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The Ballad of Gay Tony gets its first trailer

What you see above is a recently released trailer for GTA IV’s latest expansion, The Ballad of Gay Tony, called ‘You’ll Always Be The King Of This Town’.

Some interesting things to make note of from the trailer are the introductions of UFC style cage fighting, sky diving and a whole lot of awesomeness.

Grand Theft Auto IV’s The Ballad of Gay Tony will be made available through Xbox Live on October 29th for 1600 Microsoft Points. Alternatively you can pick the expansion up with The Lost & Damned as part of the Episodes From Liberty City retail bundle which will presumably ship around the same time.

GTA IV: Episodes From Liberty City box art

If you didn’t know, Rockstar is gearing up to launch a GTA IV DLC retail bundle called Episodes From Liberty City that is to include both The Lost & Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. The bundle is reportedly hitting store shelves this fall for $39.99 and will not require gamers to own the original GTA IV game.

Anyways, what you see above is the recently released official box art for the bundle for you to feast your eyes on.

Activision wants Modern Warfare 2 to be “biggest entertainment launch of all time”

It’s no secret that Activision is looking to make a huge impression with their highly anticipated FPS Modern Warfare 2 but just how big, you ask?

Well, it seems that the mega-publisher has contracted advertising firm TBWA with the task of making Modern Warfare 2 the “biggest entertainment launch of all time”. This means that Activision is looking to put Halo 3’s first day sales of 1.7 million copies and GTA IV’s first day sales of 3.6 million copies to shame.

Do you think Modern Warfare 2 will live up to the hype? Given Call of Duty 4’s success there is a good chance that it will. Not to mention the fact that it’s shipping on just about every major console (including the PC0 there is.

I guess we’ll have to wait until the game’s November 10th release date to pass judgement.

Read (GI.biz)

Steam offers 30% off Rockstar titles

If you still haven’t bought Grand Theft Auto IV, now’s your chance. Steam has recently announced that for this weekend only they will offer 30% off the entire Rockstar catalog.

Other than GTA IV, Manhunt, GTA: Vice City, Max Payne 2, and Bully: Scholarship Edition make the cut. That’s not all though, if you want to get the full list of Rockstar games offered on Steam head here.

Sure this is great for those of you who haven’t played these games before, but me? I prefer a physical copy of the game when I make my purchases.

Read (Steam)

Rockstar: Lack of Respect Gives Games Industry Freedom

Though the medium of video games is relatively new its capabilities have increased faster than any other entertainment industry. Despite the huge and still growing popularity of gaming the medium still doesn’t get much respect. Many people scoff at the medium’s ability to tell a riveting, unique story, despite the fact that many video games deliver a much more intricately thought-out storyline and fleshed out characters than many films.

Dan Houser, creative vice president of Rockstar and head writer on GTA IV says he’s happy that the medium is still considered in its infancy: “…everything is growing and evolving as we go along and we’re still figuring out how to do stuff,” he told The Telegraph. When asked how long before he thought game writers would be given the same degree of respect as film and book writers he said: “I hope it’s long. It’s really fun at the moment because we’re not in any Academy and the medium’s not codified. There’s no accepted way of doing anything so that give us enormous pleasure because we can make it up as we go along.”

Rockstar releases GTA IV PC patch

PC gamers who favor GTA IV will be happy to hear that Rockstar has recently released a patch today effectively fixing and updating several aspects of the game.

The bulk of the updates deal with newly added support for a wide range of different game controllers. Hell, you can even hook up your Xbox 360 controller and pretend your console gaming.

Full list of updates thanks to Joystiq below:

Graphics:
Added “Water Quality”, “Shadow Quality” and “Reflection Resolution” sliders in graphics menu.
Added “Definition” and “VSync” toggles in graphics menu.
Rendering optimizations.
VSync optimizations.
Nvidia 7000 series
Mirrors fixed

Fixes:
Direct input device support is now disabled by default and can only be enabled with the commandline: “-usedirectinput”
Supported Controllers:
Logitech Dual Action
Logitech RumblePad 2
Logitech Cordless RumblePad 2
Saitek P2500

Supported Wheels:
Note: Controls are unmapped, user must map controls using Manufacturer’s mapping software.
Logitech G25 Racing Wheel
Logitech Wingman Formula GP Wheel
Logitech MOMO Racing
MOMO Force
Driving Force Pro
Driving Force
Formula Force
Added Commandline “-notimefix” which will help some users who are experiencing the fast/slow gameplay issue after patch 1 was applied.
Fixed a bug that caused some users to experience endless looping audio effects after Patch 1 was applied.
Benchmark was disabling sounds after Patch 1 was applied, this is now fixed.

Crash Fixes:
Unable to load game fixed – For some users, a DOS window would open and close immediately upon Game Launch, GTA IV would never launch.
Hang on Initial Game Loading Screen fixed – Some users experienced Character Art Loading screens in an endless loop.
Certain causes of the RESC10 error have been fixed (Alt-Tab, change resolution). If you experience an RESC10 error, you must restart.
Certain Instances of the “GRAND THEFT AUTO IV has encountered a problem and needs to close” error have been fixed.

Video Editor:
Naming clips is now mandatory on Export

Multiplayer:
Legitimate players being kicked from Multiplayer matches has been fixed.

General:
Wireless 360 controllers not functioning – Triggers were full on/off, fixed.

Grand Theft Auto IV PC Trailer

Rockstar Games has released a new trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV, properly addressing that the game is headed to the PC. The game will be on store shelves on November 18th in North America, and the 21st in Europe.

GTA IV PC Requirements

Here we are again with a batch of system requirements for one of the years hottest games. This is the time where you either have a sigh of relief, or a sigh of anguish thinking of the hours of overtime you have to work to update your rig.

Anyways, below are the recommended PC requirements for Rockstar’s Grant Theft Auto 4, minimum requirements will be posted at a later date:

OS: Windows XP SP2
Processor: Dual core processor (Intel Pentium D or better)
RAM: 2GB
Hard Drive: 18GB Free Space
Video Card: 512MB Direct3D 10 compatible video card or Direct3D 9 card compatible with Shader
Drive: DVD-ROM dual-layer drive

While these requirements aren’t as extensive as games such as Crysis Warhead, the 2GB of RAM, dual core processor, and 512MB of video RAM may pose a threat to those with a lower end machine.

GTA IV Coming to Japan

For those of you who care, it was recently announced that Grand Theft Auto IV will be shipping in Japan for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 come October 30th.

Selling 3.6 million units in NA and Europe on the first day, and 6 million in the first week will we see the same booming success for the game in Japan? Only time will tell.

CTA Pulls GTA Ads

The Chicago Transit Authority has decided to pull down all Grand Theft Auto IV advertisements. A local Fox News affiliate reported on the subject, leading to a response by the president of the CTA, Ron Huberman that agreed to take down the ads. The question was triggered by the recent major school shootings occurring in the Windy City. Illinois is notorious for being especially critical of violent video games.

But then again, isn’t it the parent’s responsibility to make sure what your child is allowed and not allowed to do in the world? There are plenty of violent movies that are running ads in the CTA, and I’m sure a lot of them contain more adult themes than Rockstar’s creation. Movies can be sneaked into, and can usually be watched without parents even knowing. But video games are played at home most of the time, and it’s unlikely that a kid will be able to purchase a full-priced retail game without a help of an adult.