East Coast Crew (360 - GT in brackets)

afgavinstan (afgavinstan)
Aaroncupboard  (aaroncupboard)
Billy_Hologram  (Billy_Hologram)
Cosby  (Jacks Joystick)
Dark Soldier  (Dark Junglist)
FranticPea  (FranticPea)
fullspectrum  (MM nickfullspec)
g.man  (gman808)
Gamermike  (Gamermike22)
GooberTheHat  (GooberTheHat)
handsofblue  (handsofblue)
Heavy Voodoo  (Heavy Voodoo)
isanbard  (isanbard)
JonB  (Relentlessjon)
JRPC
Kernowgaz  (Themagickman)
Kow  (Kowdown)
Liveinadive  (NOHAWK1986)
Louiecat  (louiecat)
metagonzo  (MetaGonzo)
Mikemsp  (mikemsp)
monkey  (roop81)
M0stly harm13ss  (M0stly harm13ss)
Moto70  (Moto 70)
n0face  (n0f4ce)
Paul the sparky  (Paul the sparky)
Plan_XIII  (Plan XIII)
Rayman  (Rayman Q)
SpaceGazelle  (SpaceGazelle)
stonechalice  (stonechalice)
Stopharage  (Stopharage)
The Daddy  (MistaTeaTime)
TheDJR  (DarxideR)
three1ne  (Johnny Biscuits)
Webbins  (W3881N5)
Wookienopants


West Coast Crew (PS3 - PSN ID in brackets)

3nigma  (oo03nigma0oo)
AndCallMeCharlie  (derekg)
adkm1979  (adkm1979)
adored  (adored)
b0r1s  (ib0r1s )
Birdorf  (Birdorf)
beano BNO-1979)
Chief  (BlueFury47)
cindemon  (cindemon)
Dan_Dan_Ey  (Its_DanDan_Ey)
daviedigi  (daviedigi)
EvilRedEye  (EvilRedEye8)
GurtTractor  (GurtTractor)
Gonzo (legaldinho)
Hodge360  (Hodge360)
JMW
knuckle82  (knuckle82)
Matt_82
mistercrayon  (mistercrayon)
Moto70  (MotoSeventy)
regmcfly  (regmcfly)
revelthedog  (r1cksim)
Skade  (Skade)
Skondo  (Armouredgiraffe)
stonechalice  (stonechalice)



If you think you're up to it, come & join the B&B crew:

http://socialclub.rockstargames.com/crew/the_b_and_b_crew










GTA V will come on a single Blu-Ray disc for the PlayStation 3 and a two-DVD disc format for the Xbox 360. It will require an installation on both consoles, so be prepared to clear up 8GB of space. For the Xbox version, the install comes on one disc and the actual game on the other, so gamers will not need to switch discs during gameplay. Despite the difference in number of discs, Rockstar maintains that the Playstation and Xbox versions will play exactly the same.

"Players can expect the same great gameplay experience on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms, as they have both been developed in tandem," promised the publisher. "We expect any visual differences to be completely negligible."

Gamers have had several questions about how playing as the game's three protagonists, Michael, Franklin and Trevor, will work. Rockstar said that while you are playing one of the characters, the other two will continue living their lives, allowing you to drop in and immediately become immersed in a character's life. The option to switch is only available when you are not involved in a mission. Also, characters won't have the ability to go rogue and kill off the others, but they can interact with each other and even join up on missions.

"You might drop in on Michael in the middle of a family dispute, interrupt Franklin chatting up some ladies, or Trevor on the run from the law—or whatever else these guys do in their free time," says Rockstar. "How and when you switch between characters when you're not on a mission is completely up to you."


Grand Theft Auto V will hit shelves worldwide for both platforms on Sept. 17. Rockstar has not yet disclosed any plans to bring the highly anticipated game to next-generation consoles or PC. "We are completely focused on delivering the best possible experience for the consoles people have right now," said the company.


