Grand Theft Auto 4-GTA IV-Maps, Previews, Reviews, Videos, Screenshots, and Cheats

[Raider1one]

To coincide with the release of GTA IV, Rockstar will be launching a brand new website called the Rockstar Social Club. Registration for the club opens up on April 15th (mmm, tax day here in the US..), and it will apparently feature all kinds of multiplayer leader boards and stat tracking.

On top of the standard multiplayer ranking stuff, a press release sent out by Rockstar lists the following features.

• LCPD Police Blotter - A virtual map and tracker of single-player criminal activity logged in Liberty City from the aggregated data of millions of connected players - showing the most dangerous areas of town, most commonly used weapons and more.
• The Story Gang - This special single-player leaderboard recognizes players who complete Niko Bellic's main story arc of Grand Theft Auto IV - The leaderboard ranks players according to the total amount of playing time it's taken to complete the story, as well as a historical rank by who has completed it first. Members of this club will receive special online widgets and merit badges marking all of their in-game accomplishments.
• The 100% Club - Watch to see who will be the first to complete 100% of the game. The first ten people to be identified on the Social Club as reaching 100% will be sent an ultra-rare commemorative 'key to the city' to mark their accomplishment. In the future, the 100% Club will then carry a historical leaderboard showing rankings of who has completed 100% of a game in the shortest span of playing hours.
• The Hall of Fame -- This area will dynamically recognize those singularly elite players who have reached the top of the hill on various statistical leaderboards, and will also contain a personal awards display of special in-game landmarks and successes in Social Club competitions.
• The Liberty City Marathon -- A ranking of special physical milestones achieved in the game - from the amount of miles walked, driven, or swam - to the number of bullets fired and stunt-jumps jumped. There will be additional special marathon-based competitions in the future from this area as well.
• Hot on the heels of the Rockstar Games Social Club announcement comes further news of its functionality. Rockstar Games has joined forced with Amazon to provide a music download service for the Grand Theft Auto IV soundtrack.
  Any currently playing track in the game can be 'marked' for future reference, by means of the personal assistant / mobile phone gadget in Niko's possession. As we have highlighted previously, the mobile phone will be one of the main ways of keeping contacts and receiving missions in the game. A dial at any time to the number 'ZIT-555-0100' will return the title of the track that is currently playing. Users registered in the Social Club network will also receive a link to download the track, free of DRM protection, from Amazon.com.
  Never failing to secure smashing soundtracks for their games, Rockstar has clearly been able to pitch an online music store concept to its recording label partners. Generating cash flow after the initial purchase of the game in this manner definitely constitutes "an innovative new revenue stream for artists." (Ronn Werre from EMI Music) We expect there will also be a soundtrack CD sold separately, as has been the case with previous Grand Theft Auto titles.

[Raider1one]

[Chubz]

i cant wait for this game

[Raider1one]

Xbox 360 achievements:

from joystiq.com


We know that there are those of you who would rather remain in the dark about the pseudo-spoiler-laden list of supposed achievements for Grand Theft Auto IV that has been circulating message boards and gaming news sites as of late, so we'll considerately throw it behind the jump and avoid discussing any major bombshells which the list may or may not reveal.

But that would make for a boring news post, so let's just say this -- we love the edginess in Rockstar's seminal crime series, but we think the "Gettin' Too Old For This S***" achievement, which rewards 50G for shooting a cop who's just two days from retirement, may stir up an amount of controversy that even Rockstar's razor-sharp legal team isn't ready to deal with.

(Warning: Those who wish to enter Liberty City blissfully unaware of the events that will unfold during the game should NOT continue reading. You've been warned.)

• Pool Shark 10G
  Beat a friend at pool.

• King of QUB3D 15G
  Beat the High Score in QUB3D

• Finish Him 15G
  Complete 10 melee counters in 4 minutes

• Genetically Superior 25G
  Come first in 20 singleplayer street races.

• Wheelie Rider 30G
  Do a wheelie lasting at least 500 feet on a motorbike.

• Gobble Gobble 10G
  Score 3 strikes in a row, a turkey, in 10-pin bowling.

• Driving Mr. Bellic 10G
  Unlock the special ability of taxi.

• Rolled Over 30G
  Do 5 car rolls in a row from one crash.

• Walk Free 50G
  Lose a 4 star wanted rating by outrunning the cops.

• Courier Service 10G
  Complete all 10 package delivery jobs.

• Retail Therapy 10G
  Unlock the special ability of buying guns from a friend.

• Chain Reaction 20G
  You must blow up 10 vehicles in 10 seconds.

• One Man Army 40G
  Survive 5 minutes on 6 star wanted level.

• Lowest Point 5G
  Complete mission "Roman's Sorrow".

• Over Fulfilled 10G
  Complete all 10 Exotic Export orders.

• Manhunt 15G
  Complete the most wanted side missions from the police computer.

• Cleaned the Mean Streets 20G
  Capture 20 criminals through the police computer.

• Fed The Fish 5G
  Complete the mission "Uncle Vlad".

• It'll Cost Ya 5G
  Complete a taxi ride without skipping from one island to another.

• Sightseer 5G
  Fly on all helicopter tours of Liberty City.

• Warm Coffee 5G
  Successfully date a girl to be invited into her house.

• That's How We Roll! 10G
  Unlock the special ability of helicopter.

• Half Million 55G
  Reach a balance of $500,000.

• Impossible Trinity 10G
  Complete mission "Museum Piece".

• Full Exploration 20G
  Unlock all the islands.

