Chris

So the poofy gays then? The ones that act all effeminate and do weird hand gestures, speak in high pitched voices, and have an unhealthy obsession with the latest trends in fashion and what not? Yeah those are annoying. Also, I don't see why in America you're told to refer to blacks as African Americans, yes they may well be from Africa and are living in America, but where in that phrase is 'dark skinned' implied? What if a white man from South Africa went to live in America, would he then not be allowed to call himself African American because he doesn't have black skin? Racial politics in America needs to get it's act together and decide on a term that can refer to all black people, from Africa or the Caribbean, and without using the term 'American' in it. A similar thing happens in the UK where the term 'Asian' is used in such a broad sense that it no longer means someone from East Asia (China, Japan, Korea etc. and in general - people with slanted eyes). No. It now means people from Southern Asia, countries like India and Bangladesh. Not really a mistake I guess since technically the countries do lie in Asia. I think the problem is more that these terms are so vague and describe too specifically (African -American) or too broadly (Asian) a race. That said, I currently have no better suggestions...

lol. What sort of fucked up place uses terms like "beard" as an insult? And no one's used 'gay' to mean happy for about 60 years now. I like how on that website black people are predominantly featured. It's like they're almost tempting you to think racist comments to yourself while browsing. Tranny? No, it JUST means transexual or transvestite, who would use it to describe a wrecked car? Cougar? Yeah it's a cat... what else exactly can it be? Fag? Getting tired from hard work? Don't think so, the non-gay term would be British slang for a cigarette, surely that's much more modern and well-known usage, yes? Is this site basically just teaching kids obsolete terms for things? Half the words on there are only ever used as insults, the other half are never used as insults. Seems kinda pointless. And I just realised I typed out this whole reply based on the site Chris linked to, I didn't even watch the video you posted Anyway, as for the point of the topic, I shouldn't think that many gays get offended by it. I mean the negative association of the word is probably somewhat annoying, but it's been in common usage for such a long time now, probably got used to it. It's like how "queer" used to be an insult, but gays refer to themselves as that now. Similarly, "nigger" used to be an insult, but people with a dark skin tone descended from African countries and non necessarily living in America commonly refer to each other as "niggers".

No. Well, maybe. I doubt it anytime soon. Microsoft paid $50 million for this. They're gonna want their money's worth. If it does come to PC (more likely than PS3 due to it being Microsoft) or PS3 then it'll be a long time after it's been out on 360. Not to be a fanboy or anything because I'm actually getting a PS3 soon, but I would be gutted with this news if all I had was a PS3 for this game. When you put both episodes together, it's gonna be a hell of a lot of new content, and as Dan Houser states, "tons of details and mysteries from the main story get explained, so it will add a lot of color to the main story" - that bit interests me. I'm looking forward to this DLC now to see how it's gonna fit in. EDIT: Just to clarify my point. The term "exclusive" is bandied about a lot in the gaming industry and has a somewhat vague definition. Sometimes it's only exclusive for a limited period of time, which is what could be the case here, that's why I'm saying it could come to other systems. Exclusive doesn't necessarily mean forever.

An exclusive USA Today article has finally revealed some details about the upcoming downloadable content for the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV. The episode will be called "The Lost and Damned" and will be released (presumably worldwide) on 17th February 2009. You'll be playing as Johnny Klebitz, and if you recognise the name, it's probably because you do meet him in single player a couple of times during the game, after which he is never seen again. Sounds very interesting! The article goes on to say that in the original game, Niko did cross paths with The Lost several times, however in this, Niko only has a bit part. Dan Houser says: Remember this is just the first of two episodes which will reportedly add hours of gameplay time. As quoted above there's no price set yet, we'll update you when we get confirmation on that but it's likely not going to be known until much nearer release. But there is a quote from Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter which says he: Source: USA Today

