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In case you stay gaming and Kotaku-free on weekends here's a run down of what you missed yesterday when the Grand Theft Auto IV embargo lifted. Chief among the posts was Mike McWhertor's review of the game, but we also wrote up a comparison of the PS3 and 360 versions, a bit of a rant on the failures of the SIXAXIS and a Q&A loaded FAQ for the curious. Grand Theft Auto IV Review: Life, Liberty City And The Pursuit Of Happiness GTA IV Reviews: An Exercise In Hyperbolism
The thousands of video game players rushing out today to buy Grand Theft Auto IV were almost certainly heading back to their couches to get lost for hours in a vivid and seedy virtual world. The frenzy of interest in Grand Theft Auto IV - both the early sales projections and strong game reviews - has given a modest boost to the stock of the game's publisher, Take-Two Interactive. It closed on Tuesday at $26.63, up 16 cents from the day before. In the previous few trading days, the stock has been climbing slowly from just under $26. The back story (that you likely already know) is that Electronic Arts, the video game behemoth, has launched a hostile takeover bid for Take-Two. Electronic Arts has offered $2 billion, or $25.74 per share, a price that Take-Two has rejected as insufficient. Further, Take-Two's management has said it would not negotiate acquisition terms until the launch of Grand Theft Auto. Take-Two declined to say whether such negotiations have begun. Given the current price of the stock - $26.63 - Take-Two obviously is not going to accept an offer for $25.74. “The critical and consumer response to Grand Theft Auto IV vindicates our strategy of waiting until the launch with regard to EA's offer,” said Strauss Zelnick, the chairman of Take-Two, in a statement. “We’ve seen a share price above and below our offer and it doesn’t change anything. We knew the game would be an extraordinary success,” said Jeff Brown, a spokesman for Electronic Arts. “All of that was factored into our offer of $2 billion.” Also, Electronic Arts could make the case that the modest increase in Take-Two's stock shows some caution on the part of Take-Two shareholders. After all, with such a huge game as GTA IV hitting shelves, one could rightly expect a more considerable boost to Take-Two's shares. On one hand, the relatively modest increase in Take-Two's shares could prompt Electronic Arts and Take-Two to act quickly. Take-Two would theoretically do so because it's not sure how much more it can expect shares to rise in the short term, and would do so because Electronic Arts can justify to its own shareholders a price increase, given that its current offer is below market. On the other hand, the increase in Take-Two's stock could serve to greatly prolong talk of an acquisition. Take-Two might feel the market is just beginning to validate its business and that the stock is only just starting to rise. But Electronic Arts could be intent on sticking with its price and feel that the longer it waits, the more the enthusiasm spawned by GTA IV's launch will wear off. The bottom line? The stock increase is a little bit like the results of the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. The long-term impact depends a bit on the expectations you went in with, and the spin it will spawn in the ensuing weeks.
Grand Theft Auto needs no introduction to anyone remotely familiar with video games. But for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 entry in the series, Rockstar has upped the ante, creating a startlingly realistic reinterpretation of New York City as backdrop to a violent crime epic. In it, damaged goods Serbian war vet Niko Bellic ventures to Liberty City in search of closure, all the while coming to terms with the harsh realities of The American Dream. People die, others find happiness, the dream fails to deliver on its promise, and players join Niko on a journey through a world where everyone is flawed, where it seems everyone is consumed by their own obsessions. It's a brutal ride for almost everyone in Niko's journey from off the boat yokel to mass murderer, but what is the Grand Theft Auto IV experience like for the player? Grand Theft Auto IV is a powerful game. After blazing through the core story line, having made certain decisions that affected how the narrative played out, I longed to return to the world to experience what I had missed. I recall watching every one of the game's trailers after completing it, reminiscing about GTA IV's tragic, colorful yarn. It's a hell of an accomplishment on many levels. Graphically, it's not as pretty as some other PS3 or 360 offerings—to which it will be unfairly compared—but what it may lack in pixel pushing performance, it makes up for in visual design. Using the cell phone as an interface for maintaining relationships, seemingly a minor thing, is brilliant. Sandbox-style, ultra-violent games like Grand Theft Auto aren't typically my thing, but GTA IV has made me a fan. A fanboy. Rockstar North has addressed virtually every single one of my personal hang ups about the series, crafting one of the most memorable experiences in gaming. We hate to gush, but it's just that good. Flawless? No. But it's about as close to a game can come to being perfect. Grand Theft Auto IV was developed by Rockstar North, published by Rockstar Games and is due to be released on April 29. Retails for $59.99 to $89.99 USD. Available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Played single player campaign to completion on PlayStation 3, played additional single player campaign portions on Xbox 360 and tested each online multi-player mode on Xbox 360. Total game progress on first completion was 65.67%, with 94 missions completed over the course of 35 hours.
Grand Theft Auto IV Has So Gone Gold Grand Theft Auto IV DLC To Bring Whole Cities? Yes, Yes, The *First* Grand Theft Auto IV Print Review
Filed under: NewsAt approximately 1:45AM EST the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV was leaked onto the internet. According to our X3F tipsters, who better plan on actually buying the game, thousands of users are leeching the 6.36 GB potential game of the year candidate. The release is a rip of the PAL version, specifically from the Asian market, and comes a mere six days before retailers place the game on store shelves.
Rockstar Games and the UPS corporation—sorry for calling you Fed Ex yesterday!—came through in a major way this morning, dropping off a hot (but legit) copy of Grand Theft Auto IV at Kotaku Towers West. Naturally, I took an appropriate amount of time playing the game before posting that it had arrived. But this isn't one of those disgusting bragging posts, where some schmuck editor taunts you with an early release; it's a reminder.
To review a best-selling American game based on New York City, you obviously need a bunch of foreigners. First a British clip, "How To Have An Opinion About Grand Theft Auto IV," that mocks the standard media reactions to the game: polarization about the influence of violence, sweaty-palmed reviewers saying it's redefined gaming. Then the Australian reviewer Zero Punctuation, who's gotten very popular for his fast-paced cartoon reviews, says that GTA IV is afraid of its own value as a game.
Makers of video game consoles had hoped that the wild success of Grand Theft Auto IV, which hit stores in late April, would inspire consumers to buy new hardware to play the game on. The research company late Thursday released its May retail sales figures. The top-selling game was (no surprise) Grand Theft Auto IV, which sold 871,000 units made for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and 443,000 made for Sony's PlayStation 3. To date, said NPD, retail sales of Grand Theft Auto IV in the United States have been 4.2 million, though that figure excludes some retailers and it does not include international sales. Big hardware sales have yet to follow. During May, Microsoft sold 187,000 Xbox 360s, while Sony sold 209,000 PS3’s. By comparison, Nintendo sold more than the other two combined-675,000 units of its console, the Wii-even though there is not yet a Grand Theft Auto IV version for that console. “The continued success of GTA IV is not translating into big hardware sales for the PS3 or the 360,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “But there may yet be a lift in June due to gift-giving for Father's Day and graduations.”
A federal judge has put the brakes on a lawsuit filed over sex scenes buried in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The civil lawsuit was filed after the disclosure of the sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, released in 2004. The existence of the scenes, accessible to knowledgeable players using third-party software, drew fierce condemnation from lawmakers and sparked a frenzy online. The suit accused the game’s makers of defrauding buyers by failing to disclose the scenes.