After disabling the option to buy Grand Theft Auto IV in January, Rockstar now say 2008's open-world murder simulator will return to sale in March with a few changes. Microsoft's awful Games For Windows Live technogubbins is being removed because it caused the trouble in the first place, and that's great news. It seems some folks will also receive the expansions or base game for free too. Unfortunately, Rockstar are also removing GTA IV's multiplayer mode and will temporarily disable several radio stations. A mixed crimebag.
]]>After 21 years as a Rockstar Games big cheese, Dan Houser will leave the company in March. He's co-written almost every Rockstar game since 1999, including Grand Theft Auto from London through to V, Bully, Max Payne 3, and the Red Dead Redemptions. That's made him a big influence on the tone of Rockstar's games. I wonder how that might change once he's moved on. Where he's going and what he'll do next, we don't know. He can probably afford to eat pizza while watching Heat on loop the rest of his life, to be honest.
]]>As much fun as we have with our virtual bank-heists, car-chases and random muggings, music licensing seems like a far more lucrative racket. Due to expensive, time-limited music licenses expiring, Grand Theft Auto IV developers Rockstar were recently faced with either pulling the game from sale, paying for a license renewal, or removing a good chunk of its famed soundtrack. Today, a small patch rolled out across multiple platforms, removing the now-unlicensed music tracks and it looks like the damage done may be greater than expected.
]]>Rockstar have confirmed that they need to cut a number of songs from Grand Theft Auto IV due to music licenses expiring, though they will shuffle in new songs to replace at least some. Probably expect a new patch to cut the old and whack in the new. The Russian pop station Vladivostok FM will take the brunt of the cuts, which will also affect GTA 4's Episodes From Liberty City standalone expansions. Rockstar have needed to do this with GTA before and it's still weird to cut up old copies of games, but at least this time they're taping it back together afterwards.
]]>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.)
]]>The Almighty K has news that Rockstar intend to release Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City, the double pack that includes standalone adventures The Ballad Of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned, which were both release to the Xbox in 2009. The release will happen in March, and the pack will cost about $40. I've not played either of these, so I can't really comment on the worth of this, but hey, at least GTA4 runs on my PC now I upgraded my CPU and memory to way more than I really need.
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