GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City Headed To PS3 - ESRB

GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City are headed to PlayStation 3 according to recent ratings on the ESRB's site.

It's not clear whether the listing refers to a digital or physical release.

GTA 3 celebrated the tenth anniversary since it's original release last year, with Rockstar porting the game to mobile in celebration.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City celebrates its own ten-year anniversary in November this year.

Both could well be released in the promotional build up to GTA 5, although recent speculation suggests the game may not launch until next year.

Rockstar Hunt GTA 5 testers

For those of you eagerly awaiting the release of GTA 5 you will hunt around all day on the Internet to try and find a morsel of information just to keep you going until some other details comes out. Sadly the developer has been a little subdued when it comes to handing out more details, but there could be a way for you to know more, and that is by taking up Rockstar’s offer as a GTA V tester.

There are many young people living in Scotland who find it hard to get a job, so how lucky would it be for them to land what many would consider a dream job? The pay does not sound that great, just £14,000 a year, which you can earn more stacking shelves. However, testing grand Theft Auto V sounds much more interesting to us.

It’s no secret that this next installment of the game needs to deliver, previous versions have done pretty well, but games have evolved over the years, and GTA V needs to prove itself once again – although we have no doubt that it will. It’s hard to say just how long Rockstar has been working on the new game, but surely they have been doing so for a number of years?

In a recent article is suggests that Grand Theft Auto V will be one of the biggest releases of 2012, but there has not been any conformation as to an official release date. We had assumed May, but it could be later, maybe even towards the end of the year.

We should not undermine what this jobs entails, yes it could get repetitive, but just think what a service these people are doing, because if it were not for testers looking for any kind of problem in a game, just think what that could mean for the end user – you? More details on this job opportunity can be found on the official Rockstar North website.

Grand Theft Auto 3 iPhone, iPad Review: A Strong Contender For Game of the Year

Funny how things play out, isn’t it? Back in 2001, when Grand Theft Auto III (GTA III) was originally released on the PlayStation 2, the overriding challenge was to bring the previously 2D series into the realm of full 3D. There would be few among us that would argue against Rockstar successfully and magnificently pulling off the challenge; thus providing the spark that would signal players’ love affair with all things sandbox and open-world.

Fast forward 10 years and Rockstar are again faced with a challenge. This time in how to bring a game held in such high regard by so many to a device without buttons, without analogue sticks and primarily designed as a means of communication and fart machines.

Perhaps that’s playing Apple’s box of tricks short (this review is based on the iPhone edition), after all this is the same device that has provided full 3D experiences (of varying success) in the form of Dead Space, Infinity Blade , various EA Sports titles and others.

No matter how you look at it, though, bringing the full living, open-world of Liberty City to the palm of your hand is an altogether different proposition. Not only are there technical issues to solve, but Rockstar has got to provide a framework of inputs and controls that not only work but are intuitive to GTA III newcomers and veterans alike.

At the end of the day, this is a Rockstar game. Rockstar don’t tend to pick or produce half-baked projects. Rockstar showed us that you can make an expansive desert fun in Red Dead Redemption and that the simple act of asking questions can be extremely engaging in L.A. Noire.

They’ve now shown us that full open-world environments work on a pocket sized touch-screen devices. To say that this 10th anniversary edition of GTA III represents an achievement on the same scale as the 2001 release would be a gross overstatement, but to say it works is not.

Those elements that make it work are exactly the same as they were 10 years ago. However, the way you interact with them is, obviously, not.

There’s no doubting that this edition of GTAIII has the best “virtual analogue stick” implementation I’ve just seen on the iPhone – it’s a far cry from the comparative crap offered by iPhone editions of Gameloft knockoffs and Fifa. In a bit of particularly smart thinking, anywhere you touch on the left side of the side becomes the central point of your virtual stick, removing the need for pinpoint finesse and needlessly accurate muscle memory.

It’s the rest of the controls that fail to live up to par. Sprinting, jumping, entering/exiting cars, shooting et al are plonked onto the right side of the screen as a series of buttons sitting next to each other. For someone with large thumbs like myself, accidentally hitting jump when I want to shot the guy gunning for me does (and will) lead to too many premature deaths - in turn leading to frustration and too much cursing.

Problems also exist when inside vehicles as camera movements are handled by tapping and sweeping at the centre of the screen. Unless you’re an octopus, this forces you to take your thumbs away from the steering and/or pedals, which is particularly annoying when you’re being chased and want to look at your pursuers while remaining on the road.

Still, things are hardly a nightmare and, as I alluded to above, there are many examples of how to approach similar problems in an inferior manner.

