What can I say, us Aussies love making news. This week, Grand Theft Auto IV got through our tight rating system, still something were all very shocked about. Now an online Australian store, Games Warehouse, is listing GTA IV to be released on March 15th (EU) with the Standard copy of the game costing AU$108.95 and AU$149.95 for the Collectors Edition. If this wasn't odd enough, there also saying the PlayStation 3 standard copy of the game will be more expensive, a whopping AU$119.95 : AU$108.95 for the Xbox 360 version.

If this is true, which we all doubt, then what could cause the PlayStation 3 version to be more expensive? Special content maybe? Could be anything. Still - this is just a rumor, and I WOULD NOT take any of this for truth. We've all seen this happen before, haven't we?

According to MCV the long awaited GTA IV is going to be hitting British soil on April 25th,

Sources close to the game’s publisher have told MCV that the title’s UK release will miss the Easter period entirely, and will instead go on sale in the final week of Rockstar parent Take 2’s second financial quarter.

But a Rockstar spokesperson also told MCV that they don't comment on "rumor and speculation". No word was hinted at a possible US release date, but we expect it to very close the UK release date.

IGN is letting people download the song used in the thrid trailer for free. The download is legal as IGN most likely got permission to let people download the song. To download the song, go to the link below click on the picture of Seryoga. Enjoy.

Download: Seryoga - King Ring

IGN today was given a scoop from Rockstar on 5 characters that players of IV will deal with during there journeys in Liberty City. All of which were seen in the third trailer, however how we have some depth as to who they are, what they do and what types of missions they may give out. Thanks IGN and Rockstar!

 

Roman Bellic

 

Roman is Niko's cousin. He has been living in Liberty City pursuing the American dream - fast cars, women, hot tubs, luxury condos. At least these are the things he has been telling Niko about. Instead, he operates a cab stand in Broker and, a born optimist and a bit of a fantasist, Roman dreams big while he and his girlfriend Mallorie decide whether to take each other seriously.

Vlad

 

In Vlad's own mind he is a supremely powerful gangster, who runs the Hove beach neighborhood of Broker with an iron fist, and takes crap from no one… In reality, he is a low level Russian hood who is trying to gain favor with more powerful criminals, while he runs minor protection rackets and talks a big game.

Elizabeta

 

For 10 years or more, Elizabeta has been a successful drug dealer in Bohan. Successful because she kept things low key and paid off or killed the right people. She knows that a crackdown on drug dealing is going to put her under scrutiny and her own narcotic consumption has spiraled out of control, making her dangerously paranoid and delusional.

Manny

 

Manny is testament to the fact men can be reborn. Once a hard living hoodlum, who was there (and involved?) when people invented graffiti, hip hop, and breakdancing—he never wanted any credit, it wasn't about ego for him. He is now a man transformed and all about one thing—cleaning up the neighborhood, the kids and the streets. To prove it, he's having a documentary made about himself, to record his struggle.

Brucie

 

Anyone who thinks modern man is having an identity crisis should meet Brucie. Brucie is a serious fitness enthusiast, car nut and self appointed VIP. He's also proof that sometimes, delusional white idiots can take the hip hop thing a bit far. He's loud, he's proud and he's going to make sure you know just how much money he's got. He lives life large, just like men do in the magazines he reads. He's got nothing but the finest women, cars, lifestyle accessories and anabolic steroids. That's how he rolls.

A few days ago, the OFLC rated Grand Theft Auto IV. They have granted Grand Theft Auto IV an MA 15+ rating noting that the game has strong violence, strong coarse language, and drug and sexual references. It seems that Rockstar didn't have to censor anything as they note the version they rated is the original one. Now lets hope that the OFLC reconizes that Manhunt 2 exists and needs a MA 15+ rating as well. As a side note, it is unusual for a game to be rated so early. Hopefully, this means that Grand Theft Auto IV is near finished and we will see a release date announced when Take2 releases their fourth quarter and fiscal 2007 results on December 18th.

Source: OFLC - Grand Theft Auto IV

Rockstar Games are certainly giving us alot of news for IV last week, especially with Trailer #3 being released. But recently, a very interesting Article was posted by Yahoo! a few days ago and you can read it here.  

Here is the full Article:

"Rockstar's goal with Grand Theft Auto IV has always been to make a true high definition gaming experience. In doing so, they decided to do something that had never been done before - accurately capture the essence of New York, so that the city where the company is headquartered would also be the place they were depicting in their game. The aim was to make a startlingly detailed digital recreation of New York that hummed with life and whose environment had a sense of having been lived in. This interactive experience needed to take place in a world that felt alive like no other.

The art team at Rockstar North in Scotland along with a full time research team in New York set about condensing and defining the essence of the city for the game - it would not be a block by block recreation of New York, but instead a spiritually faithful re-imagining that turned New York into the perfect digital environment for the gangster epic that was going to unfold in it - and this town would be called Liberty City. It has an unprecedented amount of visual detail for a video game world and teams with life. From the gleaming skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan all the way down to the divots on a sidewalk in Queens, the utmost care was taken to make sure no detail, large or small, slipped through the cracks. For the game to be engaging, players have to believe in both the characters and the world they inhabit.

The world of Liberty City was to not only look alive, but also feel alive. This was achieved both by visual cues such as the dirt and decay that make it feel so lived in, the effects of years of use and misuse, and also by putting into that environment its own weather systems, day and night time ambiences, a population who respond to both, along with all of the human scale modifications to the built environment - thousands of advertisements from billboards to fly posters, for hundreds of brands, a full media system including radio and a functioning internet that people can use to discover things to do in the world in their down time. For the beauty of the world to have any meaning, people would have to have fun when they visited. New York is the most fun city on the planet, so it was felt that Liberty City would have to be the most fun digital city ever created, so it is full of distractions for the visitor looking for a good time.

In order to create a city at once so visually detailed and full of life, it was necessary to undertake research on a scale never previously seen before. Along with multiple research trips by the art team from Rockstar North, and the expertise of the members from years of living in New York, Rockstar utilized a full-time research team to photograph and video every aspect of the city. Not only building fronts, fire hydrants, roads and sidewalks, but also lighting changes across day and night, vehicle and pedestrian patterns throughout the day, the racial and social make-up of different neighborhoods and boroughs, the sounds of specific foghorns in the harbor, all combined to make a completely integrated world that continuously seems alive and natural in a way that was not possible in previous games. Local experts were interviewed and consulted on every detail to make sure Liberty City feels real to the player.

All of this was necessary, not to merely recreate a view of New York but to capture its spirit and energy in a three-dimensional world that people can explore as the character they play in the game, Niko Bellic, an immigrant, as he navigates the land of opportunity for the first time. From the top of a penthouse to the inside of a Russian supper club, players will be immersed in the world of Liberty City in a way that they would never have thought possible."

There are also pages where most of the screenshots are with their real life counter part. That can be found here.

Link: Yahoo! Article

If you wanted even more screenshots, Rockstar has answered your need. Here are more Grand Theft Auto IV screenshots!

I for one can't wait for the second new teaser site, Weazel News, to launch!

Two new screenshots have been released along side with the new trailer, more are expected to be on the way also, check out the current two new ones below:

Thanks to smallo.net for the heads up.

The thrid trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV has been released. Look above for the trailer. We will have a breakdown of the trailer very soon, so keep watching the front page.

Rockstar has released five new screenshots of Grand Theft Auto IV for you to enjoy. They are below.