An Italian magazine by the name of The Games Machine this month had a hands-on preview of Grand Theft Auto IV for PC, to be released 21st November. The preview included some new details on what the PC version will have that was not in the console versions of the game, as well as one or two new images and an exclusive interview with a Rockstar Games spokesman.

• “The Replay Editor will give the possibility to us to record, to save and to mount last the 30 second ones of game. Once our vicissitudes memorizzate, will be able also to be opened an appropriate inner software and to be changed the inquadrature of the virtual television cameras, rather than to add appropriate special effects. Col Montage Editor, instead, transition effects between a sequence will be able to be arranged several replay in a single sequence, aggiungervi traces audio from the sonorous column of the game and to be visualized and the other.
  All this job for what? In order then to go on the Rockstar Social Club, a site of services thought for the community about the Rockstar games, in which to exchange itself filmed and information but also to mail own records. “
• “In the game there will be also small improvements, like a upgraded version of map GPS, than it will allow now us to head and to cliccare with the mouse on a determined lease to catch up, and to add to it of notes and the images in order to personalize it.”
• “Depositing Sul multiplayer at the moment is not announced new modalities regarding those already present on consul, but they will come added of the filters in order to improve the system of matchmaking or shrinking the field of the variable ones”. The characteristic new of the multiplayer will come announced to short.
• “The power of puts into effect them processori for PC, it will allow to obviate to one of the characteristics of the series, that is that when they knows itself on a machine, of blow for road they begin to circulate of many of same our model. This trucchetto, made in order to lighten the CPU of the consul being made to elaborate a reduced number of poligonali models, is not more necessary on PC, that therefore it will offer a traffic less “monomarks”. The number of the cars and the pedestrians will be also greater on road”.
• GTA IV for PC has been played using pad the USB of Xbox 360 and has been tried 3 relative levels to is made been left over (beyond 50% of the completion). The game experience is analogous to controparte the consul.
• Playing with mouse and the keyboard, according to the editor, it is more scomodo that to play with the pad. “The adopted a position keys force in some make to virtuosismi from pianista and the possibility to move liberations with mouse the television camera when it is in disabilita machine the bringing back automatic rifle of the inquadratura behind the car. From the moment in which we will begin to guide we will have to manually move the television camera in the just angle-shot”.

Scans have also been made available of the 4 page preview, in Italian respectively:

Thanks for the information and scans GTA-Series.com (translated).

Rockstar has released the trailer for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV via GameTrailers.

See: GameTrailers version or Our YouTube version

Regular readers will know that we aren't exactly fans of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) who classify the films, video games and media streamed to the Australian and New Zealand markets. Both countries have their own body that calls themselves the OFLC, and both are packed full of people who fail to realize gaming isn't just pixels being eaten by a circle looking-thing with a mouth anymore. In fact Australia and New Zealand have the highest banning rates for games in the world, and Rockstar have never been very well liked by the OFLCers.

Recently the Society of Promotion of Community Standards petitioned to have the New Zealand OFLC Review there classification of Grand Theft Auto IV, which is currently R 18+. Now the Australian version and New Zealand version Grand Theft Auto IV are both different. Australia has an edited version of the game, which has prostitution options missing, while the New Zealand version is the same uncut game that America and the UK have. New Zealand originally had the same as Australia, however, the game was resubmitted to the OFLC by a 21-year-old. He said he was "unhappy that New Zealand received an edited version of the game as a result of Australian censorship laws". The OFLC agreed and in turn has allowed the unedited version to be sold under the same rating as the edited version previously sold.

Well, common sense has once again proven to exist in a few people in the Game Ratings Industry, and the petition by the Society of Promotion of Community Standards was disregarded and the game will continue to be sold unedited and unharmed. The way it should be.

Source: GamePolitics (via 1UP)

Many sites are reporting about a list of trophies that are going to be patched into GTA IV. Great news? Well it would be if I wasn't a bit curious, the site that announced the list of trophies currently does not say where it got its information from and (personally) this is the first time I have heard about the site. I could be wrong, I could be right. Here is the supposed Trophy List anyway:

Platinum
Taking A Liberty
Sorry for taking liberties with your time!

Bronze
Off The Boat
You have completed the first mission.

Bronze
One Hundred And Eighty
You scored 180 with 3 darts.

Bronze
Pool Shark
You beat a friend at pool.

