GTA 4 - Game Environments

GTA 4 - Game Environments

Based on several of the boroughs of N.Y. City and parts of N. Jersey, Liberty City, very familiar to players of previous GTA games, has been entirely redesigned for Grand Theft Auto 4.

Players can expect visible detail down to the weeds growing in the cracks in the sidewalk, cars and buildings of visibly different ages and a much greater level if verticality in the buildings and bridges that they are able to explore as Niko moves through the city streets.

In addition, pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto IV are much more realistic. No longer simply moving cardboard cutouts, these NPCs are intelligent, modern, human representations that laugh, cry, eat, drink, use cell phones and ATMs, and talking amongst themselves regardless of Niko’s interaction with them.

GTA IV: Grand Theft Auto 4 on PS3 or Xbox 360

GTA IV: Grand Theft Auto 4 on PS3 or Xbox 360
by Alexa Peters

GTA 4 on PS3 or Xbox 360 is the first console game on IGN that has earned a perfect 10 since 1999. The reviewer says that "GTA IV is the best game he's played in the last ten years". The game is also known as GTA 4 or GTA IV. The Grand Theft Auto series has always been a mega-hit in video game sales. Based upon the feedback and anticipation for this game, it has the potential to be one of the biggest games for 2008.

A fictitious place named Liberty City is designed as a plot in the GTA series. It is the main place where all the action would take place. The main protagonist Niko (player) comes to America after accepting invitation from his cousin. Nicko comes to to America with great expectations to give wings to his American dream, but as a matter of fact everything turns against his expectations and dreams. He gets over his head in debt which leads him to the criminal underworld. Life changes for the worse, as he owes a a large sum of money to some very bad people.

GTA IV reinvents the GTA series with an updated version of Liberty City detailed potholes in streets and rooftop air conditioning vents. There are more boroughs to explore plus extra area outside of Liberty City limits. GTA isn't particularly suited to straight-up team death match. For example - the mechanics and arena are simply not a fit for such competition. GTA 4's world is simply too interesting: during most death match games you'll wish you could go and explore an alley or drive a car into the sunset without someone shooting at you with a rocket launcher.

Grand Theft Auto 4 is being hailed as the rock star of video games and is the most refined and polished release in the whole of the franchise history. Few games deliver on the hype this one does. Grand Theft Auto IV is one of the first games to utilize Natural Motion's Euphoria engine for realistic body movement, and from what has been previewed, this animation engine deserves the hype. Bodies react realistically to gunshots, legs bend naturally to uneven terrain, and you can see momentum in running and stopping motions.

In addition, Grand Theft Auto 4 is the first time that online multiplayer is available to console players. Rock Star has taken cues from other modern online games and added their own Grand Theft Auto twist. All eyes are on how Rockstar is going to set up the multi-player; it can either be great or terrible.

A note of caution is that parents need to be aware that Grand Theft Auto IV PS3 is generally rated 'M' which means, this game should be played only by matured people over 17 years of age. The reason for this rating is that there is a fair amount of violence and nudity.

Many video gamers believe that Grand Theft Auto 4 is the very best that the medium has to offer right now, as close to perfect as any game has yet come. The flaws are probably there for those who really want to find them, but the overall experience far eclipses any momentary frustrations.

Rockstar Leads and everyone follows? Interview with Rockstar Leeds founder Gordon Hall

Game GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

Rockstar Leads and everyone follows? Interview with Rockstar Leeds founder Gordon Hall

Rockstar Leads and everyone follows? Interview with Rockstar Leeds founder Gordon Hall

By Develop’s reckoning, Rockstar Leeds is one of the most profitable studios on the planet.

Since 2005 it has created six games for its headline-dominating parent company Rockstar Games – with its Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories titles being bestsellers on PSP and PS2.

When you look at the amount of games sold versus number of staff (the headcount currently stands at 70 having grown steadily since its founding in 1997 and acquisition by Rockstar in 2004), its staff probably have a higher per capita value of any other third-party studio from around the world.

But how did a team of upstarts that at one point worked on a Barbie Horse Adventures GBA game become one of the world’s most profitable studios working on the most recognised contemporary games franchise?

Co-founder and studio head Gordon Hall knows the answer – so we caught up with him at the Develop conference, just a day after Rockstar Leeds took home the Develop Award for best handheld studio, to find out.

So it’s the studio’s tenth birthday this year – run us through how you got to where you are now.
Well, I started out creating games when I was quite young at 14 or 15, but I left the games industry as someone told me ‘don’t bother with that, go and get a proper job’. I was tempted back when a friend I had made games as a youngster started a company called Twilight which then became Hookstone. I started as a programmer with an eye on the business side, but it soon turned out when I joined that the business didn’t have long left to live.

