Hello World (again)

Well, I am posting as an update to the regular viewers of the site. Yes, believe it or not people actually visit this blog daily....

I've been busy with work, GTAIV, people in my life (those bastards!) and "vacation" .... And will continue to be busy with these things for the forseeable future. I've got some posts planned and hope to be updating the blog here and there more regularly. Thanks for sticking with us (me) and in the mean time I leave you with this, to get a sense of where my head is at the moment:

Liberty City

Washington Bridge In GTAIV

While we have yet to see images of the George Washington Bridge in GTAIV (though I've read it's in the game) it seems that its smaller little brother, the Washington Bridge, will definitely be making an appearance. Keep an eye out for its nearby landmarks in Washington Heights if you buy GTAIV. "The home of the haze" is a fun enough place to make drug runs, punch prostitutes and buy arms in real life so I can't imagine what the game makers are planning to do with the upper Manhattan neighborhood. Below are pictures of the actual bridge (from wikipedia) and a version of the GTA screen you may click on to enlarge.

San Andreas Multi-Player: The Beginning Of The End

The developers of SA:MP (San Andreas: Multi-Player), a PC mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that allows you to play with hundreds of other players at once (think World Of Warcraft meets GTA), are saying that their work on the violent multiplayer mod will end with the immenant release of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Kye, a lead developer for SA:MP, recently posted this on the mod's website:

"SA-MP managed to set several milestones during development. We were the first to get 100 players in to an action/free-roam world during the SA-MP 0.1 beta testing. During the 0.2 beta testing, we managed to double this limit to 200 players. The most popular SA-MP servers are usually full with 100-150 players every day. Each weekend, SA-MP peaks at just over 8000 concurrent players. We have clocked over 6 million downloads. According to XFire, we have also helped to keep the PC version of GTA: San Andreas close to, or within, the top 20 of all online PC games. Not to mention, we have pulled this off without any assistance from the developers of the game....

...Assuming GTA IV does arrive for the PC, which we don't have any hint of yet, the multiplayer experience will most likely be a lot different from what we've created. For instance, going by the information provided so far: one of the players will be required to host the game, there will be a maximum of 16 players, the hoster of the game will only have limited control of the game-play style.

In this case, I would like to ask the SA-MP community whether this project has grown beyond GTA: San Andreas. Would you like to see us continue this idea in another form?

I'll take this opportunity to express thanks to everyone who contributed to this project over the past few years. I'd also like to thank the Multi Theft Auto team for proving it was technically feasible to create a multiplayer modification using the information available within the GTA modding community."

This is all great but we've seen plenty of drama from the SA:MP devs in the past regarding the ending of their development of the mod. 0.2.5's development has also been doused in drama whether it be leaks of the software, questions about its features (bots anyone?) or delays. Even if GTAIV's multiplayer modes are popular there is no way they will be able to match the scale and populated servers of SA:MP. Even if SA:MP is closing its doors I'm sure there will be people playing it for a while just as people are still playing VC:MP.

You Can Kill Pigeons In GTAIV

Recently, over on the GTAIV forums at gtaforums.com, I read that there are mini-missions which involve killing pigeons. I would like to say how awesome I think this is and how much more excited this makes me to play GTAIV. Despite recent inconsistencies with New York lifestyles I think the fact that you can hunt down flying rats more than makes up for any realistic downfalls the game may have.

Lock and load bitches!

GTAIV: Not So Realistic After All

The people behind GTAIV have been going on and on about how realistic the game is. The most recently released screenshot from the game however, seems to say otherwise. Why the hell is Niko driving a dirt bike through the subway??? And when was the last time that you saw someone on a dirt bike in NYC?

Rockstar, however, gets a big pass on this one as I'm sure I will be having plenty of fun finding familiar New York locations, mowing down pedestrians and finding new ways to use and abuse whores.