Controls aside, this rerelease is universally excellent. It seems that nothing has been cut from the original; all the voiceovers, radio stations, missions, car types and locations retained. The silent anti-hero protagonist is as good at letting the rest of the colourful cast take centre stage as he ever was and the plot line still provides the sense of wackiness, post-modern reference and divisiveness as it ever did.

Given the fact that these kinds of games have moved on quite some distance since GTA III’s initial release, some of the missions do feel outdated and repetitive. Replaying it some 10 years later makes it clear that the design team had a difficult job trying to figure out how to properly integrate some mission plots into the bigger narrative picture.

Add that to the issues with the control schemes (which can make time limited missions especially taxing) and you’ve got an experience that will likely turn as many people off as it does on. Essentially, there’s no doubting that the PS3 version remains the definitive edition.

If you’re going to take the plunge and pick this up for the grand old price of £2.99 then you really do need to put on your patient hat on and enter into proceedings knowing that some difficulties lay ahead. Once you accept that, and engross yourself in the world, you’ll find a game that is worth the pain and effort – if only for the characterisation and plot alone.

We so often forget just how much quality the PS2-era GTA games packed when it came to narrative and character. Many of us remember them initially for their technical prowess – pulling off an open, 3D world. After that, we remember them for the vast array of options they afforded when it came to rampaging around the environment and figuring out ever more ingenious means of ending lives.

The experience locked away in GTA III is beautiful. Unfortunately, the control scheme represents a complicated key.

Grand Theft Auto III Tops iPhone Sales Chart

Every week, we rounds up the top-grossing iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad applications, as current that day in the iTunes App Store. This week's U.S. revenue charts see Grand Theft Auto III and Kick the Buddy earning top iPhone sales, while Battle Nations and The Sims: FreePlay emerge as big sellers on the iPad.

These charts allow end users to see who is making the most money on the App Store that day. It differs significantly from the Top 10 Games chart, which is ranked by sales, and therefore is dominated by lower-priced titles that sell more copies.

Data comes courtesy of Apple's public sales information. All titles in the App Store's "Games" category are considered in chart rankings.

This week's top-grossing iPhone titles are:

1. Grand Theft Auto III ($4.99)
2. Poker by Zynga (Free)
3. DragonVale (Free)
4. Kick the Buddy ($0.99)
5. Infinity Blade II ($6.99)
6. Angry Birds ($0.99)
7. Card Ace: Casino (Free)
8. Tiny Tower (Free)
9. Modern War (Free)
10. Social Girl (Free)

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto III heads the iPhone's revenue charts in its debut week, unseating last week's sales leader Infinity Blade II. Poker by Zynga continues to generate brisk microtransaction sales at second place, as Backflip's DragonVale takes third in today's rankings.

App Store newcomer Kick the Buddy ranks in at fourth place thanks to an especially popular free trial version, while Crowdstar's latest simulation title Social Girl premieres at tenth.

Here are this week’s top-grossing iPad applications:

1. Battle Nations (Free)
2. The Sims: FreePlay (Free)
3. Angry Birds HD ($4.99)
4. DragonVale (Free)
5. Card Ace: Casino HD (Free)
6. Modern War (Free)
7. Grand Theft Auto III ($4.99)
8. Smurfs' Village (Free)
9. Sonic CD ($1.99)
10. Infinity Blade II ($6.99)

Z2Live's war-themed simulation title Battle Nations leads the iPad's top-grossing apps chart for the second week in a row, while last week's second-highest earner Infinity Blade II drops to tenth place in today's rankings.

Grand Theft Auto III only manages to earn seventh place despite a strong showing in this week's iPhone results, meanwhile, as Sega's recently ported platformer Sonic CD claims ninth in its first week of release.

Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition Launch Trailer

One of the greatest games our generation is making its way to your mobile devices. The full console version of Grand Theft Auto III in the palm of your hand. Spend hours listening to Game Radio and shooting pigeons. Available now on select ios devices and Android devices.

Why GTA 3's Claude was silent

The silent protagonist is one of the gaming world's oldest devices, and is still routinely used to get around the difficult problem of letting players feel like they can imbue the main character with their own personality.

Some of the most famous silent protagonists in games over the years have included Gordon Freeman from Half-Life, Link from The Legend of Zelda, Jack from BioShock and Master Chief from Halo.

Over 10 years since Grand Theft Auto III was first released, pioneering developer Rockstar has finally revealed why the game's hero Claude is mute.

The studio says it was only partly to "aid people identifying with him".

"It may now seem obvious that people should all talk in games, but this was not necessarily the case in 2001, certainly not in an open-world game," a Rockstar representative explains on the company's Newswire site.

"We were making up a lot of procedures as we went along, and we decided that the NPCs (Non Playable Characters) should talk and we would have to figure out how to make them talk (using motion captured cut-scenes, something that had never really been done before, at least not on the scale we were doing it).

