At ComicCon ’08 GameTrailers had the opportunity to catch up with the voice behind Niko Bellic, Michael Hollick. Geoff Keighly prefaced one of his questions by stating that Rockstar has been very tight-lipped about the upcoming DLC, adding that no one knows what to expect. Michael responded by saying “neither do I.” 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…

Rockstar’s Sam Houser counts it an honor to be hated.

In an interview with Develop’s Michael French, Houser opens up and discusses the criticism of Grand Theft Auto and the company in general.

How much of what gets written about Rockstar in the likes of the tabloid press do you read?

I think we probably read most of it – if you turn on a computer this stuff reaches you, usually forwarded by an old friend laughing at you.

Read more…

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. Read more…

Jesus takes time to teach a child about the PS3 rumble feature

Jesus wept.

The Christian Examiner Online has weighed in with a lengthy dissertation on videogames in general and – gasp! – Grand Theft Auto in particular, outlining the evils involved in the medium and their contribution to the social decay afflicting the United States, not the world.

“The game delivers the kinds of thrills teenage boys love, with plenty of high-speed chase scenes, noisy shoot-’em-ups and risqué sexuality,” writes Steve Rabey. “But questions about the game’s violence and the ability of some gamers to unlock explicit sex scenes in an earlier version of the game have led to complaints and a class action lawsuit against “GT4’s” manufacturer, Rockstar Games.”

Posted through the “Christian Newswire,” the article is being touted as an “in-depth report on the impact of video games on families and the culture.” However, there are no quotes or statements from any learned scholars on the topic of videogame violence, nor scientific data regarding their claims to addiction, violent behavior, or anti-social tendencies. Read more…

Grand Theft Auto IV is coming to PC, Take-Two Interactive confirmed today. GTA IV will be arriving on the PC on November 18th in North America, and on the 21st in Europe.

The announcement isn’t much of a surprise, as we posted earlier.

Hit up rockstargames.com/IV for more info.

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: 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

This story seems highly unlikely but worth knowing nonetheless. Two jokers emailed Rockstar technical support to tell them they were having trouble with the non-existent PC version of GTA IV. Support man emails back and tells that can’t possibly be right, because GTA IV for PC is still in development. What a helpful chap. Read more…

Liberty City continues to be a unique setting in the world of games—a foul-mouthed, violent, and consistently cruel parody of American city life. In the latest iteration of Grand Theft Auto, we also learn that Liberty City’s geographic location is right in the middle of the Uncanny Valley. Read more…

It seems that Australia is all up in arms as of late over video game ratings and Rockstar has taken this as a reason to cut some mature material from the latest Grand Theft Auto title. Read more…

Bully: Scholarship Edition hits shelves in the US today (it’s out 7 March in the UK) on 360 and Wii, and (who would have thought?) someone’s pissed about it. 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…

In a recent podcast featuring Major Nelson (Director of Programming for Xbox Live) and Don Mattrick (Microsofts external adviser), the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV release was brought up and possibly revealed a bit of information that may leave Playstation 3 owners in a fit of rage. Read more…

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! Read more…

One of the biggest players when it comes to videogame marketing launched a very simple yet effective flash website today to promote (like it needs promoting) their upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV release. Read more…

With the announcement earlier this week of a release date for GTA IV, the always accurate Miami lawyer Jack Thompson has begun his annual attempt to save the young and the innocent from the murder inducing evil that is video games. 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…

Rockstar’s battle to get Manhunt 2 released in the UK has taken another turn, effectively resulting in the game being banned once more. Read more…

Niko’s aiming for Spring — brown is supposed to be in this season.

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. Read more…