Y'know what's cool about PC gaming? Besides the absurd graphics and the pinpoint accuracy afforded to us by our peripherals and, well, everything? It's the fact that even games never intended for PC eventually make their way to us anyway. That's what's happened with the formerly PlayStation-only Vice City Stories, which is today playable by PC folks thanks to a new mod, currently in beta testing.

The mod, codenamed "Blue Hesper," aims to transplant the entire game into a PC install of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. They're not quite there yet, but a lot of engine tweaks have been made, and most of the first chapter is available for completion.

The 768 MB of nostalgia-stirrer's now downloadable at ModDB. All you'll need is a clean, modless install of San Andreas on your system. Let us know if you give this a try—I'd like to know how my boy Vic Vance is doing.

After the release of the new GTA 5 trailer, we became conspicuously aware, once again, of the absent PC release date for Rockstar's next open world fiasco. So we reached our hands into the mists of Grand Theft Autos past, crunched some numbers, and came up with the best possible estimate of when the game will be announced and released for the PC.

If we look at all games in the Grand Theft Auto series since Vice City, we can see that it's about 462 days, on average, between the announcement of the game and the announcement (not release) of the PC version. It's a slightly more reasonable 212 days between the first console release and the PC release. You can see a game-by-game breakdown in this handy chart:



If we take the average time between console and PC announcement and add it to GTA 5's original announcement date of October 13, 2011, that should have put the PC release date announcement around January 17, 2013. No such luck. Assuming they're going to make us wait just as stupidly long as they did for GTA 4 (821 days from the first E3 tease, for the record), we'll be hearing about a PC release date around January 11, 2014. Every main series entry since Vice City has failed to announce a PC ship date until after the first console version shipped.

In terms of when we might actually be able to play it, the gap between console and PC release has been consistent(ly frustrating) at around 212 days, without the kind of crazy deviation we see in the release date announcement window. 212 days after the currently listed ship date for GTA 5 on the consoles would be April 17, 2014. If the gap is as long as it was for San Andreas, we would have it by April 30 instead.

On the off chance that Rockstar makes us wait as long for a PC announcement as they did on GTA 4, and as long between PC announcement and PC release as they did on San Andreas, we've been shoved back to July 4, 2014. Not to say that they couldn't try to annoy us further by breaking their own records, but that's our official prediction for the most distant date to reasonably expect the game on PC.

There you have it: by our highly scientific reckoning, you'll probably be loading up GTA 5 just in time for the 238th anniversary of America's independence. As to when we may be free from the tyranny of waiting months for our Grand Theft Auto ports (we still haven't forgotten about Red Dead Redemption, by the way), we don't have enough data to speculate. At least we always get the best version. We're willing to wait for the ability to mod in stuff like this.

Video game music is occasionally labeled as "just a bunch of bleep and bloops." But if there's a company that's demonstrated how well music and games gel together, it's Rockstar. Bully, Grand Theft Auto, L.A. Noire, and Red Dead Redemption all exemplify the company's discerning musical taste—a group founded by the sons of the owner of a famous British jazz club, coincidentally.

It's with that in mind, the Rockstar has taken the tunes from Grand Theft Auto's many in-game radio stations and slapped them onto Spotify and iTunes. Most of the music from GTA IV, San Andreas, Vice City, GTA III, Liberty and Vice City Stories, and Chinatown Wars has been collected neatly there, so go give it a listen if you're feeling a bit nostalgic, or if you just want some background jams for a thrilling police chase through the streets of your favorite American City.

Electro-Choc carries my highest recommendation, probably because I like listening to dance music when I type. It makes my fingers feel like they're tearing it up at a club, but saying that out loud makes me think I should be getting out more.

My pathetic social life aside, I'm hoping these stations get popular enough to add the soundtracks from Bully and L.A. Noire. I've been looking for some good tracks for my skateboarding adventures and drug ring busts.

From the "people are still talking about this?" files today comes an interview by The Guardian with Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser that touched upon Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' Hot Coffee scandal. The ensuing media scrutiny and negative pressure wound up "draining and upsetting" company members facing "a tough time" keeping relationships with the press civil.

"The massive social decay that we were supposed to induce hasn't happened," Houser said. "So, in that regard, a lot of those debates that used to go on, they're not such a big deal now. We never felt that we were being attacked for the content, we were being attacked for the medium, which felt a little unfair. If all of this stuff had been put into a book or a movie, people wouldn't have blinked an eye. And there are far bigger issues to worry about in society than this."

