Chris

The official Grand Theft Auto website has received a revamp this weekend. Check out the slick new look, GrandTheftAuto.com.

Traditionally, Rockstar have always ran a contest leading up to the release of a Grand Theft Auto game, and this year is no different. R* just launched a new contest giving you the chance to win one of fifty limited edition Liberty City Swingers t-shirts! As usual, the contest is unfortunately open to US residents only. So, if you live in the USA then check out the Liberty Swingers contest, good luck!

I dunno, it's more realistic. Not sure if it's any better or worse for gameplay. We'll see soon enough. I totally agree. I guess the "Vanilla Ice's" of the community thought it would be 'dope' ... or whatever...

UK magazine Games Master has a new preview of GTA IV in their latest issue, in it is a fair bit of new information, summarised below: Cars no longer explode when flipped over. Grenades can be thrown from cars. You can push pedestrians out of the way using the B button on the Xbox 360 (presumably Circle on the PS3). Police AI has been improved and they won't shoot unless you've committed a serious offence, running from them will cause them to open fire. Different melee attacks can be preformed by holding down the right trigger and pressing Y, X or B. The cover system is similar to that in Gears of War, you can also blind fire. You'll notice characters breathing when it's cold. Some of the gangs in Liberty City are the Mafia, Jamaicans, Triads and Irish. Some in-game bridges have tolls. Spinners (on wheels) have been implemented due to the community's requests. Niko has an e-mail account and also uses RSS feeds. These can be accessed at any TW@ Internet café Radio stations will often report on events you've caused (e.g. completing missions, killing mob bosses) After running over a pedestrian blood spatter appears on the bumper and windshield of the car. Thanks to cmacca4 for the scans.

Did you visit the site in the last few days? If so you've probably still got files from the old site in your cache. Try clearing it or using another browser.

Even if it's not of any significance it's interesting nonetheless, It'd be cool to see some VC characters cameoing in the game. Personally, I feel that GTA V should be set in a completely new city. As much as I love the ones already used in the current games, something brand new would be awesome.

Yeah it's still doing that when I use Firefox. Try using a shittier browser such as IE7, unfortunately I just had to use it to get all the screens saved.

The official GTA IV website has now fully launched and features new screenshots and videos of the game. It takes the style of a tourist guide and also includes a map of Liberty City. I have uploaded all 25 new screenshots to the website, you can view them all in our screenshot gallery.

They mean the fully interactive flash website. Rather than just having a black page with some screens and trailer links on it. Strange they seem to be doing this quietly. I wonder what the plan is.

According to Rockstar Games' RSS feed, the official website for Grand Theft Auto IV is launching tomorrow (Friday 8th). Strangely there's no story attached to the headline, but presumably this will give us a nice collection of new media, including screenshots, possibly a new trailer, and more... If we get more info on this, such as a launch time or any other details, we'll keep you updated.

German gaming magazine Computerbild-Spiele has a new 5 page preview of GTA IV, which includes 11 new gameplay screenshots and a new artwork. It's a hands-on preview so the journalists could do what they want rather than having a R* rep demonstrating. Below is a short summary of the new information contained in the magazine: The game is set in 2008 It seems that Niko always wears a helmet when riding a motorcycle When getting in a car, you now press two buttons to begin driving - one to get in, and one to start the engine In some cars you'll find useful items, such as money or a weapon. You can still get "wasted" and just like old time you'll respawn at the nearest hospital, minus your weapons and a little cash Bullet holes in vehicles and buildings won't disappear immediately Thanks to Freezer89 for the information and scans @ GTAForums

The 70's, and yeah and it has absolutely nothing to do with the games, obviously, as it's so old. Plus it's a crime comedy. Why on earth do you own it on DVD when it's so bad?

The webmasters would all play mob bosses.

Lol this was one of the San Andreas teaser sites... So you're slightly late. Well, almost 4 years anyway They're all listed here: http://www.thegtaplace.com/links.php

Another new screenshot has appeared online today, thanks to Yahoo and the Associated Press. Unfortunately, as with the previous screen we don't have a high resolution image at the moment, so for now this low quality image will have to do. As you can see, the screenshot shows us the interior of a cop car. Source: Yahoo

Rockstar Games have released a brand new screenshot exclusive to fansites. Check it out below.

The Associated Press were recently given a preview of GTA IV from Dan Houser, and were also given some new screenshots. One of which has appeared online today courtesy of Yahoo. Unfortunately it's very low resolution, but hopefully we'll have a higher resolution version soon, as well as other low-res screenshots we've recently posted. See more GTA IV screenshots in our gallery.

The latest issue of the US version of Official Xbox Magazine has a new GTA IV screenshot we haven't seen before. It depicts Niko getting arrested by two cops, very similar to how CJ was arrested by Pulaski and Hernandez in San Andreas. We'll hopefully have a hi-res digital version of the screen soon. See the image, found by Freedom360, over at GTAForums

Dan Houser, the vice president of Rockstar Games recently gave a 90 minute preview to the Associated Press (AP) which bore just a few new snippets of information. The Boston Herald published an article yesterday which gives a couple of noteworthy points. The only new bit of information given is the fact there will be over 100 fictitious in-game websites to access from Liberty City's computers, one of which is LibertyCityPolice.com. The other interesting point was Dan Houser talking about his favourite mission in GTA IV. You can read the full article if you're interested, but apart from the aforementioned snippets there's nothing new.

You may remember a news story before Christmas last year about a couple of advertising posters for GTA IV that appeared on the streets of Belgium. Those weren't final versions and were not meant to be put up. However, it appears the final versions are now in circulation thanks to a photograph from Flickr user freshyill. The poster shows an email address, [email protected], which if you send an email to will auto-respond with a piece of artwork and message informing you they're all out to lunch. The email response: see it here Thanks Adriaan

American retailer BestBuy has added 3 new screenshots to their GTA IV product page. Unfortunately these are only low-res versions but we'll hopefully have higher resolution images available soon. Source: GTAForums.com topic

Lol. Well I'll 'forget' any classes I have at uni the day before the release so I can get the game. I pre-ordered so it means I should get it a day early, if not then on the day.

They said "we don't usually do demo". Basically says "no we don't have one planned".

How you guys getting on with the scripting? Obviously I haven't really been keeping up to date with it lately, too busy to check up on it and spend a large chunk of time on it. I see you've written some amusing functions, very nice, not very practical but at least you're getting a feel for the language. Anything productive done since?

IGN Australia have a new article up discussing the euphoria middleware developed by NaturalMotion, which is being used by Rockstar Games in GTA IV. The article goes into detail about how we'll see the euphoria technology used for amazingly realistic physics in the game. Here's just one quote from the article describing one example scenario: Read the full article at IGN for more on this interesting subject. Thanks Adriaan