To my surprise, GTA Portable still pulled in a lot of visitors this week - even though we haven't had a portable GTA title for a long time now, and so far there's no official word on the next one. I want to inform you guys on something that I'm busy with now, of course apart from playing the game. Over at IGN they've launched a rather big fan site called GTA 'Hood, - the main aim of it right now is to offer you guys the best place to aid in playing the game. Whether it's finding a pigeon, armor, or even a step by step mission guide on an interactive map! It's really exciting and things are starting to shape up. Anyone can contribute!



For an introductory news post, click this link.

Visit: GTA 'Hood

Rocktstar Games today released the fourth and final trailer of GTA IV before worldwide release this April 29th. The song used in trailer is ''Real McKoy'' by artist Mavado. Check it out below, or download in High Definition on the official website :



For all the latest updates, stick to Planet GTA, where I cover the game, as well as GTA4.net.

Rockstar Games today released the final box art for Grand Theft Auto IV on the official website - which slightly changed. Along with this, they released a short video of the box art being painted on a wall. They also announced the debut date of the third trailer ''Move up, ladies'' as December 6th at 3:00 PM EST / 8:00 PM GMT.



While currently there are no new screenshots on the website, they did upload four files in the screenshot directory. It goes from http://www.rockstargames.com/IV/screenshots/018.jpg chronologically ending at 021.jpg. I personally found this to be uploaded today, and it goes without saying that these are placeholders for screenshots to be uploaded sometime between now up until the release of trailer three on December 6th.

UPDATE: The aforementioned images have been removed.

Official Website: rockstargames.com/IV

At about 4am GMT today I got an e-mail from Jordan over at PlanetGTA.com informing me about this news article he posted. Basically he talks about a box art and a short 30 second video of Grand Theft Auto IV coming soon. I've looked at the evidence myself, and while I can't tell you anything about it, I can safely say that he's right. It's official stuff!

We don't know when it'll come out, but we're both guessing during this week. Perhaps if other websites later today post about this, it'll be more assuring to you. But at least take Jordan's credibility - someone who's been running his fan site since 2002.

Sad news for a lot of fans tonight, GTA IV has been delayed due to ''additional development time required'' to complete the title. The game is now planned to be released in the second quarter of Rockstar Games' parent company, Take Two, which stretches over February, March and April.

We received this e-mail from Rockstar Games:



The press release states that the parent company is updating its financial guidance, of course due to the delay, where we get a clear reason for pushing back the title...

Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two, stated, ''With Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar is setting a new standard for next generation video games. Certain elements of development proved to be more time-intensive than expected, especially given the commitment for a simultaneous release on two very different platforms. We all recognize that perfecting the game is vital and I can assure everyone it will be worth the wait. We owe it to the game's millions of fans, to our dedicated development team, and to our shareholders to make sure that Grand Theft Auto IV is a groundbreaking gaming experience that takes maximum advantage of next generation technology.''

Sam Houser, Founder and Executive Producer of Rockstar Games, added, ''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.''

More details are to follow soon, and a conference call that can be streamed via the web is scheduled for 5:30 PM EDT. We'll update you as we receive more details.

Press Release: Take-Two

UPDATE: Nothing else came out during the conference call, just reassurance that they want to bring out the title at its best, and not finish it up sooner to meet the holiday release schedule.

When I checked GTAPortable.com's stats last night I was stunned to see numbers I didn't expect; for a site that hardly promises anything new for at least a year, 30k unique visitors for the month of June certainly isn't bad. Sure it isn't what it used to be, but I'm still surprised to see so many people still visiting.

This certainly encouraged me to go ahead with my planned website dedicated to the publisher behind Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar Games. Initially planned since January, it's clearly more evident now that the web needs a site dedicated to covering just the company and its games, something which the web currently lacks.

It was announced last November that there are nearly 10 PS3 titles in development by Rockstar Games, some of which might have been scraped off due to Take-Two Interactive's restructuring plan. I doubt so, but if some of them were in early stages it is likely to have been.

The company will also no doubt step up its support for Nintendo's platforms, most importantly the Wii. Whether or not we'll see a Grand Theft Auto on it in the future can't be denied nor confirmed at this time, but regardless we still might see some innovative games for the platform; just take a look at what they did with Table Tennis on the 360 - and who knows, we might see a ''killer application'' for it like they did with Liberty City Stories on the PSP in 2005.

At this time I can't say exactly when I'll be launching the site; I'm currently busy with a few other things, but my guess is that it will be live about after GTA IV's next big round of new detailed previews, which should kick off in early August from Game Informer and such.

Speaking of GTA IV, I'm sure most of you know that I'm assisting in covering the game over at GTA4.net. This will probably mean I won't be covering the game to its fullest over at the aforementioned website, http://RockstarGam.es, but I might get someone else to do that or I'll try and syndicate the news off of GTA4.net.