"So we decided that the game's protagonist would not talk, partly to aid people identifying with him, but mostly because we had so many other problems to solve and this did not seem like a major issue."

Rockstar would later introduce a talking protagonist in sequel Grand Theft Auto Vice City, with players controlling Tommy Vercetti, who was voiced by Ray Liotta.


Many gamers argue that for Rockstar's more recent Grand Theft Auto IV the studio went too far, with many players bemoaning the heavy focus on storytelling and reporting that they felt no affection or affinity with main protagonist Niko Bellic.

"We started to discuss introducing a talking lead character when working on Vice City, but it was a lot of work," says Rockstar.

"While the structure of GTA 3 may seem obvious or natural now, and the use of cut-scenes made in the game's engine that look and feel like the game may seem simple and easy, it really was not the case back in 2001 when we had to figure out all of these things for the first time."

Grand Theft Auto III celebrated its 10 year anniversary back in October, and an anniversary edition of the groundbreaking game has just been released for iOS and Android mobile devices.

GTA 5, San Andreas Comparison Video Shows Epic Evolution

Machinima compares GTA San Andreas now and then.


GTA V's technical and graphical leap from the last Grand Theft Auto game set in San Andreas has been accutely captured in a new shot-for-shot comparison of Rockstar's recently-announced sequel and ground-breaking hip-hop sandbox title.

Machinima expert and GTA modder DasMatze put it together - check it out below, take a look at our own GTA 5 vs. San Andreas screenshot comparison.

GTA 5 Wallpaper

GTA 5 Wallpaper

Rumor: GTA 5 Information Leaks out of UK Magazine

Supposed details regarding Grand Theft Auto V have “leaked” from someone claiming to work for a PlayStation-focused magazine based in the UK. The rumored information was posted on GTAForums, and if any of this information is true, which it’s hard to know for sure at this point, expect a few spoilers out of it. Therefore, if you wish to remain clean of mind, body, and spirit, proceed with caution below the break.



According to the forum poster, via NowGamer, the information came to him from co-workers at the magazine which were given a 30-minute look at GTA 5 at Rockstar North a week before the first trailer aired.

“The mag I work for will be running a GTA 5 special in it’s January issue,” claimed the magazine employee. “They saw this footage on Monday of this week before the trailer aired and are currently under a strict embargo but talk flowed out of the office and hence why I am posting here.”

While admitting never to have seen the footage firsthand, the employee said the following information - pulled “as is” from the post – was gleaned from those who were given a look at the game :

The game world is absolutely massive and will push both Xbox and PS3 to the very limit in terms of what it has accomplished. Yes, the main city is simply Los Santos however is it AT LEAST 4 times bigger than Liberty City in GTA 4 and that is just Los Santos. The surrounding country side, beaches, etc are massive. For instance, we saw the main character (an African/American, early 30′s) travel by car from the center of Los Santos into the wildnerness and it took over 15 minutes. The views were incredible from farmhouses with cattle, huge wind farms, an oil refinery which appeared to be living and breathing with nearly 100 NPCs working on machinery, operating vehicles, lifting and loaded, etc, unlike the gas works in GTA 4 which seemed to only house a few NPC at a time. The forests are more beautiful than those in RDR and featured people camping, young NPC drinking and dancing around campfires, people riding dirt bikes and jumping over logs, streams, etc. The water effects, forna, plants, trees all looked beautiful.
The shooting mechanics have been greatly improved with animations for diving, climbing, rolling and crawling all added for better realism. The re-loading animations for new ammo also look cooler, less static.
There is much more climbable elements in the world such as ladders, overhand climbing, etc.
There are animals in the game from dogs to cattle but at this time it is not confirmed if you will be able to harm the animals. Rockstar were able to get away with it in RDR as it was a true depiction of the world in which the game was set. Allowing dogs/cattle to die in a game sent in current times may cause headaches with PETA. Its unclear if Rockstar were joking here.
There are planes to pilot and they can be crashed into buildings if you choose to do so….
Rockstar have included many, many more interior locations such as a shopping mall, college campus, police station, a huge hospital and there is also a vast underground sewer network which one mission later in the game involves a jet ski chase that culminates in a Fugitive-esque waterfall jump ( there are nods to the ridiculous but awesome Ballad Of Gay Tony missions)
The city is full of NPCs jogging, weight-lifting, hitting on women, being chased on foot by cops, shopping, washing cars, fixing fences, moving home, filling up their cars, etc.