• You Got The Message 20G
  Deliver all 30 cars ordered through text message.

• Dare Devil 30G
  Complete 100% of the unique stunt jumps.

• Assassin's Greed 20G
  Complete all 9 assassin missions.

• Endangered Species 50G
  Collect every hidden package in the game.

• Under the Radar 40G
  Fly underneath the main bridges in the game that cross water with a helicopter.

• Dial B For Bomb 10G
  Unlock the special ability of phoning for a bomb to be placed.

• Gracefully Taken 10G
  Complete mission "I'll Take Her".

• Liberty City (5) 20G
  After meeting all possible friends, the ones left alive all like you above 90%.

• No More Strangers 5G
  Meet all random characters.

• That Special Someone 10G
  Complete mission "That Special Someone".

• You Won! 60G
  Complete the final mission.

• Liberty City Minute 30G
  Complete the story missions in less than 30 hours.

• Key To The City 100G
  Achieve 100% in "Game progress" statistic.

• Teamplayer 10G
  Kill 5 players who are not in your team, in any ranked multiplayer team game.

• Cut Your Teeth 5G
  Earn a personal rank promotion in multiplayer

• Join The Midnight Club 10G
  Win a ranked multiplayer race without damaging your vehicle too much and with damaged enabled.

• Fly The Co-op 15G
  Beat our time in ranked versions of "Deal Breaker", "Hangman's NOOSE" and "Bomb da Base II".

• Take It For The Team 10G
  Be on the winning team in all ranked multiplayer team games.

• Top Of The Food Chain 10G
  Kill 20 players with a pistol in a ranked multiplayer deathmatch.

• Top The Midnight Club 20G
  Come first in 20 different ranked standard multiplayer races.

• Wanted 20G
  Achieve the highest personal rank in multiplayer.

• Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic 30G
  Win all ranked multiplayer variations, all races and "Cops 'n Crooks", as both sides.

• Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie 10G
  Kill a Rockstar developer in a ranked multiplayer match

[Raider1one]

GTA4 HUD Revealed


The latest issue of Australian magazine ZOO contains photographs of one of their journalists playing GTA IV on a large TV screen. As expected, the HUD is minimal, and the only thing that's permanently visible is the radar. The radar is surrounded by two semi-circles representing health and armour. Everything on the radar is translucent except for the roads. Things like weapons and wanted stars only appear when you are changing weapons or when you obtain a wanted level, we presume.

The latest issue of ZOO has a short preview of GTA IV.

[Raider1one]

WARNING: Spoilers Ahead!!
DO NOT READ IF YOU DON't WANT TO KNOW !!
from gta4.net

Grand Theft Auto IV Missions

Remember, kids - it's only illegal if you get caught!

The mission structure of Grand Theft Auto IV is considerably different from previous games in the series. Rockstar North are aiming to give players more freedom, more choice, and a greater sense of control over their character's destiny. The game still follows a narrative path, but it's quite different in the sense that the story can be told in a number of different ways, depending on the player's actions.

Niko can work on more than one mission at a time.

Rockstar are trying to blur the line between on- and off-mission. In previous titles, once you started a mission, you were given an objective which had to be completed before you were able to do anything else. In GTA4, you can start a mission, then do another mission which is completely unrelated, before finishing the other mission some time later. We are used to the story progressing linearly, but in GTA 4 you have the ability to shape it yourself. It won't necessarily affect the outcomes of the story, but it will affect the way we arrive at those outcomes.
GTA IV also gives you the ability to arrange missions by yourself, instead of acting like a slave and taking orders from other people. To a certain degree, you call the shots now. In addition to being able to receive phone calls, Niko can actually make them. Yellow markers represent missions, and walking into these will trigger a cutscene.

Cars now come equipped with GPS devices to lead the way.

Taxis now play a more active role during missions, and can be hailed at any time. During the ride you can either sit back and enjoy the views, or "trip-skip" to the destination of your choice. Of course, you still have the option of stealing a car, but it's a bit more risky if the cops are present. If the latter option is your preference however, the car's GPS system will highlight a recommended route (in yellow) on the radar.



Mission Preview #1: "Call and Collect"

McReary wants to meet Niko in person to discuss another favour. The meeting takes place at Castle Gardens, in a pedestrianised area next to the river which contains a circular water fountain area, views of the city, and a glimpse of the Statue of Happiness in the background. McReary wants Niko to retrieve a memory stick from an unknown blackmailer, and then return it to him. The memory stick contains sensitive data about McReary.

McReary wants Niko to identify and kill the blackmailer.

McReary: Were you followed?

Niko: Hey, strange seeing you here, Officer McReary.

McReary: I told you to come here, you fucking maggot!

Niko: You did? Why?

McReary: I know about you.

Niko: Know what?

McReary: I know enough, boy.

Niko: Oh, what do you know, boy?

...

Niko: I don't know what you're talking about, chief.

McReary: Do you think this is a town that can keep a secret?

Niko: I really don't know what you're talking about.

McReary: Yeah you do. You know that a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. The people ain't perfect, their life is a mess...

Niko: Sure, everybody knows that.

McReary: So. You look out for me, and I don't look out for you. Know what I mean?

Niko: I think so.

McReary: So, there's a guy trying to blackmail me.

Niko: Who?

McReary: I don't know. Thinks he's getting paid though. The guy's smart. He arranged to do the exchange by the Humboldt River off Silicon Street, said to call him from the viewpoint there.

Niko: OK...