World's First Hands On

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/09/03/world-first-hands-on-with-grand-theft-auto-v


To whet our appetites (I've also added to OP):





Grand Theft Auto

PSone / PC / Dreamcast / October 1997



The M-rated/18-certificate gameplay of GTA IV is the pinnacle of an eleven-entry series that began life in 1996 on the Commodore Amiga. As the Amiga grew old and technologically infirm, GTA’s creator, DMA Design, switched the development of the original game to the PC. Grand Theft Auto eventually hit the PSone in 1998, where the mighty Official PlayStation Magazine praised it to the heavens as “one of the most original, innovative, technically impressive and controversial PlayStation releases ever”.


Looking back, the core gameplay elements that define Grand Theft Auto are present in this first title. The game cast you as a small-time car thief with big-time ambitions. Featuring six levels split between three cities - Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City - there were over 200 vehicle-based tasks to complete. These missions (received via payphones) were often timed, challenging you to ferry passengers across the city chunks, assassinate rival criminals or act as a getaway driver. Complete a mission and you earned greenbacks for your efforts - amass $1,000,000 and you could advance to the next city.

The appeal of GTA wasn’t the way that it looked. The game was functional rather than fancy, using a top-down 2D perspective and crude sprite-based graphics. Instead, GTA’s strength lay in the vast scope of its gameplay and in the freedom it gave you to stray from the guiding mission structure. You could steal cars and sell them at the docks - there were over 20 different vehicle types in each city (all drivable); or set fire to drum-banging groups of Hare Krishna worshippers. You could even rampage through crowds of Saturday shoppers with a machine gun.

GTA gave you entire cities to act disgracefully in, cities that felt real and alive. It reveled in detail. Pedestrians wandered the streets, cars obediently halted at traffic lights, ambulances and fire engines responded to death and fiery destruction. To play this game with any success, you needed to spend time learning the layout of the city to avoid the police, perfecting Micro Machines-style driving on the wide freeways and narrow side-streets. It was easy to ignore the fact that GTA’s gameplay was actually all-too-repetitive. But at the same time, it was also irresistibly immoral, allowing you to live a cartoon life of crime complete with Bullitt style car chases and Heat-style shoot-outs.

nevitably, GTA’s degenerate gameplay (killing cops, murdering passers-by, stealing cars) stirred up an international controversy. Despite its mature rating, there were protests against it in Britain and Australia, while other countries - such as Brazil - banned the game altogether, imposing fines on anyone who tried to sell it.

So great was the hoo-ha that GTA’s seediness even became a topic for discussion in the UK Parliament's House of Lords, where crusty peers questioned its impact on impressionable youngsters. An outraged Lord Campbell of Croy asked whether: “[the government] propose to modify the system of classification under which the computer game Grand Theft Auto, which allegedly involves thefts of cars and driving at excessive speeds to evade police cars, has been granted an 18 certificate?” The word ‘allegedly’ implies Lord Campbell had not actually played GTA and was irritated by his assumptions rather than directly annoyed by its often indistinct mayhem. Lord Campbell also didn’t mention what age people should be assumed to be adults, if not at 18. Retirement, perhaps? The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office (Lord Williams of Mostyn) replied at some length to Lord Campbell’s excellent question, and basically said: “No.”

Lord Campbell, still piqued, would not be swayed from his moral course. “Should criminal offences be allowed to be presented as games?” He ranted. “Is the Government now ready for computer games on burglary and mugging, bearing in mind it is mostly young people who play these games and not the adults who bought them?” Lord Avebury replied: “Demonstration copies of Grand Theft Auto are being distributed with magazines. My 12 year-old son, who has played it, assures me he is not motivated to go out and steal cars.” Could it be that criminals are not innocent victims of games, but criminals? That ordinary gamers will remain just that after playing GTA? The debate raged - the moral minority had clung to an anti-GTA bandwagon without actually seeing or playing it, setting a strong precedent. With its profile boosted by the controversy-press, GTA strode on to become one of the biggest-selling PSone titles of the year. Adults openly adored it, while kids sent their moms to buy it for them, so they could adore it in secret.