The following is a list of what the employee called the “real juicy info”:

Cars can be upgraded/repaired and it has been considered to have a car have fuel forcing the player to fill her up.
The dating aspect of the game is gone. You still have a cell-phone but only people you will meet in the game will call you to ask you to do a mission or to ask you to do something else before the mission.
Weapons include the usual arsenal you’d aspect but the flamethrowers, remote mines, laxer trip mines and claymores are included. It is possible now to pick up random objects in a street/buidling to use as a weapon. There is also a museam where it is possible to steal old age swords, axes, etc.
It is possible to rupture a fuel line and if you shot at the trail of gasoline it will lead straight back to the car blowing it up.
Mini games such as bowling, darts, etc have all gone. You can play basketball, weight train, arm wrestle, gamble and cage fight, enter triatholons, water races, cannoing, ab-saling, rock climbing, base jumping, ski diving. More to be confirmed.
Character customisation is back but only in terms of clothing, body weight, etc. The player you start off which, much like CJ, can’t be altered by race, age, height, etc.
Rockstar said burglary missions may return but only as part of missions and not on neigbourhood houses.
No children NPC at all. Ever.
There is now an ability to grab people and use as sheilds or in “hostage” situations.
The cops are much, much, much more realistic. If you kill somebody when you know there are no cops around you will not run the risk of a one star as often as you would in GTA4. The cops will use smoke and tear gas, dogs, riot gear and rams to knock down the doors of buildings you are hiding in.
You can enter some buildings and lock doors, push objects in the way to barricade.
You become better at things as the game progresses. If you only ride motorbikes then you will increase your skills, same as individual weapons.
Certain weapons can be customisable and some even home-made.
One mission involves breaking out a very familiar GTA icon from a previous game…
Torrential rain fall and sunshine and even tremors will appear in the game.

Both Future and Imagine Publishing have said the information did not come from employees who work at each respective outlet’s PlayStation Magazines.

Also, yesterday we noticed, like a quite a few others, that someone claiming to be a former Rockstar employee posted a shot of GTA V’s map via Twitter. We took screen grabs just in case they were taken down, and you can look at those below.

It is unknown whether the shot of the map is legitimate, but the Twitter account used – which we also took a grab of yesterday afternoon – was not doctored by any Internet fellas.

GTA 5 was formally announced earlier this week. Platforms and a release date have yet to be confirmed.

The Road to GTA 5: Saying Goodbye to Liberty City

The amazing charm of GTA IV's Liberty City, and how GTA 5's Los Santos is sure to rewrite the rulebook.

It's been well over a year since I stepped foot in Liberty City. For a while there I never wanted to leave; it was a playground unlike any other I'd ever been in. GTA IV's rich, dense world was really something else.

Sure, I played GTA: San Andreas for longer than I care to ponder. Once every bit of provided gameplay had been milked I set about losing days to other tasks. Weeks, perhaps. Who else experimented with how many tow trucks they could hook together, or the smallest gap they could thread the AT-400 through? And the cheats. No game has ever had better ones.

Still, GTA IV was different to its PS2 forebear – and yet I played it for even longer. The generation jump brought with it the ability to craft vivid, more believable worlds. The grittier, more grounded game we ultimately got in GTA IV was married perfectly to its far more realistic and more authentic environment, and I became hopelessly addicted to it.

Gaming moves fast, however, and after a huge amount of time sunk into messing about in Liberty City I eventually needed to move on. Like always, there are other games to play.

The past two months has been heaving with titles worth investing in but after the recent debut trailer for GTA 5 I took some time to revisit GTA IV and the city I spent a significant part of this generation a temporary resident of.

The most amazing thing about Liberty City is that, after all these years, it remains a fascinating place to be. The credibility and character of GTA IV's Liberty City still impresses; it has this remarkable ability to make one feel like a tourist. Emerging back onto an Algonquin sidewalk after all this time it feels like I'm returning to a favourite holiday location. I don't want to run; I want to walk. I want to absorb what's going on around me. I want to read the storefronts. I want to observe the hustle and bustle and admire the simulation of a living, breathing digital metropolis.

I stroll down into the grimy Hematite subway station, on Union Drive West between Hematite and Iron, admiring the painstakingly crafted filth. I take the first train down to Easton and emerge to take in The Triangle, before strolling back north to see Star Junction.

A man crossing the road ahead of me is clipped by a cab; he drags the cabbie out and a fight breaks out. There aren't any cops nearby but, while I could call some on my cell phone, the scuffle is over quickly. The taxi driver loses and limps off. I move the cab to the kerb and the traffic starts moving again.

I hail the next empty taxi I see and take it to Funland out at Firefly Island. The cab ride is long but I'm seeing this city at a pace I've never taken the time to do so before. The workmanship on every block is just something else. After all that time I spent here years ago I'm still seeing stuff I never noticed before. A piece of unique graffiti here. A quirky sign there.

