October. That's only days away. So dust off your copy and have it ready and waiting. We'll be sure to tell you once the patch is live.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
GTA IV multiplayer hit by viral zombie outbreak
Today's earlier rumor about a viral outbreak in Grand Theft Auto IV has borne fruit – icky, decaying, zombie fruit. It turns out that the zombie apocalypse has come to Liberty City, but not in the form of DLC. It's a tweak that's been made to the game's multiplayer modes just in time for Halloween.According to a news update on the Rockstar Social Club site, a virus introduced into the game world turns players into zombies (or at least bestows them with the zombie skin) and "can be contracted in any and all multiplayer modes and is spread when an unsuspecting player kills someone who has the infection." The post also mentions that signs of infection include gaining access to the zombie skin in multiplayer or earning the "Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie" Achievement (on 360).The Social Club site has been updated with a new community feature that lets registered users check to see if they've been "infected," as well as access US and world maps displaying the spread of the "disease." We've contacted Rockstar on the off chance they're willing to spill some details on how long we'll be riding out this outbreak.
Edge gets up close and personal with GTA: Chinatown Wars
Edge has posted an extensive (and extremely positive) hands-on preview of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, describing Rockstar's DS debut in luscious detail.The overriding message seems to be: Chinatown Wars on the DS really works, in the sense that it feels like any other Grand Theft Auto title. Despite the hardware limitations, Liberty City comes across as a living, breathing city, with civilians who exit and enter houses, get into cars, engage in conversation with one another, purchase snacks from fast-food carts, and put up umbrellas when it rains. Assisting this illusion is a full day and night cycle, along with a dynamic weather system and realtime shadowing.As you'd expect, any vehicle can be hijacked (and driving an ambulance to people in need is one way of making some extra cash), and your surroundings can be trashed, too -- Edge mentions how "fences, street lamps, and newsstands can all be smashed aside." Meanwhile, driving does feature a "little bit of auto-alignment." According to Rockstar's Dan Houser, this is to "make the driving a little forgiving, without it feeling like you're wearing armbands or something." When out of your car, a stun gun and flamethrower are just two of the weapons you'll be able to use. Toasty.Houser also discusses how missions have been made shorter, to accomodate shorter bursts of play, and describes one "outlandish" errand where hero Huang Lee robs a bank and escapes through Chinatown by blending into a parade, disguised as a dragon. Hit up the full preview at the link below, and don't forget to stop by our gallery!%Gallery-35102%
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas an Xbox Original
You may think you're a big tough guy in Liberty City, but you don't know nothing about the streets. On the streets of San Andreas, danger's around every corner, you spend a surprising amount of time on bicycles and you can get fat in like an hour ... like really fat. It's no joke in the SA, it's for real.If you think that, unlike b****es, you can hang with the streets, you have your shot: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is now an Xbox Original, available for 1200 MS Points ($15). Just don't blame us when the fire department has to carry your tubby ass out of your house with a forklift. That's the streets.Update: San Andreas will be available on Xbox Live Marketplace starting Monday, October 20, 2008[Thanks, Harith]
Steam's 50% off weekend on Rockstar titles, many games only $5
Valve's Steam service has a seriously sweet 50% off sale this weekend on its Rockstar games catalog. Both Max Payne titles are only $5 apiece ($7.49 for the set). Also, Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City are $5, while San Andreas is only $10. Steam is also offering its whole Rockstar collection (10 games in all) for $30. Not every game in there is a classic (lookin' at you, Manhunt), but the price is certainly right for all the hours worth of gameplay in the package.
Outrage! UK media up in arms over DS games
It's rare to see DS titles being held responsible by the mainstream media for society's ills. Usually, such treatment is reserved for home console releases, but in the last 24 hours two DS games have triggered a bout of misguided bleatings, both from British papers that amazingly aren't the Daily Mail. That's right, readers: two titles. Welcome to a special, double edition "Outrage!" post. Double the horror! Double the controversy! Double the irrational fear!We'll start with the obvious one, then. We sensed there'd be a backlash against Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars as soon as we saw these shots, but even we were impressed by the speediness of The Sun's error-strewn report. Next to an incorrectly captioned picture of Grand Theft Auto III, the paper reveals how a game about selling drugs will soon be playable on the "family-friendly" Nintendo DS, and remarks that, "Experts predict the final edition is unlikely to feature explicit criminality." They're in for a surprise, then.Next up in the stocks is a far more surprising scapegoat: the rather innocent Advance Wars. According to the Daily Telegraph, police investigating the stabbing of a 20-year-old who was also a massive fan of the game (to the extent that he ran an Advance Wars fansite) are now investigating whether the killer was a fellow "internet gamer." Of course, that's just one of several potential links being examined by the authorities, but the newspaper still leads with the Advance Wars angle. Why? OUTRAGE!Source: Grand Theft your child's INNOCENCE [Via Game Politics]Source: Advance Wars: Murder Weapon [Via Game Politics]%Gallery-21950%
DS Daily: Has Chinatown Wars surprised you?