Bronze
King of QUB3D
You beat the high score in QUB3D.

Bronze
Finish Him
You completed 10 melee counters in 4 minutes.

Bronze
Genetically Superior
You came first in 20 singleplayer street races.

Bronze
Wheelie Rider
You completed a 500 foot wheelie on a motorbike.

Bronze
Gobble Gobble
You got a turkey in 10-pin bowling.

Bronze
Driving Mr. Bellic
You unlocked the special ability of Roman's taxi.

Bronze
Rolled Over
You managed 5 car rolls in a row from one crash.

Bronze
Walk Free
You successfully lost a 4 star wanted rating.

Bronze
Courier Service
You completed all 10 package delivery jobs.

Bronze
Retail Therapy
You unlocked the special ability of buying guns from Little Jacob.

Bronze
Chain Reaction
You exploded 10 vehicles in 10 seconds.

Silver
One Man Army
You survived a 6 star wanted level for a full 5 minutes.

Bronze
Lowest Point
You completed the mission "Roman's Sorrow".

Bronze
Order Fulfilled
You completed all 10 Exotic Export orders.

Bronze
Manhunt
You completed the most wanted side mission.

Bronze
Cleaned The Mean Streets
You caught 20 criminals through the police computer.

Bronze
Fed The Fish
You completed the mission "Uncle Vlad".

Bronze
It'll Cost Ya
You made a taxi trip from one island to another without skipping.

Bronze
Sightseer
You have taken all variations of the helicopter tours of Liberty City.

Bronze
Warm Coffee
You were invited into your girlfriend's house.

Bronze
That's How We Roll!
You unlocked the special ability of Brucie's helicopter ride.

Bronze
Half Million
You have amassed a fortune of $500,000.

Bronze
Impossible Trinity
You completed the mission "Museum Piece".

Bronze
Full Exploration
You unlocked all the islands.

Bronze
You Got The Message
You delivered all 30 cars ordered through text message.

Silver
Dare Devil
You completed all the unique stunt jumps.

Bronze
Assassin's Greed
You completed all 9 assassin missions.

Silver
Endangered Species
You collected every hidden package in the game.

Bronze
Under The Radar
You flew under all the main bridges in the game.

Bronze
Dial B For Bomb
You unlocked the special ability of Packie's car bomb placement.

Bronze
Gracefully Taken
You completed the mission "I'll Take Her".

Silver
Liberty City (5)
Your friends all like you above 90%.

Bronze
No More Strangers
You've met all the random characters.

Bronze
That Special Someone
You completed the mission "That Special Someone".

Silver
You Won!
You have completed the story.

Gold
Liberty City Minute
You finished the story in less than 30 hours.

Gold
Key To The City
You completed GTA IV to 100%.

Bronze
Teamplayer
You killed 5 opposing team members.

Bronze
Cut Your Teeth
You were successfully promoted up a rank in multiplayer.

Bronze
Join The Midnight Club
You won a multiplayer race without damaging your vehicle too much.

Bronze
Fly The Co-op
You completed "Deal Breaker", "Hangman's NOOSE" and "Bomb da Base II" in time.

Bronze
Taking It For The Team
You were on the winning team in all multiplayer team games.

Bronze
Top Of The Food Chain
You successfully killed 20 players with a pistol in a deathmatch.

Bronze
Top The Midnight Club
You won 20 different multiplayer standard races.

Gold
Wanted
You achieved the highest personal rank possible in multiplayer.

Bronze
Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic
You won in all variations of multiplayer games.

Bronze
Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie
You killed a Rockstar in multiplayer.

We are currently looking for comfirmation from Rockstar.

Source: PS3Trophies.co.uk (via PS3Fanboy)

Yes, if you forgot about it, best be quick! The Grand Theft Auto IV Xbox LIVE Weekend has begun, starting yesterday at 12:01 A.M. (ET). It will wrap-up at 11:59 PM (ET) on Sunday September 28th.

In Rockstar's Broadcast yesterday they released the Gamertags of more Rockstar Games and Rockstar North developers who will be on over the weekend, you can verse them, kill them or even team up with them and learn from the masters themselves. Keep an eye out for these Gamertags:

So good luck, have fun and enjoy yourself. Drop us a line if you have any stories to share after the weekend has ended!

