Rockstar has announced today that Grand Theft Auto’s DS debut, Chinatown Wars, will be released on March 17 and 20, 2009, in America and Europe respectively. Take-Two had previously hoped that the game would make it out by the end of this year (currently the official website still seems to be holding out for this), but the game has been delayed. The reason? To “provide a better launch and marketing window”, according to the publisher. Anyone looking forward to this? Can’t say I am, but with the prestige the series holds I’m sure fans (and DS gamers who want to kill stuff) won’t be dissapointed.

See the look on that kid’s face? It’s a look that says one of two things. “Man I really gotta go to the bathroom” is one of them. The other one is “Oooh I am stalking behind you and am going to knife you” during a COD4 match.

Unless you game with a mirror in front of your face, you probably aren’t familiar with what you look like when you’re playing something. “Immersion”, a new video gallery from The New York Times Magazine, does that for us, just with one key difference: it’s about kids.Photographer Robbie Cooper took a group of preteens (and maybe pre-pre teens), gave them games like GTA IV and COD4, and recorded their faces as they played.

The results are kind of eerie (watch how straight-faced one kid deadpans “how do you like bullets” as he scores a kill), alarming, and extremely fascinating.

Source: The New York Times

Earlier today, Rockstar confirmed that the much-talked-about downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto IV would be released on February 17, 2009, exclusively for the Xbox 360. The DLC will be titled ‘The Lost and Damned’, and it won’t star Niko Bellic. Details follow.

The DLC will feature a new character named Johnny Klebitz, a member of the gang you’ll likely recognize called ‘The Lost’. Rockstar’s vice president of creative development, Dan Houser, had the following to say:

“Johnny is a very different character than Niko, with a very different background. I can’t go into too much detail on the story, because we try not to give away too much plot before the game is released. But I can say that the story will show you a different side of Liberty City.”

“The story is not directly impacted by decisions you took in the main game, but tons of details and mysteries from the main story get explained, so it will add a lot of color to the main story. We feel like we’ve only scratched the surface in terms of the depth and detail.”

As previously stated, the DLC is expected to hit Live on February 17th of next year. Analysts predict it will end up in the $15-$20 price range. I personally predict that I won’t buy it.

Source: USA Today

A Canadian woman has praised Grand Theft Auto for giving her daughter the presence of mind to rescue the entire family after their car crashed.

Eleven year old Audrey Plique led her dazed parents and two siblings from the wreckage after it rolled over.

“She just knew, from playing Grand Theft Auto,” said mother Karen Norris. “She saw on there that when a car rolls over, it can blow up. She knew that could happen to us.”

So GTA might just be recognized for doing some good in the world. It sounds like a great feel-good story–- but it’s a double-edged sword.

We suspect that the kid learned to not leave people in peril from TV, or even from her own common sense. Also, if you take this story at face value, GTA is responsible for changing the behaviour of an impressionable person.

This is the exact assumption made by people who take any “GTA made me do it” crime story as gospel, and there are far more of those stories out there. Hold this up as a banner reinforcing the good of games all you want, but ultimately it’s reinforcing the negative.

Source: The Times of Ottawa

Milton, Ga. – Three teenagers arrested in connection to a string of car bombings professed to have learned to make Molotov cocktails playing Grand Theft Auto.

The teens, one 15-year-old and two 16-year-olds are to be charged with 57 felony counts that include possession of an explosive device, arson, and criminal damage to property.

Video surveillance shows the teenagers buying the materials for the Molotov cocktails which consisted of glass soda bottles, Coleman lantern fuel and some rags. A video that later led to their identification by high-school police officers.

After their apprehension by the Milton Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, the teenagers told authorities that they learned “how to do it” by playing Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto.

Police Chief Chris Lagerbloom told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the teens committed the crimes for fun. “They did it for the entertainment value,” he said.

Due to the nature of the crimes the teens would face federal prosecution – however, their age prevents them from being tried in federal court. None of the teens have any records of prior arrests before the fire bombings.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Milton Police Department classified GTA as ‘a computer game series that has been blamed for inciting juvenile crime sprees in the United States and globally, including murder and carjacking.’