McReary: Listen, I did what I did. I made a mistake. That don't make me the devil. Now obviously I can't go, because then he gets a picture of me giving him money and then I'm admitting guilt. I ain't guilty of nothing, other than being a man.

Niko: To be honest... I don't really care one way or another...

McReary: Call me when you get to the spot.

The only information available is the blackmailer's location and his phone number. The plan is to drive to the blackmailer's location, phone him so that he can be identified in the crowd, and then kill him to retrieve the memory stick. Niko jumps into a black Comet, and travels to the viewpoint of the blackmailer's location at Union Drive East. He phones McReary who issues further instructions. McReary sends a text message with the blackmailer's phone number. The text reads "Call the thief's mobile and see who answers their phone. Keep him talking until you identify him." Niko phones the blackmailer:

Blackmailer: Hello? Who is this?

Niko: A friend. I am calling about your exchange with McReary.

Blackmailer: Yeah. He better have my paper. I ain't fucking around.

Niko: I'm sure he's got your money. Have you got the stuff that he wants?

Blackmailer: Yeah I got it. We going to make this shit happen? I don't mess about you know. Push me and this shit is all over Weasel News. I got them on speed dial.

Niko: Really...

Blackmailer: Yeah. And there's a lawyer called Tom Goldberg who's real interested. He's hungry for McReary's blood and shit. Yeah.

Niko: Good thing Francis is paying them.

Blackmailer: Call me when this exchange is going down. I don't like all the talking, yeah?

A ringtone can be heard when the call is made. Niko needs to get closer to figure out where it is coming from. The blackmailer must be identified and killed. Since this was carried out in broad daylight, a two-star wanted level is gained. Niko must evade the cops and return the memory stick to McReary in order to complete the mission.

Niko: Yeah, he's dead.

McReary: Great, I can get rid of these now. I feel like a new man. Not many people get a second chance like this. Thank you.

Niko: Your sins are absolved, I guess.

Mission Preview #2: "Final Interview"

Francis McReary, a corrupt police officer, has some dirt on Niko's past. He wants a few favours done in return for keeping quiet about a felony Niko committed. The first thing he wants you to do is kill Tom Goldberg, a lawyer from the law firm Goldberg, Ligner & Shyster, and then retrieve some files from his office.
Niko takes a cab to the TW@ café in Algonquin, and submits a fake resumé to the Goldberg, Ligner & Shyster website. The plan is to arrange an interview so that he can gain access to the building without raising any suspicion. He then calls McReary to confirm that the resumé has been submitted, and shortly afterwards Karen - a receptionist from Goldberg, Ligner & Shyster - calls to arrange the interview:

Niko engages in fierce battle with cops after killing Tom Goldberg.

Caller: This is Karen from Goldberg, we'd like to arrange an interview at your earliest convenience. Come into our offices at noon tomorrow, is that alright?

Niko: I can free that period up in my schedule.

Karen: Super, your interview will be with Mr. Goldberg. Identify yourself to security and they will show you up. Have a nice day.

Niko calls McReary to confirm his appointment for the interview. It takes place at noon tomorrow, so other business can be dealt with until then. Niko must look presentable for the interview, so new clothes can be purchased at Perseus, a quality menswear store marked by a t-shirt icon on the radar. If you forget to change clothes, a reminder will be given prior to the interview. A chocolate suit is purchased for $1000, in addition to some shoes for $200. At Goldberg, Ligner & Shyster, the receptionist welcomes Niko:

Karen: Mr. Bellic, welcome. I will just see if Mr. Goldberg is available... Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Bellic has arrived for his interview.

Goldberg: Alright great, tell him to come to my office.

Karen: Uh huh, I'll bring him through. Would you please follow me, Mr. Bellic.

Karen takes Niko to the meeting room on the third floor of the building. Goldberg begins talking, but this isn't a cutscene and Niko is free to fire the shot(s) at any time during his speech. "Hello, Niko! I'm looking for a man who can get jobs done right. Nikolai, I like your resumé. You seem to be the sort of man who would go the extra distance, a man who's struggled. I just need to take another look and get myself reacquainted with your experience.... So you're the sort of man who doesn't wait to get told what to do, a guy who looks at the world, sees problems, and..." - Niko pulls his gun out. "Woah, woah, hold on second there friend! We're lawyers, we don't need guns! Strong move though, I gotta say, I like that style... I'm all about the Second Amendment... guns don't kill people, videogames do!"
Once the files have been retrieved and Goldberg is dead, the receptionist runs for help, and a three-star wanted level is gained. Cops enter the building and take cover behind objects. In this particular demonstration, Niko takes cover behind a cleaner's maintenance trolley. Niko must now escape from the building and evade the three-star wanted level to complete the mission.
Mission Preview #3: "Search and Delete"

Brucie wants Niko to take out a police informant, before he is able to testify against Brucie's friends. The informant is currently in hiding, so the plan is to steal a cop car so that Niko can access the on-board computer and retrieve details of his whereabouts. If Niko struggles to locate a cop car, Brucie will send a text message advising him to phone 911. The cops will arrive and inspect the scene, and then Niko can ambush them.

Brucie runs a garage in Broker, close to Roman's taxi business.

Brucie: I need you to whack some people, in their hide.

Niko: How do I find it?

Brucie: Man, you're cold! You didn't even blink! I love that! Fucking love that. You've got to steal a police car, get away from here, and give me a call.

Niko: Alright Brucie, I'll give you a call.

Brucie: ICE cold man! Ice cold! Woo!