So I take it most of us 360 users have downloaded the dashboard update now, what do you all think of it? Overall I think the new interface is a huge improvement. I never liked the old dashboard with the 'blades', always felt the information was too cluttered. I'm not sure the new interface actually makes finding stuff any easier, but it's certainly a lot nicer to look at. I also like how if you use a theme it integrates a lot better now. The background images sort of act as a wallpaper, and you get scenes from the game the theme is from as little background placements on your friends list. For example I'm currently using the Gears of War 2 theme and when browsing my friends there's a different cutout scene for each different game being played, like for instance a downed helicopter on one, a vehicle on another... It's a nice touch. As for the Mii Avatars, well, I never really thought they were needed, but I guess they're kinda cool. A decent amount of customisation is available, though there could be more clothing options (anyone know if there are ways to unlock more?). Again some nice little touches on that, offline friends will appear asleep, and friends playing the same game will appear to chat to each other on your friends list. What have you done with your avatar? Did you create a version of yourself, or something else? As for new features, haven't really used anything. Being able to create a party seems pretty useful. Some randomer invited me to join theirs but I declined since I have no clue who they are. But I can imagine in cases where I wanna play a game with the staff members here, it will be a lot easier to just get us all into a party beforehand, and we can talk there etc. Being able to burn games to the hard drive for faster and quieter play is also pretty decent, except not if you only have a 20GB drive :/ So yeah that's my little mini-review, I might have missed some more new stuff out but if I have that's simply because I don't know it's there... You see when I was browsing around I noticed that there is a version of Vigilante 8 in the Xbox Live Arcade. I almost came when I saw this, one of my favourite all time games for the PlayStation 1 !!! Had to download that of course, can't wait to play it. So yeah, discuss the update

For those of you who aren't familiar with the software powering our forums and many thousands across the Internet, Invision Power Board is that software and we're currently running the latest 2.3 version here at TGTAP. We've used IPB since it was on version 1.2, and it's evolved so much since then. IPB 3 is nearing the final stages of its development, currently in alpha stage. No downloads are available yet to license holders (I'll be able to get beta copies but not alphas), however they have opened up their Alpha preview board. You'll need an account on the official IPS website to login, but the register link is there and if you're interested now would be a nice early time to familiarise yourself with the new layout and features available. Basically I just made this post to make those of you who care aware of the new release, and just to say that TGTAP will upgrade as soon as possible when the final version is released. I WILL be hosting my own copy of the beta version when it's available, and I'll let you guys on there too so we can make sure there's no problems that will affect us, such as our modifications and things like that. Once we're all done testing we'll get these forums upgraded and hopefully have a new skin done for it. We may wait til we get a skin done before upgrading though, and basically revamp the entirety of TGTAP in time for new year, hopefully. That's my aim at least. IPB3 will have an absolute shitload of really useful new features, some VERY useful stuff for the staff, and a lot of stuff you simply will not care about but is good anyway. I realise there's probably not many of you who actually give a damn about new features, so instead I'll just provide a few links to the IPS blog to some interesting posts with details on them... built-in reputation system - myself and staff and some of you will test this and if we decide it works well we'll be using this built-in report system - useful for myself and the staff at least, and better for you guys for reporting inappropriate content conversations with multiple people through PM's IPB3 search engine optimisation IPB3 Misc. features So yeah, literally everything is going to be improved. We'll even be able to set signature limits, so no more oversized images in sigs bothering you until a moderator enforces it's removal and stuff like that! If you didn't read any of this, here's what's happening: Upgrading to IPB3 will make TGTAP forums an even more awesome place to be.

Roarsome, I guess. Posted in the news now, oh and also R* just launched the GTA IV PC section. Go check the news forum guys!

Rockstar have launched the PC section of the official GTA IV website. The screenshot gallery features two brand new ones which we've added to our gallery, click the thumbnails below for the full versions. The main bulk of the update is the announcement of R* Social Club TV. This is where all your video clip creations made using the video editor will be uploaded. The updated GTA IV website has a whole page detailing the features of the video editor, as well as 4 sample video clips and 9 screenshots of the editor's interface. So check out all the links in this post for all the information you need. Also, here are those two new screenshots.

Good news for gamers wanting to quickly acquire Grand Theft Auto IV legally over the Internet without the hassle of going to a store, the game is to be sold via Steam. The game's page on the Steam website gives the 'unlock date' as being the same as in store release dates, December 2nd and December 3rd for the US and Europe respectively. Additionally, eight new screenshots were added to the Steam website, we've uploaded these to our own GTA IV PC screenshot gallery, go there or click the thumbs below to see the full screenshots.

Probably because he's Croatian. No I used to play tennis. Haven't played for years though, don't have any friends who do which is a shame. It's such a well known sport which is really unpopular for some reason. I watch it on TV whenever I can except that's rare because they don't show it on any of the free TV channels in England, except when Wimbledon is on. Murray did awesome in the Shanghai Master's though, shame he lost to Davydenko. I'm glad Djokovic won though, by the sounds of it he deserved it. And he's a decent player anyway.