It's a deliberately imperfect world; built from the ground-up and then aged, weathered and even vandalised to look like it's evolved over more than a century. The taxi crawls across the patchy bitumen, wallowing over hasty road repairs, past just enough hints of debris and decay to give the whole place a genuine lived-in feel.

If this trip back to Liberty did anything it encouraged me to be even more enthusiastic about seeing the full breadth of the new Los Santos Rockstar North is shaping now for GTA V.

The GTA 5 trailer may have only been just over a minute long but the signs are exceedingly good. The precise traits that made the GTA IV rendition of Liberty City feel so real and not only back, they're clearly amplified. The GTA V trailer hints at a city even more thick with detail and nuance than ever before.

What is GTA V's reimagined Los Santos likely to do to what we expect from virtual urban worlds? Like Liberty City, Los Santos 2.0 will be a character unto itself – but it's likely to rewrite the rulebook entirely.

'Grand Theft Auto III' Review - Ten Years Later, Still a Great Game

Prior to Grand Theft Auto III I'd say I had fun messing around in Grand Theft Auto games, but never really enjoyed myself. The top-down view felt incredibly claustrophobic, and, at least for me, made getting immersed into the game world incredibly difficult. I don't think it's hyperbole at all to say that GTA 3 changed everything.

Originally released in 2001 as a Playstation 2 exclusive, Grand Theft Auto III featured a full 3D game engine for the first time in the game series. At least for me, this transformed a silly and entirely too controversial set of video games into a living and breathing universe. It's debatable how well the game has aged in ten years, but in 2001, after the initial cut scene rolls and you're driving through the beginnings of Liberty City, there was no way your jaw wasn't on the floor.

This magic is alive and well in the iOS port of Grand Theft Auto III. There have been a number of open world crime games, most notably Rockstar's own Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Gameloft's highly "inspired" Gangstar games released on the App Store but neither game holds a candle to the original GTA3 The level of immersion that's possible in the full 3D Liberty City, especially as you become familiar with the cast of characters you'll spend your time taking missions from, feels downright incredible. In games like this, that very same level of immersion is what has kept me sucked in for potentially hundreds of hours, as when you feel like you're actually playing your part in a virtual world, your role in it becomes that much more compelling.

Gameplay in GTA3 is typical of other open world crime games, which would make sense since Rockstar essentially wrote the book on the subject. Your time in Liberty City will be spent doing whatever is asked of you by various gangsters, drug lords, and other unsavories. Often times you'll be doing jobs for multiple people, and between missions will have the choice of which story line you want to continue, and which you'll revisit later.

Alternatively, you can immediately abandon the storyline of the game and instead focus on side missions (such as stealing a taxi and ferrying passengers around the city), looking for secret (and some not so secret) ramps to get ridiculous amount of air off of, or really, anything else you feel like doing. I've always been partial for stocking up on weapons, and seeing just how long I can survive from the police.

I think I've provided a sufficient recap of what GTA3 is for the half a dozen people out there who somehow haven't played it, so the real question is, how does it translate to iOS devices?

I'm happy to say that the game plays surprisingly well. I've found myself preferring the large screen of the iPad 2, but GTA3 is just as much fun on the iPhone. If you think back to actually playing the game on the PS2 (or other console ports), you'll remember that nearly every button on the controller did something. Sadly, the only way GTA3 can work on iOS devices is by replicating all of these functions as virtual buttons.

This results in buttons galore. On foot you'll have a virtual joystick for running around, along with individual virtual buttons for running, jumping, attacking, stealing cars, changing the camera angle, and pausing. Inside of a car, the virtual joystick changes to a set of buttons to steer, along with buttons for the gas, brakes, hand brake, shooting, honking the horn, starting secondary missions (such as the previously mentioned taxi missions), and getting out of the car. Moving the camera involves dragging your finger around in the middle, and viewing the minimap as well as changing weapons involve hitting the top corners of the screen.

These controls are workable, and are easy enough to manage while doing simple missions or just tooling around Liberty City. Unfortunately, things get crazy as soon as you get involved in actual combat. GTA3 uses a zany lock on system for shooting, and it seems like more often than not when you get into an actual firefight you're fighting the camera, the lock on system, and your character's diminishing health supply more than you're fighting the enemies themselves. Things get better as you get more accustomed to the virtual controls, but it never feels like you have the same precision as you would with an actual controller.

Still, it's Grand Theft Auto III on your iPhone (or iPad), and given both the overall quality and depth of the actual gameplay content of GTA3, it's really easy to get over the clunky controls. The performance is great on recent iOS devices, although pop-in on the game's horizon can be pretty noticeable if you let it get to you-- Looking at videos from the PS2 version of the game, it seems like this pop-in was mostly hidden by the relative low-resolution of the game. The retina display, however, makes it really clear.