So I teamed up with some of the other guys to form Mobius – and it wasn’t easy trying to prove ourselves at that time. We went about 16 months without a salary until we signed a game and realised that we worked well as a small team, and that best suited handheld games, so we made sure we did some different titles to establish our name.

At the same time, we wanted to think ahead, so we sectioned a group of the team off and looked at the market to see what would happen in a few years time. About five years ago we thought it would be a ‘GameCube in your hand’-style machine and that Nintendo would be first with the high-powered handheld, so we wrote an engine for it before it ever existed, in order to make sure we were there first – but of course it never happened.

What happened instead was Sony announced the PSP and we had everything ready for those comparable tech specs and just went from there. Things went ballistic going from a studio comfortably turning over about a million pounds a year to, pretty much overnight, a studio being offered every franchise on the planet, and three publishers suddenly wanted to acquire us, and another two wanted to team up to keep us independent.

Rockstar were one of the ones who wanted to acquire us – we had just been working on Max Payne GBA for them, and that introduced us to a model of gaming that we had never seen before - a ‘balls to the wall, work your tits off because it’s worth it if you get it right, gameplay first’ approach where everyone at Rockstar from your senior producer right up to Sam Houser were looking at your game, playing it and commenting on it. That was really unique for us and compared to how the rest of the industry handles itself, it just felt right.

It must have been a pretty easy decision?
Well, when it came to the crunch, we let the staff decide – we had 37 or so guys at that time and we laid out what the possibilities were and asked what we should do. Although, in all honestly, I did lay it on a bit thicker on the Rockstar side because the idea of working on a smaller number of games with those guys really appealed and meant we could focus on quality.

Plus, out of all those interested in us, Rockstar didn’t want us to expand to 200 quickly – one of the deals we were being offered was for eight PSP games a year for one publisher, which is great on paper, but means less love from the publisher and a bloody hard slog to get those games done. So we joined Rockstar.

The big surprise came when Sam said he wanted us to do GTA. The game had never been done outside of Rockstar North, and I remember a pause in the meeting when, for a second he thought we weren’t interested – we were so stunned he thought the silence meant we didn’t care. Of course: we did care!

Did you feel you had to prove yourselves as newcomers to a set of studios that already had a strong reputation?
Absolutely. Games take a long time to make – when you make one you give up 18 months of your life, and that’s a long time. Some games now are being made on a four-year life cycle – that frightens the fuck out of me because that’s a huge chunk of your life. So one thing we’d always had done, before Rockstar, was always take a step back and play our games to make sure they remain fun to play.

When we were given GTA we realised we had to do the same, but just take it to the next level. So the big thing for us was multiplayer. GTA never did multiplayer on a console, and our team lives and dies on the calibre of our guys, and we realised that if we could get a prototype of multiple players in three months, then we could offer something fresh to the series. We really pushed that hard – and it didn’t work for some time, it was a struggle – but the minute we had a breakthrough, and half the studio is sat there playing the game’s ‘defend the base’ mode, enjoying the new idea we have brought to this amazing series, we knew we’d made it.

In terms of it being a ‘struggle’ and having only that short period of time to get that feature working – did it put much pressure on the team?
Well on the first game, I admit we worked some long hours. It wasn’t imposed – it was self-inflicted because we wanted to make a big name for ourselves. But the truth is there is only a small difference between working your balls off to make a good game, and working your balls off to make the best game in the world – that extra bit of effort can really pay off. Luckily, Rockstar understands that and recompenses its staff accordingly.

Is that the Rockstar ethos then?
Totally, it’s very much ‘prove yourself, make it count, don’t leave anything on the table – and, by God, you will be looked after if you do that’. When you hear him [Sam Houser] say it, you know it’s from the heart. And we know it’s an attitude that works as Rockstar games do well. I’ve heard some people say Rockstar’s success lies in sales and marketing, and promotion - it’s not just those things: the core is making games that people give a fuck about playing.

Every week we look at the game and ask ourselves ‘is it fun? is it playable?’ it’s a very rinse and repeat approach – the team has to keep replaying it to know the game, make sure it is fun, know what needs to be done to make it even better. The idea is to make a game so good that someone would want to steal it if they couldn’t afford it, not care about milestones.
The worst thing to hear another developer say is ‘Oh, I’m working towards our latest milestone’. Fuck milestones! What you want to care about is the end result; ask if your average consumer, who is only going to be buying a handful of games a year, will want to play it.