“This case is another strong example of the serious ramifications that can come from letting impressionable teens play violent video games like this one,” Lagerbloom said to Doug Nurse of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We urge parents to pay particular attention to their children’s extracurricular activities and to intervene before it’s too late.”

Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Here we go again. An 18 year old in Thailand confessed to the robbery and murder of a 54 year old taxi cab driver, claiming he was trying to recreate a scene from the Grand Theft Auto video game.

Distributors of the game in Thailand are now being instructed to remove the game from their shelves indefinitely it would seem. Sales and Marketing Director for New Era Interactive Media, Sakchai Chotikachinda, was quoted saying:

“We are sending out requests today to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games … We are also urging video game arcades to pull the games from service …”

Police explained that the teen exhibited no signs of mental illness and openly took admitted to the crime citing the game as his motive. According to authorities, the boy stated that:

“He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game …”

He then added that it was not his intent to kill the man however he proceeded to do so once he started to fight back. Currently detained until his trial, if found guilty, the teenager faces death by lethal injection.

A Thailand Culture Ministry senior official stated that this latest act of violence should serve as a “wake-up-call”, urging that authorities crack down on video game violence.

Personally, I think that when the time comes, whoever injects him should whisper in his ear right before doing so — saying something like “I saw this in a movie once and I’ve been dying to try it out!”

Afterthought: What do you think? Is this just another case of a deranged teenager, or are games like GTA to blame?

Source: news.yahoo.com

I think that a LEGO GTA game would actually be pretty awesome. Think about it.

Source: WeGame

“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

An exciting announcement for hardcore DS owners has been made at Nintendo’s E3 Conference, which you can experience via our live blogging. Grand Theft Auto is on its way to the handheld.

Here’s how Andrew described the news live from the conference:

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars comes to DS this winter!! Custom game engine, new characters, and the same hooker-killing gameplay we’ve come to expect.

Well the Nintendo DS glory never end?

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.

Some people by the names of Mentok/Burnt Toastt and Ultimate Chance/chance reborn (don’t ask ’cause I don’t know) used the in-game multiplayer to record the video while overdubbing the original movie audio.  The result is akin to any other machinima, really.  That’s why there’s a word for this type of thing.  So anyways, here it is:

Update to source: We have been contacted by the original creators of the video, who explained that Joblo lifted the piece from their YouTube page, and then watermarked it as their own. Apparently Joblo’s media player isn’t the only thing that blows. To rectify the situation, we have decided to link to the original YouTube video instead.

Source:UltimateChance (via: JoBlo.com)

Australian graphic artist Patrick Brown has created some truly awesome Grand Theft Auto-inspired fan art. Check out the gallery for the GTA goodness, as well as some other videogame/comic book/movie-related masterpieces.

Patrick’s work is currently posted on his deviantART page, aptly named “Grand Theft Awesome.”  No, I wasn’t the innovative one that thought up the creative title — it was all him and I totally ripped it off.  He has a lot of stuff in his gallery that we didn’t post here, so show the man some love and check it out.

Grand Theft Awesome

16 Photos

 

After a lengthy and arguably frivolous lawsuit over the Hot Coffee mod in GTA:San Andreas, less than $30,000 will be paid out to offended consumers. Lawyers express their “surprise” but still want their $1.3 million in fees.

If you bought GTA:SA and found the idea of an unlockable (without direct modification) sex mini-game to be offensive, you are an idiot entitled to a whopping $5 to $35 in compensation. This is thanks to 11 law firms who brought the action against Take Two.

After losing the case, Take Two have been left with a hefty bill for $1.3 million in legal costs. The “surprising” aspect of all this however is, shock of all shocks, nobody really cares about Hot Coffee. Only 2,676 people have filed claims, racking up a total cost of less than $30,000 according to Take Two.

