Lazlow Jones co-wrote the radio scripts for all the Grand Theft Auto games (save Chinatown Wars, of course) going back to III, and appears as a radio personality in all of the games. He also, evidently, has all of the master copies of the recordings. In his home. Which is on Long Island. Or, well, a barrier island off Long Island.

Ordinarily this isn't much of a problem. but it was as Hurricane Sandy came barreling in late October, and Long Island was whomped particularly bad by the stormacane, or whatever it was at that stage. In a visit to the Opie & Anthony Show last week, where Lazlow's a regular guest, he related what his priorities were as the storm came barreling in.

1. Get the GTA III master recording.
2. Get the GTA: Vice City master recording.
3. Get the GTA: San Andreas master recording.
4. You get the idea.

"My studio is on the ground floor," he said on the show. "That's where GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, all those masters like the full recordings with Axl Rose and everything. I mean, all this stuff," he said. "I started freaking out and grabbing, just boxes of masters and putting it up on the second floor. Cause I was like 'I'm not going to let this stuff get ruined.'"

Asked if he was storing the recordings elsewhere, Lazlow said he'd learned he shouldn't "keep a lot of amazing masters from some epic video games on the ground floor near a sand bar."

If you're curious if he said anything about Grand Theft Auto V, he did, but only to say the game was due in the coming spring.

GTA master audio tapes almost lost during Superstorm Sandy [Original Gamer]

The news that GTA V will be bigger than Red Dead Redemption, San Andreas, and GTA IV combined is impressive. It makes on think back to the vast expanses of GTA III, the game that pioneered huge open-world experiences. People spent weeks on that game, trying to complete every last side quest and find every package. In the vaults of the Speed Demos Archive, John "Silmaranza" Breedon shows off how he managed to do that feat in 6.5 hours. The whole thing took about a year to do but is impressive nonetheless. Who knows how long GTA V will be? It'll be a challenge for the speedrunners of the world, that's for sure.

Later this week, Grand Theft Auto III is being released on the PlayStation Network. It's going to be hard to get very excited about it when you look how well this little project is coming along.

GTA III Rage is an attempt to recreate Grand Theft Auto III using Grand Theft Auto IV's newer, fancier engine. We first took a look at the fan project back in March, but the team have since released this trailer, which does a pretty good job of showing you it's the same old city, only now it's got helicopters.

On the left, the complete script for Grand Theft Auto III. On the right? The complete script for Grand Theft Auto IV.

[via Rockstar]

It's long been a subject of fan speculation as to how much Rockstar Games changed Grand Theft Auto III in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. In the decade-plus since GTA III came out, rumors have abounded: cut sequences where planes hit buildings, a supposedly removed pair of Twin Towers-style skyscrapers and the erasure of children and school buses.

Some things did change about GTA III after 9/11—changes Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser noted late last year—but not as much as conspiracy theorists would have you believe.

In the latest look back at the creation of GTA III, the New York City-based publisher of Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire runs down how the terrorist attacks on the United States affected the PS2 classic. Rockstar says that the game wound up being only "1% different":

We removed only one mission that referenced terrorists and changed a few other cosmetic details – car details, a couple of [pedestrian] comments, lines of radio dialogue etc – the game came out a very short time later. The biggest change was the US packaging which remixed the previous packaging into what became our signature style – because the previous packaging [which was released as the cover of the game in Europe] was, we felt, too raw after 9/11.

That rawness might have something to do with the explosions happening against a urban back drop. One of the best games ever—which had players engaging in all kinds of criminal mayhem in a virtual homage to New York City—came out only a short while after the greatest tragedy to happen on American soil. The proximity could be little uncomfortable, when you think about it. But Rockstar's comments indicate that the GTA III that players got was 99% the game the developers wanted to deliver.

But the rumored removal of schoolbuses and children? Not true, they point out today. And they say the game definitely didn't have any Twin Towers that needed to be cut.

Other GTA III mysteries that get covered include the ghostly multiplayer menus buried deep in the game's code, why the Dodo plane doesn't fly and the Liberty City bridges and tunnels that lead to nowhere. GTA III conspiracy theories may be fun, but it's far more fascinating to learn about some of the process behind making the game that changed open-world design forever.

Grand Theft Auto III: Your Questions Answered – Part Two [Rockstar Newswire]

Merry (belated) Christmas, owners of the recently-released Grand Theft Auto III on iOS and Android. That mobile version you bought is actually, in almost every respect, the old PC version of the original, meaning if you can get at its file structure, you can use PC mods on it.

For Android users it's as easy as going to your Android/Data/com.rockstar.gta3/files/GTA3 directory, while iOS users may need to get a little trickier (or have a jailbroken unit).

This isn't a complicated workaround; because this is essentially the PC code running on a phone, you just find PC mods and drop them in the right directory and they should work, same as they would on a computer.

Unexpected bonus: Grand Theft Auto III for Android and iOS can be easily modded [The Verge]

You might be celebrating GTA III's 10th Anniversary by playing it on your iOS or Android device, with that version freshly out today. Rockstar's celebrating in a different way, though. On their official site, the developer's revealing all kinds of trivia and minutiae about the open-world crime game that put them on the map.

