Crave

404 listeners dressed as Rorschach and Silk Spectre! (Click thumbnail for full size.)

(Credit: Hector)

When you do a daily podcast for two years, you start to realize a strange thing about the daily news cycle: one day there are tons of interesting stories to talk about, and the next day there's nothin'. This is one of those nothin' days, but that doesn't mean today's episode is boring by any means. In fact, the slow news days gives us an outlet to do what we do best--veer off course and offer insight into what's going on in our heads!

To kick things off, Jeff and Wilson educate me on GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony, the second episode of the popular expansion pack that was just released a few days ago.

After taking time to shake our collective heads at the voters in Maine, we give Robert Zemeckis the spotlight to reveal details about his latest effort, a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit!

The interview shows Zemeckis choosing his words carefully so as not to reveal any details, but some are speculating that the script will tell the prequel story about how Roger Rabbit popped out of the Toon world and into 3D. As usual, we agree with Jeff's cynicism about the project considering the director's sketchy idea to use performance capture a la "Beowulf" and "A Christmas Carol" to bring the characters (not Roger Rabbit, phew) back to life. We're warning you, Bob--if you mess up this movie we will never forgive you, "Back to the Future" notwithstanding.

Next, we hand it over to Wilson, who tells us about a recent U.K. study that reveals sensitive new "metrotextual" trends amongst young men in the 18- to 24- year-old age group. The study defines "metrotexting" as a text message sent from one male to another that offers a message and signs off with an "x," which translates from text-speak to a virtual kiss.

Thanks to 404 listener Jenny Lawrence for this snapshot!

(Credit: Jennifer Lawrence/The 404)

The article goes on to report that metrotextuality is most popular among 18- to 24-year-olds, with an unbelievable 75 percent of males ending texts to their dude friends with an XO, or "hugs and kisses."

We're not sure what's going on in the U.K., but our small experience doesn't reflect the same intimacy with our friends, although we're starting to think that we should spread the love a little more...so Wilson and Jeff, if you're reading this...doing the show for the past two years with you guys has been the most rewarding experience of my life, no lie. I love you guys. /bromance

We've got a lot more stories for you, including a quick book review of Lois Lowry's The Giver, Modern Warfare 2 terrorist claims, a discussion about video game ratings, Nintendo's newest DSi XL/LL, T-Mobile carrier outages, and of course - the third and final round of our virtual Halloween costume parade!

Enjoy the show and let us know what you think in a voicemail (1-866-404-CNET) or an e-mail (the404(at)cnet[dot]com). Have a great Wednesday!

404 listener Halloween costume parade, Pt. 2!

While Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the Nintendo DS received critical acclaim across the board, the game didn't necessarily sell as well as it should have. Rockstar Games chose to bring the title over to the PSP, and with it, a complete graphical revamp.

We've had the final version of the game for some time now and here are our thoughts:

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

Jeff:
I wish Rockstar Games would take the viewing angle from Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and go back and apply it to the first two GTA games on the system; that's how fantastic of a gameplay experience it provides. Chinatown Wars is by far the best GTA game available on the system because it abandons the ground-level viewing angle that was present in the first two games. From here on out, we think every portable GTA title should control like this.... Read more

The Ballad of Gay Tony is the second of the two episodic expansion packs for the Xbox 360 version of the Grand Theft Auto IV. The game follows the exploits of Luis Fernando Lopez, a member of the Northwood Dominican Drug Dealers, and bodyguard for Anthony "Gay Tony" Prince.

Rockstar Games will unleash this new adventure in Liberty City on October 29.

Gameloft's successful GTA clone is being followed by the actual GTA.

(Credit: Scott Stein/CNET)

Well, it turns out that not everyone hates Apple's App Store. Gameloft, the ever-present publisher of mobile games worldwide, likes the iPhone and iPod Touch quite a bit. In a recent news release, Gameloft announced that, to date, it has sold more than 6 million games in the App Store, making it its biggest platform.

"Our core focus is digitally distributed games," said Sanette Chao, Director of Public Relations for Gameloft. "Apple is our number one customer and the IPhone OS is our number one platform. I think that alone speaks volumes to the importance of iPhone games to our overall strategy."

