Crave

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

It's a debate that spawned well before the next-generation of gaming even began. Fast-forward to present day, and you'll find that jury still seems to be out on which console provides the better graphical experience.

While console fanboys would have you believing otherwise, the truth is that there really is no dramatic difference in the majority of multiplatform games on either the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3.

That said, CNET sister site Gamespot has re-examined the controversy in their third look at comparing the graphics on both consoles. Quite possibly the most in-depth comparison to date, Gamespot used games such as Grand Theft Auto IV, The Orange Box, and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 in their testing.

Now that you have all the evidence laid out neatly in front of you, what do you think?

'Grand Theft Auto IV' broke the all-time records for single-day and one-week entertainment industry sales. It looks like it could be tough for any forthcoming game to knock GTA IV off the top of the hill.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

Though Halo 3 held the all-time entertainment industry record for single-day sales for eight months, it could be a long time before anyone bests the record-shattering sales achieved by GTA IV.

On Wednesday, Take-Two Interactive, which owns GTA IV developer Rockstar Games, announced that the new game had raked in all-time records of $310 million on its launch day of April 29 and $500 million during its first week. The single-day figure shattered the previous record, set last September by Halo 3, of $170 million.

And given how quickly Bungie Studios' Halo 3 was reduced to second place, it stands to reason that even the monstrous pile of cash GTA IV has earned so far--it has already sold more than 6 million copies, Take-Two said--could be in danger from some game already in the pipeline.

Among the games that are set to be released in the next few months that seem like potential contenders: Electronic Arts' Spore, Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft II, Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, EA's 2009 version of Madden football, LucasArts' Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Activision's next Guitar Hero offering, Harmonix's next Rock Band version and Nintendo's Wii Fit.

And since we're talking the entire entertainment industry, there's also the small matter of the forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull from Paramount and LucasFilm.

But according to several industry experts contacted for this story, none of those titles seems likely to score the kind of cash in a single day or single week that GTA IV did. So while one of those games, or possibly another one not listed might some day best GTA IV in total sales, it seems that its short-term sales records are safe for the foreseeable future.

"If you measure in terms of one-day sales," said Michael Pachter, a video game analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities, "there's likely nothing (that can break the record) until the next GTA."

In large part, Pachter said, that's because the GTA franchise has the significant advantage of being perhaps the world's most popular video game title that is available on multiple video game platforms. Indeed, many analysts have said that the game is not only selling well on its own, but is also driving sales of the consoles it can be played on, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.

By comparison, Halo 3 is only available for the Xbox 360.

"The special thing about GTA is that it's a cross-platform title and can leverage the install bases of both" consoles, said IDC games analyst Billy Pidgeon. "The fact that you could only play Halo on the Xbox 360 made a difference."

And beyond the cross-platform versus single-platform issue, there's also the small matter of the miniscule selection of full-fledged AAA games that simply attract huge audiences.

"Halo and GTA are fairly unique properties in the interactive entertainment world," said Colin Sebastian, a senior analyst for Lazard Capital Markets, "so it's difficult to say if anything in the next couple of years will reach these (early sales) levels."

That said, there's no reason to think that GTA IV will set or hold any kind of long-term sales numbers. While it's certain to make gigantic amounts of money and sell many, many millions of copies, it's not necessarily the kind of game that will sustain its sales over the long haul. Rather, it's the kind of game the attracts hard-core gamers, most of whom want to get it right away.

"If you measure in terms of lifetime sales, I think Wii Fit," Nintendo's forthcoming exercise game, could break sales records, said Pachter. "I think it's going to attach about a one-third rate to all Wiis, and globally, that means (since there have been 20 million Wiis sold), it'll pass GTA IV by the end of next year."

Some people are expecting Spore, the next game from The Sims creator Will Wright, to be a big winner for EA, particularly because The Sims became the best-selling PC game of all time and recently passed 100 million total units sold, counting all its expansions and sequels.

"Personally, I think Spore is going to be a huge influence on the games industry," Pidgeon said. "And I think it's going to do well. I don't know if it's going to be another Sims, but I think it will be broadly popular."

But Spore presents a couple of problems, at least in terms of whether or not it could be an all-time best-selling game. First, it is a PC--and Mac--title, not a console game. And secondly, according to Pidgeon, it doesn't seem an obvious choice for endless expansions like The Sims franchise is.

Another set of titles that could contend for the all-time sales records, though probably not the short-term records, are the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises, since they will likely have an endless supply of expansions and accessories. And they have long-term potential that even GTA probably can't match.

"Guitar Hero and Rock Band (are) franchises where, when you add the numbers up, they're just spectacular," said Pidgeon. "You see them played in bars, and (they present) a really interesting growth opportunity. There's a lot of room for exciting growth in that sort of product. That's the sort of thing you don't see with GTA.

And while none of the analysts interviewed for this article could see any already announced game topping GTA IV's short-term records, that doesn't mean it won't happen.

In fact, the timing of the GTA IV launch itself could eventually be why it gets surpassed.

