Rockstar officially announced GTA4 today.
The game will come out on October 16th 2007 in the US, and be out first on the 360.
Once GTA4 proper is released, Rockstar is planning on create episodic content that will be available on the Xbox Marketplace.

Microsofts press conference was the last of the big three. During the event MSFT outlined what they have coming down the pike for the 360, Vista, and….phones.
The presentation started off with an amazing real time, in game demo of Gears of War. The more you see this game in action its just exciting. The strange thing about this conference was the lack of real gameplay.
Microsoft showed a bunch of FMV Trailers for: Gears of War, Too Human, Lost Planet, Fable 2, and 99 Night, among others. While its nice to see what MSFT has cool games waiting in the wings something other than Gears of War and Viva Pinata would have been nice.
Speaking of Viva Pinata, an in game demo was shown and I have to say it looks very interesting. Players will create a garden who attract “life” and the gardens. The population builds up from there. I am hoping there will be more details during E3, but for now it looks like next gen Animal Crossing.
On the 360 Arcade side of things MSFT announced deals with Capcom, Namco, Midway and SEGA (could this mean Dreamcast games on the 360 Arcade?).
MSFT announced that the HD-DVD player for the 360 will be available this holiday season, but no price point was mentioned.
One of the more “scary” parts of this conference centered around the ideas behind “Live Anywhere”. Windows Vista will have full integration with Xbox Live. What this means is that while your playing a game on the 360 and a friend is “working” on a PC you can send an invite to them to play a game, chat over VOIP, etc.
Now where it gets scary is that there is limited functionality for this in present and upcoming windows Mobil devices. I am sure it will be cool, but there is a part of me bothered by the idea that MSFT can “see” me at home, on the road or at work.
Towards the end two small announcements were made. The first: Grand Theft Auto 4 will ship to the 360 Oct 16, 2007. Whats even cooler is that Rockstar will make future GTA episodes available via the Xbox Live marketplace.
Oh yeah then they showed a teaser for Halo 3, and there was no sign of the Arbitor, so there’s hope!

The teaser trailer is now available on the XBOX live marketplace and Bungie.net. I am currently 46% into the download and it has taken ten minutes up to this point, so be patient.

This morning on xbox.com, MSFT has officially announced USB connected HD-DVD add on for the 360.
From MSFT’s web site:

“”Xbox 360 ushered in the era of high-definition gaming by standardizing high-definition resolutions and 16×9 widescreen support for every game (Xbox Live Arcade included) on the system. What’s more, Xbox 360, while powerful on its own, is also a foundation from which new technology and accessories can be added. Chief among these is the recently announced HD DVD add-on.

This much anticipated accessory carries with it an extension of the HD Era that Xbox 360 offers, and provides the most visually stunning movie watching experience available.

This new accessory will connect to the Xbox 360 console with a USB cable, enabling it to harness the power of the Xbox 360 console for the HD video outputs and digital surround sound. As an accessory, it becomes another shining example of the flexibility of Xbox 360 designed into the console in order to grow and add new features. It’s also just one of several new accessories being announced at E3.”

While this seems to be a very cool add on to the 360 (current thought is the street price will be 100.00 USD) I may hold off on picking one up. The “Format War” has yet to start, and from what i know of HD-DVD/Blue Ray the HD-DVD format seems a bit lacking (Max Resolution on HD-DVD is 1080i as opposed to 1080p with Blue-Ray). For 100.00 it might be a nice toy to have.

Today MSFT announced some new arcade titles that will be available for download very soon. This week UNO is expected to hit the market place, and later poker. The big news is that Street Fighter II will be available soon!
Also this week, a demo of Viva Pinata (think of it as animal crossing, with living pinatas!) will be up on the marketplace.
In the same article MSFT announced that there will be a sequel to Mutant Storm coming this summer.
The 360 arcade is one of the best feature the 360 has to offer, and its good to see MSFT is keeping it stocked with good titles.

“Modders have secretly switched the meshes of the women…so they look topless! Lets watch!”

…

So Bethesda has responded publicly about the ESRB rating change, and I love it.

They basically say they will not contest the rating change, and almost imply that they shrug it off. They then slyly point out that they did not withold anything from the ESRB, with respect to the level of blood and gore indicating:

With regard to violence, Bethesda advised the ESRB during the ratings process that violence and blood effects were “frequent” in the game - checking the box on the form that is the maximum warning. We further advised that the game contained occasional torture, vulgar acts, and gore. We gave accurate answers and descriptions about the type and frequency of violence that appears in the game. We submitted a 60-page document listing the explicit language, acts, and scenes in the game. Oblivion packaging already contains warnings for “Violence” and “Blood and Gore.”

And they go on to state that the nudity thing is really out of their control.

GOOD FOR THEM!