Amid concerns over Apple's restrictive handling of App Store certifications and the squeeze that other publishers might be feeling in a landscape of ever-decreasing game prices, this report might come as a breath of fresh air. Indeed, from a consumer standpoint, very little is wrong with the App Store--provided you simply don't want something that Apple isn't willing to provide. In the games department in particular, 10 dollars can buy you more than it can for nearly any other device in game console history. And with developers like Rockstar now getting in the Apple game with an upcoming App Store port of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, clearly there's something in Apple's current economic model that's appealing to even the big guys.

That "something" might be seen as a huge built-in audience. With more than 40 million worldwide owners of the iPhone/iPod Touch platform, the consumer base is gigantic. Putting a title at $5 could lead to a larger profit than a $20 DS game, for instance, that might have limited distribution and availability. Gameloft has 35 games in the App Store at the moment, and while its current game best-sellers are UNO, GTA-clone Gangstar, and Madden rival NFL 2010, it also enjoys evergreen success with Asphalt and Real Soccer, said Chao. This is the advantage that any online store has over physical media--infinite shelf space and the chance for a long tail.

According to Gameloft, the formula for success lies in listening to user feedback, creating low-priced titles, and creating mass-appeal, intuitive games. "Our strategy from the onset has been twofold. First we deliver an aggressive line-up of high quality games and then we adapt in real time to consumer needs," said CEO Michel Guillemot in Gameloft's Tuesday announcement.

The App Store market was recently estimated at $2.5 billion a year, as compared with $60 million for the Android app market. It's no surprise, then, that Rockstar would get in on this action. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the Nintendo DS sold 680,000 copies worldwide, and at $35 retail, that amounts to $23.8 million. Assuming a $10 retail price on iTunes, Chinatown Wars would have to sell 2.38 million copies to equal the Nintendo DS performance--a large number, but completely achievable considering the large global base and adult-skewed audience of the iPhone and iPod Touch.

While many things may be askew with the App Store, it's good to remember that a lot of things are still going very well for it.

Or is this still only mostly true for games?

There are certain things one expects from a Grand Theft Auto (GTA) game. Sure, there's the obvious: Violence, fast cars, and more violence, but what many GTA laymen don't know, is that GTA fans also expect (since Vice City at least) a rich, compelling story, with likable and (intentionally) unlikable characters. All told in a way only the best video games can.

After spending about two hours with Gameloft's GangStar I can safely say, they got the obvious right. Not so much the other stuff.

Gangstar is a GTA clone for the iPhone and iPod Touch where you play an ex-con named...honestly does it matter what his name is? Seriously, the main character and your sidekick are so similar in appearance I hardly ever know which is talking at any given time.

This is pretty much as sophisticated as it gets...at least in the first hour or two.

(Credit: Screenshot by Eric Franklin/CNET)

The game plays very close to GTA. Specifically GTA3. You run around, steal cars, mistakenly--thanks to the default and difficult to control accelerometer controls--run over pedestrians, and shoot and beat innocents to death.

There are also missions you can take by going to certain waypoints designated on your minimap. So far the missions have ranged from chauffeuring your boss around to following and killing groups of gang members.

GTA is coming to your iPhone.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

Rockstar Games, the developers behind the Grand Theft Auto series, announced on Monday that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will be coming to Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch this fall.

The developer also announced that Beaterator, an app that allows users to create "world-class beats and songs," will also be made available on the App Store. Like the Chinatown Wars title, Beaterater is slated for availability this fall for an undisclosed price.

Chinatown Wars gives gamers control over Huang Lee, a member of the Triad crime syndicate, who travels to Liberty City to investigate his father's death. iPhone and iPod Touch owners will be able to control Lee as he travels through the streets of Liberty City.

Chinatown Wars is currently available on the Nintendo DS. It's coming to the Sony PlayStation Portable in October. According to Rockstar, it made perfect sense for the handheld title to make its way to Apple's mobile devices.

But since it has been ported from traditional handheld game devices, I asked Rockstar if iPhone owners will see much of a difference between the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP versions and the iPhone version.

Rockstar said there will be some textures that will look low-res, compared to the PSP version, but other than that, the game is exactly the same.

That comes as a surprise, considering that the typical content featured in a Grand Theft Auto game has clashed with Apple's policies against adult-theme material finding its way to into the App Store. Apple denied access to Eucalyptus, an e-book reader application, because it allowed users to find and read the Kama Sutra. Apple even denied access to Ninjawords, a dictionary app, because it contained vulgar words.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars promises a typical GTA experience, complete with the sexual content and vulgar words that have made it such a controversial franchise. Rockstar told me that it had no trouble with Apple's App Store policies and that the game will be made available as is.