Picking up GTA3 seems like a no-brainer, especially at the launch price of $4.99. Regardless of the less than ideal control scheme, you'll get five dollars worth of entertainment out of this game, even if all you do is drive around Liberty City listening to the fantastic in-game radio stations. (My favorite is the talk station.) As you become more accustomed with the splattering of virtual buttons all over the screen, you'll find hours upon hours of content to plow through.

Having played GTA3 to completion many times in the past, I'm incredibly happy to be able to take it anywhere with me on my phone of all things.

Why Was Grand Theft Auto III's Star Silent?

After celebrating Grand Theft Auto III's 10-year anniversary with the release of an iOS and Android port, Rockstar is now answering a variety of questions fans have about the game. Among those are the obligatory questions about its protagonist, Claude, and the rationale behind him never uttering a word.

Every Grand Theft Auto game since 3 -- the first to bring the series into 3D -- has featured a star who could speak. Why was Claude made to do a crowbar-free Gordon Freeman impression?

"It may now seem obvious that people should all talk in games, but this was not necessarily the case in 2001, certainly not in an open world game," reads an answer on Rockstar's website. "We were making up a lot of procedures as we went along, and we decided that the NPCs (Non Playable Characters) should talk and we would have to figure out how to make them talk (using motion captured cutscenes, something that had never really been done before, at least not on the scale we were doing it).

"So we decided that the game's protagonist would not talk, partly to aid people identifying with him, but mostly because we had so many other problems to solve and this did not seem like a major issue. We started to discuss introducing a talking lead character when working on Vice City, but it was a lot of work. While the structure of GTA3 may seem obvious or natural now, and the use of cutscenes made in the game's engine that look and feel like the game may seem simple and easy, it really was not the case back in 2001 when we had to figure out all of these things for the first time. Oh and in San Andreas, CJ calls Claude a mute because he does not talk and CJ finds this unnerving."

Several people submitted questions regarding an old trailer, embedded above, showing Claude demand, "Get out of the car!" while hijacking someone's vehicle. This is not a sign that Claude was, once upon a time, intended to speak; it turns out this isn't real. Rockstar suspects "the voices were added at a later date by someone online as at no point did we plan for Claude to have a voice or even design how a speaking protagonist would be implemented until Vice City."

As for the way he was designed, there was not any single character or person who served as the inspiration for him. "We just liked the idea of a strong, silent killer, who would be juxtaposed with all of these neurotic and verbose mobsters in an amusing way," another answer reads. "He seems stronger and in control, while they seem weaker and frantic."

Rockstar wasn't willing to share any information on his background beyond what we know (he's "a bank robber with a noisy and psychotic girlfriend"), but it was noted he isn't dead and his "surname may or may not be Speed." Claude Speed is the name of Grand Theft Auto 2's protagonist, whom some believe to be the same character as GTA III's Claude.

Rockstar also shared some concept art revealing earlier versions of the design for Claude, which can be seen on the next page.

As for Darkel, a character never seen in the game but referred to in its manual and seen on Rockstar's website, he was described simply as "a crazy bum who gave you some crazy missions." These missions were slowly cut out "because they just weren't as good as the rest of the game, and tonally they were a little odd." Rumors of one of these missions involving blowing up a school bus full of children aren't true ("although that is a funny rumor!"). Series fans eager to eventually see these Darkel missions released aren't likely to ever get their hands on them as Rockstar North is busy working on new stuff.

Rockstar plans to answer more questions next week, so if there's anything you've been dying to know for a decade, submit a question and maybe you'll get an answer. If it's GTA2 that intrigues you, the design documents released earlier this year might be right up your alley.

The iOS and Android versions of Grand Theft Auto III are now available for $5. Only a select number of devices are capable of running the game; you can see which ones here. Those that can run it are unfortunately saddled with touchscreen controls which you may or may not find acceptable, though the novelty of having GTA 3 on your phone or tablet may be enough to justify looking past the imperfect controls.

GTA 5: Rockstar Responds To Speculation, 'Internet Lunacy'

GTA 5 has already enjoyed more than its fair share of speculation and rumour-mongering, with the launch of the debut trailer only confirming the bare minimum details - money, Los Santos, present day, massive.

Given Rockstar's reluctance to share details until it's ready, numerous claims have been made about the next Grand Theft Auto V - none more so than an alleged Journalistic leak.

In reponse to those rumours, Rockstar issued a statement to NowGamer which reads:

“We do not comment on rumors, speculation and general internet lunacy. We do appreciate seeing the passion gaming fans have shown toward Grand Theft Auto V and we look forward to sharing more information with everyone soon.”

