Our Graham was the one to post about the BBC making a “factual drama” about the Grand Theft Auto series and Jack Thompson’s crusade against video games, perhaps because I could only frame my response as a series of contorted facial expressions. But no, really, they are doing it, and it’ll star Daniel Radcliffe and Bill Paxton. Well, if they don’t get shut down.

Take Two Interactive, the owners of GTA makers Rockstar Games, have filed a lawsuit against the BBC for trademark infringement. See, they’re none too pleased that they haven’t been consulted.

… [visit site to read more]

Grand Theft Auto is many things to many people but I’ve usually found a way to enjoy each new entry as a sedate urban exploration game. I like stopping at red lights and honking my horn at dangerous drivers. I like listening to people talking on their mobile phones and I love that accidents occasionally happen while I’m trundling by. With its brand new first-person perspective option, GTA V may be one of the great immersive sims, packed with emergent moments both mundane and magnificent.>

… [visit site to read more]

The BBC are producing a drama about the making of Grand Theft Auto. Announced as part of the BBC’s Make It Digital campaign, which also donates computers to schools, the project is described as a 90-minute, one-off drama that “will center on the minds behind its creation.” So Dave Jones running about Dundee then, talking about his days at the watch factory. I would watch this show.

… [visit site to read more]

Ever wondered what Los Santos, the setting of Grand Theft Auto V, would look like if you stripped out the game’s textures, replacing them with shades of black and grey?

Wonder no longer, because artist Kim Laughton has done just that. More images below the fold.

… [visit site to read more]

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

I’ve fallen for Grand Theft Auto IV a dozen times in a dozen different ways. Only the first period of time spent with it was concerned with making headway through the miserable singleplayer missions, and that ended with the bleakness and grind became too great. Every other re-visit since then has been far more fun and uplifting.

… [visit site to read more]

You might have noticed Steam downloading a sizeable update for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas over the weekend and wondered what that was about. A fancy secret tying into GTA V’s return to the west coast, perhaps? Not quite. The patch added support for XInput controllers like the Xbox 360 pad, which is nice, but also removed seventeen songs from various radio stations. No more angsting out and gunning it across Gant Bridge in the wrong lane listening to Killing in the Name, I’m afraid. It breaks old saves for some too, though a mod fixes that up.

… [visit site to read more]

Races have consistently been my least favourite activity and mission style in Grand Theft Auto games, but here I am downloading Grand Theft Auto III so I can play a mod dedicated to the blighters. Liberty City Nights’ creator amibitiously describes it as “the best racing mod GTA III ever saw,” which also implies “the least horrible racing GTA III ever saw,” but that’s not why I’m interested. See, I’m interested in mods which try to recreate or crib from games and series which are no longer made, and Liberty City Nights is after the neon night racing of EA’s Need for Speed Underground subseries.

… [visit site to read more]

Michael Dailly created Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings in his time at DMA Design, and is now Head of Development at YoYo Games, the company responsible for entry-level game creation tool Game Maker. To help illustrate the power of Game Maker: Studio, the modern version of that tool, he’s doing something cool. As reported by USGamer, he’s re-building the world of Grand Theft Auto 1 in it, in 3D. (more…)

Hello. I am not Alec Meer. He’s in charge of this, not me. But Alec is on holiday on Cybertron for a week, so I’m going to have a go. Charts, right? Like they used to have for pop music, but with games instead? I think I can do this.

(more…)

Edit: Gamersgate pack now reduced to £4.99, matching Steam.

Gamers Gate came unto the people and did say, “dost thou desire a grand dose of vehicular theft at a price pleasing to these times of economic hardship?” And the people didst sayeth ‘yea’ and ‘that sounds like quite a good idea, I am broke’. But now, for this weekend only, Steam has pronounced that it shall be the Don of sales, capiche? Gamersgate asked for what now seems the astronomical sum of £8.74. Steam says £4.99. That’s GTA, GTA 2, GTA III, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas and GTA IV along with its episodic content. The series spans the invention of the Roman numeral and> the colon. (Thanks once again to Michael Rose for tweeting this.>)