03
FEB
Pop-Fiction reveals Ghost Town is REAL

Grand Theft Auto III - General News | @ 07:30 PM CST | By Ash_735
Hey guys, did you know there's a Ghost Town in Grand Theft Auto III? They sure kept that hidden for all these years didn't they? Well, of course, any Grand Theft Auto fan who knows their stuff will already know about the famous Ghost Town of Grand Theft Auto III, from all those years back when it was first discovered, to mods being made making the area playable, right up to Rockstar talking about it on their own News Wire, it's not really that much of a secret anymore. Luckily though, for the extremely late comers, Pop-Fiction is here to ask that question and give the answer!

31
JAN
"O Mio Babbino Caro" Remix Now Available on iTunes

Grand Theft Auto III - General News | @ 10:05 AM CST | By Ash_735
The remix of "O Mio Babbino Caro" that was used in the 10th Anniversary Trailer for Grand Theft Auto III has now been made available to buy over iTunes. The song can be heard below in the video:


The 2 minute track (2:02 to be exact) can be purchased for $0.99/£0.79.
25
JAN
Grand Theft Auto III Mobile updated to V1.3

Grand Theft Auto III - General News | @ 04:30 PM CST | By Ash_735

The Mobile version of Grand Theft Auto III has recieved another update today, this time bringing it to Version 1.3, Rockstar have detailed the changes below, to get the latest version just redownload the game from the Android Marketplace on your device.
- The addition of Integrated with Immersion Haptic Vibration Feedback
- The ability to tailor your visual experience with new video display settings
- The ability to install the game to an SD memory card
- Improved controls for Xperia Play and supported gamepads plus full support for the GameStop Wireless Game Controller
- Support for the Asus Transformer Prime and Medion LifeTab tablet devices
- Additional technical fixes
05
JAN
Grand Theft Auto III: Asked & Answered in Full

Grand Theft Auto III - General News | @ 12:00 PM CST | By Ash_735

Is Claude a mute?
Rockstar says:
It may now seem obvious that people should all talk in games, but this was not necessarily the case in 2001, certainly not in an open world game. We were making up a lot of procedures as we went along, and we decided that the NPCs (Non Playable Characters) should talk and we would have to figure out how to make them talk (using motion captured cutscenes, something that had never really been done before, at least not on the scale we were doing it). So we decided that the game’s protagonist would not talk, partly to aid people identifying with him, but mostly because we had so many other problems to solve and this did not seem like a major issue. We started to discuss introducing a talking lead character when working on Vice City, but it was a lot of work. While the structure of GTA3 may seem obvious or natural now, and the use of cutscenes made in the game’s engine that look and feel like the game may seem simple and easy, it really was not the case back in 2001 when we had to figure out all of these things for the first time. Oh and in San Andreas, CJ calls Claude a mute because he does not talk and CJ finds this unnerving.

Does Claude speak in THIS trailer?
Rockstar says:
This is fake. This is an old bit of gameplay footage, for sure, but we think the voices were added at a later date by someone online as at no point did we plan for Claude to have a voice or even design how a speaking protagonist would be implemented until Vice City.

What was the inspiration for Claude?
Rockstar says:
There wasn’t any one single inspiration – we just liked the idea of a strong, silent killer, who would be juxtaposed with all of these neurotic and verbose mobsters in an amusing way. He seems stronger and in control, while they seem weaker and frantic.

What is Claude's backstory?
Rockstar says:
He’s a bank robber with a noisy and psychotic girlfriend. More than that, it is hard to say. Definitely a drifter, probably from the west coast, new to Liberty City. Surname may or may not be Speed.

Did Claude kill Maria at the end of Grand Theft Auto III?
Rockstar says:
We're not sure about this. Some think he did, and some think he didn’t. Certainly in an original version of the script, Maria had a longer, really annoying speech, but then someone in the audio department wisely put an end to that. Quite what that means for Maria, who can say.



What's the story with Darkel?
Rockstar says:
Darkel was just a crazy bum who gave you some crazy missions. They were removed a few months before the game was done and long before 9/11 because they just weren’t as good as the rest of the game, and tonally they were a little odd. He started with 5 missions and they were slowly all cut. When only one or 2 were left, they were all removed as the character just didn’t work alongside the other characters.

None of these missions involved blowing up buses of school children although that is a funny rumor!

Any chance we'll ever see the Darkel missions?
Rockstar says:
No. The guys at Rockstar North are far too busy working on future stuff to ever figure out how to fix these old unfinished missions and get them running.