Theodore Frank, director of the Legal Center for the Public Interest has said in response to the lawsuit that;

“There are two possibilities, possibility one is they have a meritorious lawsuit and they’re selling out the class for attorneys’ fees. The other possibility is that, and frankly I think this is the more likely possibility, they brought a meritless lawsuit that had no business being brought to court at all.”

The lawyers who are demanding money have said that Mr. Frank could have no impact on the case because he said he was not offended but the sex scene.

Seth Lesser, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the New York Times “Am I disappointed? Sure, we can’t guess as to why now, several years later, people care or don’t care. The merits of the case were clear.”

You may not be able to guess, but I can. I think most people don’t care because the individuals who actively hacked the game to unlock the mini-game are not likely to be worried or surprised by what they find. Those individuals who did not hack the game can’t access the offending article and so have nothing to worry about.

Via: GamesIndustry.biz

A few days ago, Take-Two announced that the first episode of the Xbox 360 exclusive DLC for GTA 4 was going to be delayed until next year. The following day, a Microsoft spokesman said it was still on track for a Fall 2008 release.

So who is right? Well, oddly enough they are probably both right. When Take-Two announced the delay, they said it was being pushed back into the company’s 2009 fiscal year, which technically starts on November 1st of this year.

Microsoft say that it’s coming out in Fall, which doesn’t finish until December 20th. So there is technically an overlap.

It’s a good job Ripten are here to clear things up. Expect GTA’s first episode to come out around late November.

The original Mafia game was a bit overlooked in the wake of GTA3 and its ilk, but I thought the old-timey setting, vintage cars and weapons, and Scorcese-like story were pretty awesome. Now, long overdue, comes the sequel.

These screens are jaw-dropping. Of course, I bet if GTA4 was rendered on a high-end PC, it’d look pretty stunning as well, but I am holding out hope that this serious open world crime game will live up to my fond memories of the original.

In the original Mafia, you could drive outside of the city limits and into the countryside for spectcular shoot-outs, and this was ages before San Andreas. One mission had you speeding through abandoned city streets at night in an ancient Formula 1 racing car, just so you could sabotage it for a race the next day. Even the ending stayed with me for a long time, because of its last, great twist. Enjoy these screens of Mafia 2.

You may or may not recall a little debacle about the “Hot Coffee” mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It was a cute little mini-game that allowed virtual you to have virtual sex with your virtual girlfriend. Even though the content was locked away because of the ESRB, it was still on the retail disc.

This was somehow offensive to people, and Rockstar was sued. Now that the lawsuit is settled, all the hypocritical pussies out there can get their slice of the censorship pie with a cash settlement of up to $35. Sweet justice!

I just recently found out about the settlement through a legal notice in the March issue of OXM. It basically states that if you purchased GTA: San Andreas before July 20, 2005, you most likely have a “first edition” disc that has the “Hot Coffee” content on it. If so, you can get in on the class action settlement, with differing amounts of cash depending on your “proof of offense”.

The basic rundown is like so:

I have some major issues with this. First of all, who has kept a receipt for a game they bought in 2005? Basically, nobody is “entitled” to the max amount of “up to $35″. Secondly, just claiming you bought the game is worth up to $5. This whole thing seems like a ploy to get people to jump on the “videogames are bad” bandwagon. Third, these numbers represent the maximum you could receive. The actual amount will be prorated based on the number of people who file a claim.

So the people that were actually “offended” can get a replacement disc, given they still have the game. This I can understand, but at the same time, anyone interested in GTA in the first place should be able to handle some virtual sex (especially when it’s not even in the game unless you want it to be) to offset all the killing. By contrast, the lawyers, who were personally not affected by the game, have claimed a million-dollar fee. Seems a little backwards, doesn’t it?

On top of all that, why would they advertise this in a gaming magazine? I mean, obviously there’s a good chance that the people who played San Andreas are, you know, gamers. They obviously would read about games — that makes sense. The type of people that are that into games that they actually get magazines about them, however, are also the type of people that would see this settlement notice and flip off that page of their magazine.

