Rockstar is sponsoring this years "Rock The Bells" tour, the biggest hip-hop concert tour of the year. DJ Green Lantern who was a Radio DJ in Grand Theft Auto IV and also release a GTA IV soundtrack entitled "The Evil Genius DJ Green Lantern: Liberty City Invasion" will be the tours official DJ. He will be beating out his favourite songs from Grand Theft Auto IV which has been compiled onto that soundtrack. The tour dates are:
Sat 7/19 - Chicago, IL - First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
Sun 7/20 - Toronto, ON, CAN - Arrow Hall
Sat 7/26 - Boston, MA - Tweeter Center
Sun 7/27 - Columbia, MD - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Sat 8/2 - Miami, FL - Bicentennial Park
Sun 8/3 - New York, NY - Jones Beach Amphitheatre
Sat 8/9 - San Bernardino, CA - Glen Helen Pavilion
Sat 8/16 - San Francisco, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre
Sat 8/23 - Denver, CO - Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
Sat 9/6 - George, WA - The Gorge Amphitheatre
For more information:
Official Website: http://www.guerillaunion.com/rockthebells/
Rock The Bells MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/rockthebells
The cover of this month's PC Gamer in Malaysian has been leaked. Featured on the cover is Niko with the text "Now on console, soon for PC". Could this be the big confirm everyone has been waiting for? Maybe, maybe not. See, no one has actually posted the article inside of the magazine. For all we know, they could be going off of the rumors that have been featured on the intertubes recently. We are currently trying to find a source with some more information. Keep watching.
Source: PC Gamer
Thanks to byardz from Overclock for the picture.
UPDATE: Accroding to some people that have read the magazine, it's all just speculation on PC Gamer's part. However, we are getting reports that GTAIV for the PC was briefly shown on the ESRB's website though we have yet to see any screenshots as proof. We'll keep looking.
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.
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
During Take-2's conference call today, Strauss Zelnick announced that the upcoming exclusive Xbox 360 Grand Theft Auto IV DLC has been delayed until Q1 of 2009. This places the released date sometime between November 2008 and January 2009. The reasoning behind this? To provide "better balance" to Take-2's release schedule. In addition to the delay, Strauss confirmed that Rockstar North is the studio developing the DLC.
The distributor for Rockstar Games in the UAE has come out and confirmed that the UAE's National Media Council (NMC), in other words, the UAE equivalent of OFLC or ESRB, has banned the game due...
...to the game's controversial content, which features strong violence and drug use and is therefore not in keeping with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.
Although if your dying to get the game, and you're a traveler to the region, then you can still pick it up in any Duty Free stores. This is as these stores are not under the NMC which governs the inner UAE.