Hordes of postmen fill the street, armies of retail staff scurry through their fluorescent aisles, and the world's console-owning population have simultaneously phoned in a variety of minor ailments. Grand Theft Auto V has launched and, by all reports, it's A Big Deal. Unless you own a PC, that is, in which case, it's a Tuesday.

What hope do we have of joining GTA 5's triumvirate of crims and, more importantly, when? Rockstar's sandbox of car chases and petty violence began its life on PC, but without an official announcement, is it safe to assume that we'll ever have a chance to holiday in the latest Los Santos? Let's delve into the murky lake of internet rumour, and fish out any facts we can find.



Leaky Lists

A publisher can use its own roving bands of guerilla PRs to whip employees into a cowed silence. The same isn't true of external partners and retailers. All sorts of GTA 5 info has oozed from the retail counters, from an early look at the map, to copies of the game itself. That may lend credibility to a number of online retail listings for a PC release.

Amazon France kicked things off at the start of the year, by taking taking pre-orders for a boxed PC copy. Then, in May, German retailers sprang to action, with both Amazon Germany and GamesOnly posting their own speculative PC pre-orders. Interestingly, GamesOnly briefly posted early details of the console versions' special edition. They were right on the money.

Does that validate the listings? Not really. Sometimes it's less about responding to information, as it is about anticipating that information. Yes, retailers will often have forewarning of announcements, but that's not the only reason they'd promote an unannounced game. Right now, Amazon UK has a landing page for Grand Theft Auto 5 PC. It quietly exists on their website, collecting the email addresses of potential customers and soaking up lovely SEO points. The need to be in the best position if/when a PC version is announced skews how much we can extrapolate from their actions.



Immoral Code

Here's the most recent piece of 'evidence'. A config file has appeared that, allegedly, was taken from a pirated copy of GTA 5's Xbox 360 version. The XML code makes reference to both PC and Orbis, the PS4's operating system. The full file is up on PasteBin, but here are the relevant PC mentions:

Image source: DualShockers

Config code found within the game? On the surface it seems like a solid lead, but it assumes that every line of every file is created from scratch. It seems more likely that this is a standard template, which would of course contain references to a PC build - along with any other platforms Rockstar might be internally experimenting on. Moreover, the presence of a PC build isn't in and of itself confirmation of a PC release. It's just an indicator that, as with most games, PCs were used as part of the game's development.

That's not to say this discovery is completely without merit. But, as above, there are too many possible caveats for it to be a firm indicator of Rockstar's release strategy.



Unreliable Informant

Last month, Chris Evans, the senior director of investor relations at Nvidia, said the following during an earnings call:

"The PC market is evolving. As entry level laptops face pressure from tablets. Yet sales of specialty PCs like gaming systems and work stations continue to grow. The disparity reflects how consumers use these different classes of PCs. Many consumers look for PC as a general purpose device they can use for browsing, email, social media video. But much of this can be better served by a tablet. In contrast, gamers are preparing their systems for a strong roster of games coming this fall, including blockbuster franchises, such as Call of Duty: Ghosts, Grand Theft Auto V and Assassin’s Creed IV."

The need to prepare driver updates and tailor hardware profiles means that GPU manufacturers like Nvidia can forge strong relationships with developers. If GTA 5 is heading to PC, they'd likely know about it. And here we have a senior director directly linking the game's Autumn release with the need to 'prepare systems'. It seemed like solid intel.

Unfortunately, it wasn't. Nvidia's senior PR manager Bryan Del Rizzo later released a statement, clarifying what Evans said:

“Please note, during our Thursday’s earnings call, our investor relations team provided a list of important games that gamers are looking forward to on PC this fall, and included Grand Theft Auto V on that list. This statement was made with the intent of expressing enthusiasm for the games industry in general, and was not intended to represent specific knowledge possessed by NVIDIA. NVIDIA does not have information on any possible PC version release of Grand Theft Auto or its availability. We deeply regret the error.”

Even if you're the suspicious type, and assume the latter statement was the company covering its tracks, the timetable doesn't make sense. It's too close to today's console release, and too soon for the Rockstar marketing train to leave its station. At best, we can anticipate an announcement before the end of the year. But if the game is coming, it'll be 2014 at the earliest.

On the next page: promising leads, historical trends, and direct information from Rockstar. Why GTA 5 is almost certainly coming to PC.