This brings me to the thing that really fills me with homicidal rage — “Hot Coffee” is a mod. It it completely inaccessible unless you purposely want to see it. On top of that, you can’t see it on the PS2 or Xbox unless you mod your console, WHICH IS ILLEGAL YOU FUCKING IDIOTS! People need to go out of their way to install a mod chip, breaking the law, in order to view this content. Even the PC version required you to violate the software agreement.

This is basically the equivalent of buying a Mustang, pulling out the speed limiter (which is illegal), and then suing Ford because driving really fast was so scary. They had the tools in place to block that, and you purposely circumvented that in order to do whatever you wanted. How exactly was this their fault? Next thing you know there will be a class action lawsuit against Hotmail for allowing porn in my mailbox. The horror!

The bottom line is that we live in a fucked-up country where it is okay to kill people, but not to have sex with them. Blame those Puritan assholes and their crazy feelings for turkey. The U.S. needs to take a cue from Europe and put some more boobies on television. Make love, not war, right?

Anyways, if you are interested in this waste of carbon or want something to shake your fist at, visit the settlement website at www.gtasettlement.com. Part of your legal rights is the ability to say you are not happy with the settlement, in which case you can write to the court with your complaints or comments. An address for said court is conveniently not given.

Rockstar’s golden hooker, Grand Theft Auto, was supposed to return last October in the much anticipated fourth installment… wait, sixth installment? Eighth? Okay, let’s just say Grand Theft Auto IV and move on.

October came and went, and obviously the game was not released — if it were, you’d be playing it right now instead of just reading about it. All that’s about to change very soon.

Take Two, publisher of the game, has GTA4 nestled firmly in their second quarter release calendar, which runs from February to April. Rockstar Games Vice President of Product Development, Jeronimo Barrera, confirmed that it’s still on track to meet that goal.

As far as the progress of the game goes, Rockstar seems to have addressed most of the things GTA fans have bitched about, such as having to drive all the way back to the starting point if you fail a mission, just to re-initialize it — now it’s a quick button press. Mission repeats will also have some varied dialog so “players won’t get bored”.

Your wanted level is now only affected if your crimes are actually witnessed by the police. Once the fuzz shows up, the mini-map flashes to indicate your danger zone. While you’re in the zone, the police will continue to give chase, so the goal is to escape and hide. Fighting back or causing any other kind of mayhem while in the zone will increase the radius and just make it that much more difficult to shake them.

Cars now have GPS systems in them to help guide you to your destination. The route will be drawn out on your mini-map, and expensive cars will even have talking GPS systems. Additionally, random events will occur while driving, such as barrels falling off of a truck, bums lying in the road, or other car chases completely unrelated to you or your actions.

Finally, probably the biggest gripe about the GTA series, is the targeting system. This has been completely overhauled and is now quite similar to The Godfather. Pulling the left trigger aims down the sights of your weapon and allows free-aiming. Holding the left trigger while aiming at an enemy locks onto that target. Once locked, you can move the right analog stick up or down to target the head or legs, respectively, and flicking the stick left or right changes targets altogether.

All of this works in tandem with the cover system, which is very much like that in Gears of War. Run into a wall or obstacle, hit the cover button, and you’re stuck to it. You can then peer out and aim with left trigger, or you can blind-fire.

Basically, Rockstar implemented all of the good things about Saints Row, added the targeting of The Godfather, and sprinkled with a pinch of Gears of War. Even if this wasn’t the next Grand Theft Auto game, I’d still say that’s a recipe for a delicious “I-will-buy-this-game” sandwich.

MTV News had a 90-minute exclusive preview of the game and claims it’s looking great. The build was running on an Xbox 360 development kit, and “appears to be shining with polish” — they see no reason why it wouldn’t make the target window of February – April. You can read MTV News’ full impressions here.

Update: Take Two just announced that the official release date for GTA4 is April 29, 2008. Sam Houser, Founder and Executive Producer of Rockstar Games, had this to say:

We’ve pushed ourselves very hard to make something incredible and hope the game sets a new benchmark for interactive entertainment.

I’m sure your game will do just fine, Sam.