Hackers rooting among San Andreas' files unearthed an abandoned yet mostly intact minigame where main character CJ would have sex with his girlfriend at the prompting of certain...er, "movement" commands. The resulting outcry involved the Federal Trade Commission investigating Houser and the rest of Rockstar's staff. The ordeal was recently documented in detail in a book by David Kushner titled Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto. Kushner is also the author of the excellent Masters of Doom.

While Rockstar may simply be biding its time until the appropriate moment to unleash its fomented armageddon of entropy, its current efforts on Grand Theft Auto V look extremely promising, though a PC version lingers in uncomfortable "consideration" territory for now.

We know that Grand Theft Auto V's anti-hero is a father who relocates to San Andreas' Los Santos, and we can guess at themes of economic depression from the trailer. That's it. In its typically coy fashion, Rockstar is only serving nibbles of information - appetizers to makes us salivate over the imagined deliciousness of the main course.

As usual, it's working. GTA III's ground-breaking polygons and GTA IV's heightened fidelity give us reason to expect a big jump ahead for the series' next numbered game, but our famished dinner party can only speculate. Here's what we're hoping for while we wait for Rockstar to stop teasing us with amuse-bouche.

GPU-melting tech

The GTA V trailer is never ugly, but how much better could it look while still running smoothly on high-end PCs? Based on what modders have achieved with GTA IV, we think it could be pushed further. The GTA IV iCEnhancer mod is very pretty. That stylistic result may not align with Rockstar's vision, but we at least want high-res textures and the option to slide up the draw distance until our machines smolder.



Also crucial are dramatically increased pedestrian and traffic counts, as mods did for GTA IV.

...And all the other PC-specific features we want
Save. Anywhere. Please. Restarting missions from the beginning doesn't make the game more fun.

On the topic of repetition, we'll probably be doing a lot of shooting, so give us third-person shooting that feels right with a mouse. Mass Effect 3 and Max Payne 3 have the advantage of tightly-scripted, forward-directed action, but they execute some fundamentals that GTA could do with more of. A more intelligent camera, maybe?



We do at least expect that GTA V will throw out Games for Windows Live and replace it with Rockstar Social Club, and we at least hope the networking is improved. More of the excellent sandbox multiplayer mode with less hideous networking? Yes, please. Also probable is mod support (why stop now?). It's a must, or else how will horses take it to the limit?



A world beyond the city limits
The recent screenshot dump confirms this desire, but just for the record: we want to cruise on the highway outside city limits, as we did in San Andreas.



And, if Los Santos is the only initial city, make it big. According to a supposed ex-Rockstar employee, the map is five times larger than GTA IV's, and the city of Los Santos covers just under half of it. If that's the case, there should be plenty of space to fly jets around. We'd also be happy to see San Andreas' other two cities, Fierro and Venturas, return as expansion-sized DLC.

Non-linear missions and important decisions
Why are missions in gaming’s leading open-world franchise so damn linear? How about Deus Ex style missions with multiple paths to victory? And while you’re at it, why not let player decisions affect the story? Moral agency can go further than one canned kill-or-don't mission for every 20 hours of required despicable behavior.



And if not, at least offer a story which isn't 70 hours of CSI: New York-level writing, and unlock the entire world from the start, so we can experience it without first doing prerequisite odd jobs. If we choose to dodge the story for a while, we could also use more intricate side-missions and activities. Chauffeuring an endless cycle of idiots with taxis and random vigilantism got stale after a while.

Greater freedom and fidelity
How about this: start your own Breaking Bad-esque drug empire separate from the main story. Manage supply, distribution, and fight rival dealers for territory, just for the hell of it. You'd need something much more closely approaching a simulated economy, too. No more “being a poor immigrant who has $289,000 in their wallet." That would be amazing.



But even if it isn't taken that far, at least expand on GTA IV's player agency. Riding in the backseat of a cab through Liberty City's bustling streets was one of GTA IV's most singular pleasures. Have more public transport options in GTA V, both for the scenic relaxation and to give real choice over whether to steal cars or be a good guy.

What do you want to see in GTA V?
Those are our broad GTA V wants, but there's much more we'd like to see. Share your own deepest desires in the comments and we'll compile a list to literally pin to Rockstar's door. Well, not literally. That kind of thing is generally reserved theology-related protests and can cause restraining orders.

