Rockstar has just released 4 new screenshots from the recently delayed Midnight Club: Los Angeles. We've managed to get un-watermarked 1280x720 versions of the screenshots. Enjoy.

Take-Two has just announced that Midnight Club: Los Angeles will be pushed back again. On April 21st, Take-Two had announced that Midnight Club LA would be pushed back from it's early 2008 release date to September 9th.  However, it seems Rockstar has changed it's mind again by pushing the date back even further to a October 9th release date for the US and October 10th for Europe. The reasoning behind this? Take-Two won't say. Hopefully, Rockstar won't decide to push back the release date for a third time.

Press Release: Rockstar Games announces new release date for Midnight Club: Los Angeles

Michael Hollick, the actor who voices' Niko Bellic in Grand Theft Auto IV will be attending Comic-Con at the San Diego Convention Center from July 24th to 27th. In an online bulletin through his MySpace he announced that he will be attending over 3 days to 'meeting fans & signing autographs'. Locations and times are below, and register for Comic-Con via the website.

Thursday 7/24 Area: AA 20 ... 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Friday 7/25 Area: AA 23 ... 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Saturday 7/26 Area: AA 10 ... 11:00 am - 3:00 pm
Sunday 7/27 Area: AA 19 ... 11:00 am - 2:00 pm

Hollick was also cast in 2 episodes of Law & Order, the clips of him from the show can be seen below and show his notable talent in acting as well as voice acting which he portrays in GTA IV:

The bulletin posted on MySpace can be found below, alternatively if you have a MySpace you can add him as a friend and then view it for yourself:

JULY 24-27, 2008
San Diego Convention Center

Michael will be meeting fans & signing autographs at Comic-Con in San Diego, CA! July 24-27.


REGISTER & INFO

Scheduled dates, location & times:

Thursday 7/24 Area: AA 20 ... 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Friday 7/25 Area: AA 23 ... 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Saturday 7/26 Area: AA 10 ... 11:00 am - 3:00 pm
Sunday 7/27 Area: AA 19 ... 11:00 am - 2:00 pm

I hope to meet you at Comic-Con! I can't wait!!

-Michael

If you do manage to get to Comic-Con and meet Michael Hollick, be sure to contact us through news@rockstarwatch.net and include your story, pictures and autograph and we'll post it in a follow-up news article.

This one almost slipped our radar. Rockstar Games is partnering with Bethesda Softworks to publish Bully in Japan. (Ironically, Bethesda Softworks worked with the now Rockstar New England to produce a Star Trek game) Despite Bully being also on the Wii system, the game will only be published for the Playstation 2 and the Xbox 360 consoles. Also, instead of the 360 version being called Bully: Scholarship Edition, it will simply be named Bully. It is unknown at the time if the Playstation 2 version in Japan will have the extra features from the "Scholarship Edition" because of them being called the same name. The game will be released on July 24, 2008. The Xbox 360 version will cost you somewhere around ¥ 7,140 and the Playstation 2 version will cost you around ¥ 5,040.

Official Site: Bully

When the lawsuits against Take-Two over the hidden sex scenes in GTA: San Andreas came to a close at the start of this year an agreement was made that claims by owners of the first edition of the game (that which contained the scenes) could file a claim and receive a refund of up to $35 on the game. The New York Times this week announced that a mere 2,676 people actually filed claims. Making a maximum cost of $93,660 for Take-Two over the refund deal, and Take-Two's lawyers say they only spent $30,000 on fulfilling claims in which some cases even educed a new copy of the game without the scenes included.

Being as GTA: San Andreas sold approximately 21.5 million copies (lets presume the majority was the first edition, although it hardly makes a difference to our numbers either way), it appears not even 1% of GTA: San Andreas players were offended, or even cared about the hidden sex scenes. In actual fact, the only people who appear offended are the lawyers of those who sued Rockstar Games and Take-Two over the scenes. One, Seth R. Lesser, the lead lawyer behind the lawsuits stated, "Am I disappointed? Sure,", being that the firms involved have asked for over $1.3 million to cover there involvement. It is important to note that Take-Two did agree to make a $860,000 charitable contribution.

It has just come to our attention that Max Payne 2 for the Personal Computer has been pulled from the Rockstar Warehouse. The page has been replaced with a message stating that "This game is no longer available". The reasoning behind this? We're not sure. It could be something as simple as Rockstar ran out of copies and are producing more or it could be as bad as someone pulling the plug on distribution due to low sales. What ever the case may be, people that want the game can still buy the Xbox and PS2 versions off of the Rockstar Warehouse or if they really need the PC version it is available online for download via Steam and Direct 2 Drive.