"Part of this is also where we are in the hardware cycle," Pidgeon said, explaining that GTA IV was published when the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have only been out for a couple of years. Over time, as millions more gamers bring those consoles home, "it'll be easier for some blockbuster title to sell big."

Uh-oh.

For all the champagne toasts that are no doubt going on over at Take-Two Interactive and its subsidiary Rockstar Games over the grand launch day of Grand Theft Auto IV, there's a bit of a dark cloud brewing.

According to a post on CNET News.com sister site GameSpot, there's a brouhaha afoot in GTA IV forums all over the Internet because of some players' complaints that the game is freezing up on them.

As GameSpot's Brendan Sinclair points out, it was only a month ago that another one of Rockstar's games, Bully had freezing-up problems. Now, with reports of crashes with GTA IV, mostly on the PlayStation 3, but also on the Xbox 360, one has to wonder if perhaps there's someone in Rockstar's QA department that's not doing their job.

Other recent hit games, of course, have also had quality problems. You might recall that some players of Guitar Hero III had problems with their guitar controllers.

So one thing that will certainly help Take-Two and Rockstar get through this relatively unscathed--assuming the reports of GTA IV freezing up are real--is if they react quickly and solve the problem and reach out to their users. If they don't, it won't look good.

'Grand Theft Auto IV' could break the all-time entertainment industry record for first-day sales. That record is currently held by 'Halo 3,' which earned $170 million in its first day last September.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

Executives at Electronic Arts have to be kicking themselves right about now.

It appears that Take-Two Interactive, the video game publisher EA has been trying to buy for the last couple of months, has a potentially record-breaking hit on its hands with Grand Theft Auto IV. And EA isn't pocketing the cash.

While it's too early to know exactly how many copies of GTA IV sold Tuesday, the game's launch day, anecdotal evidence suggests it will likely be one of the most successful launches in the entertainment industry's history--if not the most.

"We are saying that the launch of this game is tracking to be one of the top three best-selling games," said Chris Olivera, vice president of corporate communications for GameStop, "not of just this year, but the top three games in (our) company's history."

The latest title in what was already one of the most blockbuster game franchises of all time, GTA IV hit store shelves Tuesday morning with midnight madness events nationwide. The game had sparked controversy, with some politicians and critics calling for retailers to avoid selling it, but that didn't seem to dissuade consumers.

"Thirty-five hundred of our stores nationwide did midnight launch events," Olivera said. "One thing was constant through all of it, that there were lines around buildings and down mall corridors" wherever GameStop's stores were.

Last year, Microsoft took the unusual step of releasing first-day sales figures for its mega-hit Halo 3 because that game set the all-time entertainment industry record for launch day sales, $170 million.

'Halo 3' earned $170 million on its first day of sales. But Take-Two's 'GTA IV' looks poised to break that record and become the single highest-earning entertainment product in history, including movies.

(Credit: Bungie)

While we may not know if that's true until industry analyst firm The NPD Group reports April sales early next month, there's reason to believe the Halo 3 record will be short-lived.

Partly, that prediction stems from reports that GTA IV publisher Take-Two said it had worldwide preorder demand of 6 million copies of the game--or about $360 million worth at the game's $60 price tag.

There are also comments, like those expressed to CNET News.com sister site GameSpot by Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter: "There is no question that GTA will be huge. I think that the game will sell 11 (million) to 13 million copies by calendar year end, with probably 4 million the first week."

On the other hand, suggested NPD analyst Anita Frazier, if GTA IV breaks the Halo 3 record, Take-Two might find a reason to release the game's first-day sales numbers itself.

The console factor
One interesting difference between the launch of GTA IV--which was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3--and its predecessor, the hugely popular GTA: San Andreas, is the install base of the consoles the games are available on.

Frazier said that when GTA: San Andreas was released in 2004, there was already an install base of 25 million PlayStation 2s, the only console that game was initially released on. By comparison, GTA IV is coming out earlier in the release cycles of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

"The combined install base of the PS3 and Xbox 360 now sits at 14 million," Frazier said, "and surely huge hardware numbers will be driven by the release of GTA IV.

Olivera concurred.

"This (game) is definitely drawing people into (GameStop) stores to also pick up hardware," Olivera said, "both the Xbox 360 and the PS3."

Another metric of the intense interest in GTA IV: statistics from Gamespot's Trax service, which measures site traffic for specific games.

According to Gamespot Trax, Gamespot users did 70,441 searches for "Grand Theft Auto IV" in the 30 days prior to its release, vs. 20,772 for Halo 3 and 10,598 for Guitar Hero III, another one of the best-selling games of all time.

So, as Take-Two's executives are no doubt popping champagne and toasting the massive initial success of their new game, one has to wonder what the thinking is over at EA and whether it will have to modify its $2 billion bid for Take-Two.

As Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian told me Monday, "The expectations for GTA were already justifiably very high. EA understood that when they made their bid...Every day that passes, they're (going to be) losing out on GTA revenues, so they're likely to lower their bid over time...But if GTA massively exceeds their expectations, that could be a scenario where EA might have to raise their bid."