One Last Job

Back in July, Rockstar Leeds advertised for a new Graphic Programmer. The job description should be of particular interest:

"Rockstar Leeds are currently looking for a talented graphics programmer to help bring our latest titles to the PC platform. Working together with the other Rockstar studios, you will be responsible for maintaining the studio’s uncompromising quality bar, delivering the highest quality PC experience possible."

The phrase "help bring our latest titles to the PC platform" sounds pretty unambiguous. While there's an outside chance it refers to new games from existing series, Rockstar Leeds have form in taking on porting duties on older games. Their last project was was the PC version of LA Noire.

GTA 4, incidentally, was ported by Rockstar Toronto, who also collaborated with Rockstar Vancouver on Max Payne 3 before the two studios were merged. If this new plus-sized Toronto has shifted towards development of new games, Leeds would be the natural choice for heading up the company's PC porting duties. What "latest title" will they be working on? GTA 5 seems the only sensible choice.



Strength in Numbers

While we're making assumptions about Rockstar's internal workings, let's talk about its history. One of the strongest indicators of a post-console PC version is that the GTA series keeps doing them. As T.J. methodically charted, the gap between the launch console and PC release has stayed relatively stable, hovering at just over the 6 month mark. The gap between announcements is less consistent: in fact, it's growing. GTA is trending towards keeping PC - and potentially next-gen console owners - in the dark for longer. It's almost as if delaying the reveal of a more powerful version is a good way of maximising profits across multiple platforms... is what a cynic might say.

There's a chance you spent the entirety of that last paragraph shouting "RED DEAD REDEMPTION" at the screen. Fair enough, the outstanding recreation of the last days of the wild west is unusual among Rockstar titles of similar scope and scale in that it never came to PC. It is, however, the exception rather than the rule. Both LA Noire and Max Payne 3 found their way to us, proving that despite RDR's absence, there's no institutional shift away from the platform within Rockstar.

During a 2011 community Q&A post on Rockstar's Newswire, they hinted at why that particular game didn't cross over, and also used their subsequent PC ports as evidence that "we can finally put to rest any misconceptions that we’ve ‘abandoned the PC platform'." The post went on to state:

"We do know that, yes, there is just one title absent from our PC release plans – that game of course being Red Dead Redemption, and of course we’re well aware that some fans have been asking for it. All we can say is that whenever it is viable (technically, developmentally and business-wise) for us to release a game for PC (or any other particular platform) – we will and we usually do; unfortunately, that is just not the case 100% of the time for all platforms."

Layers of corporate obfuscation aside, it suggests that RDR was held back because of a specific issue with the Rockstar San Diego game. Whether it was technical, developmental, or business-wise-al, none of those factors are likely to apply to the publisher's most successful series from their flagship development team.



Lasting Infamy

While I'm quoting Rockstar, let's take a look at an understated line from CVG's giant interview with Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies on the subject of GTA Online. When asked if there was a definitive end to the game's online portion, he said, "probably not. Because we want it to last forever."

"We'll stop when we've simulated life - and then that will be the end! No, people have to keep going. There should never be an, "Oh, I've reached the end." We've got to have goals, and we've got to have stepping stones, but there should never really be an end."



GTA Online is a persistent, updating, 16-player version of GTA 5. Given that, and Rockstar's stated commitment to make it a lasting experience, why would you restrict it to the tail-end of a console's life-cycle? It seems natural that Rockstar are going to want it to live on in a more stable, long-term environment. Yes, that could apply to next-gen consoles, too. But it's a description that fits the PC like a glove.

Later on in the interview, Benzies states, "we'll get the current gen version out first and see what happens in the future." Which, if nothing else, proves that you don't get to be the president of a major developer without being able to coyly dodge questions about an unannounced release.

There's the evidence, all that remains is how you interpret it. What do you think of GTA 5's PC release chances?

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.

