I have been a big fan of NaturalMotion and their animation technology ever since rumor’s surfaced about the company’s possible involvement with 2K Sports on their All Pro Football title. Those rumors proved to be untrue, but Natrual Motion’s products have since been used in many well known games such as Star Wars: Force Unleashed and Grand Theft Auto IV.

The latest version of their Morpheme platform, to be shown at the NVISION 08 convention in San Jose, boasts several enhancements that should prove beneficial to animators.

In addition to Morpheme, the puffy blue football tackle animations we once assumed were part of a top secret Madden or All Pro Football integration, proved to be early footage of NaturalMotion’s own American Football game titled “BackBreaker”.

I had a chance to talk with NaturalMotion representatives briefly regarding the game at GDC a few months ago, but to the best of my knowledge, NVISION 08 (taking place between August 25-27) will mark the first time the game will be shown in public.

The full press release is available after the jump. Read more…

On October 30, 2008, the land of the rising sun will be treated to a fictional Bosnian with a blazing gun. In other words, the localized version of Rockstar’s GTA 4 will be released in Japan just before Halloween, or as the Japanese call it, “Bad American Cosplay Day”.

Full press release after the jump. Read more…

Conservative Michael Medved, best known for his movie reviews and appearances on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, launched a scathing attack on Grand Theft Auto IV on Townhall.com.

“The fact that so many middle income homes managed to find the money to buy the game (having already purchased the expensive hardware to drive it) indicates that the middle class is in no imminent danger of disappearance,” Medved wrote. “But the decision by so many consumers of every age and income group to invest countless hours of time in the dark world of Grand Theft Auto IV nonetheless demonstrates a threat to American values.”

Medved continues to relate the game to the decline of western civilization on GTA IV specifically, if not in general.

Townhall.com is the same conservative site that hosted Kevin McCullough’s similarly misinformed and poorly executed opinion on Mass Effect which garnered the attention of FOX News.

Let the rolling of the eyes begin.

Medved comes a tad late to the GTA IV auto de fe as the title has already been lambasted by the usual suspects. However, Medved’s insinuations border on the hallucinatory as he accuses GTA of America’s moral decline. In that vein GTA is also responsible for the African AIDS pandemic, global warming and the shrinking of the polar ice-caps, and political repression in China.

I can’t help but wonder where is vaunted conservatism was when he was staring at my girlfriend’s chest at the Seattle preview of Spider Man in 2002.

Source: Townhall.com

Remember the end of Reservoir Dogs when everyone is suspicious of the next guy and they all shoot each other?  Remember the scene in American History X where Edward Norton caps a bunch of dudes with his nazi wrath?  Wouldn’t it be neat to see those scenes remade in Grand Theft Auto 4?  Well, it doesn’t matter what you think because it’s been done anyways. Read more…

Another batch of idiots have broken the law and pinned videogames as their reason behind it. Awesome. Hit the jump to read all about it. Read more…

So the May NPD data is out and there are few surprises. The Nintendo Wii remains king of the consoles and Grand Theft Auto IV continues to dominate the software charts. Hit the jump for a more in depth look at the numbers. Read more…

As millions of gamers worldwide have already discovered, Grand Theft Auto IV is an alright game. That being said, hit the jump to read my thoughts on the subject. Read more…

What’s the name of this song? I like it.

Rockstar and Amazon.com have joined forces to let you buy songs from Grand Theft Auto IV through a unique in-game system. Hit the jump to read exactly how. Read more…

Best to phone home, people might start to get worried

The much hyped and highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV will take the player around 100 hours to complete, excluding the Xbox 360’s exclusive content, according to the games developer Rockstar.
Read more…

At this year’s Game Developers Conference, Microsoft has stated that GTA IV’s upcoming Xbox-exclusive downloadable content is scheduled to hit in fall of this year. Read more…

According to DarkZero, “various sources across the internet” are revealing what may be the 16 songs on the Grand Theft Auto IV soundtrack. Keep in mind that Rockstar hasn’t actually confirmed any of these songs, so it could all be bogus. Read more…

NaturalMotion, the animation developers behind the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV and Star Wars: Force Unleashed titles, will be giving a demonstrate the latest morpheme (advanced animation engine and powerful graphical authoring tool-chain) features at this years GDC. Read more…

Three new screenshots of Grand Theft Auto IV have surfaced thanks to Best Buy. Read more…

Can you tell the 360 and PS3 versions of GTAIV apart?

You may recall Jeronimo Barrera, Vice President of Product Development at Rockstar, saying:

“It’s really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to [the delay].”

Although, with the extra development time granted between the October 2007 release date and the recently announced April 29th, 2008 ship date, it appears that they have really pulled it together, and now go as far as to say that both versions are identical (sans the 360 exclusive DLC). Read more…

Have you had enough of First Person Shooters? It was such a dominant genre this year that it seemed to define what it meant to be “next-gen.” We’re not quite out of the woods yet, but 2008 promises to bring us a more diverse line-up. What games or concepts will characterize the industry as we move into the second generation proper? Read more…

You’ve been waiting all week for it, now you’ve got it. Here’s your first look at the brand new 2-minute trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV. Click through for the video. Read more…

Grand Theft Auto IV delay has everyone pointing fingers

The delay of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV video game for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 has fans and fanboys everywhere in an uproar. You can’t browse a video game website without running into something related to the delay. Whether it has to do with rumors of a refund regarding the exclusive downloadable content deal (which cost Microsoft 50 million) or as we are about to discuss, the many finger pointing articles being published across the web. Read more…

We have all come to love the quirky SNL like in-game Grand Theft Auto radio commercials over the years. Below is a list of a few that will be broadcasted over the virtual air waves in this year’s release of GTA 4. Check em’ out. Read more…

Hmm. Maybe someone should have clicked “learn about bidding” first.

According to an earnings call transcript with Take 2’s CFO Lainie Goldstein, Microsoft has spent a total of 50 million dollars acquiring downloadable content for the upcoming GTA IV title. Read more…

Here are four new Grand Theft Auto IV images from Rockstar Games. We are going to let them speak for themselves. Let us know what you think. Read more…