Rockstar’s just confirmed the second piece of GTA IV DLC.
The name of the title? “The Ballad of Gay Tony”. Yeah.
I’ll just let that sink in for a bit…
According to the press release The Ballad of Gay Tony “injects Liberty City with an overdose of guns, glitz, and grime. As Luis Lopez, part-time hoodlum and full-time assistant to legendary nightclub impresario Tony Prince (aka “Gay Tony”), players will struggle with the competing loyalties of family and friends, and with the uncertainty about who is real and who is fake in a world in which everyone has a price.”
Rockstar also said that both DLCs will be available for purchase on discs. The disc will be a standalone product, so you won’t need GTA IV to play it.
This could spell more controversy for Rockstar, as the last DLC “The Lost and Damned” garnered furore among parents groups because of full male frontal nudity.
Gay Tony should hit Xbox Live Marketplace this fall for 1600 MS Points.
Rockstar has announced that Max Payne will make a return this winter in his new game, Max Payne 3 which will arrive this winter for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
“We’re starting a new chapter of Max’s life with this game. This is Max as we’ve never seen him before, a few years older, more world-weary and cynical than ever,” Rockstar boss Sam Houser said about the game, “We experience the downward spiral of his life after the events of Max Payne 2 and witness his last chance for salvation.”
We’ll obviously keep you updated as we find out more.
The astronomically huge and long awaited Grand Theft Auto IV expansion, The Lost and Damned, has just gone live on Xbox Live!
The DLC should already be appearing on the Games Marketplace to download for most 360 users. If it’s yet to appear in your region, fear not though!
You can access the download by going to Marketplace on Xbox.com, and buy it from there. You will then be able to download it by going to your Active Downloads on your 360 dashboard.
The Lost and Damned will set you back 1600 MS Point, and 1.78GB of your HDD, and has an estimated 10 – 15 hours of gameplay packed away in it. Considering the scope of this content, that’s a generous price.
Microsoft also added new “biker” related avatar clothing earlier to coincide with the launch of the 360 exclusive content. You’ll find a full list of the new clothing under the cut.
Rockstar development boss Jeronimo Barrera has stated in a recent interview why he views the upcoming GTA IV expansion pack The Lost and Damned, which releases tomorrow, as a full game in its own right.
“There’s nothing ever been out like it,” Barrera told Major Nelson in the review, “We’ve done a full game in my opinion, in terms of the production quality and the new gameplay mechanics. We’ve literally reached the maximum memory size that we can do for DLC with Microsoft. You’re going to get a lot of game.”
Speaking to the press in a conference call earlier to this, in relation to its full-year financial results, Take-Two Interactive executives revealed that the GTA franchise has been responsible for nearly half of the company’s revenue this year.
Like that really surprises anyone.
The franchise took in over $710 million for the company this year, of the entire revenue total of $1,537.5 million for fiscal 2008.
All in all, that accounts for roughly 60% of Take-Two Interactive’s total publishing sales for the last 12 months.
Impressive? Just a bit.
Spike TV has had gone into overload with its debut trailers this year, and the next big one on the list is the trailer for the 360 exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV expansion, The Lost and Damned.
In it, we get a quick look of the characters and face we will be introduced to in the new chapter, and lots of lots of shots of leather jackets and motorbikes.
The video is under the cut, as usual.
Microsoft has just posted three new screenshots for the upcoming 360 exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV downloadable content, The Lost and Damned over on its website.
Alongside it is a blurb confirming information we pretty much already know, but here it is anyway.
Developed by series creator Rockstar North and set in Liberty City, Grand Theft Auto IV™ The Lost and Damned™ features a new main character, Johnny Klebitz, and plot that intersects with the storyline of Grand Theft Auto IV; new missions that offer an entirely fresh way to explore Liberty City with new multiplayer modes, weapons and vehicles; and a diverse soundtrack with additional music—all with the incredible production values that are the trademarks of Grand Theft Auto.
Rockstar Games have just released the first screenshots of the recently announced GTA IV DLC content pack “The Lost and Damned”, the first of two Xbox 360 exclusive episodes of content for the game.
As will come as no surprise to anyone, they feature lots of men in leather, riding motor-cycles and generally trying to look all tough.
Enjoy.
Officially detailed today, the Xbox 360 exclusive GTA IV downloadable content, entitled “The Lost and Damned”, will include an entirely new side-story, new multiplayer modes, new weapons and vehicles… and even a new radio station.