They aren’t being too uppity about it, and they are saying.. Fine.. we’ll respect the “M” rating, but at the same time they are putting the facts out, and I think its showing the ESRB to be overzealous, and maybe a little bit at fault.

Well done Bethesda.. excellent response.

Censorship issues on the whole aside, as we’ve stated here before, the notion that its the developer’s responsibility when a modder alters a game to become more offensive is ridiculous.

Its time the ESRB adds a new kind of rating … a statement tacked on that notes that “this game is built to be modded by the public”. This would be the equivalent of the “Online play may change game experience” tag that is currently on any game where the players at large may cause the game to become inappropriate.

This approach makes sense, it alerts parents that the game is allowed to be altered from its original form, and that those alterations are not within the scope of the original rating.

ESRB! I hope your reading this! FIX THE PROBLEM!

GameSpot got their hands on Lego Star Wars 2.

Lego Star Wars was a simple, yet amazingly fun and comical game for just about every platform.
The blending of simple gameplay, clever lego-izing, and the natural story of Star Wars made for one of the best games of last year.

Lego Star Wars 2 already sounds like its going to be better than the first. And we’re siked to hear it!.

Many of the new gameplay improvements were evident in this demo stage. In fact, we started out by driving into Mos Eisley in Luke’s trusty landspeeder, showcasing one of the controllable vehicles that will be on offer in many of the game’s levels. (In the first game, vehicles could only be used in specific vehicle-action stages.) In fact, later in the level we came upon a pile of spare parts and were quickly able to build the bipedal AT-ST (most memorable from Return of the Jedi’s forest battle), hop in, and then gleefully mow down Imperials and bystanders alike with the walker’s massive cannons. Decidedly un-Jedi-like behavior, to be sure, but it was too much fun to resist. It didn’t hurt that the environments are a lot more destructible now, so we cut a swath of destruction through the Mos Eisley streets as we went.

Speaking of building, returning players will remember that only Force-enabled (that is, Jedi) characters could build structures and machines in the first game. Now, all nondroid characters will be able to build, and the non-Force users will simply run up to the pile of parts and start throwing them together into a functional gadget (with an inspired, hilariously frenzied bit of animation). The designers have also made an effort to give all of the characters distinctive moves and abilities to make them all worth playing. Each Jedi character will have his own special Force power, for instance: Obi-Wan can use the Jedi mind trick, while Darth Vader has his signature Force choke and the Emperor can use Force lightning. Non-Jedi characters will also have special moves of their own. Luke has an evade move before he becomes a Jedi, for instance, and many characters have unique melee attacks, such as Princess Leia, who slaps enemies in the face, and Chewbacca, who literally pulls stormtroopers’ arms out of their sockets.

Nice… Let the Wookie Win.

Yesterday Xbox Live was taken down for maintenance in preparation for E3 (starting next week). The reason for this update was mainly to everything in place so that us at home can “experience” E3 from our living rooms!
MSFT will be sharing a majority of the content available in the booth with us at home. Today MajorNelson shared some of the details of what will be available starting next week. Oh and as one last “gift” Xbox Live service will be free for all users during the entire E3 week!
From MajorNelson:

During E3 week, Xbox 360 fans will be able to download game demos and trailers from the hottest E3 titles and experience them in high definition. Over 60 pieces of new downloadable content will be available to gamers this week including:

Playable game demos and/or trailers from highly anticipated titles like:
Crackdown (Microsoft Game Studios)
Dead or Alive® : Xtreme 2 (Tecmo)
The Lord of the Rings ™, The Battle for Middle Earth™ II (EA Los Angeles)
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Capcom)
Moto GP™ ’06 (THQ)
Sonic the Hedgehog™ (Sega)
Splinter Cell Double Agent ™ (Ubisoft)
Test Drive Unlimited (Atari)
Viva Piñata (Microsoft Game Studios)

I for one am excited about the Lost Planet, Splinter Cell, and Viva Piñata demos. Also the trailer being shown in the MSFT booth for Gears of War will be available for us to watch at home.
Call it a slick marketing ploy, or just an excuse for MSFT to make advertising money, but to me this is one of the coolest things I have seen from a game publisher.
The coming week will be an interesting one, and be sure that I will do my best to post impressions and information I get from this “event”, and the deluge of information that is E3.

A fellow Monkey asked Jordan and myself about Oblivion a week or so ago, and we couldn’t reccommend it to him fast enough. Well he emailed us yesterday and I found it so amusing, I decided to post his mail, and my response to him on the site.

Do you remember seeing those fat guys on Jerry
Springer? you know the ones that need to have walls
removed so they can get out of the house? Well that’s
going to be me in a couple of weeks because for the
last 48 hours straight (almost), I have been playing
Oblivion and it’s all your fault. I actually took a
sick day today so I could get up at 6 am and play.
This game is awesome I tell you. As you know I am not
an RPG kind of fellow but I’m loving this.