Rockstar also said that controlling the on-screen character will be slightly different than what gamers are used to with other handhelds. According to the company, the game will display an on-screen analog stick that users will be able to control with their thumb. The developer wouldn't reveal any more information about the game.

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Triple homicide in your pocket.

(Credit: GameSpot)

The controversial Grand Theft Auto series infiltrates the Nintendo DS handheld gaming platform Tuesday, March 17, in the form of Chinatown Wars. While the game is still set inside the fictitious town of Liberty City, the storyline deals with the Chinatown section of it and a Hong Kong transplant who will serve as the game's protagonist.

Chinatown Wars features an older GTA game play style as you'll be viewing the world from a top-down perspective. This viewing mode was how GTA was originally played before it made the jump to 3D with Grand Theft Auto III on PlayStation 2. You can also expect a change in art style as the game adopts a refreshing cel-shaded sort of look, most likely to lessen the workload on the DS hardware. Expect classic GTA mission-based action mixed up with some inventive ways of using the DS touch screen.

Also turning heads are the drug-dealing minigames that are found inside Chinatown Wars, which harken back to the days of the text and math-based "Dope wars" game that made its way across the Internet.

So what do you think? Can GTA work on the Nintendo portable, or will Chinatown Wars sleep with the fishes? Be sure to check out some screenshots of the game in action.

The Lost gang displays a clear disregard for local helmet laws.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

We've spent the better part of the Presidents' Day weekend playing through The Lost and Damned, the first episodic downloadable content for Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV. With all three major living room game consoles now more or less permanently hooked up to broadband Internet connections, it makes perfect sense that game companies would want to bypass the heavy fixed costs of pressing discs, putting them on trucks, and stocking them in retail stores, in favor of selling downloadable content directly to the end user.

While the concept isn't new (there are hundreds of mission packs, add-ons, and even full games available from the PlayStation Network store, Xbox Live, and Nintendo's Virtual Console store), this $20 game-within-a-game is easily the most high-profile attempt at mainstreaming downloadable episodic video game content to date.

Instead of adding new locations or extending the original game's storyline, this new content package uses the existing maps and assets from GTAIV to tell a new story, with new characters. This time, a biker gang called The Lost gets involved with all sorts of GTA-like mischief, from feuding with rival gangs to dangerous in-fighting between the members.

Despite new faces and voiceovers, and a handful of new vehicles, weapons, and music, it still looks and plays pretty much like Grand Theft Auto IV, with a handful of tweaks. The motorcycles, which are your primary form of transport, have gotten a nice revamp, making them much easier to control. A major gripe from the original game--the lack of in-mission checkpoints--has at least been partially addressed. This time, if you fail a mission, you can restart right before the action kicks off, instead of having to drag yourself through all the exposition and driving it took to set up that part of the story.

The new game revisits many of GTAIV's key locations (and you're free to roam wherever you want between missions), and familiar characters such as Niko Bellic drop in for cameo appearances. Our main complaint is that behind the new faces and names, there's little that feels different from the original GTAIV campaign. If anything, the highly telegraphed storyline and Sopranos-like dialogue of the biker gang actually seems like a step back from Niko Bellic's relatively subtle (by comparison) story arc.

While one could easily spend 40 or more hours playing through Grand Theft Auto IV, the Lost and Damned expansion should take about 10 to 15 hours to play through, which is still longer than many full-priced retail games.

The Lost and Damned is available for the Xbox 360, starting February 17 for 1,600 Microsoft Points (or about $20). A copy of Grand Theft Auto IV is required to play.

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned

Not only will Rockstar's DLC be available on the Xbox 360 February 17, but Microsoft will allow free access to Live Gold functionality for players of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV and the upcoming expansion The Lost and Damned.

You've got to give it to Microsoft, what better way to get people online to play a game that's almost a year old and pump them up for the next installment from Rockstar? Grand Theft Auto IV is a great game. I can see the servers taking a huge hit Feb. 17; maybe I'll see you there.

This free access expires February 22, so I suggest you get your game on soon. Wishful thinking, but what would make this sweeter is a Feb. 16 (Presidents' Day) release; ah, I'd play all day.