Well, enjoy the rest of your summer (or winter) vacation. It's been just over 3 months since the unveiling of GTA IV and the debut of Trailer 1; the second trailer already launched, and at least one of the two remaining trailers will be launching within the next 3 months, with Niko strutting his stuff in front of your eyes a month later when you finally got the game!

In the latest issue of the Australian edition of the Official PlayStation Magazine, Dan Houser, Vice President of Creative for Rockstar Games, was asked about a San Andreas Stories for the PSP. He replied saying that they currently have no plans on that, and that they're currently focusing on other things, such as GTA IV.

This suggests that Rockstar Games did not yet start on a new PSP title of Grand Theft Auto at all, though being a magazine preview of GTA IV we can't rule out the possibility of plans and/or development to have already been commenced by R*. Dan also stated that they haven't yet figured out if GTA IV is going to spark off another set of GTA games connected to it, and they're currently just focusing on this single game when it comes to Grand Theft Auto.

For more information from this issue, read my article at GTA4.net over here. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to check out the previews from Game Informer, OPM UK, OXM and OPM Italy.

I'll update you guys if anything new comes up, but as you'd expect, it's all GTA IV now...

With GTA IV it seems as though R* is steering the series into a new direction, and with this fresh start they're trying to leave the past out as much as possible. However, while Sam Houser did say GTA San Andreas ended the GTA 3 trilogy, this changed when they introduced the first PSP GTA title in late 2005.

Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories allowed Rockstar Games to expand on the stories of the original three games, and with this they created top selling games for Sony's PSP. With this it seems unlikely for them to stop with the PSP titles just yet. Will they make use of 2004's GTA: San Andreas and offer a San Andreas Stories, or will Rockstar Leeds take two years given to them to develop a brand new GTA game that ties in with GTA IV's storyline?

Naturally, with all the hype surrounding the ever so popular game that is Grand Theft Auto IV not many people care to think or anticipate about this, but probably around next year this time attention will be focussed yet again by fans on this side of the GTA series.

So, with this in mind the UK side of Games Radar took some time and wrote a neat article looking back at GTA's past and unfinished storylines, speculating where it might go next. You can read the article in full at the link below...

Read: GamesRadar.com

With the launch of the Manhunt 2 website and new trailer, Rockstar Games announced in their latest newsletter that the songs of Vice City Stories were finally added to Apple's iTunes in the form of an ''iMix'' collection. Originally it was available as exclusive download via MTV's Urge.



Below are the links and information as they are from the newsletter...

Radio Espantoso – Music available from Tito Puente, Hector Lavoe, Eddie Palmieri and more..
Paradise FM – Disco decadence from the likes of Gwen Guthrie, Sister Sledge, and Class Action & Todd Terry Project…
Flash FM – Pop from Pat Benatar to Missing Persons and everything in between…
VC For Lovers – Soulful slow jams from Marvin Gaye, Barry White and Earth Wind & Fire and others…
Wave 103 – It’s the new wave. Includes tracks from The Human League, Thompson Twins, Depeche Mode and Blondie.
Emotion 98.3 – Soft rock and quintessential power ballads from The Motels, Toto, Foreigner, The Pretenders and more…
V-Rock – Bang your head to the sounds of Dio, Queensryche, Kiss, Dokken and more…
Fresh 105 – The deffest rap and electro from such artists as Afrika Bambaata, Jonzun Crew, Run DMC and Planet Patrol.

Now, as for Grand Theft Auto IV - I know I've said that I'm going to be running my own fan site, but alas, I'm not going to. This is mainly due to the fact that this year I don't have any time to manage an entire fan site on my own. Therefore, a short while back I've decided to help out over at GTANet on GTA4.net. This is currently the prime location for everything Grand Theft Auto IV, as our stats and content would suggest, and what better than with GTAForums on its side.

I again thank the guys at Rockstar NYC for being VERY helpful around the beginning of this year, and for everything they did in the past. With a lot more products from them coming our way, I might open up a blog dedicated to it later on via RockstarGam.es.

Thanks to everyone that supported the site over the years and I promise that I will keep covering the upcoming portable titles of Grand Theft Auto... we might need to wait another year, though.

The budget pricing for Vice City Stories seems to be paying off in the United Kingdom. Last week it topped the All Formats chart as number one, outnumbering Tom Clancy's GRAW 2 by only 200 sales. Sales for Vice City Stories reportedly increased by 35% for the week.

With a few extra features, smoother game play and sharper graphics, the good sales of the PlayStation 2 version of Vice City Stories is once again showing Rockstar Games' strong presence in the gaming world and entertainment industry.

This October it will be three years since the release of GTA San Andreas, a game that sold much more than both Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories together. With this, it's almost unimaginable how well GTA IV will be selling. The first trailer for the game will be releasing next week on March 29.

In related news, Sony has posted a list of workable PS2 games for when the PlayStation 3 releases this Friday in European territories. Vice City Stories is listed under ''Should play on PLAYSTATION 3 with noticeable issues''.

Source: Chart Track