This combination of mods for Grand Theft Auto IV makes the game look more or less like last December's Far Cry 3, and this machinima shared by RyderPL completes, or at least continues, the illusion.

It's… well, let's say the motion capture in Far Cry 3 is a touch above what GTA IV's game engine is capable of. Still, it's interesting to see one game running in another game like this. Vaas looks so… shiny.

(Thanks, Gaz.)

You know how Rockstar Games rolls, right? There's no clue as to when we're going to get another glimpse at Grand Theft Auto V. So, thirsty fans have gone ahead and made their own. The clip is made up of still images that have been released for the game, with little bits of limited animation sprinkled throughout. With overdubbed music and vocals responsible for the jokes, it's a little reminiscent of the openings from Monty Python's Flying Circus. GTA + Monty Python… that's a mash-up someone needs to make happen.

(Thanks, tipster Kasper!)

Real-world sunrises get more intense as we get closer to spring—but they pale next to what we can find in games. The lovely time-lapse moments you can see above, from Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto IV, among others, create living, breathing worlds that you just can't wait to dive into.

Video Game Sunrises [YouTube]

Maybe you've seen some screenshots of Grand Theft Auto V. The game isn't an exact recreation of LA, but it does take inspiration from it.

Some places are comparable enough that, if you searched, you could find something uncannily similar in Los Angeles—as PlayStationAccess's correspondent did here.

That must be cool—to recognize the places you frequent in real life, in a game. Can't say I've experienced it!

GTA 5 Real Life Locations [PlayStationAccess]

I have to say, while I enjoyed watching Woody from Toy Story wreaking havoc in Liberty City, I didn't really think I'd like watching Mater from Cars do the same. Come to think of it, I think I figured my relative enjoyment would be about on par with the difference between my enjoyment of Toy Story and Cars.

But hey, as it turns out, this video is pretty funny, if only because Mater somehow manages to leave a gravity-defying swath of destruction in his wake. The mod was uploaded by YouTuber Taltigolt, and created by SkylineGTRR34Freak.

Now that we had the Oscars last night, it is time to gather a list of games that enhanced their storytelling by featuring real-life actors, actresses and other celebrities—not just as voice actors, but sometimes even as the main characters.

Chow Yun-fat as Inspector Tequila in Stranglehold

Bruce Lee as himself in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

Burt Reynolds as himself in Saints Row: The Third

Shaquille O'Neal as himself in Shaq-Fu

Tia Carrere as Ari in The Daedalus Encounter

Christopher Lloyd as Drew Blanck in Toonstruck

Ricky Gervais as himself in Grand Theft Auto IV

Ozzy Osbourne as himself in Brütal Legend

Snoop Dogg as an unlockable character in True Crime: Streets of L.A.

Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes in Beyond: Two Souls

Year by year, the number of these games increases exponentially. If we didn't include your favorite, make sure to post them below with visual support.

sources: Strangleholdgame.com, Craiglovespepsi's LP, Saint Row: The Third Pimps and Gimps trailer, Hardcoregaming101, pheedbaq's LP, cubex55's LP, d1ceBLN's LP, Double Fine, GamesStation1987, Beyondps3.com

Wednesday's PlayStation 4 event showed us what next-gen graphics are capable of, so if you had any doubts that game environments could grow even better looking and more detailed, they're probably now gone.

Cities and city skylines in general were always a perfect way to show how beautiful a game is, so we collected some huge and gorgeous cities from upcoming titles—and a few from recent memory as well.

SimCity (SimCity 2013)

source: EA

Hengsha (Deus Ex: Human Revolution)

source: Deus Ex Wiki

Panau City (Just Cause 2)

source: Just Cause Wiki

Vekta City (Killzone: Shadow Fall)

source: Killzone.com

Chicago (Watch_Dogs)

source: Ubisoft

Los Angeles (LA Noire)

source: Rockstar

Los Santos (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas)

source: GTAGaming

Liberty City (Grand Theft Auto IV)

source: Rockstar

Liberty Dome NYC (Crysis 3)

source: Crysis.com

And this is how it looked back then. The neon lights of Moonside in Earthbound are still pretty charming.

source: Starmen.net

You should submit your picks with visuals in the comments below!

There's certainly no shortage of funny Grand Theft Auto IV mods out there, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for one more.

Here's Woody from Pixar's Toy Story movies wreaking havoc on Liberty City by… slinging Hadoukens and Fus Ro Dahs like they're going out of style. The mod is by [0x80075af], and you can download it here.

(Thanks, Jonathan.)

When it hit movie theaters last year, Wreck-It Ralph had tons of little details that made the Disney film feel one of the few that got video games right. It's available for download today and a new interview at MTV reveals that some of the best stuff—an open-world social game where Ralph goes to mope after pivotal events in the film—never made it into the final cut of the movie. (Spoilers if you haven't seen Wreck-It Ralph yet…)

Wreck-It Ralph director Rich Moore explains that the gameworld of Extreme Easy Living 2 was a place that didn't have the adversarial structure of the movie's other games:

'Extreme Easy Living 2' became this bottom that Ralph hit. It was a place to go to give up. We would talk about 'Extreme Easy Living 2' as a place where there's good guys, no bad guys. There's just guys and chicks and beer and sharks and volleyball. It was the hedonistic place, kind of like 'The Sims' combined with 'Grand Theft Auto' social gaming type place that really had no objective to it.

The clip is a hilarious parody of The Sims, down to its own funny version of Simlish. But Moore says that there were problems working Extreme Easy Living 2 into the movie's plot:

One thing too was we really couldn't figure out how it had any right to be in an arcade. It was so specific to an online game or a social game that it didn't make any sense to be an arcade cabinet. There's never been a game like that. We decide, 'Well, maybe it's the game that's on the arcade owner, Mr. Litwak, maybe it's on his laptop or something in the office, and somehow Ralph travels to it.' It became a very convoluted story. It became really hard to even introduce. This could be a movie in and of itself. I think we could build an entire story around going to this game because it seems like there's a lot of humor to be found in it.

It'd be great to see this concept make it into a Wreck-It sequel, Bromigo.

Exclusive: 'Wreck-It Ralph' Deleted Scene Travels To Entirely New Game World [MTV News]

Nobody respects the sex workers in Grand Theft Auto, man. To most players they're just an ongoing joke about what you really do in the GTA games (blow shit up and kill hookers, basically). Ever think about what it's like for the call girl to have a psychopath John running around, though?

Today, Something Awful's Zack Parsons published a clever article/diary that takes a look at the life of a GTA call girl. It's about as horrible (and funny) as you might expect. A small taste:

January 8th

A guy covered in blood and barely conscious said if he didn't get a BJ he was going to die. Sure, why not? What's the worst that could happen? Turns out the worst that could happen is he drives you up onto the roof of a parking garage and throws molotov cocktails at people until the police shoot him from a helicopter. I was stuck up there until, luckily, the guy's dead body disappeared and the car I was in ceased to exist. What a nightmare.

You can read the full thing here, though rest assured: it's not a life worth envying. Actually, it really, really sucks.

The Secret Diary of a Grand Theft Auto Call Girl [Something Awful]