Once the cop car has been stolen, Niko phones Brucie to update him on the current situation. The on-board computer lets you access a police database which holds information on every individual in Liberty City who has a criminal record. Niko selects "search by name / photo" and types in the name of the informant, "Lyle Rivas". The informant's last known whereabouts is 99 Long Road, Broker. This address is then entered into the car's GPS.

Niko: I'm here. I have a computer.

Brucie: You're a badass, man! I love it. The snitch is named Lyle Rivas, type it into the computer, and you should get some 'known whereabouts' shit. I'd take 'em out myself but when people see me coming they fucking RUN, man! Know what I'm sayin'? Cats don't wanna mess with someone packing 24 inch guns by each of their sides, baby, YEAH!

Niko: I'll track down this Rivas.

Brucie: Cold, man! I'm feeling chills down the phone! Call me when it's done, bro.

Niko approaches 99 Long Road, and knocks on the door before entering. Niko says that he has a message from Brucie, and the informant responds "Brucie? I thought he was fucking joking. Shit!" Rivas makes an escape out of the bathroom window, and a chase begins, which eventually leads to Francis International Airport. After reaching a dead end, Rivas attempts to escape on foot. He must be eliminated in order to complete the mission.
Mission Preview #4: "Deconstruction for Beginners"

This mission begins at a mansion in Algonquin which belongs to Playboy X. He was introduced to you earlier in the game by Elizabeta. Playboy greets Niko, before making their way up to the penthouse floor and onto an outside area. "This is my town!", he remarks. He then introduces Niko to Dwayne Moore, who just got released from jail.

Niko and Playboy X use sniper rifles to eliminate the lookouts.

Niko: So I guess you do OK?

Playboy X: Yeah OK. But uh, what about chu? What motivates you?

Niko: Hmm. Well, I need money... this pays, I can do it, I don't care if I live or die, and I'm looking for someone.

Playboy X: Someone special...

Niko: Yes. You could say that. So, why do you need me?

The next scene involves Niko and Playboy together in a car. They make their way to a development site in Castle Gardens, which was recently bought by one of Playboy's friends, a wealthy Arab man called Yusuf. "There's an alley we need to hit up just off of South Parkway." The mafia have become aware of the project, and are doing their utmost to disrupt it. A strike has been called, and Yusuf wants Niko to identify the leaders of the strike and then eliminate them. "That cat and me is gonna be tight as two cellmates on a lockdown after this!", says Playboy.

Niko: I don't know how good your plan is though, Playboy. If I get rid of the guys on the site, will there be more? If it's a union thing doesn't that make it bigger than a few guys with guns?

Playboy X: You best take them out with your rifle before you hit the rest of them. I'm going to get in position where I can see all the shit going down. If you can take out the main cats, the rest of them shouldn't be a problem. When you in there, I'll give you the lowdown on where these main cats is at.

Playboy has sniper rifles and grenades stored in the back of his car. They take the sniper rifles, and use a service lift to get to the top of a high-rise building. They take out the guards, who are located high up on different cranes situated on the construction site across the street. Playboy provides Niko with an earpiece, and Niko then makes his way down into the construction site. Niko takes the car over to the construction site to use as cover. A shootout begins, and Niko must kill the union leaders before they are able to reach a helicopter.
Mission Preview #5: "Truck Hustle"

Niko must climb through the widnow and kick out the driver.

This mission is done as a favour to the mafia, because they are trying to help Niko "find someone". The Triads are protecting a truckload of heroin in Alderney, which the mafia want you to steal. Phil Bell (one of the mobsters) asks Niko to do the job because Ray (another mobster) has refused to.

Bell: Did you hear about our friend - the guy with the thing?

Ray: Yeah, you mean Harry the.... guy with that hat.

Bell: No, the guy with the... you know, the badabeep, badaboop.

Ray: Oh, the guy with the... and the... [quick whistle]...

Bell: Yeah, that guy.

...

Bell: The Triads have this big chunk of brown that they're desperate to get rid of. Talking about it all over town. Need to offload it at any price. They think it's cursed or something! They want me to take it from them. It's loaded into a truck going to Franklyn Street Westbank. Get ahold of it and give me a call.

Niko: Sure. But Mr Bell, it's going to cost you.

Bell: You got it, no problem.

The Triads are using a truck as cover, so Niko uses a rocket launcher to destroy it. The Triads get into another truck and attempt to escape with the drugs. Niko climbs onto the top of the truck and maneuvers himself towards the passenger window, which he then climbs into and throws out the driver. The product is then driven to Frankie (Bell's nephew) in North Alderney to be offered as a "wedding gift". Mission complete.

[Raider1one]

GTA4 Rockstar Interview:

from ign.com

Grand Theft Auto IV is less than a month away. Arriving on PS3 and 360 April 29, Rockstar's latest has the IGN office abuzz with excitement. While we know many of you share our heightened anticipation, we also realize many of you still have your doubts. It's going to be a few more weeks before we know if GTA IV can deliver on its promise.

Why is this the first true sequel to GTA III? How do you make a multiplayer component that still feels as free and open as the single-player of GTA? And what's Rockstar's take on downloadable content? We spoke with VP of Creative, Dan Houser and Rockstar North Art Director Aaron Garbut to get the answers.



IGN: One of the first things that I noticed when the game was announced is that you chose to call it GTA IV. Was that to say that this is kind of the first true sequel where you guys are taking as big a leap as you did from GTA 2 which was top-down to GTA III, which of course was of course 3D and open world?