A bunch of new Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars details appeared yesterday, specifically the kind that would make the Daily Mail's hair stand on end. According to various magazine spreads, you'll be able to sell drugs (with their real names), tattoo fellow gang members, and hotwire cars. Rockstar itself has said Nintendo ruled out a GTA game for a younger audience.As opponents of censorship in most cases, we were delighted that Rockstar has been granted such artistic freedom in Chinatown Wars, but also rather surprised. Anyone else with us, or did you expect such controversial content all along from Rockstar, even on the DS?
GTA Chinatown Wars maintains gritty, urban edge with drug-dealing minigame
Coke, heroin, weed, acid and the blue pill confirmed. There was a time when a sensational cocktail like this would have raised red flags at media headquarters everywhere, but this is Grand Theft Auto, like, "Grand Theft Auto 8!" We've been down this road before and we know where it leads ... to a penthouse, deep pockets, and a dried up sandbox. So what if it's on DS? Chinatown Wars isn't a kid's game, but like all GTAs, it's the game kids want to play. And if they do get their hands on it, they'll be -- surprise! -- forced to deal drugs. "It works well with what GTA is, with driving around the map, and it gives you another thing to think about -- another layer or piece of the puzzle to keep you motivated," Rockstar boss Dan Houser explained to Edge. Motivational tool, eh? Good one.[Update: Added image, direct from the folks at T3 magazine.]
Be a drug dealer in GTA: Chinatown Wars [update]
Update: Screens! Past the break! Why are we yelling?!We all love games. And if you're like us, you enjoy escaping the real world through gaming every now and then. Well, now you can escape into the life of a dastardly drug dealer.Rockstar's Dan Houser has dropped a few deets on the upcoming DS game, GTA: Chinatown Wars. Following up what was in the latest issue of Nintendo Power, we now know the game will not only be following its mature roots (which means "Mature" rating), but Nintendo actually wanted Rockstar to make a mature game. They didn't push for a family-friendly, tone down title on the handheld. So what's all this drug dealing business about?In this drug dealing minigame, players will be able to peddle six different types of narcotics and gain profit depending on how smart they are at selling. The "smart" selling (remember, kids: drugs are bad) comes in the form of recognizing market conditions, based on geographical location, and selling one of the six different types accordingly, with the aim being gaining the most profit possible. Confused? Well, basically, the game will tell you what drug is the most scarce and will fetch the highest price in any given terriroty, then all you have to do is sell accordingly.Edge promises more details in their latest issue, so sadly this is all we have to go on for now.
Rockstar: GTA for Wii 'didn't feel natural'
Saying just a wee bit more on the topic than Take-Two CEO Ben Feder was previously willing to, Rockstar boss Dan Houser tells Nintendo Power that Wii "didn't feel natural" for the franchise ... but DS did.Houser explains that, "It really was that the DS felt like it had a lot of interesting challenges that would be totally different from what we'd done in the past," adding, "The stylus and the chance to use minigames in that way was really interesting and exciting to us, and we thought we could integrate seamlessly between those two modes."With Houser commenting that, "We haven't really done any concrete, major thinking about the Wii, one way or another," it would seem that a waggle-fied Liberty City experience is still a ways off at best.[Nintendo Power, via Nintendo Everything]
Take a closer look at GTA: Chinatown Wars
Courtesy of RockstarWatch, the November issue of Nintendo Power has been scanned and uploaded online. In case you missed it last week, it's the issue with all of the details and first screens for GTA: Chinatown Wars. With all four of the pages scanned, it's a wealth of information on the upcoming game that you likely won't want to miss out on. So head on over here to check out the scans.[Thanks, Josh!]
Why no GTA on Wii? It 'didn't feel natural'
Why aren't we talking about a Grand Theft Auto game on Wii and instead are flipping over magazine scans for a DS version? Well, because the platform didn't feel like a natural fit for GTA, said Dan Houser, Rockstar co-founder. "It didn't feel natural to us, I guess. It really was that the DS felt like it had a lot of interesting challenges that would be totally different from what we'd done in the past," he said. Oh, and the Wii isn't a challenge and totally different from anything else?But what about the future? Come on, Dan, you can't be ruling out the most popular console in the world, can you? "We haven't really done any concrete, major thinking about the Wii, one way or another," he said. Okay, so it's not the most pleasant quote, but it appears he isn't ruling out the console. Personally, we'd appreciate something as stylish as the DS game on the Wii. What about doing something like that, Rockstar?[Via EDGE]
DS Daily: Grand Theft Info
Now that we know something about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, aside from the usual stuff like how it's going to force us to stop watching the news for a while, we can make somewhat informed decisions about our own interest. To us, the screens look pretty great, the PDA interface sounds fun, and the isometric perspective may just make us care about GTA.What about you? What do you think of the first known details about Chinatown Wars?