“The Lost and Damned” will be the first of two episodes, and it will launch on the Xbox Live Marketplace on February 17. The side story will put you in control of Johnny Klebitz, a member of Liberty City biker gang The Lost, and will intersect with the main storyline in places.
“Making these episodes has enabled us to expand the narrative and the experience of interacting with a game world in really innovative ways,” said Rockstar’s Sam Houser. “We hope fans of the game enjoy the new way of experiencing life in Liberty City contained in this first episode.”
Well, when they said they were planning big, they certainly weren’t kidding.
This is what downloadable content should be.
According to Gamespot, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said at the BMO Capital Market 2008 Interactive Entertainment Conference (ain’t that a mouthful?) to that the release date of GTA: Chinatown Wars has been pushed back into the “second fiscal quarter”, meaning somewhere between February to April of next year.
No reason was given for the delay.
But that’s not all. From the story:
Zelnick said the publisher was aiming to have [GTA IV's 360 DLC] available at the end of the fiscal first quarter (which runs November through January), although he noted it might move into the second quarter alongside Chinatown Wars. Regardless, the downloadable content is “close to completed.”
Dan Houser has told Variety today that he’s unsure whether or not the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV will get its exclusive DLC this year, and that Rockstar’s itself is being wary of hyping the content too much in case people think “it’s this enormous thing that it can never be.”
“I’m not sure,” he said when asked if it would hit in 2008.
“It’s going well. But we don’t know a date. We hope to be announcing that in the next few weeks. We’re still figuring out a few things. We’re more focused on quality than dates, always have been. But the development is going really good. It’s shaping up to be something we’re very proud of. That was our goal.”
Houser also added that the nature of the content, in terms of the full game itself will be outlined before it releases. Many are expected an extensive side-story and a new location, which would be an epic amount of extra content in itself. With the length of time this is taking to develop, it’s obvious that it’s not going to be something small.
“We want to give people a rough idea so their expectations are roughly in line. We don’t want them to imagine it’s this enormous thing that it can never be.”
“Doing a big digital launch is something we’ve never done before. It’s virgin territory, but at the same time, we feel very exposed because there’s no case history. No one ever came out with major DLC for a major game like this before. It’s new territory for everybody. We’re making it up a little bit as we go along. That’s always fun, but it makes you nervous.”
Take your time Rockstar. We can wait. We have no doubts that it’s going to be amazing, whenever it’s finally released.
Media Create has just updated its weekly sales charts, and there’s a few some interesting figures and surprises out of them this week.
Despite the lukewarm reception from the public, the DSi has managed to sell 172,000 of Nintendo’s initial 200,000 unit shipment. Not bad, but only time will tell if it can keep up that kind of selling pace
The PS3 had an amazing week in contrary to its usually poor performance in Japan, apparently thanks to the release of GTA IV in the region. Sales were up from 3,931 last week to over 39,500 units this week.
Full sales figures after the cut.
It seems Nintendo is keen on shedding its kiddy image, by specifically telling Rockstar that GTA Chinatown Wars should maintain its adult feel.
“Nintendo wanted us to make GTA, and we wanted to make GTA on their platform,” says Rockstar boss Dan Houser.
“They didn’t want us to make a GTA for kids, and we weren’t interested in making a game we wouldn’t normally make. GTA is about stealing cars and shooting people – how could it not be an 18 rating? You couldn’t do GTA without that 18 – it wouldn’t feel like it’s supposed to feel.”
It seems a title with a drug dealing minigame is the way to go.
Speaking to Nintendo Power, Rockstar boss Dan Houser explains why the Wii wasn’t the way to go when developing a GTA game for a Nintendo platform:
“It didn’t feel natural to us, I guess. It really was that the DS felt like it had a lot of interesting challenges that would be totally different from what we’d done in the past. The stylus and the chance to use minigames in that way was really interesting and exciting to us, and we thought we could integrate seamlessly between those two modes.
“And it would be the chance to make something really good on a handheld with our handheld-focused team. That was really why we went that way. We haven’t really done any concrete, major thinking about the Wii, one way or another. They’re sort of separate issues.”
The most recent issue of Nintendo Power was the first magazine to nab screenshots of the DS bound GTA: Chinatown Wars, and we have them here for your viewing pleasure.
These are scans, not direct feed images, so the image quality isn’t too great, but at least it gives us an idea what to expect out of the game.
After the cut.
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