rockstar-north posts

Announced for some unknown reason at midnight this morning (to the bane of gaming journalists everywhere) Rockstar Games has now confirmed what was rumored some months ago. They will be releasing the two expansions for Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC on March 30.

Previously released for the Xbox 360 version of the open world action game, the PC port will soon have access to both The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. Both episodes will be made available via download for folks who already own the PC version GTA IV. If you don't you can still play both expansions via a stand alone disk version that ships to retail stores with the title Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City. Just in case you aren't familiar with the expansions, The Lost and Damned deals with a biker gang in Liberty City while The Ballad of Gay Tony has the player dealing with the city's rather colorful night life.

Ever since the fairly disastrous release of the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV last year, we have heard rumblings that the game's downloadable expansion packs might be released for the PC as well. Publisher Rockstar Games has previously said that the two GTA IV episodes (The Lost and The Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony) would be Xbox 360 exclusives.

Now fan site GTAIV.net claims that a new update to Microsoft's Games For Windows Live client has added PC achievements for The Lost and The Damned. They include a screenshot (presumably taken from the PC GTA IV port) that shows the new achievements with the "TLAD" acronym beside them. So far Rockstar has yet to confirm anything about the expansion moving to the PC so this is definitely in the "rumor" column for now.

[Via Computer and Video Games]

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Nowadays, Rockstar is recognizable for its blockbuster series of satirical, crime-driven, non-linear third-person shooters known as Grand Theft Auto. Back in the early days, however, the studio behind the GTA games was not Rockstar, but DMA Design, which is now known as Rockstar North. They created a number of games, but of note were, of course, the first two games in the GTA series: Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2. It is debatable amongst the community which one is better, but really, there is no contest. Grand Theft Auto 2 is much better in just about every concievable way. Thankfully, Rockstar has been kind enough to bless those without a copy of the original access to the open-ended sandbox gameplay for free!

When Grand Theft Auto III was released by Rockstar Games and developer DMA Design (later known as Rockstar North) it changed the way games were thought about forever. The "open world" genre effectively started with the PS2 title and its October 2001 debut sold millions of copies, helped make the PS2 the "winner" in last generation's console wars.

The graphics (based on Criterion Games's RenderWare engine) and visual look were a bit simplistic and even a little cartoony in style but it also gave the designers a way to create a vast game world without having to worry about doing highly detailed visuals. Grand Theft Auto III and its two follow ups, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) improved the graphical looks slightly but all three games were built with the PS2 in mind which has relatively low hardware specs. Thus it wasn't hard to port all three games to the PC platform where one can expect users to have rigs that are much higher than the PS2's specs (all three games were released for the PC around six months or so after their debut on the PS2).

While Rockstar Games never got back in touch with us about the apparent delay in the release of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC, they apparently had time to call back IGN. They confirmed what we reported on previously this week that the game's release date would in fact be pushed back two weeks, from Nov. 18 to Dec. 2.

The news story also has some updated system requirements for the PC port of the open world action game. Micrsoft's Games For Windows web site previously posted up some preliminary info but this is apparently the official specs your PC rig will need to run the game:

Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
Memory: 1.5GB, 16GB Free Hard Drive Space
Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended System Requirements
OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
Memory: 2 GB (Windows XP) 2.5 GB (Windows Vista)
18 GB Free Hard Drive Space
Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870

Develop magazine has announced the finalists for its Develop Industry Excellence Awards 2008, prestigious accolades that "showcase the massive amount of games development talent found in Europe," according to Michael French, editor of Develop.

Given the massive success of Grand Theft Auto IV, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Rockstar North has received four nominations in the areas of Visual Arts, Audio Accomplishment, Technical Innovation and Best In-house Developer. Its sister studio, Rockstar London, received a nomination for Best New UK/European Studio.

"Be it digitally-distributed games, MMOs, first-person shooters or action-adventures," said French, "there's no area of the industry that hasn't been bolstered by Europe's diverse sector of games development companies in the past year."

A complete list of nominations and their respective recipients can be found on Develop's site.

Grand Theft Auto IV has arrived on the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3, and if Metacritic reviews and first day sales numbers are to be believed, it's one of the greatest, most successful games in history. So when do PC users get their overclocked hands on this morally deviant masterpiece?

CVG reported a while back that a French retailer had revealed October as the European release window for a PC version of GTA4. That would match Rockstar's last-gen precedent of releasing PC GTA titles six months or so after the console versions. CVG contacted Rockstar, and were given the classic response: "no comment." Not a denial, but not a confirmation. How disappointing!

While the date is up in the air, it's probably a safe bet that a PC version is coming, given the precedent and the lack of a denial. Every GTA game to date has seen a PC release. Why stop now? We mean, besides the piracy and the depressing sales numbers. Oy!

[Via The Escapist]