El Burro appears in both Grand Theft Auto 1 and Grand Theft Auto III as well appearing as graffiti in Grand Theft Auto IV, how do the Grand Theft Auto "Universes" work?
Rockstar says:
El Burro is referenced as he was also referenced in GTA 1, so it felt appropriate that he should cross “universes” – the “universes” are the worlds interpreted at different definitions, 2d, 3d and high definition, so we felt brands and radio / back ground characters would exist in both, but 3 dimensional characters would not. This is the logic (as far as it could be considered logical) behind it – so no, we don’t believe any GTA3 characters could exist in the GTA4 universe.

Who is the guy with the baseball bat in the Artwork?
Rockstar says:
He is a character from an early piece of concept art by our long standing character concept artist at Rockstar North, Ian McQue, that Stephen Bliss (who is one of the guys who illustrates our Grand Theft Auto cover art) liked and used to make a cool piece of montage art that embodied the game – we were less concerned with the art really representing characters as much as capturing the vibe of the game – so some of the characters in the art are not necessarily game characters. We did not really think the characters would be such a big deal until after the game came out.



What was changed due to 9/11?
Rockstar says:
About 1% different. We removed only one mission that referenced terrorists and changed a few other cosmetic details – car details, a couple of ped comments, lines of radio dialogue etc – the game came out a very short time later. The biggest change was the US packaging which remixed the previous packaging into what became our signature style – because the previous packaging [which was released as the cover of the game in Europe] was, we felt, too raw after 9/11. All of the more extreme rumours are amusing but impossible to have been achieved in such a short period of time.

Any chance we'll see the content cut due to 9/11?
Rockstar says:
No. As above, it really was not very much stuff – just one mission and other than that some superficial and cosmetic details.


Is Ghost Town meant to be a part of Liberty City?
Rockstar says:
Yes – it is meant to be part of Liberty City.


Why was the Ghost Town Island taken out of the game?
Rockstar says:
We didn’t take an island out of the game. There were only ever the three. We think what people refer to as “ghost town” is just the small area of a city we built for the bank heist scene at the very start of the game. It never had a name, but we wanted it to be somewhere separate from the liberty map and so we built these few streets floating in space and assumed no one would ever find them. We noticed someone built a bridge mod so you can actually drive there now - amazing…



Why is the Dodo difficult to fly?
Rockstar says:
Because we were making a driving and shooting game - even that, as a combination of core gameplay elements, was very, very radical at the time. The Dodo was never meant to be flown very much at all, and it certainly wasn’t grounded as a result of 9/11 – it was just a fun thing that people then went crazy with when they figured out various bugs that let them fly it!

Why were the tunnels on Shoreside Vale blocked off? And where did they lead to?
Rockstar says:
There was never meant to be anything on the other end of the tunnel, we were just playing with ways to make the world feel like it continues past the physical boundary. It’s something that we’ve been pushing in all sorts of ways ever since, making the world you experience as a player feel like it’s part of something bigger. This tunnel was one of our first little baby steps in that direction.

What happened with the Multiplayer in Grand Theft Auto III (as seen leftover in the PC versions files)?
Rockstar says:
We played around with the idea of multiplayer back then but never got very far with it. At the time, we decided to make Vice City instead of dedicating a big team to multiplayer, as we did not feel it would ever really be good enough. When we finally made a multiplayer game, we wanted it to rival the fun and experience of single player, and this was something not possible until much later.

Where did the 'Squish' noise come from?
Rockstar says:
The pedestrian squishing sound was made up from a combination of squelchy sounds that Rockstar North Audio Designer, Allan Walker recorded live (Rockstar North Lead Music Producer, Craig Conner seems to recall crushing fruit and raw chicken in a vocal booth...) and then they added a few more layers from our SFX library.

Is the Ammu-Nation clerk Dan Houser?
Rockstar says:
No, not true. However it does look (but not sound) like a relative of his.

How long was the script for Grand Theft Auto III?
Rockstar says:
They are long. Very long. And they only seem to get bigger with each subsequent Grand Theft Auto production. Check out the image set below which shows a picture of the GTA3 script alongside the GTAIV script for some sense of what we mean.