Dan Houser: Yes, definitely. Exactly that. We certainly did our best to make sure that Vice City and San Andreas felt fresh and exciting, but the problem was GTA III was already pushing the hardware so hard. The improvements tended to be in production values and scale... We wanted it to feel like the transition from 2D to 3D was seismic. We wanted a transition that felt as seismic, that felt as big this time.

IGN: Do you think people outside of the industry, that the general readership, get that yet? That people understand that change yet. Or is it going to take them actually play it before they get that?

Houser: Yeah, I think they'll have to play... When you see it running, I don't think it's difficult. You go out [with Niko] and go, "Look, we can go to the cabaret, we can surf the Internet or we can do all this other [stuff]." When you start to see that, I don't think it's difficult to get your head around.

We knew this was going to be our first big game in the lifecycle, so we wanted it to be a game that if people were buying the hardware to play, they'd know why they bought the hardware... It's not a single bullet point that is easy to reduce as it was the difference between GTA 2 to GTA III, but I believe that it's still kind of obvious once you see the game being played for more than about a minute.

IGN: And I think there are subtle things, too, that you would notice when you play it. If you just walk the streets for five minutes and then get into two different cars and try to make sharp turns you get a sense of how different it is.

Houser: I think definitely if you play the game for more than 10 seconds. We always wanted a game that you can pick it up and you can have fun, control the character, control the vehicle and have fun in three seconds flat. But there is enough depth that it is still a test of skill and there is still fun to be had after hour 15, 20, 30, 100, whatever it might be. So there's going to be tons and tons of tiny things that you'll notice over time that'll make you go, "Wow, that's pretty cool; I've never seen that kind of thing before done in a game," but you still have to have that early wow. You weren't like, "Ah, it's a little bit better." It can't feel like GTA 3.5.

IGN: Yeah, it doesn't.

Houser: Well thank you. [laughter] Otherwise the last three years would've been very miserable for nothing.

IGN: How was it making GTA IV for multiple systems simultaneously?

Houser: There have been challenges with both systems. Now we're at the point where it's is looking great on both. So we feel pretty pleased about the decision. We've never done simultaneous releases before off the lead SKU. We've done like the PC and the Xbox at the same time and other things like that... It is a challenge for the technical guys on the team (which is thankfully not me -- or thankfully them). [laughter]

It's definitely a challenge keeping that stuff in line, but I think we're now at the point where it was the right decision. We're pleased about that approach. It's not like we made any significant compromises to either version by doing them. Which was always the thing we were nervous about doing in the past, that one would feel very dumbed down or that one would feel like it could've pushed the machine a little harder. We think we've pushed both machines very, very hard compared to what other people are able to do at this point in time.

IGN: GTA games on the PS2 couldn't show things at a high level of realism, just by the nature of the console. But now you have systems that can show a truer version of the world. So how do you balance the line of creating a sense of realism without making things so realistic it becomes off-putting?

Aaron Garbut: We make GTA by chucking things in as quickly as we can and refining till they are as good as we can make them. This worked in the same way. We went through a number of styles right at the start and what we ended up with grew out of that. Where something seemed out of place, it was changed or removed.

Houser: We definitely wanted to step out from cinema shadow with [GTA IV]. We wanted to do our own thing, set in place we knew very well and set in a time we knew well. As we hadn't done a contemporary game since 2001, it felt [like] enough time had passed that we could do that without repeating ourselves.

IGN: Do you think the heightened realism is going to make the anti-GTA politicians even more vocal?

Garbut: I think regardless of how the game looked or what it contained the politicians [would] be just as vocal. GTA is an easy target for politicians and journalists to pick on. It doesn't really matter what we do or don't do. It's an open experience that allows players to do as they choose in a realistic environment. As these sorts of games become more and more sophisticated and the choices and abilities open to the players increases it will become easier and easier to sensationalize a particular aspect of it and at the same time become more and more ridiculous [about it].

We're seeing it already with the drinking in the game. There is no drunk driving minigame, there's just drinking and getting drunk. Combine this with the ability to enter cars in the game and people are able to drive drunk, but that's a choice they have made based on the abilities we have made available to them. It's just as valid for them to walk home, but that doesn't make for such interesting headlines.

I seem to be ranting but my point is we don't allow what...a politician might think to be an issue. We just make a game that is as good as we can make and as beautiful as we can make. I really loathe the idea of self censorship.



IGN: One of the things we've seen in the first two years of the 360 is that even though you're paying more, most companies have upped the resolution but haven't done much more. We haven't seen a lot of games yet where I've said, "You know, graphics aside, you could never do that on a PS2 or Xbox."

Houser: Well, I certainly feel that too much... I don't really like to talk about other people's games, because I know how hard to make games... It's intimidating. Making the art at this level of resolution is intimidating. So I can understand where some of that conservatism comes from. We've chosen not to do that, but I don't blame other people for doing that. Fundamentally, if you want to expand the audience of people who are playing videogames, it can only be through evolving the medium. Other people are saying, "Well that's through making things very simple." Our approach is the opposite by saying, "No, it's through making things vibrant and alive in a way they couldn't be previously" and that will drag new people in.

Liberty City PD stands no chance.

IGN: We saw when GTA III came out that it sort of launched the idea of an open world as the new standard. You saw a lot of people copycatting what you accomplished and that became the natural thing. Now that we're heading into the new generation of consoles, open world is an obvious thing, everybody does it. It's become a standard. So what's the new thing for this generation? Is it cinematics? Is it story that's going to become the big thing? Is it AI that's going to be the big thing for this generation?