Grand Theft Auto: London 1969

PSone / PC / April 1999



Originators DMA morphed into Rockstar, and GTA was transformed into the big-bloused, bellbottomed GTA: London 1969 - all the car-jacking, pedestrian-squashing gameplay of the original but with a 1960s London vibe.


Far from being a true successor, GTA: London 1969 was essentially a stylistic add-on that required ownership of the original game. The changes were mostly cosmetic - Chevrolets became Capris (or non-copyright-infringing ‘Crapis’), Greyhound buses were transformed into the capital’s iconic Double Deckers and the mission dialogue was now inspired by slang from classic Brit TV and movies such as The Professionals and The Italian Job.


But underneath the paint-job, the gameplay was identical. While GTA: London 1969 featured a whole new environment, the go-anywhere, do-(almost)-anything gameplay remained. As did the familiar top-down 2D perspective, the phone-based mini-missions and the radio stations, now complete with hand-picked ’60s tunes. But for half the price of GTA, you were treated to half the content - GTA: London 1969 only featured one city map (compared to GTA’s three). Admittedly, the visuals were a little better, the framerate a little faster. But this semi-sequel was still an ugly duckling of a game, boldly trading on its gameplay rather than its graphics.

Sold for only half of standard full-price games (and later in a handy Director’s Cut set with the original Grand Theft Auto), GTA: London 1969 offered cheap, extended GTA play. With hindsight it was a cash-cow, designed to hold our collective attention until the sequel arrived six months later...


Grand Theft Auto 2

PSone / PC / Dreamcast / October 1999



The design brief for GTA 2 was obviously to make it ‘bigger’, ‘badder’ and ‘better’. But at first glance, little seemed to have changed. Hitting at the end of 1999 (Tomb Raider sparked the 3D revolution as early as 1997), GTA 2 used the familiar top-down perspective, albeit with more detail. Again, missions involved phones and an amoral mix of assassinations, bombings and getaway driving. And as before, you were free - do missions, joyride or simply hunt for secrets, bonus objectives and hidden vehicles. Yet GTA 2 also tweaked and added to this core. Set in a near-future metropolis with three enormous areas (Downtown, Residential and Industrial) the AI had been hugely improved; a high ‘wanted’ level would see SWAT, FBI and finally the Army join the overstretched cops after you, while in addition to stealing cars, GTA 2 also introduced the ability to work semi-honestly as a taxi driver, jump across rooftops or even bolt a set of machineguns to your car. Rockstar also added extra weapons including a silenced Uzi, Tazers, Molotov cocktails and landmines. Landmines! The familiar GTA gameplay was also complicated by the presence of no fewer than seven gangs. Each area was controlled by three, and you could work for any or all of them.

Rockstar’s mantra was this: “Respect is Everything”. Why? Crucially, by allying yourself with one (say, the Zaibatsu), you upset their rivals (the Yakuza or Loonies). Gaining Respect from one gang meant losing it from the others, which in turn could make your life hard. And because you needed to work for more than one gang in order to make enough money to progress, a certain degree of back-stabbing and betrayal was necessary...


While GTA 2 was an improvement, many were disappointed. The novelty was wearing off and its controversial gameplay, aging 2D form, huge size and freeform(ish) gameplay didn’t generate the raw excitement that they once had. Despite its innovations, the sequel did not reinvent Grand Theft Auto - it merely tuned it, refined it. Sales were poor in comparison, and nothing like what Rockstar expected. Or wanted. What the public (if not the House of Lords) really wanted was Grand Theft Auto 3D - all the lawless thrills of GTA and its expanded, extended sequel, but with the immersive, believable graphics of the much admired Driver...


Grand Theft Auto III

PS2 / PC / Xbox / October 2001



One PS2 and a year later, GTA in 3D is precisely what Rockstar delivered. But few expected a game with so much detail and depth. Again, the gameplay dynamics in GTA III are almost identical to its predecessors - starting on foot, you can drag hapless motorists from passing vehicles and then drive off into the vast and virtual Liberty City (one of the three cities that featured in the original GTA). As per usual, various paying jobs are available via payphones and you can stray from the mission structure to raise a little unscripted hell. Once again too, the environment was blessed with an extraordinary degree of detail, intelligent AI and more filth and wicked brutality than ever before.