GTA: Chinatown Wars details finally revealed? [update]
Update: First screens! Check past the break to see them.Some details on the upcoming portable GTA game, GTA: Chinatown Wars, have dropped in the latest issue of Nintendo Power. For one, it's apparently following the sandbox formula of previous games, and will have that M label slapped on the front of the boxart. Due to hardware limitations, these details say the game will have an isometric camera angle and be a cel-shaded affair, complete with no load times. There will be dynamic weather effects and it's reported that draw distance and frame rate are sound. Liberty City will be scaled down quite a bit, though (and changed some), but there will be pedestrians and cars about, doing their thing. Oh, and there will be radio stations, although songs are going to be focused more on instrumental numbers.As for controls, there will be an auto-targeting system that the player can utilize with the R trigger. They can also use the d-pad to aim and bust caps that way. There's also going to be "subtle" auto-steering for when you're in a car and players can use the touch-screen to navigate the in-game PDA, which will allow you to "email, contacts, the map, a music player, GPS, and stat-tracking (which allows you to upload stats direct from the game to Rockstar's Social Club website)."And that's basically all that's being reported right now. Sounds like a lot for such a small cartridge, and until we see some screens, we're going to remain skeptical. What about the rest of you?
Nintendo Power: GTA Chinatown Wars is cel-shaded, isometric, M-rated crime drama
... With "tasteful" minigames. Indeed, Nintendo Power has published the first comprehensive preview of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, according to details provided by NeoGAF poster botticus. The relayed information (in handy bullet-point format), describes Chinatown Wars as a "true GTA game," which is to say, a Mature-themed sandbox game concerned with all things criminal (just like the survey said). The DS technology limits gameplay to an isometric camera angle with cel-shaded visuals, though the load times, draw distance and frame rate are reportedly sound; and weather effects, along with a day and night cycle are in tact. The preview claims there are plenty of on-screen pedestrians and cars -- speaking of: there are multiple radio stations, mostly juiced with instrumental tunes. All in all, "800,000 lines of hand-optimized source code" are packed into the tiny cart.What else? Chinatown Wars is said to return players to a sizeable portion of Liberty City (wild guess: Chinatown?), though the map has been altered from the console version. Missions will also be shortened and can be easily restarted upon failure. The D-pad is used for aiming, while the R-button activates auto-targeting; and there's "subtle" auto-steering built into the driving controls. The touch pad will be used for the aforementioned minigames, in addition to navigating the PDA-like UI, which includes email, contacts, the map, a music player, GPS, and stat-tracking (stats can be Wi-Fied to the Social Club). Now, how about some, uh ... scans? (Or better: screens! C'mon Rockstar, with this game scheduled to release in mere months, throw us a friggin' bone or two!)Update: Gamekyo's got some scans right here. [Thanks Fernando!][Via GoNintendo; thanks, Frank]
Pachter predicts bidding war over Rockstar's Houser brothers
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter sees another challenge for Take-Two Interactive, suggesting that the company could lose the talent behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise. In Pachter's latest analyst note, he details the possible loss of Sam and Dan Houser of Rockstar when their contract expires this upcoming February.Pachter expects that when their contracts expire this February, Sam and Dan Houser of Rockstar could either depart Take-Two -- robbing the company of the driving force force behind its best-selling series -- or stay on at considerable expense. The analyst explains that a Houser departure would be analogous to EA's Medal of Honor team departing to produce Activision's Call of Duty franchise -- GTA would still live on, but it probably wouldn't be the same sales powerhouse sans the Houser brothers.
Counting Rupees: Does controversy sell?
Each week Jeff Engel and Geoff Brooks contribute Counting Rupees, a column on the business behind gaming: Another day, another video game banning controversy. Proponents of the ban, unsurprisingly, argue that eliminating the sale of controversial games prevents them from harmful exposure. Yet one of the main arguments against banning games is that they make them even more popular, causing people to take notice of the title and thus spurring more sales than if it had been ignored in the first place. So, what exactly is the impact of game bans on sales in the first place?Ideally, we'd be able to compare the sales of games pre- and post-ban and see how the regulation impacted them ... after accounting for all the other factors that might have also influenced sales at that time. The data we have don't really let us do that, though, so this is a slightly less scientific attempt to answer the same question, using some of the most controversial games of the past few years.
Rumor: GTA Wii project in the works
With recent details dropping about the DS game, GTA: Chinatown Wars, the relationship between Take-Two and Rockstar with Nintendo was on the mind of the press. Take-Two CEO, Ben Feder, addressed the idea of Rockstar and its publisher bringing something to the Wii, namely its big franchise, Grand Theft Auto."Without commenting on whether GTA is coming to the Wii or not, Nintendo and Take-Two work very well together; Nintendo and Rockstar work well together, and we are continuing to grow that relationship," said Feder. He also commented that the relationship is not "one-way." He wants everyone to know that GTA: Chinatown Wars "is not even the first step, but an important step, in continuing to develop that relationship."So, the substance to back this rumor is kind of light. Feder addressed the idea, but not really. When you think about it, though, Take-Two and Rockstar, as well as Nintendo, are in this for the money. And what could be a better cash generator than bringing one of gaming's most popular franchises to a console that has a humongous base?See also: GTA usurps Ocarina of Time
