Chris

IGN have just posted a huge article on their site, consisting of 11 lengthy pages. The interview with Dan Houser and Rockstar North Art Director Aaron Garbut is "an in-depth look at the story, the creation of Niko, and the monumental task of creating the most realistic city ever seen in a videogame". The article is so big in fact that this is only the first half (we'll see the next piece on Monday). This part of the interview covers: It doesn't appear that there's any new information covered, but it's interesting to hear directly from the developers, and it gives a good insight into how things are done. Link: GTA IV: Building a Brave New World

I just updated our trailers page with that information, it's a remix of "Real McKoy" by Mavado.

Good suggestion. The reason why it's not as simple as that is because we use the image viewer for all kinds of images, many of which aren't actually in a database and therefore there isn't necessarily a 'next' or a 'previous' image. However, it is possible for screenshots, so I'll think about implementing it some time, and post an update here if I do.

Dude that is awesome, it really is. Great work! I'd love to see the GoW2 skin, post that in our gaming forum here when it's done.

Rockstar have sent us some high quality digital screenshots, which look a lot better than the poor quality screengrabs we got ourselves. These screens were featured in the very quick montage at the end of trailer 4. See all 10 in our GTA IV screenshot gallery. On a sidenote, I never posted when I added my trailer 4 screengrabs to the website, you can now see all 70 of those from the final trailer on our GTA IV screengrabs page. Additionally, we've recently updated our GTA IV multiplayer page, and have added a page ready for listing the Xbox 360 achievements for the game - we imagine these will be revealed to us in the coming weeks, along with more information on the other multiplayer modes. Stay tuned!

I actually quite like that. Although if the grunge effect wasn't so heavy it would probably be better, and as Gerard said I think some of the stuff should be left in colour, I'm not keen on having a B&W or Sepia banner to be honest. The main reason I haven't been replying to everyone is that I'm still trying to decide on possibly having a completely new layout to the website, which would mean we wouldn't need you guys redesigning our banners. Having said that, it's likely the forums will stay as they are for a lot longer than the site, so the banners you've all made could easily be put on the forums if not the main site. If anybody noticed the banner change on the GTA IV pages it's just temporary until I can decide on new layouts and such... figured it was better than using a faux silhouetted skyline.

Thanks Charger, the article is very interesting and I've posted as news. My news post quotes the article's main points and if you read it you'll realise these are rare songs you're probably not going to find on BitTorrent or anything - and you know they never release the entire soundtrack, there's always been songs left off, so even if you buy that, good luck finding anything you want.

Yahoo has a new article up providing some additional details on Rockstar's Social Club that was revealed earlier today. Registering on the site will give you access to a service whereby you can download songs you hear in-game using Niko's cell phone. Yahoo's description of it: Many of you may be thinking something along the lines of "well this is stupid, I'll just download the songs I want from iTunes or BitTorrent" - well, you will be hard pushed to actually find what you're looking for... So it's actually a pretty good deal, provided you live in America - you're getting DRM free songs, legally, for less than a dollar a piece - the fact it's all integrated into the game itself is excellent. Thanks to Charger for this interesting piece.

Because we already have the main topic in the news forums, whats the point of posting all this in here as well? Just post comments on the news item, more people will see it there anyway.

Rockstar have just released the final trailer "Good Lord, What Are You Doing?" aka "Everyone's A Rat" on the official website. Check it out and let us know what you think of it. If you're having trouble getting on the official site then be patient as we'll have some alternate links up shortly. I've embedded the video below so you don't have to leave the site. The trailer is also now available on both the Xbox Live Marketplace, and the PlayStation Network. In addition to this, a number of fansites were sent an exclusive screenshot by Rockstar, here's the one TheGTAPlace have been sent: Thanks Rockstar!

Misho pointed out that we could just compare 360 and PS3 players, we'll be in different charts but we'll still be able to manually compare stats with each other.

Yes we should have internal competitions of our own to see who the best TGTAP members are, Misho and I have been talking about this and we'll probably do staff matches too. Either way this has so much potential and the amount of shit we can get up to that relates to the social club is immense. I can see GTA IV being a game that we play for years and activity won't drop as much as it does on other games, there's just so much to do. @ The Dealer: Yeah but as long as you do it in a fun way it can be great.

Holy shit! This is just awesome! No seriously, this adds so much to replayability, competitiveness and whatnot will get everyone wanting to be at the top of the leaderboards, then we'll see who the best GTA players really are.

Yeah I don't think any games have voice recognition software built into them!

Our countdown (and GTANet's) counts to midnight of April 29th

Rockstar Games have just sent us 3 unwatermarked versions of screenshots we saw in the last few weeks from EvilAvatar and MTV. Our gallery has been updated. Thanks R*!

Ha. Seriously though did you really expect any other kinds of responses here?

We were in Daylight Savings back then hence the one hour later.

If you're GMT+10 then it will be at 8AM in the morning. Thinking about it, one of the trailers was at 12PM EST which was 5PM GMT... while the one before it was 5PM EST which was 10PM GMT. I'm getting confused now but 10PM GMT sounds about right.

Hmm, then it goes on to say on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The previous trailers were all released around 5/6pm and then on to the marketplace later that night.

Most people will tell you to get the 360 version if you want the full experience, because of the two DLC packs, so I too would recommend that version - and it's the only reason why, otherwise they're identical - if you don't care about DLC, then get the console you'll purchase more games for. Everyone who opts to wait for the PC version is going to be waiting a VERY long time considering it's not even been announced yet.

Probably 5PM.

Slayer and Jake answered your question, you can report your own topic if it needs mod attention. Also, this is in the wrong section itself. Moved.

US publication Official Xbox Magazine has a new GTA IV multiplayer preview in its latest issue. The preview shows two new pieces of artwork, and 8 new screenshots. Not much of the information inside is new but here's some points worth mentioning: Jeronimo Barrera, a senior developer at Rockstar, says it takes testers playing 4 hours a day "a good 2 weeks to get through the whole single-player game." Rockstar's Steve Hahnel says the ambition of GTA IV is the reason the game was delayed. Multiplayer was one of the main reasons for the delay, with network code and components needing to be written and maintained etc. Gameplay needed to be balanced, and "an authentic Liberty City had to be created for 16 players to explore and destroy simultaneously." In multiplayer the host also gets to configure options such as the weather, vehicles, spawn locations, friendly fire, and even decide if auto-aim can be used. Voice chat options can also be tweaked, the options are: Everyone hears you. Only players on the same team hear each other. Proximity chat (only players close by can hear you). [*] Health, armour and monetary pick-ups are available during multiplayer. The cash determines your online rank - from 0 to 10. Killing people and stealing their money boosts your online credibility. [*] You can use the entirety of Liberty City during multiplayer, but if you die you will respawn in the area that the host has set. [*] You can apparently skim rockets across the ground if aimed correctly. [*] Shooting and driving simultaneously is allegedly quite difficult. Source: Mongoose 360 at GTAForums.

Don't forget guys, the higher your post count the bigger your penis!