Houser: I think it's detail... As you say, in the previous generation it was doing 3D in an open world because that gave you this idea of the playing environment -- the set, all the living world, whatever you manage to achieve -- actually existing in some way. That was something that was cool that games could do, but by the limitations of the machinery, there wasn't that much detail... We were conscious [that] this will be our first big game on these new machines and we're going to have to justify in our own minds why someone's going to spend $500 to play this game.

So for us it's got to be about detail, it has to be hi-definition and that means everything has to get better. On the last generation you could fundamentally do anything that you wanted to do in a game, but you couldn't necessarily do it with that much precision and detail. And now it's making stories that are more alive, making characters that have more resonance to them and making physics. The physics is an obvious example of something that's just leapt forward.

[Raider1one]

GTA4 Rockstar Interview Continued:

from ign.com

IGN: On the detail part, I remember the very first time the game was shown to us and I saw someone drive around and one of the very first things I noticed was, "there's a pothole in the street." It's not just like, "We made streets." It's that, "We made this street and this street hasn't been cared for in a long time."

Houser: Again it's where I come back to why I think the art guys are so great on this game. That was something we were playing around with even on GTA III. You load GTA III in about three seconds you'll see newspapers blowing around and a little bit of roadwork. But you can do it infinitely better now. And it's not to say that there's no new innovations and we're just trying to redo old ideas, because we are looking at all aspects of the process and doing it a lot better than we ever did in the past. And just doing things you couldn't do previously. Detail will give the whole thing this visceral, immediate quality it couldn't have before.

We only scratched the surface of that [during] GTA III/Vice City time, but it was really interesting to us. We were like, "Wow, this is really powerful... when people postulate games are going to be the next mass form of entertainment, this is the kind of thing they're going to be able to do." You don't really realize that that's what's so cool about it. Yes you can have -- and we love -- strong narrative but you can have that inter-related to the whole experience in quite a new way. That was something we tried to keep developing, because that seemed like a very exciting idea.

Niko knows no bounds.

What we couldn't get while doing that on PS2 or Xbox 1 was a great deal of detail and a great deal of depth. You know, it was still like a road map. And now you're able to go a lot more granularly and see the guys with their heads in their hands and see tears on peoples' faces. Things like that that just gives it this kind of power and have tons and tons of variations in the conversations and the physics to match. It was keeping all of that stuff coming up to the same level. What I thought we did very well on previous games was the kind of consistency. Even on GTA III -- and we kept that going on the other ones -- it felt like an integrated front. You could be playing a side game, unlocking a safe, going on a dance, parachuting out of a plane, listening to the radio, doing a wide variety of stuff by San Andreas and it felt like one game. We always felt that was important. So if we're tonally moving, we tried to shift the whole tone up a generation this time.

IGN: I think that carries over into multiplayer, being able to jump in using your phone.

Houser: The phone was a great piece of design. I remember when the designers showed me that and I was visiting the office and I was like, "That's brilliant. You did an amazing job with that." We've had a phone loosely since Vice City, but really then it was just for the writers, because then we could move the story forward. It was just a good way of not always making someone have a cut-scene. It was a really good device for that, but it didn't really affect the flow or become such a great navigational tool.

We love the phone and we knew we wanted the phone and wanted to do introduce text messaging and SMSing as you call it in your country. Then they were like, "Well we should just do everything through the phone." Early on we [knew] we wanted to build out male friendships as well as girlfriends, and make the girlfriends a lot more detailed. So we use the idea [that] you can go on a mission or hang out with a friend and that felt like a good thing. When the phone came in -- that's how you were going to propel all that stuff -- suddenly it was like, "We can run the multiplayer through the phone. Just run the whole game through the phone." Even though there is a bit of the element of the breaking of the fourth wall when you start playing multiplayer through it, it feels very subtle and you barely notice it. And it's a lot better than seeing a menu at that point.

IGN: And that's one of the main differences in our world from 2001 when GTA III came out to now is that our lives are built around that phone now.

Houser: We started to see that games can do things you couldn't do in other mediums. The phone is a fine example of that. This actually replicates the sensation of being alive, at least in a city today. You couldn't do that in a movie or a book, it wouldn't really make sense. In a game, you are run by your phone in a certain level. In real life and in the game the same thing -- your phone controls you. It felt fun as that came together. It turned something that felt like a menu into something that felt very immersive and organic.



IGN: I think, actually, one of the things that changes the flow when you're in some of the missions is just having that cover system. Was it ever a concern that it might slow things down too much? How early on did that cover system evolve and become part of the game?

Houser: Well, the targeting was something that we realized we'd now have the power to be able to make it the way we wanted to make it. We'd be able to get the AI good enough to justify it. That was being worked on very, very early on. San Andreas finished in October 2004 and then the guys at North have a month off when a game finishes and then we're rolling into this. The ball starts pretty reasonably gentle. Making a game's like climbing a mountain; it gets worse and worse as the air gets thinner and thinner -- as time starts to run out.

But on the very earliest lists, we knew if we're going to go next-gen and we're going to take the time we want to improve the targeting system because that's something we can do properly now. And as soon as that began to get played with the cover system became a natural addition. So I can get the targeting and then we need to add cover and you need to make sure all the weapons work in that way, [are] the blind fire bits a lot of fun?

IGN: Oh yeah. Blind fire with an RPG may be the greatest thing ever.