This is classic GTA with a 3D face. GTA III’s detailed Liberty City is irresistibly immersive. Viewed via a third-person perspective, the posh suburban areas contrast with grimy downtown districts; Triad gangs operate out of Chinatown laundries, while sharply-dressed Mafia kingpins live it up in hilltop mansions calling themselves ‘businessmen’. The city feels alive, almost real. Day turns to night as you play, sunshine turns to rain. And fog. Lots of fog. Warring gangs and commercial radio station chit-chat add to the big-city atmosphere. If you stop and stand still, you can expect GTA III’s digital life to go on without you. And eventually steal your car.

You can collect and sell cars, find hidden packages and locate hidden vehicles. And should you want to, you can live life as a taxi driver or play at being a paramedic, ferrying injured citizens to the hospital in a wailing ambulance. Or be a fireman, squirting out car fires with your massive pump. Or a vigilante, squishing criminals in a cop car. Or a psycho, running heinous rampages. Or a stuntman, squealing through the streets looking for sheet glass to shatter and ramps to hit. Or a pilot... you may think that planes, New York-style skyscrapers and a 2001 release were a bad mix, and yes - the terrorists scored another little victory here. Changes were made. But it was to the cop car liveries, not the Dodo. The wings on this horribly tricky light plane (registration Y-ME369) were clipped well before 9/11 - perhaps because of what lurked behind the reservoir of the Cochrane Dam...


GTA III just keeps on giving. It also illustrates how gamers have changed over the years. A demanding adult audience now wants more than cute furry animals (armed with oversized weaponry) bounding around gaudy platform worlds in search of floating coins and orbs.

As usual, most of the game’s action takes place in a variety of vehicles, each one with handling that feels realistic enough, but has an arcade edge that favors easy street-cruising and frantic car chases. On foot, things are a little less perfect. Aiming the weaponry can often be imprecise and when some missions hinge on your ability to hit-and-run, this can be frustrating. But the crime missions give GTA III the feel of a gangster movie.

GTA III just keeps on giving. It also illustrates how gamers have changed over the years. A demanding adult audience now wants more than cute furry animals (armed with oversized weaponry) bounding around gaudy platform worlds in search of floating coins and orbs.

And let’s face it, the PlayStation 2 was a big part of turning this successful and respected (by knowledgeable people rather than ignorant and self-righteous moralists) series into a phenomenon. The PS2 built a bigger, hipper and (to generalize) more culturally savvy audience than powerful but cantankerous PCs ever could. And, again counter to the proudly stupid assumptions of the “I’m all for the rights of the individual, but that individual is me” brigade, not all PS2 owners are goggle-eyed, blank slate 12-year-olds.


If Gran Turismo satisfied players’ need for fast cars and Pro Evolution Soccer sated their dreams of football glory, then GTA III recreated the gritty, violent action of gangster movies; the wild chases of cops ‘n’ robber shows of many a childhood. It may be seedy and nasty, but it’s proud of it, delivering ‘escapist’ entertainment that lets you play a sinner in Paradise Lost - rather than standing by, tutting, and watching everyone else have all the fun.

GTA III shifted over seven million copies on PS2 alone, winning the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association’s first ‘Diamond Million Seller’ award. Incredibly, GTA III appeared in the top ten of the official Chart Track listings for over 50 weeks. Not even the hotly anticipated PS2 exclusive Metal Gear Solid 2 would compete with that.


Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

PS2 / PC / Xbox / October 2002



All of which brings us to 2002 and to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. A prequel story-wise, rather than a sequel, this is GTA III with tubular bells on. Yes, it bore all the now-familiar gameplay elements, but it streaked up in its tasseled slip-ons with a ton of extra content and an irresistible 80s kick that takes its cues from (among others) Miami Vice, Goodfellas and Scarface. Not simply a game, Vice City offers you 1980s themed, ‘Greed is Good’ digital role-playing. It polishes GTA III’s best bits and then adds even more to the mix - such as the ability to own property and make money from businesses. As our wise friends on the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine suggested at the time, this is a game that: "doesn’t just blur the boundaries between video games and popular culture, it decimates them.”

You may have forgotten just how much stuff Vice City added, especially in the wake of San Andreas. It was a long way from being just a pinked-out GTA III with bikes. Trust us. Need convincing? To get into some cold, hard numbers for a second, at over a hundred vehicles, Vice City had two and a half times as many as GTA III. It also had 40 weapons as opposed to 11; more than 60 internal locations instead of, well, none; and was at least twice the size of Liberty City. You had to contend with a brief, postcard-style loading screen every now and then, but only when crossing the bridges between the islands. It wasn’t too great a price to pay. Want more of those devastating digits? OK.


Vice City had eight hours of scripted speech, nine hours of radio, 80 types of pedestrian (including rollerbladers and people who looked suspiciously like Michael Jackson and David Hasselhoff), 8000 pedestrian comments and one targeting reticule. The last may not sound like much, but VC’s lock-on was a huge improvement over the haphazard shooting of old - though it still didn’t totally fix the awkward combat.

Vice City offered many more minor, yet equally welcome tweaks. For instance, you could now fire weapons forward from bikes and boats instead of just out to one side, you could kneel behind cover (though not move once you’d done it), shoot people through car windows, snipe vehicle tires and - most usefully - leap from moving cars. This was particularly handy if you were being shunted sideways along the speeding highway by a phalanx of angry SWAT vans, burning furiously and about to blow at any second, or slithering horribly toward one of Vice’s lovely, sparkly bodies of water. No, you still couldn’t swim, but previously you could only sit in the car and await your doom - you had to be stationary to get out. At least now you could leap out when things got too hot and wet and take your chances.  Vice City offered many more minor, yet equally welcome tweaks. For instance, you could now fire weapons forward from bikes and boats instead of just out to one side, you could kneel behind cover (though not move once you’d done it), shoot people through car windows, snipe vehicle tires and - most usefully - leap from moving cars. This was particularly handy if you were being shunted sideways along the speeding highway by a phalanx of angry SWAT vans, burning furiously and about to blow at any second, or slithering horribly toward one of Vice’s lovely, sparkly bodies of water. No, you still couldn’t swim, but previously you could only sit in the car and await your doom - you had to be stationary to get out. At least now you could leap out when things got too hot and wet and take your chances.

This edition also upped the city simulation, too, bringing us pedestrians - and police - who interacted with each other to a far greater degree, rather than wandering around being a simple background for our idiocy. Watch and the pedestrians don’t simply wander up and down but sit and laze on benches, chat to each other, read papers, rollerblade, fight with one another, have accidents, commit serious crimes and get chased down (and often run over) by the cops. There’s a much greater sense of a city living around you, and the technical improvements - such as better textures, smoother animations and even quicker streaming - means it pretty much keeps up even as you scream down its seafronts, flat out and wheelying on a stolen PCJ. Go back to GTA III now and you’ll be surprised by how basic it was in comparison - and especially by how much the camera has improved. Go back to Vice City, however, and you’ll be surprised by how much fun it remains.


Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

PS2 / PC / Xbox / October 2004



San Andreas was the big one. And in so many ways. This expanded the GTA idea from a city to a state, introducing countryside for the first time to a game that, in all other respects, was the very definition of ‘urban’. And while all the familiar elements - do-anything chaos, Hollywood voices, gritty stories, action movie physics - were there, San Andreas expanded on seemingly every element to a nearly insane degree.


Certain elements are reworked for every GTA, and SA was no exception. Dual wielding debuted and targeting was improved again, inspired by another Rockstar game, Manhunt, with some of that title’s stealth elements coming along too - donning a mask let you creep into certain houses at night and rob them. Melee combat was hugely expanded, with extra moves available for those who trained in the gym. And, at last, you could swim.