Make a game your own, and forget thinking what the guys who signs the milestone cheques thinks, focus on the game and what the person playing it at the end will think. It’s not worth thinking about games development any other way.

I know I’m privileged, and that our team is lucky enough to have the best franchise in the world to riff on, but I think it’s a rule for everyone – I think it’s worked for us given how we’ve used the Stories label to create a subtly different slant on the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

So what’s next for the studio?
We’re currently at 70 guys, but are now growing. Until now we’ve been very focused and quite closed off, rarely interviewing and hiring – we have a very slow hire process, because we look for the right people and want those that fit with the culture and the team. But are expanding: we’re going to take up more space in the office block we are based in. There’s the capacity to have 40 more staff, but I only want to take on about 25 at most.

What about new games?
We’re just finishing off Table Tennis, which is a lovely product to work on – I think it’s really found its home on Wii.

After that we’re going to be branching out further into next-gen – we’ve done original work on an existing franchise, but now we want to work on new IPs, and are looking at what we can do on Xbox 360 and PS3 for original products. But to succeed on those formats you’ve got to put everything into it or step away – we’re already lucky to have a really committed team, so I think from that we will step up to become an established Rockstar studio known for original projects. It’s not over for handheld for us – there’s more coming there – but our new focus will be on the new formats. I’m also very inspired by PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade – it’s currently untapped for us, and is a field the whole world overall has overlooked.

One idea we are talking about that I can’t talk too much about is something we’ve discussed with Sam Houser a lot, and when we talk about the concept – which is just a postage stamp sized idea at the moment, it’s not in production yet – just makes us crack up laughing. It’s an idea that the New York team came up with and which then evolved as we discussed it with them; it’s a short development cycle, just 18 months, and it really excites me. But you know what we’re like – we don’t say anything concrete about a game until a few months before release, so that’s all I can say.

Has that gameplay-focused production method surprised any of those newcomers?
Yes. One of the things we’re trying to teach people is that, yes, next-gen gives you more polys to play with, more processing powers for physics, and it means more staff – if you want it to – but more polygons, better resolution, better physics can’t guarantee good gameplay. Good gameplay comes from the joypad.

One of the things I notice with new staff when they join us is that they feel they have to spend ages sat at their desk adding content, but not playing the game at all. I’m much happier if someone sat at their desk with their feet up replaying a small piece of code over and over for six hours rather than continually working and not playing, because that iterative experience reveals so many things that a polished but untested game can’t show you. For me, the best position for my guys to be is with their hands on a joypad rather than on a keyboard. If they play the game as much as they work, I’m happy as I know that will mean a good game. But none of our new starters ever think like that when they first arrive.

Why do you think that is?
The culture in the industry for too long has been a horrendous ‘Why aren’t you working? Why are you on the internet?’ attitude - but behaving like that stamps out creativity. I think it is an attitude slowly changing, however, because ten years ago the people at the top didn’t play games – now people that play and understanding playing are getting to the top, this is one of the things I really like about Rockstar.

Looking back over the past few years, Leeds has worked on games for the teams at Rockstar North, San Diego, Toronto – you seem to be a bit of a hub for all the other studios. Is that a fair assumption?
Yes, and I think what has put us in that position is our great team, and their ability to develop initial concepts quickly. They’re amazing guys - they got the code from GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas up and running on the PSP in just weeks. It’s phenomenal. As I’ve said, we work hard and fast – the guys like to get code and get it running, without tarting it up, just to prove things are possible, and that’s what’s put us in such a good position. You can polish once the thing is fun.

From that vantage point, and given that the studio has contributed to Rockstar’s slate of 18-rated games, did the recent action over Manhunt 2 effected how Leeds and the other Rockstar studios go about producing their games?
Well, on that point, I’ve got to say I really feel for the London team – they’ve done a cracking job and made a great game.
I like the game for what it is – and I was a big fan of Manhunt before we joined Rockstar, and I was actually a bigger fan of it more than I was of GTA – I like where it placed you in the world and the questions it asked of the world. Manhunt 2 is no different to the first in terms of content, it’s just that times seem to have changed and they’ve changed against this type of game. But if you look at a film like Man Bites Dog, it makes Manhunt look tame in comparison, but that film can be bought by anyone aged 18.

Was there a feeling amongst the Rockstar studios that the company was being singled out?
I don’t think Rockstar specifically has been picked on, but I do think that the wider issue attacks our entire industry. We need to teach people that games are an art form – they are more artistic than film.