For example, why does Claude not speak when nearly every other character does?

Rockstar says:
It may now seem obvious that people should all talk in games, but this was not necessarily the case in 2001, certainly not in an open world game. We were making up a lot of procedures as we went along, and we decided that the NPCs (Non Playable Characters) should talk and we would have to figure out how to make them talk (using motion captured cutscenes, something that had never really been done before, at least not on the scale we were doing it). So we decided that the game's protagonist would not talk, partly to aid people identifying with him, but mostly because we had so many other problems to solve and this did not seem like a major issue. We started to discuss introducing a talking lead character when working on Vice City, but it was a lot of work. While the structure of GTA3 may seem obvious or natural now, and the use of cutscenes made in the game's engine that look and feel like the game may seem simple and easy, it really was not the case back in 2001 when we had to figure out all of these things for the first time. Oh and in San Andreas, CJ calls Claude a mute because he does not talk and CJ finds this unnerving.

Ever wonder about the Darkel character mentioned in the original game's instruction book but who never appears in the game? Here's the answer:

Rockstar says:
Darkel was just a crazy bum who gave you some crazy missions. They were removed a few months before the game was done and long before 9/11 because they just weren't as good as the rest of the game, and tonally they were a little odd. He started with 5 missions and they were slowly all cut. When only one or 2 were left, they were all removed as the character just didn't work alongside the other characters.

The Q&A also showcases the design sketches seen above for Claude offers up other interesting tidbits about the landmark GTA game. Head on over to the site for more.

Grand Theft Auto III: Your Questions Answered – Part One (Claude, Darkel & Other Characters) [Rockstar Games]

Hot on the heels of the announcement earlier today, Rockstar Games made the 10th anniversary edition of Grand Theft Auto IIIavailable for attendees to play. After about 10 minutes of hands-on time with the game running on an iPad 2, there's no mistaking that GTA III on iOS is a loving port of the game that catapulted Rockstar to the top echelon of game developers. The up-rezzed graphics become immediately apparent, with tons more detail on character faces and clothes. What I played of the game runs smoothly, with no hitches or freezes. A little bit of pop-up showed up while driving, but wasn't so egregious as to spoil the experience.

Control-wise, it supports either touch or accelerometer controls and will even support suction cup joysticks that attach to the tablet like the Fling. A virtual circle pad on the left controls movement with buttons on the right for running, jumping and punching. These controls pop in and out depending on context, so when a car pulls up, a car button shows up. Pushing it launches a carjack encounter, which, of course, can become a fight. Once in the car, buttons for brake, accelerator and horn pop up. The left navigation circle pad changes into two arrows for steering, too. It felt like I might like the motion control steering more but that might change with more time with the game.

Overall, Grand Theft Auto III iOS felt very close to the delivery experience by the PS2 a decade ago, except this time it's in the palm of your hand.

Rockstar Games revealed today that it would be honoring Grand Theft Auto III's 10th anniversary with a special edition. Later this fall, it's coming to an array of portable devices for Android, but fewer ones for iOS.

"Grand Theft Auto III showed us the potential of open world games," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games in an official release. "It helped set the vision for the company, and we have been expanding on those possibilities with every game ever since."

GTA III will be released on the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S. That's it. If you've got an iPhone 4, then it looks like you are out of luck.

It's coming to more Android phones, such as Droid X2, HTC Evo 2, LG Optimus 2X, Motorola Atrix, and Samsung Galaxy S2. It's also headed to Android tablets like Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad, Motorola Xoom, and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The game's anniversary doesn't stop at smartphone ports. Rockstar is also releasing a limited-edition 1:6 scale figure of GTA III protagonist Claude. The figure comes with two sets of clothing, including his cargo pants and bomber jacket as well as his Liberty City prison uniform. Beside the clothes, it also has an array of weapons: a bat, knife, grenades, pistol, sniper rifle, and assault rifle.

Priced at US$149.99, the figure is being produced by collectible figure maker Sideshow. Rockstar is also giving one away—more details in the link below.

If you are going to the New York Comic-Con, the smartphone version will be playable at Rockstar's booth.

Announcing Grand Theft Auto III [Rockstar]

Mac owners, get ready to game like it's 2001, as the Grand Theft Auto III trilogy has finally come to Apple computers. Better late than never, right?

Thanks to Rockstar Games and TransGaming's Cider engine, those of us who prefer Mac OS X to Windows can play Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on their home computers, running down pedestrians on Macbooks and committing heinous acts of creative violence on iMacs.

The three open-world crime sprees are now available via GameTreeMac right now—each title is priced at $14.99 USD—and at retailers across Europe. The Grand Theft Auto trilogy will be available at retail in North America starting November 22.

TransGaming's Cider Portability Engine is the tech that powers Windows to Mac conversions like Dragon Age, Prince of Persia, The Sims 3 and more. We're sure the Mac versions of Grand Theft Auto IV, Manhunt, Bully and Red Dead Redemption are just around the corner. No? Maybe State of Emergency?