In the meantime, stay tuned to see if Take-Two issues any press releases about GTA IV Wednesday. If it does, I'm willing to bet that will mean Halo 3's record will be history.

(Credit: Rockstar)

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're very interested in a video game being released Tuesday, April 29, called Grand Theft Auto IV (actually something like the eighth game in the series, depending on how you count).

We previously tried the game out a couple of times while it was still in development, and now that we've had a chance to give the final shipping version a serious run-through over this past weekend, here are our initial thoughts on the final game's pluses and minuses.

(Credit: Rockstar)

• The main attraction is the city itself, and it's beautifully rendered and full of activity. The game's random characters occasionally get involved in amusing bits of action--we saw a pedestrian get hit by a car, and a minute later, an ambulance pulled up and a paramedic got out (he just stood around after that, but it was still impressive).
• The game starts out slowly, giving you a chance to get comfortable with the environment and controls, and giving the story and characters a chance to breathe.
• The on-foot segments of the game no longer feel tacked on. A decent targeting system and the ability to take cover behind objects is a huge plus and makes shootouts fun instead of frustrating.
• The dialog and voice acting are about as good as you'll find in a video game, and long, talky scenes give the characters a chance to develop.
• Multiplayer is not as an integral part of the game as it was to Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4, but the ability to play various multiplayer modes online over the entire city map is great.
• The in-game radio stations are still a big highlight, and we loved that the on-air DJs include cult figures such as Roy Ayers and Femi Kuti.

• Main characters like Niko Bellic and his cousin Roman look great, but many of the secondary characters are sometimes ugly, looking a bit like clunky PS2 holdovers.
• The camera still has a little trouble with tight, indoor spaces, making navigation difficult.
• Some of the cars are especially hard to control, and using the handbrake to pull off hairpin turns is more difficult than in previous GTA games.
• We wouldn't play most of the mini-games, such as bowling and darts, more than once or twice, and activities like shopping for clothes have an awkward interface, making it a chore to try on different looks.
• One area that hasn't really been updated is the save system. Missions can be long and complicated, and often require split-second timing, so not having a more modern save-anywhere system can turn off mainstream and casual gamers (or anyone who only has 15 to 20 minutes at a stretch to play).

We recently got a chance to sit down with the team behind Grand Theft Auto IV and sample a handful of the highly anticipated game's new multiplayer modes. Any GTA fan will tell you that adding online multiplayer is a major change for the series, but an essential one in the era of Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, where every high-profile release is expected to offer more than just a linear single-player experience.

At Rockstar's New York headquarters, we tried four of the dozen-plus multiplayer modes over Xbox Live, playing against other journalists and the game's developers. The final game will support 16 players, and the most enticing aspect is the ability to play team deathmatch games over the entire Liberty City map--several square miles of a mock New York City landscape, including versions of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and New Jersey (sorry, Staten Island).

Team Deathmatch is the standard online multiplayer game you're used to, and GTA's version offers few surprises. The game can use the entire city, or one of several smaller, fenced-off areas, and teams can be evenly divided (8-8) or cut up any way you want, even 15-1. Instead of the most points or kills, the winning team is the one that collects the most money. Fortunately, money is earned by shooting opponents, so it's not that radical a change after all.

The game's radar is on by default, and shows where everyone is--but if you crouch, that hides you from the radar, making for some interesting stealth options. The game's controls have been much improved over previous installments, but aren't really designed for fast-paced online shootouts, making the matches we played a bit awkward.

Cops 'n' Crooks is a much more interesting multiplayer mode, pitting two teams against each other in a classic game of cops and robbers. The crooks must escort one of their team members, dubbed the "boss," to a predetermined exit point on the map, while the cops have to try and kill the boss before that happens. The catch is, only the cops can see the other team on the radar, and only the crooks know where their exit point is. We had a lot of fun with this one, but it seemed biased in favor of the cops--who only have to score one kill (the "boss") to win.

GTA Race was a largely forgettable race, piloting the game's cars around a preset track. The single-player game involves enough high-speed chases that we didn't really feel motivated to show off our driving skills online.

The last multiplayer mode we checked out was Hangman's Noose--a cooperative mode where four players can team up to play through a mini-narrative. In this case, we had to escort another crime boss from an airport to a safe location in the city, while SWAT teams, helicopters, and roadblocks close in, like a noose. Next to Cops 'n' Crooks, this was our favorite, and nearly as much fun as playing through Halo 3's co-op mode.

Grand Theft Auto IV hits stores on April 29.

Rockstar Games took the wraps off the teaser trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV yesterday afternoon, giving gamers their first look at the highly anticipated sequel. While only about a minute long, the trailer offers some key details about the new game. The graphics have gotten a big next-gen upgrade, the setting is clearly a skewed version of New York City, and the game puts you in the shoes of an Eastern European protagonist. Tor Thorsen over at GameSpot offers some additional details, but the big news is that all of the footage in the trailer was captured "in game" running at 720p high-definition. In other words, it's not a prerendered cinematic cut scene; the game should look exactly as shown when it hits the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 16.