No real surprise here, however it's still interesting to see just how well the game has done. In the recently revealed list of the Top Selling Games of the Year so far, it was prominent that Grand Theft Auto IV had come out on top over all. It topped the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 charts in which it was released on. The 5 top games on each console are below:

Xbox 360

1. Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games)
2. Call of Duty 4 (Infinity Ward)
3. Madden NFL 09 (EA Tiburon)
4. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Ubisoft Montreal)
5. Army of Two (EA Montreal)

PlayStation 3

1. Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games)
2. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Kojima Productions)
3. Call of Duty 4 (Infinity Ward)
4. Madden NFL 09 (EA Tiburon)
5. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (Polyphony Digital)

The Wii was the only system not to have Grand Theft Auto IV released on, so obviously it isn't in it's charts. However overall, it would certainly appear that GTA IV was the most popular game of the year so far. Considering it beat records, while analysts say it could and will do even better over the Christmas holidays, it has done fantastically well. PC will no doubt boost it's prominence even further.

A Singaporean MP, Christopher de Souza, is questioning whether they should ban GTA IV in Singapore after a Thai teenager was arrested on suspicion of murdering a taxi driver in August, saying he was inspired from GTA, making them pull it from the shelves. The MP is wondering why his local government is letting teenagers commit crimes in a virtual world. Even with the 18 only sticker on it, he still thinks it's too much.

A comment posted on our source by one "Cynicaltalk" put it perfectly:

Games don't kill people, crazy people do!

Source: scotsman.com

Shocking news today. It seems the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV has inspired a 13 year old French kid to set fire to cars. What's even more shocking is the fact that this kid got Grand Theft Auto IV on PC so early. It's not even set to release until this November! He also apparently leaked information about the game to the UK's such accurate news site, Daily Mail, because the article mentions a feature that wasn't featured in the console versions!

The game awards points creating as much as crime and destruction as possible in a city.

Man, the more and more I hear about this awesome PC version, the more I want it! Thanks Daily Mail!

Note: More than likely the whole PC version thing and the "new feature" is just a result of Daily Fail not checking the facts....and being biased too.

Source: Daily Fail Mail

Over the weekend of September 26th - 28th Xbox 360 owners will have the chance to partake in an extra-special experience. A weekend long multiplayer "chaos" on Grand Theft Auto IV will be going on over Xbox Live, and not only will you be able to play against thousands of other game owners, but 26 of the developers at Rockstar Games and Rockstar North will also be online versing players all around the world. Keep an eye out for these gamertags, and see if you can beat the developers at their own game (literally...):

RSG0Josh, RSG1Neil, RSG2David, RSG3Ben, RSG4Brian, RSG5Robert, RSG6Chris, RSG7Steve, RSG8John, RSG9Justin, RSG10Mark, RSG11Bruce, RSG12Steve, RSG13Mike, RSG14Zach, RSG15Fred, RSG16Paul, RSG17Ethan, RSG18Hugh, RSG19David, RSG20Ben, RSG21Craig, RSG22Laura, RSG23Richard, RSG24Greg, RSG25PJ

The Rockstar Games Social Club is hosting the event, and will also be giving away some pretty niffy prizes also. In-order to go into the draw for prizes, you must be a Social Club member, if your not one you can register now at socialclub.rockstargames.com. You must log into your Social Club account before the end of the Weekend (that is the 28th Sept.) or you will not be eligible.

All eligible members will be automatically go into the draw to win the grand prize, a package containing a high-end home entertainment system valued at over $6,000 and the runner-up prize package including a limited-edition, customized, Grand Theft Auto IV-branded Xbox 360 as well as much more Grand Theft Auto IV gear. The event is open to anybody with an Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, however in-order to be eligible for the prizes you must be an American or Canadian resident and over 18 years of age.

You can read more on the event at the Social Club, and don't forget to check the rules here.

Everybody who registers and takes part throughout the weekend will get an exclusive gamer pic from Microsoft. Microsoft will also be giving away 24 prizes each day, all of which is Grand Theft Auto gamer gear, such as shirts, stickers and merchandise. See the image too the right for a few of the prizes up for grabs. To go into the draw to win these from Microsoft, you must register your gamertag now and read more about it here.

The weekend long multiplayer chaos will start from 12:01 A.M. (ET) on Friday September 26th and go until 11:59 P.M. (ET) on Sunday September 28th.

Social Club: Event Information and Prize Details plus Rules
Xbox: Events Information and Prize(s) Details plus Register your gamertag