Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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.)

Cripes – how would you like the complete Grand Theft Auto series for under £9? There are two ways to do this. You can get yourself a balaclava and steal them from a shop, but it’s high-risk, and some would argue morally questionable. Or you could hand over that much money to Gamers Gate, where they’re selling GTA 1, GTA 2, GTA III, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, GTA IV, and GTA Episodes From Liberty City, for actually 1p less than that balaclava at £8.74. Bear in mind that GTAs 1 and 2 are already free, but that’s still one heck of a lot of automobile crime without the broken glass and prison sentence. (Thanks to Michael Rose for the tweeted tip.)

Two years for a little less than two hours: those are the numbers behind The Trashmaster, a feature-length machinima flick made entirely using GTA IV PC and its video tools. Owing a hard-to-miss debt to Scorsese and likely to be pulled from the internet by the Rolling Stones’ copyright lawyers any day now, this veritable labour of love is the flashy, violent tale of a vigilante garbageman, cleaning up whatever (i.e. whoever) the police can’t…

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Yesterday I told you wot I thought of the first half of the GTA IV: Episodes From Liberty City, The Lost And Damned. Today it’s the other half, The Ballad Of Gay Tony. Having played it from beginning to end, I feel rather equipped to let you know Wot I Think.

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At either end of 2009, two “episode packs” were released for the 360 version of GTA IV: The Lost And Damned, and The Ballad Of Gay Tony. As of a week or two back, the two have been released together for the PC, not requiring the original game to run. It’s an awful lot of game. I’ve finished the both, and so it’s about time I told you Wot I Think. First up, The Lost And Damned. (Be advised – there’s a picture of a man’s front bottom in this article.)

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That Spore kerfuffle earlier in the year sure seems like spilt milk compared to Rockstar’s GTA IV balls-up. The multiple DRM systems have proven to be the least of the troubled port’s problems – seems Kieron was lucky to even get into the thing, never mind that half his graphics were AWOL.

Everyone’s having their own miseries with it, it seems. So, below the cut: a quickie poll to see how many of you lot are having problems with the game. That’s along with more ranting from me, and a list of the many fun Fatal Errors players are running into. I’m a victim of RMN40, which apparently means I need to install XP SP3. Problem is I’m running Vista. Nice!

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So – GTA’s out and its multi-step installation program is causing gnashing of teeth. Take this proper-AIM growl-piece, for example. As is only right, as it’s incredibly annoying. However, the main reason to justify the post was to stress… well, you only have to do the Rockstar online club thing if you want to play online games or upload stuff. After installing, you can skip a log-in to it to just play, saving a little time. Good luck. Of course, that doesn’t help my own particular problems…

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I think all of RPS have reviewed GTA4 PC for somebody or another – the only one I’m not sure about is Walker, and I think someone may have… actually, no, he hasn’t, apparently. Poor old Walker, eh? Anyway, while Jim’s hit the world of print, mine has hit the internet first, which means I win. I take apart the PC version for Eurogamer, mainly concentrating on the new stuff. And don’t worry, installation-worriers. I give a shout out for you. Go read here.

I also talk a load about music. RPS GTA4 mixtape, I suspect, will be incoming shortly.

IGN’s got a remarkably long Q&A up with some anonymous mouthpiece of the Rockstar hivemind, specifically detailing all the various copy protections and mandatory login guff next week’s murder simulator will require to install and run. There will, it seems, be quite a few barriers between you and your hooker-killing; the internet will not be happy.
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How many zombies does it take to make a meme? How many zombies is too many zombies? And why is every game suddenly obsessed with them? Well, even more so than usual.

It certainly seems like the en vogue way to drum up renewed interest in a game right now – no less than three usually non-zombie-centric titles have made the headlines in the last few days thanks to a little unexpected undeadery.
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Via VG247, the official recommended system specs for the upcoming PC port of of Big Steal Car 4. Oddly, since their discovery yesterday, they’ve been pulled off the official Games For Windows site and replaced with a ‘Coming Soon’. Theories? Either they were wrong, it’s the notorious Rockstar info-chokehold at play again, or they’ve been taken down because the entire internet misinterpreted ‘recommended’ as ‘minimum’. Here’s what they were yesterday though. Read the rest of this entry »