I think the games industry should rally behind us, because there will come a time when we’ll all have an idea that’s a little edgy, and we need to have the freedoms to express it.
We are an adult entertainment industry – we may have started out with child-like technology making games solely for a younger audience, but it’s just not like that anymore. It might take legislature a little while to catch up, but if the industry sticks together hopefully we can change people’s attitudes quicker.

www.rockstarleeds.com

Source: Michael French (DevelopMag)

Game GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

GTA IV 4 - PS3 or Xbox 360?

Game GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

GTA IV 4 - PS3 or Xbox 360?

A big factor in the purchase of electronics is price, and you'll need to spend some cash to be able to play Grand Theft Auto IV when it releases for the PS3 and Xbox 360 early next year. Not only will the Microsoft drop its Xbox 360 price within the next few hours, but you also have the opportunity to get a brand new PlayStation 3 for $349.99. To get this price, you must order the PlayStation 3 at Sony.com and buy it with a Sony card that you must apply and be approved for. Once approved, you get a $150 credit to your Sony card account within 8-12 weeks, thus dropping the current 60GB PS3 price from the already, yet only temporary, dropped $500 price tag down to $350. For a full explanation of this, go here.

Also, as you may have heard, the Xbox 360 premium bundle will now be dropped to $350 (August 8). The elite bundle will now be $450. I do not recommend the core bundle. I own a premium system, and all has worked correctly with it for the past few months. There are hardware problems with many of the Xbox 360's that are currently out in homes across the world, but I'm confident in my warranty that Microsoft recently extended to three years.

Just as a note, I plan on buying a PlayStation 3 if Blu-ray ends up "winning" over HD DVD. Also, I have received many e-mails about what kind of HDTV would be good to buy. People seem to be unsure of what to look for. A lot of different aspects and specifications need to be looked at when buying a HDTV, and trusting in-store employees to get your information is usually not wise. I might do an article on HDTV buying tips in the future, but for now I will tell you that I bought this Samsung television for GTA IV and other entertainment purposes.

By Jordan (GameSpy)

Game GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

GTA IV 4 Delayed

Game GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

Grand Theft Auto IV Delayed

Fans will have to wait until next year to tour Liberty City

August 2, 2007 - In a conference call set to begin at 5:30pm EST today, Rockstar Games will announce that it will delay the release of its highly-anticipated title Grand Theft Auto IV. Previously slated to hit stores on October 17th, the game will now make its way to gamers some point early next year.

In technical, company jargon, Rockstar has moved its release from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 to the second quarter of its fiscal 2008. In real-world terms, this means the title will ship sometime between February 1st and April 30th, 2008.

The reason for the delay is simple: Rockstar North needs more time to polish it. Given the game's exceptionally high expectations, Rockstar has chosen to push back the release a handful of months rather than rushing the title out to market.

Sam Houser, founder and executive producer of Rockstar Games, had this to say: "The new consoles are allowing us to create the Grand Theft Auto game we always dreamed about. Every aspect of the game and its design has been completely transformed. The game is huge and is pushing the hardware platforms to their absolute limits. The top engineers from Sony and Microsoft are working closely with the team in Edinburgh right now, helping us to fully leverage the power of both platforms. As always, our goal is to surpass even the wildest expectations of the game's fans, and to create the ultimate high definition video game experience."

By Chris Roper (IGN)

Game GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

GTA IV 4 | High-Resolution Screenshots

GTA IV 4 | High-Res Screenshots

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GTA IV 4 | High-Res Screenshots

Grand Theft Auto IV | Trailer 2

GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4 | Official Trailer - 02 (High Quality)

GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

Grand Theft Auto IV | Trailer 1

GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4 | Official Trailer - 01 (High Quality)

GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

Rockstar Games announces Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition

GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

Rockstar Games announces Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition

Rockstar Games is proud to announce that Grand Theft Auto IV will be available as a special edition on October 16 in North America and October 19 in Europe, the same day as the regular edition of Grand Theft Auto IV.

The Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition will be presented in a customized Grand Theft Auto metal safety deposit box. The box will contain:

--Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system or the PLAYSTATION3® computer entertainment system, both with special packaging

--The Grand Theft Auto IV Art Book, featuring never-before-seen production artwork from Grand Theft Auto IV

--Selected soundtrack CD from Grand Theft Auto IV, featuring new material from top artists, only available on this release

--An exclusive Rockstar keychain for the safety deposit box keys

--Completing the collection is a limited edition Rockstar duffel bag

All of the items have been created with the utmost attention to detail to create a unique Grand Theft Auto IV experience for any fan of the series. The Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition is available for pre-orders today and will retail for $89.99 in North America.

For more information about Grand Theft Auto IV, please visit www.rockstargames.com/IV.

Rockstar Games is a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO).

GTA Grand Theft Auto IV 4

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