Houser: When they got the art right with the RPG, it was like, "Okay, that's pretty out there." But yeah, that was earlier and then after that we went on to improving the hand-to-hand combat, the fighting. And again it was, trying to still keep the game very playable for the average [gamer]... GTA's got a broad range of people that play it and you want it to still appeal to the hardcore and yet also appeal to someone who's not a hardcore gamer by any means. I think that's the sweet spot we've always tried to hit and I think we still hit it, but it's always a danger if you focus too much on targeting as being too technical. People can't play it anymore.

Cover is a significant change from previous GTA games.

IGN: GTA IV adds verticality and a cover system. Does that affect the art process at all? Do you have to think about building the city any differently because of this?

Garbut: Our programmers wrote the climbing and cover to be very flexible. In many action games, the cover is predetermined and placed in the world in a very rigid sense. Our system dynamically finds cover wherever its available. Even if it's a moving car or crate. For the player it means there's loads of flexibility and real world common sense dictates whether a piece of cover is useable. For the artists creating the world it means that for the most part they don't need to worry about it.

Obviously in an area of map or interior where a specific fire fight takes place we get a lot more structured and consider where cover is needed. But throughout the rest of the world we just make an interesting map and leave it to the cover system and the player to use what we've built. It's not really too possible to do much else when everything is so freeform. The same city block could see firefights played out in a huge number of ways so we just let nature take its course.

We encourage the verticality in various ways, from ladders to adding entire stairwells within a lot of the lower level buildings that allow the player to reach the rooftops from inside buildings.



IGN: There's lots of hidden things in GTA IV -- well, there's always been lots of hidden things in these games. Is that stuff organic where people at Rockstar just randomly go, "You know, it might be cool if we had this in the game," and it just sort of happens? How does that work, do you guys come up with a wish list of stuff you want to throw in there and build from that?

Houser: No, it's not as loose as that. On some level yes in that we come up with a wish list of things we'd like to do, of course, and things we want to redo. San Andreas was a very, very broad game so a lot of it was like, "Well, we just want to totally redo this part." It's not like we're adding fighting, we just want to make it more responsive. Something [new] is the cabaret. You can go to a cabaret in the game. (cnt'd)

Houser(cnt'd): Unfortunately, everything is a load of work and particularly working on these machines the one thing we've found is that, just as with actors and Botox, making video games and assets is a lot more work than it used to be because things are very unforgiving. Suddenly how you move between one state and another has to be beautifully animated and everything requires beautiful camera work and every asset is a lot harder to make even if you can make a lot more of them. So we can throw ideas in the pot but everything ends up being a lot of work. Everything has to be written, everything has to be recorded, mocapped, whatever it might be.

Cabaret really works because it's New York, and because he's hanging out with a load of Russian gangsters. You go out to Brighton Beach and there's loads of supper clubs out there, that was kind of what inspired us. We had some other ideas that we were playing around with, but it would work for this character in this city. With the radio stations we always wanted to expand the concept of media, so Internet was the easy one to add.

In some ways we wanted a more focused experience than San Andreas in this game; slightly smaller world, much more detail-obsessed and that had to not just be about animation and lighting, it also had to be about activities. New York was a broad canvas in some ways... [There were things] that we might have toyed with doing like rural activities. We weren't going to put in the Catskills and have you skiing. Fun as that would have been, it wouldn't have felt right for this game.

Looks like someone got their wanted level to 4 stars.

IGN: You mentioned the Internet, and I love that idea of being able to get in a cop car and search for someone's name and see their known hideout. I love that you have a network built within the game itself.

Houser: There's a bunch of little databases like that. I mean, the police one is the obvious one. The thing that people are going to get really interested in -- particularly on the second or third play through -- is all the news media. As you play the game, you're driving around and you hear on the radio the news change. It changes tons and tons of times as the story progresses. You can go on the Internet and read the same news. And you can read it from a Left Wing perspective, a Right Wing perspective or like a centrist hysterical "the world's gonna blow up" type perspective. They all bounce off each other.

Those kind of details, where there's always going to be things to discover was something -- we wanted it to be a really fun game to play through once and then a really fun game to play through again. We noticed, particularly with San Andreas, because there's been a long gap between games, people are still playing that obsessively and making up myths for themselves and finding new weird details. We wanted to really reward that kind of long, long play. Not that you have to do it, but if you do do it, there's lots of things to still find.

IGN: There was an RPG element to San Andreas that's not in GTA IV. What was the decision to take that away or scale back from that?

Houser: I think it was just a question of time and we took that out so early... We wanted to improve the animation so much and the character changing shape would not allow us to do that. It'd be arms passing through your own stomach and that kind of stuff. You wouldn't really notice it in the previous games or you'd [be] a little more sympathetic and we didn't want to do that this time... [Niko] has things to do. Rather than doing weights he goes bowling or you go to the cabaret. We definitely wanted to put a lot of stuff into that "hanging out in the world" side of the game, but we wanted it to be more activities rather than the gym.

[Raider1one]

GTA4 Rockstar Interview Continued:

from ign.com

IGN: Are there any rules you keep in place when designing the different outfits that players can choose? Are there limits to what you offer for customization so as to keep Niko from looking like a total fool? And if not, is there any concern that allowing players to dress Niko in ridiculous outfits breaks the narrative in any way?

Garbut: While it's fun to be able to design your own look for the [character] I don't see how it can coexist with a convincing story. We've avoided a "create your own" [character] for that reason. We want to tell an amazing story, that's not possible if the [Niko] can look ridiculously out of place. I don't think Goodfellas would have been such a great film if Ray Liotta had played the entire film in a dress with a clown nose and green skin.