Spanish magazine Hispana has an array of new details regarding GTA Chinatown Wars. This is the same magazine that gave us details that the map would comprise of something similar to GTA IV - Dukes, Bohan, Broker, and Algonquin would be included, but Alderney would be left out. More details have arisen today following further translations of the magazine. On a related note that I forgot to mention in the GTA IV DLC delay news, Chinatown Wars has in fact been delayed as well and will not be out in time for Christmas. Instead, we can expect to see it released by the first half of the fiscal year, which ends in April. Our Chinatown Wars section is now open. You can now browse the latest news, features, screenshots and artwork. Source: Nintendo Everything Thanks Evo for the heads up.

Yeah I was about to say the grain kinda ruins it, which is why camera phones aren't the best for taking pictures like that. What's your username on flickr?

I would but mine always looks shit like some 16 yr old who's just started growing one

Grand Theft Auto IV has been nominated for eight, yes, 8, SPIKE TV Video Game Awards. Of the 25 categories, GTA IV has been nominated in the following: Game of the Year Best Performance By A Human Male (both Jason Zumwalt (Roman) and Michael Hollick (Niko) are nominees) Best PS3 Game Best Xbox 360 Game Best Soundtrack Best Action Adventure Game Big Name in The Game Male (Ricky Gervais) Studio of the Year (Rockstar North, for their work on Grand Theft Auto IV) The sixth annual Video Game Awards will be broadcast live on 14th December, Spike TV Sunday, at 9:00pm ET/PT from Sony Picture Studios in Culver City, CA. Link: Spike

Yeah I was just making a point about that screen res, didn't mean that many people used it. I use stats to decide what to develop for. Less than 3% of our visitors use a resolution that small, it's not worth us developing the website to work on such obsolete technology when so few people use it. 1024 is unfortunately still the most popular for some reason, so we're forced to keep the width small enough to fit on that resolution, hence why 1000px is chosen for the main website. The forum itself is 100% so it doesn't matter what screen width you're on, the banner will just look stretched is all. But if someone had an 800px wide sig, the entire page of forum posts where your sig appeared would be broken and difficult to read.

Well that wouldn't be very nice to the few people still stuck on 800x600 screens would it. And yes, file size is also an issue, as is aesthetics. It would look absolutely horrible. No need for a signature that wide.

It seems everyone missed a bit of news that broke last week regarding downloadable content for GTA IV on the Xbox 360. As you were probably aware, a tentative release date for the DLC was before the end of 2008. According to the Gamespot article that brought this up, Microsoft said last month that the content would be ready before December 31 - nothing like leaving things til the last minute, though I'm not sure they meant actually releasing it then. Rockstar's Creative VP Dan Houser recently gave an interview to Variety, and the following is an excerpt from that, regarding the downloadable content. Good to hear they're focused on quality, which is always the case with Rockstar. The main point of the interview is discussing GTA IV's release in Japan, if you're interested (and it is actually quite interesting reading about the challenges R* face when releasing the GTA games there) you can read it in full over at Variety.

In case you've missed any recent hands-on previews of Grand Theft Auto IV, you may like to check out Eurogamer's. There's no new information to be read but it goes in to detail about the video editing, filters and a couple of other new features. Worth the read if you've missed any of last week's previews.

I'll have two widths available. 1000 for those on 1024x768, and 1250, for those on 1280x1024 or higher, and all widescreen resolutions. Mine is 1650px wide and the 1250px one looks fine on it. Chances are if you're using anything higher you won't be browsing full screen because most sites would just look weird.

If you snoop around you might find it, but it looks pretty bad at the moment so I won't post it here, yet.

Read the topic before you reply, sir. I am making a new design.