Nothing much there then, but good to know that Rockstar keeps up to date with all the gossip and feedback generated by the game. Has a single trailer ever caused this much fuss?

The identity of GTA 5's lead actor is the latest rumour surrounding the game.

source NowGamer

GTA 5: Main Character Rumors Continue To Swirl

Grand Theft Auto 5 continues to baffle and excite fans because of the little confirmed information put out there by Rockstar Games. Some speculations at least have been debunked but many questions are still left unanswered.

One of the main questions is, ‘who is the main character?’ There are a lot of names from previous titles that have been mentioned but still continue to float around indecisively. Some of the names are pretty familiar. They are Niko Bellic, Vercetti, Claude, CJ or Catalina. It seems also that none of them will turn out to GTA 5’s main character. According to Addict Game, PSM3 has already said that none of the mentioned names is the new game’s main character. Visit Addict Game to check out some of the character pictures. They are pretty interesting. There is a fat homeless guy who could not be Niko Bellic given the build, but why is the guy wearing Bellic’s clothes? PSM3 said that the fat man actually looks like Packy McReary, a character from GTA 4. The guy who is donning some tattoos and has been running away from the police is apparently CJ from GTA SA. There are also speculations that the main character will be Albert the Silva. Others, however, prefer it to be Vercetti or Claude.

There is nothing definite out there yet but you could visit Addict Game if you want to know just as much as they know there. For now, I wouldn’t say anyone aside from those within Rockstar Games really know anything. But in a way, it is exciting.

GTA 5: Why Rockstar Loves Los Angeles

Thanks to the Grand Theft Auto series, Los Santos becomes a world that has become almost too real. It has become a virtually enhanced version of real-life Los Angeles. Rockstar Game itself has its headquarters cradled in Manhattan. New York has already become the inspiration for other Rockstar games, such as the Max Payne series and GTA 4’s Liberty City. The studio, however, has managed to form a strong relationship with Los Angeles.

Grand Theft Auto 5 is actually the fifth time within two generations that Rockstar has used Los Angeles, this time in the guise of Los Santos, as a game backdrop. Remember the recent L.A. Noire. Then, there was Midnight Club – Los Angeles. Staying within the GTA franchise, you can remember GTA – San Andreas. In 2003’s Midnight Club 2, Rockstar revisited Los Angeles giving enough landmarks and atmosphere to make it clear to players where they were. Somehow though, it was Rockstar’s version of Los Angeles – Los Santos – that made players really focus on the city’s atmosphere.

Los Santos is a stunning and vast world. It has proven how technology has come so far now. Now, the games are filling in the gaps that used to be our turn to fill with our own imaginations. The result is quite admirable.

Even Rockstar North’s first try at giving Los Santos life was already impressive. It showcases not just a place with landmarks but it showed the socio-economic spectrum. You get to see the Richman’s mansions and Ganton’s infamous Grove Street where the dilapidated houses are. The place is not just there. It managed to come alive. Because of this, Los Angeles has also become Rockstar Games’ home away from New York.

GTA 5 Exclusivity Rumor and VGA Reveal

Since the GTA V trailer we’ve seen numerous rumors and apparent news leak, and some of the ideas suggested have been pretty amazing, which include potential features in Grand Theft Auto 5 like being able to build a business empire with hitmen, thugs and more or simpler ideas like houses that you can enter.

Most of the GTA V rumors are pretty weak and not confirmed by any source or Dev team, although some rumors are more believable than others. In the last couple of days we’ve seen two new rumors appear on a number of websites, which include the possibility of a reveal at Spike TV’s Video Game Awards tonight and talk of the PS3 getting an exclusive with GTA 5.

While it would be pretty cool to see some sort of new trailer at the 2011 Spike TV VGA, one of the sources claiming this rumor can be found here, and they created this viewpoint from a tweet by Geoff Keighley, which only said gamers wouldn’t believe the “PS3 Exclusive“. Following this tweet, he said “Amazing top-secret rehearsals tonight at VGAs,” continuing “Some very special things in the works.”

We have no doubt that the VGAs will be special tonight, and you can expect some reveals, although for that to be GTA 5 and even the chance of a PS3 exclusive seems very far-fetched. What do our readers think?

Those of you excited about what the next GTA 5 game could bring, you might want to look at the history of GTA weapons here, things that could make the game suck here, and a debate on the Grand Theft Auto V story and getting the balance right here।

Why GTA 5 It’s Already The Best Game Ever Made

Let’s start here: GTA 5 is actually about something.

Think about it. There aren’t many games that are actually about something. Y’know, something real, something that we can relate to.