We keep the clothes available to the player consistent with his character. There's a great deal of variety, but he'll always look like Niko.


IGN: One of the things we notice from some of our readers is that there is a disconnect in the idea of the pure, technical visuals of something and art. The two actually exist together. I think most general consumers only see the technical part, but don't know how to consider the artistic part of it at all.

Houser: It's a complicated thing, because a videogame is constantly moving. In every way. The guy's moving, your hands are moving, the worlds moving around. You can't reduce that to a screenshot. You can't even really reduce that to a video. It's hard sometimes to reduce that to the written word, to explain what's good about something or what's missing. What's intangible that makes this experience not all that it could be. It's an area where we're like, we're focused on the experience. I don't think this an experience you could possibly have thought that you would ever have on a PS2 or Xbox 1. So if you bought one of these new machines, hopefully this is one of the games you go, "Thank God I spent that money, because this is what it's all about."

That's what we wanted; that's what we set out to make. We looked at that in lots of different ways. Everything had to get better but feel like this integrated experience. And use the power to make it more integrated, not less. The design has to be progressive. It's not like you're throwing everything away. There are still bits of the old game design definitely there. The game still feels like GTA.

In rain or sleet, Niko delivers.

IGN: Aaron, do you feel that the "art" of graphics is largely unappreciated in the GTA series?

Garbut: I think it's always been difficult to stand up technically to direct comparisons with more contained "on rails" games. We build worlds that can be interacted with in a huge number of ways, that are drawn kilometres into the distance and that can be entered and viewed from inside or from 500m in the air. We have to balance the detail you need while walking slowly about exploring, driving past at 150MPH or hovering over in a helicopter. It's always about compromise. A balance of how fast the game can run with all the stuff we want to put in it and how much we can squeeze into its memory.

We populate our worlds with a huge number of characters and vehicles and again this has always been about compromise. There's always a finite amount of power and memory for us to utilize. Do we have three incredibly detailed characters onscreen at once or do we have 50 less detailed? Similarly due to the sheer vastness of the world and the amount of stuff populating it compromises have to be made. But we've always created compelling, beautiful worlds that have a distinct style and work as a cohesive universe which is a very hard thing to get right.

I've spend countless miserable hours of my life torturing myself reading what people have to say on various forums. I've had to develop quite a thick skin to cope with it all! But I believe that you can't separate game play, art, code, audio, music or the story. People experience a game as a whole. (cnt'd)

Garbut (cnt'd):I've read so much in forums about the [crappy] graphics in GTA, but the same people will talk about spending countless hours exploring the world and getting lost in the experience. The artists here have made that world and been part of creating that experience. Every compromise that we've made in visual fidelity has been to improve that experience in some way. I think creating a world that people can get lost in with characters that people remember and identify with and making that experience so cohesive that it starts to feel like a real place is far more important than whether our characters hands had all their fingers or the number of subdivisions in our car wheels.

I think we're all part of a collective that makes an experience, creates a world, a story, and the people that inhabit it. And makes it engaging enough to keep people interested. So I suppose what I'm saying is that no, I don't think the artwork is underappreciated. I think people love it; it's just that they don't consider it to be the art.



IGN: So, you created this massive world with tons of hidden goodies that will likely take more than 100 hours to fully discover and enjoy. And then you throw in a gigantic multiplayer component.

Houser: We couldn't do that before, because the machines couldn't -- The very base thing, the very entry point was, "Can we have the world running and play multiplayer?" And you just couldn't do that before. And now you can, so it was like, "Okay, now how do we make this feel, still, like GTA and not go to the way that a lot of multiplayer games end up feeling like a costume party."

What we're trying to do, I suppose, with the whole game is give you a cinematic experience but then extend that... So it's like you're the gangster, but you're not just the gangster in the bank job, you're the gangster of the full experience. That's what the single-player is trying to be like: put you as the star of your own TV show. And I guess the way that we look at multiplayer is you can't -- and we're still trying to figure out aspects of this -- recreate the full narrative experience. Instead you can recreate aspects of that, like how you can get a really cool car chase. So Cops 'n' Crooks is a great mode because it's a felling like you and everyone are getting the gangster experience. Now obviously, it's a section of a film rather than a whole narrative, but it does give you those movie experiences.

Multiplayer is all about Cops 'n' Crooks.

IGN: Yeah, when we were bumbling around as crooks I kept thinking, "Man, it's like I'm reliving Reservoir Dogs."

Houser: Yeah, which is brilliant. That's something that, I think, multiplayer games have been crying out for. In terms of accessibility, in a lot of first-person games which tend to dominate the multiplayer arena, there's a skill set barrier to entry that I think we kind of... you still obviously have got a skill based game, but it's going to be easier for people to get in and have fun and not feel quite so intimidated [in GTA IV].

IGN: What really impressed me is that you managed to keep the idea of an open-world game in multiplayer, which is something most people seem to lose. GTA Race, in most games you'd be stuck in a car, stuck on a track. But f I want to jump out of my car, jack a new car or just shoot people or set up a road block, I am free to do what I like.

Houser: That's what I was saying where the world has to run, and then you have to design around that, because that's what the game is. You can't throw away what the core ideas of the game are just to make something. Well you can, but it's just a different game at that point. If you want to make a GTA game with multiplayer, it has to feel like GTA. It can't be, "Here's a series of side multiplayer modes that have some loose resemblance to this game." It has to feel very similar, but there's living people running around.