An emerging theme in the games industry is developers engaging the idea that games may be disproportionately violent or too derivative. Deus Ex creator Warren Spector spoke out about the latter recently, launching off the reveal trailer for the new Wolfenstein: A New Order. Joining the conversation now is Jeremy Pope, a veteran of Rockstar Games and former production manager for Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and Max Payne. In an interview with GamesIndustry International, Pope explains why he will never work on a violent game again.
“I would always kind of defend the games we were making and I was pretty proud of being involved,” he said, “but then when I would visit my grandmother in highly religious Alabama and have to explain what I do for a living, I didn't feel so great about explaining to them that I was a part of 'that game' they've been hearing about."
Pope says his decision to avoid violent games is about working on projects he can "feel a bit better about," but doesn't disparage Rockstar's accomplishments.
"I definitely want to make a point of saying that I actually love Rockstar's games," he said.
In the wide-ranging interview, Pope discusses the perception of games in the mainstream news media and how gaming is so often used as a convenient scapegoat for political topics like gun violence.
“We had the same problem 10 years ago and it still persists today,” Pope says about the NRA blaming games for high-profile gun violence. “We don't really have a great ambassador, if you will… And then you see the NRA has one guy who goes up on a podium and gives a talk, and whether you agree with it or not there is a clear single voice and something to react to.”
Check out the full interview here.

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.

The creator of the Iron Man mod for Grand Theft Auto IV returns with a sequel: the Iron Man IV mod. It adds several different incarnations of Iron Man's suits and complements your hand and chest repulsors with new weapons like micro-missiles, shoulder darts, and a minigun. Once again, you can streak through the skies over Liberty City as Iron man, battling cops and choppers, causing millions of dollars in property damage, and terrifying citizens. And who wouldn't want to do that?

Well, Iron Man, for one. He's a hero. He'd want to protect Liberty City, not destroy it. And that's how I decided to play the mod: as a crime-fighter.

Why does Batman take the time to climb up here? You can't see ANYTHING.

I begin my new job as protector of Liberty City in typical superhero fashion: by perching atop a tall building and gazing down with steely determination. I will defend this city from crime! I vow with determined steeliness. Of course, I can't actually see any crime from up here, so I fly down to street level, hoping to pull off a trademark Iron Man landing: one knee down, head bowed, palm flat on the street of the city I love, nearby citizens awed at the sight of their new champion.

Hello, ladies! Hope I'm not interrupNGHHUH

That doesn't quite work out. At least the women I land next to don't notice my faceplant, and continue their conversation about urinary tract infections. I fly back up and try again, this time sticking the landing but still not drawing so much as a curious look. That's fine! I need to prove myself to them by fighting crime. After all, who is going to be impressed by a miraculously flying metal superhero unless he's established himself as a crime fighter?

I fly around a bit, looking for crime. It's tricky. If I fly too high, I can't really see if there's any crime going on, and if I fly too low, I dong my head into lampposts and knock them into the street, causing traffic accidents and panic. I can walk, but then I just feel like some random Iron Man cosplayer who got lost on the way to the convention center. I eventually manage to find a way to hover slowly through the city at a height of about six feet. Beware, crime!

Stand back. I'm reaching speeds of nearly eight miles per hour.

Crime is definitely be-waring, because I'm still not seeing any of it. Eventually, I spot two men standing on the street, having a discussion. Are they plotting something? Something like a CRIME? I swoop in and land awesomely, but sort of on top of them, sending them sprawling. One rolls around on the ground in pain, the other sails face-first into a building, smearing it with his blood, then gets up and flees in terror. I feel confident they won't plan a crime together again anytime soon if that's what they were maybe doing!

The best time to stop crime: before it starts.

After a full day of slowly hovering around the city, drifting into people with my feet, and occasionally interrupting suspicious conversations, I head back to a safehouse to rest. Though I'm hit by a car at one point, I was sort of jaywalking, so I don't take any further action against the driver. This time. You're just lucky I was committing a crime when you committed your crime.

Ohhhh, there go my premiums.

The next day, I leave the downtown area and head to the projects, hoping to find a whole bunch of crime. It's the projects, after all. I've seen The Wire. Shortly after I land, I witness a taxi cut a corner and knock over a pedestrian. The pedestrian seems unhurt: he gets up and chases the cab angrily, but the cab doesn't stop. Hit and run! That's a CRIME! Now, to FIGHT IT!

The best way to hail a cab: with BLASTY PALMS

I blast the taxi with my repulsor ray, figuring the cab will stop, allowing me to then punch the driver in the face. Only then will justice be served. The cab bursts into flames and two people jump out, screaming, and run off together. Whoops! Didn't even consider there might be a passenger in the taxi, and now I'm not sure which is which and who to justice-punch. I decide instead to just completely destroy the cab with another blast. That will be a lesson to whoever the driver is. A lesson... ABOUT CRIME.