Driving physics and car explosions were brushed up, and for the first time you could tune and customize cars, even adding hydraulics or nitrous. If your car was big enough you could also recruit a three-homie gang to help out with drive-bys, while it was even possible to respond (either positively or negatively) to the comments of passing pedestrians. Their responses would be influenced by another new feature, your character CJ’s evolving look - unlike previous characters, he could gain or lose weight, get stronger, become more adept at skills such as swimming, driving or cycling and change his hair, jewelry, tattoos and clothes. San Andreas was a whole lifestyle.


Opposing gangs have attacked players on sight since GTA 2, but for San Andreas this was expanded - CJ could take control of areas of ‘turf’ by provoking a gang war and surviving the waves of gangbangers until everyone was dead. The flipside was that rival gangs attacked CJ’s turf while he was elsewhere, requiring some tiresome commuting to deal with the threats - the answer was to take control of every bit of turf (not that there’s much grass in all that concrete) and leave no base for any other gang to attack from.

And of course, there was more here than just new cars. BMXs and mountain bikes joined a wider roster of motorcycles, while air travel expanded to include everything from light aircraft to private jets to freight transporters… to military fighters to huge helicopters to jetpacks. You could even buy a ticket for a commercial airliner, or take a ride on the train. Or just steal the train.

With such a vast space - each of the three cities was around the size of Vice City, while the often spooky, hillbilly-filled countryside covered the same sort of area again - there was inevitably a vastly increased amount of hidden, unique or just plain weird things within it. There was also a hugely expanded amount of things to do in San Fierro, Los Santos and Las Venturas when you weren’t on a mission. Go gambling, dancing, play pool, train in the gym, commit burglary, enter sports events, bet on horses, race mountain bikes or build a property portfolio… there was more to do just living in San Andreas than many games offer full stop.

San Andreas really brought Rockstar full circle. Rockstar’s key players had long been in love with the rap scene. San Andreas was their homage to it, to the early 1990s, the gangsters and ghettos. If there was a criticism, however, it’s that the first five hours or so are consequently grim - the cartoonish, Die Hard-style action takes a back seat to Boyz ‘N The Hood poverty, squalor, bickering, drug abuse and egotism. It’s hard to like the cast. And after a gorgeously silly middle section that includes jetpacks, alien conspiracy nuts and giant chickens, San Andreas returns to the theme of idiocy, misery and squalor with a crack house-set finale. If nothing else, it does make it clear that GTA is very much an adult game for adults.


Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

PSP / PS2 / October 2005



The very idea of portable GTA was enough to get most people wet - the game that almost single-handedly defined PS2, on a near-PS2 spec walkabout. How could it fail? It was, as the Official PSP Guidebook put it, ‘GTA on the crapper’. It’s worth remembering two things at this point: it didn’t fail, and Official PSP quite possibly oversimplified things there. Also, yuck.


Though similarly oversimplified by its detractors as an add-on mission pack for GTA III or - worse - a cynical re-heat, Liberty City Stories was quietly revolutionary in its own right. Yes, it brought technical improvements from further down the series retrospectively to Liberty - half-decent aiming and camera systems, for instance - and it brought more advanced stuff, too. Chief among these were motorcycles (though sadly nothing really new, and still nothing sporty over 600cc) and some great comedy costumes.

But these things clearly aren’t revolutionary, no matter how welcome. What was amazing is that Liberty City itself didn’t need to change - and bar the placement of a few ramps and the opening of a few doors, it didn’t. The fact is, Liberty is a place of such astonishing definition, character and detail that you only need change the start/end point of a mission and the player will see new things, experience new challenges, and face new difficulties anyway. Vast areas of the city never needed to be visited at all in GTA III. Now they did. What other game could offer exactly the same locations and remain fresh?