Hey all, nice big discussion topic for you to have a nice talk in with all the cool kids around here (me, other staff ). Basically, TGTAP is growing a bit dated now - I want to improve it with a new design and some new features. I have some ideas on a few things, but need discussion from everyone to decide on what's best for the site. So there's a number of things I want to bring up and have everyone talk about. This all mainly concerns the website rather than the forums, the forums I'll come on to a little later. New design I'm aware some of you do like to current design we have, as was brought up when we originally talked about a redesign last year. This time though it's pretty much a given that we will change the design, perhaps not in a major way, but we want to at least make it look a little nicer and better presented. At the moment the website is fixed width at 1000px wide, so it fits nicely on all the most popular screen resolutions. One of the changes I was thinking of doing was making the width fluid - that means it'll stretch to fill the whole of your browser window - perhaps better for those who, like me, are using widescreen monitors, as has now become the norm in TV and laptops, and is slowly gaining popularity in desktop monitors too. The only problem with this is when we get to really wide resolutions. I'm browsing at 1680x1050 (not the highest res out there) and in a test design of TGTAP v4 I can see the content is look very minimal because there's just so much space to fill. Question is: Are you happy with TGTAP at a fixed width of 1000px, or would you like it to fill the whole screen? Or if remaining fixed width, would you like to be able to select what width you browsed at? 1024, 1280, 1400 etc. New features In some backend changes that don't concern you, we're moving all our content to our database. What this does it make it a lot easier for the site staff to manage the content, and makes it easier for us to provide additional features. One of those features we'll be adding to the bottom of our content pages is related forum topics. So for example when browsing the GTA4 vehicles page, at the bottom of it you'll see links to related forum topics, i.e. those matching the keyword of 'vehicle' or 'car' for example in the topic title. This should help drive a bit of traffic to the forums, as well as perhaps interest casual readers into becoming a member, making them more aware of the forums. Another new thing I'll be adding is a site-wide navbar, 'breadcrumbs' for those of you who know the term. The forum uses these when you're in a forum, or topic. Currently on the website, we only use this in the downloads database. For example if you were to browse GTAVC cars in our database, you'd see the breadcrumb above the table of results reads: > Downloads » GTA Vice City » Cars And each is a link to the specified section. This is done for ease of navigation around the site, and should a user go deep into the website there is a clear path of where exactly they are. Let's take the San Andreas feature of fitness as an example. The breadcrumb would read: > San Andreas » Features » Fitness I've already talked about user-selectable screen resolutions for the design, logged in users will also be able to select which style they see the whole site in. As you know we have a different colour scheme for each major GTA game since GTA III. You may prefer one of these to the default, and wish to see the entire site in it, rather than just the specific section. Guests browsing the site will see promotional imagery for our forums, so we'll hopefully improve activity here. Logged in users will see promotional imagery for other things. For example we may wish to highlight a really good forum topic, maybe a popular mod such as the ENBSeries graphical improvement mod for San Andreas... or perhaps a really useful content page we've recently put up on GTA5 the next GTA game, hypothetically of course. Forum Changes The staff and I will also be working on getting this place up to scratch. There's rules and guidelines and various other things that need updating. We'll possibly be taking on board a couple of new moderators for the influx of GTA IV PC users we'll be receiving next month, and we want to get those things sorted by then. In terms of things that you may or may not be interested in, the gang scene here. It's something we've kept while other sites have abolished, some leaving it to die at the bottom of their forum. Ours is sort of in between the two, we haven't got rid of it, but we haven't exactly done anything to keep it active and well used either. Now I stress this is something that will come after all of the above, and I'm not promising anything either. But depending on how things go and what people here want, a revitalisation of the gang scene may come. This would mean me improving our IPB modification itself, and others tidying up elsewhere. We'd of course need more gangs to be active and well-populated, rather than just the three big ones we have now. So this will take some time. I just thought I'd mention it here because it's relevant. Timeframe for all these changes? Hard to say really. Ideally, the new site design and all that would be done in time for TGTAP's 6th birthday on November 29th, but that's way too close, and I'm too busy with uni work and another major website in development which is being kept under wraps for that to actually happen. New Years Day is a tentative target I've set myself, which gives me the Christmas holiday to work solidly on things remaining to be done. Until then I can work on minor things. That date may well change though. I'll post any updates on progress here. I think that's all I have to say for now. Feel free to use this topic to comment on the above changes I've described. Or if you have ideas of your own, don't hesitate to post them here. I'll take everything into consideration.

About 6 minutes (PS2 version), I got bored after I learned to fly it

Rockstar Games yesterday confirmed the delay in releasing Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC. The important date for you to know is now 2nd December in the USA, and 3rd December in Europe. In other news, some people have been receiving their 100% Key to the City. the7th_number over at PlanetGTA got his, as did GuruAskew at GTAForums, you can see pictures in both their topics. Have you received your key? If you have, post over in our forums.

Go on the London Eye if there's weather is good, best way to see the city. I've been on it three times, first two weren't that good because it was cloudy and couldn't see that far. All the things TNF said are popular tourist attractions so you may as well see them. Enjoy your time there.