Just as I'm blasting the cab, an SUV drives in front of me, taking most of the blast. It too catches fire. Then the cab explodes. Then the SUV explodes. There may have been some other cars nearby. They explode. The police show up, presumably to thank me, but I fly off. I'm not in this for gratitude, fellas! I'm just here to protect the city. As the boys in blue fire their guns excitedly into the air (to show their support, I'm sure) I fly off to find more crime.

I think I made my point.

I'm on the waterfront, eying everyone suspiciously while they completely ignore the shiny metallic man slowly hovering around with flames shooting out of his boots. I notice a man in a suit has dropped a shopping bag, possibly because someone bumped into him, possibly a shiny metallic man who can't control his hovering very well.

It's not even a recyclable bag. This guy is just asking for it.

He apologizes to me, which is nice, but then he walks off, leaving the bag on the ground. That's littering. That's a crime. Now, how to fight it? Missiles? I'm thinking missiles. I blast the man, as well as someone standing near him (an accomplice!) and they careen off into the air. They won't be littering again, unless you count their charred bodies falling in crispy chunks all over the city (I don't count that). As the police arrive-- too late to help, AGAIN!-- I fly off, once again modestly refusing their thanks, even as some of their thanks ricochets off my legs and back.

This is how a HERO takes out the trash.

I head to the docks. Gotta be some crime at the docks, right? I've seen The Wire. There, I spot some workers, but they're not working. This might be one of those things the mafia does, where they give jobs to mob goons, but the goons don't have to do any work and yet still draw a paycheck. I've seen The Sopranos. I target two of the "workers" and fire darts into their heads. As they die, they drop giant stacks of manicured, banded bills. Yup. Mafia goons. Normal citizens wouldn't be carrying giant stacks of cash like that. Looks like I made the right call by shooting them in the brain with murder-darts. I dart a couple other people who also happen to be standing around, just to be safe. Safe from CRIME. Also, shooting darts into people is hilarious. Their hats fly off and they die!

Break time is over! Would have been clever to say. Didn't think of it until now.

The next day, I fly over to the airport to give some airline passengers a thrill as I fly by the windows of their plane, superhero style, only I crash into the plane and the cops show up with helicopters and start shooting at me. Looks like I've gone from hero to anti-hero. I get it. The cops need someone to blame, someone to take the fall. I've seen The Dark Knight. Fine. I will shoulder that burden. Because I can take it.

I was just waving and my hand went off.

A few minutes later, someone honks at me as I cross a street. That's probably a crime, right? At the very least, it's rude. After I blow up the car, the police arrive again. Rather than fly off, I decide to go ahead and take them on. This is what happens with heroes. Sometimes, they fight each other. It happens in the comics all the time and the heroes have a spectacular battle with each other. It gives them a chance to flex their muscles, and no one really gets hurt. This is a little different because I kill, like, fourteen cops. Choppers arrive and I start shooting them out of the air while flying, which is awesome. Then some hovering robot drones added by the mod come flying over, and they blast me out of the sky. Then I'm dead.

Hopefully, Ben Kingsley was in that chopper.

I won't lie, this mod is a bit buggy. Sometimes my ears and hair show through the sides of the helmet, and sometimes the powers stop working, but re-equipping the armor seems to fix that. The mod is also a lot of fun, even if you decide to just blow things up instead of being a responsible hero like me.

Installation: I won't lie, the installation is not a breeze. You have to download and install OpenIV and then download the mod and do a lot of file-backups and pull things from folders and drop them in other folders and edit files and it sort of takes a while. It's well worth it, though, and the Read Me included with the mod download is detailed and easy to follow.

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 iCEnhancer has been beautifying GTA 4 for players for more than a year now. The mod uses custom shaders and post-processing effects to massively improve GTA 4's visuals. Images like the one above from Ducan Harris' Dead End Thrills demonstrate iCEnhancer's power. Eurogamer note that version 2.1 has now been released, which is great timing. You can grab a pack of every GTA game for just £4.99 / $12.49 as part of the Steam Summer Sale.

The mod is available to download now from the Icelaglace site. The Steam/EFLC/1070 version, installer and configuration tool will all be "available quickly" according to the site. You'll find the latest trailer below.

If you're looking for more GTA 4 mods, check out this one that lets you play as Superman, there are more that add first-person mode and a gravity gun. For maximum silliness there's always the one that renders all cars frictionless.

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?