BioShock is about something: its backdrop is a society in which science has been allowed to run wild with no moral rudder; its ‘would you kindly’ theme is one of the notion of control in videogames. It is self-referential in a way that we, as gamers, can all relate to.

There are other games too that are about something but they are few and far between. Ico, Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid: three games that have something to say beyond their station.

Modern Warfare isn’t about anything of worth. It's a silly, war fantasy straight out of the pages of Warrior. And before you start, the World War 2-set Call Of Dutys don’t have anything to say about war either. They just have quotes in-between levels. Congratulations, someone has access to www.warquotes.com.

The other big releases this winter aren’t about much, either.

Skyrim is a silly dragon fantasy; Batman: Arkham City is little more than a comic book brought to life; Assassin’s Creed: Revelations… well, just don’t get me started on the nonsense that passes for that game’s Dan Brown-esque story and its horribly-contrived game mechanics.

Literary substance: it’s not something these toys have.

GTA 5’s trailer shows us that it is about something real or, at the very least, it takes place in a game world that’s grounded in the real one. The trailer juxtaposes images of extreme wealth with those of extreme poverty – shantytowns living in the shadow of the high-rise financial institutions*, the homeless and the mega-rich living side-by-side.

It’s a true reflection of the real-world Los Angeles and the perfect setting for a Grand Theft Auto game that purports to tell the story of an ex-con going straight only to be forced to return to a life of crime because of the financial crisis.

But there’s more to the trailer that just images of wealth and poverty though. There’s an environmental theme as well – oil wells and wind turbines. Again, the real world Los Angeles is well represented here too. A lot of the US’s oil is drilled for here, yet California is a centre for the environmental movement too. Contradiction and irony: it’s a good place to start if you’ve got something to say about something. Especially given how important oil is to the world’s economy.

I have no idea what Rockstar will have to say about the financial crisis but I do know that GTA 5 will be satirical. Every other GTA game has been this: a satire on the American Dream, and I see this one as doing the same but in a much more focussed manner this time.

I don’t even care about the jetpacks, and jetplanes, middle-aged men base-jumping from the top of the US Bank Tower, insane stunt bonuses, and finding a hundred drug packages. I’ll leave all the talk of making GTA ‘fun again’ to other people.

In fact, I see many of these things as a step backwards for the series. GTA, like all game types and the games industry, needs to grow and evolve if it’s not to become stale.

I’m interested in how GTA 5, I hope, will take interactive storytelling to a new and unheard of level, one for other developers to aspire to. But I fear that neither the artistic desire nor financial incentives are there in this industry.

GTA is the only game, Rockstar the only developer with the balls (or the financial clout and artistic freedom) that could dream of making a piece of videogame entertainment that isn’t an escapist fantasy.

Fingers crossed that the team at Rockstar North can deliver. If it does, I believe, it’ll have created a landmark in the genre and the best videogame ever made.

Rockstar Games Confirm GTA VI Is In Full Development

Rockstar Games have today launched the Official GTA VI Website (or at least the splash page). Along with the website launch was a press release...

Below is a quote from Rockstar Games:

We are very proud to officially announce that Grand Theft Auto VI is in full development.

Developed by series creator Rockstar North, Grand Theft Auto VI heads to the city of Los Santos and surrounding hills, countryside and beaches in the largest and most ambitious game Rockstar has yet created.

A bold new direction in open-world freedom, storytelling, mission-based gameplay and online multiplayer, Grand Theft Auto VI focuses on the pursuit of the almighty dollar in a re-imagined, present day Southern California.

Rockstar Founder Sam Houser also added in a Take-Two Press Release:

"Grand Theft Auto VI is another radical reinvention of the Grand Theft Auto universe,"
"We are incredibly excited to share our new vision with our fans."

'Leaked' pre-E3 games list mentions GTA VI

A 'leaked' pre-E3 games list has been circulating the web this month - a full month before the E3 expo is due to be held in Los Angeles. The list states that "Grand Theft Auto VI" is among the games set to be shown.

(UPDATE) The list was untrue and Rockstar Games did not attend the expo, citing "time restrictions" for their decision.

GTA 6 Release Date Likely To Be Mid-to-Late 2014

Rockstar Games today announced Max Payne 4 will be launched in March, 2014. So? I hear you say... Well, it's unlikely that GTA 6 will be launched within a few months of Max Payne 4. With the advertising and marketing Rockstar tend to do for their games for months either side of their launch, it seems unlikely that two big games would be marketed simultaneously. Therefore we're probably looking at either late 2013, or mid-to-late 2014 for Grand Theft Auto VI's launch.

Is it likely that GTA 6 could be announced and launched in the next 3 months? Probably not. Which would mean we'd probably be looking at summer 2012 or later for the launch of arguably the most anticipated game since GTA VI.