02
JAN
GTA III mods hit mobile devices

Grand Theft Auto III - Modifications | @ 02:29 PM CST | By rappo
It was only a matter of time before the modding scene had its way with with Rockstar's latest release, Grand Theft Auto III for Android and iOS:


The same tools and mods that we used to use for the PC version back in the day will work with these versions, you just need to do a bit of work to get to the files within the APK and IPA files. Here are a couple tutorials you can follow:
You may not have ventured into our GTA III downloads section in years, but in case you want to look for your favorite classic mods to load into your mobile game, check out the GTAGaming mod database.
24
DEC
Enter to win a GTA III lithograph

Grand Theft Auto III - Rockstar/Take2 News | @ 11:06 AM CST | By rappo
In honor of the 10-year anniversary of Grand Theft Auto III, Rockstar Games is currently holding a sweepstakes for all Social Club members - the six winners announced January 3, 2012 will each get one #1 copy of a GTA III lithograph.


Enter to win at the Rockstar Games Social Club now! Or if you're not interested in taking the risk and want to grab one of the 500 limited edition lithographs before they run out, you can buy one at the Rockstar Warehouse for $25.00.
19
DEC
Enable better effects on GTA III Mobile

Grand Theft Auto III - Modifications | @ 10:02 PM CST | By rappo
Late last week, Rockstar Games released GTA III for mobile devices. If you've downloaded the game and found yourself underwhelmed by the graphics offered, XDA Developers forum member infazz has a solution with one simple file! His modification enables car lights, traffic lights, raindrops, and much more. Check out the differences:




For instructions on how to install the graphic mod on your HTC Sensation and Samsung Galaxy S2 (with possible future support for other devices), visit the XDA Developers forum.

Thanks to behzad_sol for the news.
15
DEC
Grand Theft Auto III Mobile Now Available!

Grand Theft Auto III - General News | @ 01:35 PM CST | By Ash_735

Grand Theft Auto III Mobile is now out for Apple and Android devices, the game appears to be using a mix of PC and Xbox version for textures and models, which means the games graphics are better than the original PlayStation 2 version! Rockstar have also revealed an updated list of compatible devices:
Apple iOS Devices: iPad 1 & 2, iPhone 4 & 4S, iPod touch 4th Generation

Android Phones: HTC Rezound, LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon 4G, Samsung Galaxy R, Samsung Galaxy S2, Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, T-Mobile G2x

Android Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Dell Streak 7, LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, Sony Tablet S, Toshiba Thrive


US iTunes | UK iTunes | Canadian iTunes | Android Marketplace
07
DEC
Head Radio & Lips 106 Tracks now on iTunes!

Grand Theft Auto III - General News | @ 11:30 AM CST | By Ash_735

Never thought I would get to write about this, but Rockstar have finally gave into the request, as a part of the 10th Anniversary of Grand Theft Auto III, you can now download the Tracklist of Music used on both Head Radio and Lips 106. Keeping with Rockstar humor, each track only costs $0.69 or you can pick up the station packs for only $2.99. Here's a list of the songs available:
Head Radio
Conor & Jay - "Change"
Craig Gray - "Fade Away"
Dezma - "Life Is But A Mere Supply"
Dil-Don't - "Stripe Summer"
Frankie Fame - "See Through You"
Scatwerk - "Electronic Go Go"
Whatever - "Good Thing"

Lips 106
April's in Paris - "Feels Like I Just Can't Take No More"
Boyz 2 Girls - "Pray It Goes Ok?"
Da Shootaz - "Grand Theft Auto (Joyride)"
Fatamarse - "Bump To The Music"
Funky BJs - "Rubber Tip"
Lucy - "Forever"
Marydancin - "Wash Him Off"

PS: And yes it is odd how they've used the Liberty City Stories Variants of the Logo's here
06
DEC
Grand Theft Auto III Mobile released December 15th

Grand Theft Auto III - General News | @ 12:05 PM CST | By Ash_735
The Grand Theft Auto III: 10th Anniversary Edition, also known as Grand Theft Auto III Mobile, will be released on the 15th of December on the Android Marketplace and the Apple App Store for only $4.99. Rockstar have announced a new trailer will be made to celebrate the release. Below is an updated list of devices that the game will be compatible with along with some released screenshots:
Apple iOS Devices: iPad 1 & 2, iPhone 4 & 4S, iPod touch 4th Generation

Android Phones: HTC Rezound, LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon 4G, Samsung Galaxy R, T-Mobile G2x

Android Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Dell Streak 7, LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, Sony Tablet S, Toshiba Thrive

Android


Apple iOS


Note: Subtitle language support for Grand Theft Auto III Mobile will include English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.
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