A couple of questions:

-Are lockpicks really that hard to find? Where can you
buy them?
-Am I better off completing the main quest and then
heading off to do my own thing? I feel like I have ADD
at the moment because there is sooo much shit going
on.
-Am I going to get butt sores sitting in my office
chair for 8 hours at a time?

Thanks. dave.

My response:

Dude..

I konw the feeling… this rainy wekeend…. ALL OBLIVION!

-Are lockpicks really that hard to find? Where can you
buy them?

Lockpicks are around.. in containers and such.. as well as for sale from fences in the thieve’s brotherhood, but the best thing to do is get to level 10.. and get yourself the “skeleton key” which is an unbreakable lockpick.
Walkthrough here:
http://www.monkeygames.org/archives/726

-Am I better off completing the main quest and then
heading off to do my own thing? I feel like I have ADD
at the moment because there is sooo much shit going
on.

I was going all..crazy… I am currently level 15 or so.. and i didnt get on the main plot until like.. level 8.. then i stopped for a bit from level 10 - 13ish.. and now Im trying to stay on the main plot. Wait. thats a lie.. i just spent the wekeend like a maniac working on EACH mage’s guild’s reccommendation so I could get into the arcane university.. which rocks.. cuz now i can make my own spells or enchantments on items. OH.. and I bought my own house in Leyawiin. Ok.. so the main plot is there when you want to follow it… I dont think its right or wrong either way to continue on it.. or leave it be. And I think that only by proceeding along the main plot do you alter the world around you. (If you dont konw what I mean by that.. maybe you should go on the main plot just a tad.. and watch the fireworks! )

In the end.. I say do what draws you. If while you’re on the way to do something, you become embroiled in a quest to rid the local Town of some ner-do-wells… or perhaps you get all caught up in your quest to join the Thieve’s Guild.. which doesn’t exist *cough*. I think its all YOUR story.. and thats what makes this game rock so much.

-Am I going to get butt sores sitting in my office
chair for 8 hours at a time?

You might want to get up and stretch out. And look far away while you do it (helps reduce eye strain). Oh.. and there have been stories of people dying from blood clots in their legs that form from sitting on your ass. But I think thats rare… I hope thats rare. I’m going to go for a walk now.. see you in a bit.

So there it is. Not a week goes by, and another person is Lost to Oblivion.

I think what makes this game so amazing for us at Monkeygames is that everyone who plays it has their own story. My character has done a plethora of quests and some of the main line, and at this point , when hes not relaxing in his shanty home in Leyawiin, he’s summoning giant crocodile men and shooting ice balls at people.

Meanwhile, fellow monkey Chris, has the same class (battlemage), and yet, his story is wholly different! He’s some kind of assassin and thief, oh.. and hes a vampire! Some of his adventures have been great to hear about.

If you have been on the fence about this game. Its time to get into the yard. Pick it up on PC or XBOX 360, and be ready to play one of the best RPG time sucks to come along in some time.

Today one of the most ambitious xbox live tournaments begins, and I for one am excited. The PGR3 tournament is a Global event (think of it as the world cup for Geeks).
In preparation for this world wide event MSFT has done some major work to PGR3, including a massive update (patch) to the game.
On Friday a new set of cars was made available for download form the xbox live marketplace. This “speed pack” available for 400 msft points, includes cars that appear to be specifically for this weeks qualification rounds. The cars included in the speed pack are:

Aston Martin V8 Vantage (FREE)
RUF RT12
Saleen S7 Twin Turbo
Audi RS 4
Chevrolet Corvette Z06
Dodge Viper SRT-10 Coupe
Ferrari 612 Scagliett
Lamborghini Gallardo SE
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII
Nissan NISMO R34GT-R Z-Tune
Pontiac GTO
Radical SR8

Starting today all registered participants begin time trials on one of my favorite courses

Tokyo Nishigushi:

During the qualification period all participants are allowed unlimited attempts to get into the top 64 players in their region. Also all players who qualify will receive 50 points to their gamer score.
To be honest I am happy to see that the qualification round is not massive 8 player races. One of my chief complaints about online play in PGR3 is the online log jam at the beginning of each race. What tends to happen is all players hit the first turn and spin out/ collide. whoever makes it out of the turn first usually wins the race (because everyone is always using the same car).
The time trials ensure that only skilled drivers will make it into the semi-finals.
Players lucky enough to make it to the finals in the PGR3 tournament will have the privilege of racing each other at the Lamborghini factory in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy.
Will I make it that far, probably not, have i been training for the past week HELL YES!. If you have an 360, and PGR3 keep an eye out for “Gadgetron” on Gotham TV, as I will be flying around the streets of Tokyo every free moment I have!