Yet LCS did more than simply change the start points of GTA III’s events. It added new missions, new characters, new storylines and - holy of holies - a multiplayer mode, the first of GTA’s 3D era. Featuring races, objective-specific battles, deathmatches and more, it was the first (official) party in a truly populated GTA city. Sweet. Liberty City Stories was ported back to PS2 in June 2006.


Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

PSP / PS2 / October 2006



You know the drill - new cast, story and feature set in a familiar city. But now Rockstar Leeds knew it too: Liberty City had taught this Rockstar splinter group much about PSP. Consequently they pushed it far harder, and framerate, draw distance and loading times were much improved. In some ways it even improved on the original Vice City - its expanses of water gained hugely in terms of realism, even if some still preferred the stylized colors and sun-flashed twinkles of the original.

VCS made no concessions to quick-burst, handheld play, with multipart missions often involving all types of transport - including ‘copters - for lengthy challenges. Being able to swim (for a bit) and buy back weapons after being wasted/busted lowered frustration and reloading, but VCS took a patchwork approach to design fixes - the taxi back to the mission start, for instance, was all but redundant. Empire building - where you buy property and run missions - also brought the dreaded random attacks from San Andreas, which soon boil down to a long drive and unwanted cop attention (starting/exiting one of these missions in a suitable vehicle makes it all go away). Still, Empire cash is paid straight into your account. At last, direct debits in GTA! Vice City Stories was ported to PS2 in March 2007.


Grand Theft Auto IV

PS3 / PC / Xbox 360 / May 2008



At the 2006 Microsoft E3 keynote, Xbox VP Peter Moore rolled up his sleeve to show off his new Grand Theft Auto IV "tattoo." GTA wasn't locked into the PlayStation anymore; it would release on both platforms same-day, and $50 million bought exclusive post-release downloadable chapters for the Xbox 360.


While Rockstar geared up for next-gen consoles and a bump in numerals, Take-Two Interactive's 2007 didn't go so smooth. Manhunt 2's release hit problems in the U.S. and more problems in the U.K. Company officers plead to charges of falsifying revenue reports in February. Investors showed five of six board members the door in March. In Q1 2008, a month before GTA IV's release, the acquisition king stalled against a hostile buyout play by rival Electronic Arts. It seemed like it might only be a matter of whether it happened before or after the most anticipated game of the year would hit stores and undoubtedly break sales records.

The anticipation was justified. Rockstar upgraded their series to the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) – field tested on their acclaimed Ping-Pong sim – and rethought everything about how GTA plays. The car camera was different, police response to your rising Wanted level changed, the accent on buying up property was scaled way, way back. Stealing a parked car meant smashing glass and hotwiring it. A modern setting meant Internet access, network hacking, and outgoing cell calls as well as incoming missions. Characters went out drinking and got drunk, tipping off a Drunk Driver minigame that was sure to not sit right with several of the series' past detractors, but a new GPS system made sober navigation a breeze. Native multiplayer made its long-delayed console debut. And for the first time, missions were stacked to happen simultaneously, with players planting seeds to get close to targets on one job and picking up fast cash in the meantime.

And GTA IV's graphics absolutely impressed. It didn't match San Andreas' sheer square footage, but the scale was still immense. Details big and small popped throughout the four boroughs of Liberty City and neo-Jersey Aldernay across the water. Rockstar promised and delivered no load screens from start to stop, outdoor to indoor, rooftops to potholes, and none of San Andreas' dead zones. You were in the city at all times and it was alive all around you, beautiful and brutal and unpredictable, just like it should be.

A few traditions stayed intact. The new kid in town was Niko Bellic, an Eastern European wiseguy convinced to emigrate by his truth-flexible cousin Roman, hoping for a fresh start on the gold-paved streets of Liberty City. Naturally, the realities aren't so pretty. Roman's jammed up with the local mob and could use an experienced hand to help mitigate circumstances and permanently chill a few skulls out...but Niko's been less than forthcoming himself. Roman's issues paled when trouble Nico thought he left in the Old Country caught up to him in the New World, though.

In 2009, GTA IV featured the popular expansions The Lost And The Damned and The Ballad Of Gay Tony.