The GTA V trailer provoked a lot of intrigue here at PC Gamer. Are characters from other GTA games going to make appearences? Will it be a retro setting, or will it, like IV, take place in the modern day? Will there be a poorly optimised PC mission where you have to awkwardly pilot a remote control helicopter into a maze-like building?

One element of the game that’s looking increasingly certain is the lead character, and - more specifically - the voice actor lending his tones to him. According to Eurogamer, Ned Luke’s IMDb page currently lists him as “Albert De Silva” in Grand Theft Auto V, and a tweet from actor Jimmy Taenaka said, “My fellow thespian Ned Luke is the lead voice and profile in the upcoming game by Rockstar Grand Theft Auto 5! Way to go Ned! Wholly Molly!”

Luke certainly looks the part - the nose and jawline match up with the character seen 40 seconds into the trailer. This character is obviously beefy, and approximately matches Luke’s age of 53. He’s looking over the city like he’s conquered it, like he owns it. Is this Albert De Silva?

But something doesn’t add up. GTA’s characters - from III’s Claude to IV’s Nico Bellic - have always been aspirational young men. The plot usually follows the rise-to-power-through-crime arc, but if De Silva is the lead character his rooftop posturing feels like a foregone conclusion - the crucial question at the heart of a GTA story is whether or not the protagonist makes it to the top.

Rockstar could be trying one of two things. GTA V’s story could be told in flashback, which would explain how San Andreas’ CJ shows up without being absolutely ancient, and could tie into Tom's multiple protagonists theory. The exterminator shown immediately afterwards has the same hairline and eyes as the possible De Silva, but he also looks more youthful and less paunchy.



There’s also the possibility that Luke is voicing a different lead, and that his likeness has just been used for an incidental character.

The internet probably has an opinion on this. What is it?

In a post on their official site, Rockstar say that GTA 5 will be the "largest and most ambitious" title they've developed yet. They also confirm the setting, saying "Grand Theft Auto V focuses on the pursuit of the almighty dollar in a re-imagined, present day Southern California."

GTA 5 will take place in "the city of Los Santos and surrounding hills, countryside and beaches." Just the one city, then. No mention of San Fierro (San Francisco) and Las Venturas (Las Vegas), which featured alongside Los Santos in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Rockstar say that GTA 5 represents "a bold new direction in open-world freedom," and confirms that there will be online multiplayer.

Those are all the solid facts so far. It's been less than a day since the debut trailer landed, and the rumour mill has already gone into overdrive. Are you looking forward to returning to Los Santos?

After a lot of excited pointing at mountains and dogs, the PC Gamer office got chatting about the sneaky hints Rockstar have dotted throughout the new GTA 5 trailer.

You've probably noticed the narrator sounds a lot like Ray Liotta, who voiced GTA Vice City's player character Tommy Vercetti. But the greying middle-aged man we see in the footage isn't the only one in player-character situations. There's also a shaven-headed youth in a car chase with the police, and a tattooed black guy running from a cop chopper. And hey, isn't that all three of them together breaking into the jewellery store? Click below for a full size image of the evidence.



Chris Thursten points out that GTA IV used a deal gone wrong to link three characters that you ultimately ended up playing: Niko in the main game, Johnny Klebitz in the Lost and the Damned DLC, and Luis Lopez in the Ballad of Gay Tony. GTA V might give us a choice of three protagonists from the off, each with their own stories, and use this robbery as the flashpoint that links them.

It'd make for a more interesting story structure, and of course it would set them up beautifully for a co-op campaign that ties into the single player.

 
Grand Theft Auto 5, or GTA 5 (if you're an acronym kind of dude) trailer alert! Sit back and have a little watch.

We mentioned a few Grand Theft Auto 5 rumours earlier today but now, with the benefit of hindsight, you can either mock or bask in the awe of our incredible insight. For some spookily accurate insight, check out what PSM3's Dan Dawkins had to say a few weeks ago.

We'll have a more in-depth analysis of the first Grand Theft Auto trailer on the site as soon as possible. For now, just watch and comment.

Grand Theft Auto V has just been splattered all over the front page of the Rockstar website with a simple declaration. TRAILER: 11.02.11. That was a surprise. Everything we know about the new Grand Theft Auto is contained in that logo. It could be anything. What are you hoping for from GTA V?