Rockstar has released patches for both the Playstation 3 (v1.2) and Xbox 360 (v1.1) versions of Grand Theft Auto IV. The patch brings much needed fixes for online. Here are the list of fixes.

Rockstar Games has released patches today for Grand Theft Auto IV for the PlayStation®3 and Xbox 360™. These patches fix the issues we have identified for each system, specifically multiplayer connectivity issues including freezes during certain modes, continuation when players leave matches, and bugs within races and race lobbies.

We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences and thank you for your continued support. For any consumer still experiencing issues, please contact support.
1. Fixed an issue where players were unable to enter or exit vehicles in GTA Race.
2. Fixed an issue where scripted vehicles were causing games to unexpectedly crash.
3. Improved reliability and frequency of PS3™ online leaderboard updates.
4. Fixed a rare hang some players encountered when moving from a Race or GTA Race lobby into gameplay.
5. Fixed a hang that would occur when players were switching teams during the countdown in the lobby.
6. Fixed an issue where players were able to get ridiculously high scores from Cops 'n Crooks matches.
7. Changed GTA Race and Race so that the last player remaining always receives a reward of $250.
8. Fixed an issue where spectating players would prevent the game from finishing.
9. Fixed an issue where players were unable to spectate in Round 2 of Cops 'n Crooks games.
10. Changed countdown timer in lobby so that it no longer resets when new players join a game.
11. Changed the kick option so that kicked players are no longer brought back to single player.

When the first previews and reviews hit the web and magazines covering Grand Theft Auto IV one feature listed by a few of these was the ability to listen to the games soundtrack/radio stations using a portable music player or mobile phone. You may not have even noticed that said feature is not in the final game at all. Rockstar this week came out to say why that is:

"Some people on the team didn’t like the music/mobile phone idea for various reasons, but they went back and forth on the idea until the very end. This is VERY common. We do it in every game we make. We still prefer the balance of music in car and the ambient world’s noise on foot, but we are constantly reviewing this stuff."

If you have been following Rockstar Games or the Grand Theft Auto series previously, you may note that this has happened many times in the past. It is not uncommon for a GTA game to be released without a feature or features mentioned in previews. In the case of this 'portable music player', it was in the game until late in the development. Did they make the right choice? We think so, the vehicles like everything else in the GTA world have some unique features, and the radio is one of them. Without that feature it removes the uniqueness of vehicles and may have meant people wouldn't use vehicles as much, which defys the purpose of "Grand Theft Auto" entirely. We do wonder though, what other features didn't make the cut?

Thanks QJ.net

There is a new outrage in Liberty City these days. No, it's not the LCPD response times, it's something much bigger as told by one citizen. Little Lacy Surprise, a former underwear company, has had it's fair share of criticism. Back in 1984, the company was criticized for it's prices as you can hear in this clip courtesy of Vice City Public Radio.

Courtesy: Vice City Public Radio.

Recently, however, the LCPD has found new uses for the deceased company website. Due to the raise of pedophiles moving to Liberty City, the LCPD has redirected the site "littlelacysurprisepagent.com" to a page that logs your IP and sends the nearest LCPD unit to your location. So how is this bad exactly? Well according to one Liberty City citizen named Asson Deschoolmeester, it's quote "Revolting". We asked him why it was revolting when we met up with him at all girls soccer game. Mr. Deschoolmeester declined to comment. Deschoolmeester isn't the only citizen. Ken, a Liberty City citizen who just moved from Carcer City, mentioned "As if the Jingonism Act didn't go against our privacy, they introduce this website that goes as far as to logging my, what I thought was private, IP address. It's really revolting." The LCPD has declined to comment on weather the site will be taken down or not.

Thanks to The Sun for proving that they are not a reliable news resource.

GamesRadar have written an article about why they love GTAIV so much, so if you fancy a little read or you have finshed GTAIV to 100% go check it out at gamesradar.com.

Even though GTA the quatro has only been out a few weeks, you’d think we would’ve seen it all by now. But that kind of thinking is foolish! Like you, we’re discovering astounding new details every day, and we’re not talking major features like the new aiming system or the wacky shit the colorful locals have to say. We’re focusing on all the small touches that go into making Niko and Liberty City feel well-rounded and three dimensional. And while some of these things aren’t “new” per se to gaming, here are a bunch of things you may or may not have noticed during your jaunt through LC. Enjoy.

Source: GamesRadar