Rockstar have just announced the first video editor contest for Episodes from Liberty City, entitled "Base Jumping Extreme Film Festival".

In honor of the recent release of Episodes from Liberty City for PC, and with it, all new The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned channels at Social Club TV - we present the first in a series of Episodes from Liberty City Video Editor Contests: "The Base Jumping Extreme Film Festival".

Strap on a parachute in The Ballad of Gay Tony and use the PC version's in-game suite of video editing tools to make the most creative contest entry clip you can. A balls-out short action film? A base jumping commercial? An aerial music video? A creative montage of parachute stunts? We know you’ll amaze and surprise us as always.

The possibilities are endless. Just make sure it's at or under 5 minutes in length, and somehow, someway – parachuting or base jumping features prominently.

The lucky winner will receive an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 graphics card, along with a Rockstar prize pack of limited-edition Grand Theft Auto and Episodes from Liberty City collectibles. Two runners up will also receive Rockstar prize packs.

Details on how to enter this competition:

To enter, you'll need to upload your video to Social Club TV using the Episodes from Liberty City PC in-game video editor anytime between today and May 14th, inclusive - and make sure to use the tag "base-jumping-contest". Go to the Base Jumping Extreme Film Festival channel page at Rockstar Social Club TV to watch video entries as they start flowing in (and vote on the ones you like the best).

Rockstar will then pick the clip that wows us the most, looking at editing skills, user ratings, and overall creativity.

You should be aware that the contest is void in certain countries and US states. See the official rules and eligibility page for more details.

So you have until the 14th May to get your entries in. Good luck!

Some sad news to bring you today via Rockstar Games; Keith Elam a.k.a Guru of hip-hop outfit GangStarr, has passed away after a long battle with cancer. He was just 43 years old.

GTA3 players will also know him as the voice of 8-Ball, who has always been a popular character in the game.

All of us here at Rockstar were saddened to learn this morning of the news that Keith Elam, professionally known as Guru of Gang Starr, has succumbed to cancer after a long battle.

Guru was truly a hip-hop legend, one of the genre's greatest voices, and we are eternally grateful for his contributions to the Grand Theft Auto series as the character 8-Ball.

Our condolences to the entire Elam family, to our good friend and his long-time Gang Starr collaborator DJ Premier, and to everyone else who had the pleasure of knowing or working with the man.

Rest in peace.

Today I am proud to announce the latest website to be added to TGTAP Network: RedDeadPlace.com.

As many of you have no doubt heard by now, Red Dead Redemption is Rockstar Games' astounding new title due for release next month. If you've seen any of the screenshots or trailers for this game you'll know how awesome it's looking right now. We're pretty confident most of you guys will absolutely love it.

So we invite you all to come on over to Red Dead Place and check us out, or find out more about the game. While you're there, why not help kick-start the newest Red Dead community on the net by joining the forums? We look forward to seeing many familiar faces (names?) there!

As you may have read from some of the other fansites, I was invited out to New York City by Rockstar Games last week to preview Episodes from Liberty City on PC and PS3 before it would be released, along with webmasters from the other sites.

My write up with my impressions on the event itself, the game, and the surprise that was getting to play Red Dead Redemption, is now online. Head over to our EFLC / RDR fansite event page to read my thoughts, and to find out what us webmasters got up to while we were there.

A huge thanks must go out to Rockstar Games for putting together this event and making it as incredible as it was. I hope I'll see not just you guys but the other webmasters again sometime!

Rockstar has released patch number 6 for the PC version of GTA IV which features a large number of bug fixes and additional features. The patch is available through Games for Windows LIVE and a standalone downloadable version with be available soon. The majority of these new features/fixes are already present in the PC version of Episodes from Liberty City.

Rockstar Games Social Club

• Remove Rockstar Games Social Club application
  
• Separate RGSC application no longer required to launch game
  
• Social Club login now occurs during the launch process
  

Shadows

• A new, less memory-intensive, and better-looking scalable shadow solution has been implemented
  
• Enhanced Night Shadows added with user-selectable level of detail (replaces Shadow Density)
  

Performance

• Rendering optimizations have been made to improve performance, particularly when enabling shadows
  
• User-configurable graphics settings have been added for shadow control
  
• Improved memory management
  

Multiplayer

• Enhanced security to isolate users from cheaters and hackers
  

Episodic Content

• Provide in-game support to purchase "The Lost and Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony" (Not available in Russian/Japanese Versions)
  

Bug Fixes

• Vehicle shadows re-enabled between 8pm and 6am
  
• Fix floating street textures
  
• Pedestrians in vehicles appear further out from the player to allow for long range sniping
  
• The Moon has been implemented with simulated lunar phases
  
• Fixed garbled text in Japanese Multiplayer menus
  
• "RESC 10" error fix for specific hardware configurations
  

In addition, Episodes from Liberty City players are also getting a small update (1.1.1.0) that will improve memory management and address a hardware configuration error.

The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony are now available in North America for individual download on PlayStation Network and Games for Windows-LIVE, and at retail stores everywhere as part of Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City.

Downloading the inidividual episodes will require you to own a copy of the original GTA IV, however, buying the EFLC pack will not.

EFLC will be out in other countries on 16th April.

"Rockstar North went above and beyond to create an epic finale for fans of the series," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. "We hope our fans enjoy these two episodes as much as we've enjoyed making them."

Rockstar have released the final trailer for Episodes from Liberty City, focusing on the PC version. Check it out below.

The game is released on 13th April (tomorrow) in North America and 16th April in Europe and the rest of the world.

Rockstar have been releasing video clips this week, created using the in-game video editor in the PC version of Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City. See the newest one below, with the two previous ones after that.

Episodes from Liberty City is released on PS3 and PC on April 13th in North America, and April 16th in Europe.

The first screenshots from the PC version of Episodes From Liberty City were released today. The game is released on 13th April in North America, and 16th April in Europe.

Yeeeaaahhhh! It's that day where the staff of TGTAP get to play silly buggers...

Happy April Fools everyone!

Apologies to those using old browsers who won't be able to see what we did... you should upgrade you know.