UPDATE - January 20: German entertainment site Cynamite.de has also posted new Chinatown Wars screenshots today. View the 10+ new images in their Chinatown Wars screenshot gallery.

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Gaming magazine Edge recently published a new article on GTA: Chinatown Wars, which they have today made available online. It also came with two new screenshots:


View all GTA: Chinatown Wars screenshots »
Thanks to GTA-Xtreme.de for the news.

Various gaming websites across the internet were recently given the opportunity to preview Chinatown Wars, the next installment of GTA for the Nintendo DS. Today, the articles were published online, here is a selection of the websites carrying previews:

IGN CVG

GamesRadar GameDaily Total Video Games

1UP Kikizo

We have also added all the new digital images released today to our Chinatown Wars screenshot gallery along with the game's first true artwork in our Chinatown Wars artwork gallery. Here is a sampler of the new shots:


Here is a summary of the main new features discussed in the previews:

• The stylus is immediately put to use at the start of the game, when Huang Lee must break out of a car sinking in the river and swim to shore.
• Audio is fairly lacking due to cartridge size. The game has some original tracks but all licensed songs are "instrumentals." IGN reports that "F-bombs are dropped [by pedestrians] quite frequently."
• You'll be able to climb up fire escapes to reach rooftops.
• To lose your wanted level you need to take out the nearby policemen rather than run away from them. The police car icons below your stars indicate how many policemen are left.
• Doing donuts before driving off gives you a speed boost, and flames will shoot out of your exhaust, allowing you to set fire to any pedestrians behind you.
• To get Molotov cocktails, you can go up to a gas pump and fill up as many bottles as you can in the allotted time.
• The PDA serves as your email and text message viewer, GPS with waypoints and favorite locations, contact database, music player, money manager, and gun shop.

The previews, particularly the one at IGN, also go into some mission details so if you're interested in that information be sure to check them out!

Kikizo's preview also comes with a couple screenshots of the bottom touch-screen's use in Chinatown Wars:

Rockstar Games has just recently sent out an exclusive for Grand Theft Auto fansites, GTAGaming included! The email includes a list of Xbox 360 achievements for GTA IV's downloadable content The Lost and Damned, as well as one new screenshot of the protagonist Johnny Klebitz:

• Get Good Wood – 50G: In the Bike Races, whack off 69 bikers with a bat.
• Easy Rider – 100G: Finish The Story
• Full Chat – 70G: Your backup are riding at their best!
• The Lost Boy – 25G: All hail the leader of The Lost!
• One Percenter – 5G: Billy is back on his bike.

Stay tuned for some more The Lost and Damned information - major gaming websites are supposed to be releasing their previews on Thursday, January 22.

The first previews for GTA IV: The Lost and Damned, have launched on major gaming web sites across the internet. You can check them out below:


View all 33 new screenshots in our The Lost and Damned gallery »
Here is a summary we compiled of the information:

• It will take a minimum of ten hours to complete and will cost 1600MS.
• Some missions can be restarted at halfway points.
• There are NO additions to the Liberty City map.
• There will be more buildings with interiors, mostly linked to new missions.
• Johnny Klebitz is the vice president of The Lost, and the DLC's story begins when Billy returns from rehab to lead the gang once again. In Billy's absence, Johnny lead The Lost and called a truce with their rivals, The Angels of Death. When Billy returns, he is not fond of the idea of a truce.
• The Lost safehouse is located on the corner of Berners Road and Vitullo Avenue in Alderney. Mini-games like a hi-low card game, an arm wrestling game, and getting weapons delivered from friends like Lil Jacob will all be available in the safehouse.
• Johnny's bike is available outside the safehouse, and if you trash it someone can bring over another one.
• One mission named "Buyer's Market" shows how Johnny crosses paths with Niko Bellic and Playboy X via Elizabeta.
New weapons include a 9MM automatic pistol, a sawn-off shotgun, an assault shotgun, a grenade launcher, and pipe bombs.
• New music for the "hardcore and metal" radio stations will be introduced.
• Riding with the gang makes The Lost gang logo appear and the ground, and allows Johnny to receive health boosts.

The Lost and Damned official website has now been fully launched, including pictures, videos and information on the DLC. Exclusive artwork is also shown off on the website in place of the boxart.

The information listed in bulleted form on the website does not provide too much new information, but it does mention that "action-packed multiplayer modes" will be added, and details on these features will be released soon.

The videos on the site provide an insight into the sorts of characters you will be dealing with in The Lost - Billy Grey and Malc. One note of interest is the fact that at one point during the video, Malc is using the grenade launcher while riding in the backseat of a motorcycle. This weapon should prove for some awesome drive-by's!

MTV Multiplayer got in contact with Rockstar's vice president of product development, Jeronimo Barrera, inquiring whether we'll hear any new lines from GTA IV's protagonist in the game's first of two episodes.
The article goes on to discuss how voice of Niko Bellic, Michael Hollick, had expressed disappointment with the pay for the job to The New York Times, and how this may have affected the relationship between Hollick and Rockstar, thus resulting in the "Hell no!" response.

You can check out the article here: ‘Hell No’ - No New Lines For Niko Bellic in ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Expansion

Thanks to 5tatic

The PC Version of Grand Theft Auto IV has received another patching job from Rockstar, simply sign into Games for Windows Live or download the patch manually at Rockstar's support site. Here are some of the fixes that come with this patch:
For a full list of updates, please visit Rockstar's support site.

As most of you know, the new GTA IV patch released yesterday by Rockstar Games caused nearly all mods to stop working. The main compatibility problems were with MagicIV and the ASI Loader. Today new tools were released to allow for the modding of v1.0.2.0:

• GTA IV Magic Patcher: GTA IV v1.0.2.0 no longer requires you to keep copies of all the game's original files. The new version of the Magic Patcher simply comes with a filelist.pak file which you must use in place of the original. Feel free to delete all your .magic files!
• GTA IV ASI Loader: this tool works with v1.0.2.0 now. It comes with just one DLL file which you need to put in your root GTA IV directory. You need this tool to run any script mods that come as ASI or DLL files.
• XLiveLess 0.94b: works with both v1.0.1.0 and v1.0.2.0 of GTA IV. If you used XLiveLess for your savegames, they will all be completely functional again once you install this new version.
• SparkIV 0.6.0: works with v1.0.2.0 and also allows you to preview and export audio files.

One other caveat to these updates is that all ASI mods need to be updated too in order to run with the game's new format. Fortunately, aru has released a new version of his C++ Script Hook, and ASI mod makers should be updating their files very soon.

For all those interested in my mods, I have already updated to aru's new script hook. Find the updates below (keep in mind that these will probably not work with older versions of GTA IV. I don't have the energy to support every single version, so once a new version comes out, there's no going back!):

• GTA IV Bodyguard Mod: along with update for the ASI Loader, I removed the default MP5 for each guard. If you want to perform drive-by's you'll have to spawn guards with the appropriate weapons.
• Car Bomber Mod: along with the update for the ASI Loader, I removed the bomb model due to some users experiencing an odd crash. This means that Niko will not produce a bomb in his hand, he'll just appear to touch the bottom of the car.
• Ride Along Mod: along with the update for the ASI Loader, I added "smart entry" so that Niko will only enter empty passenger seats. If every seat is full he'll just pull out the front passenger and sit there.

Also for all three of my mods linked above - they will all load each time the game loads. That means when you load in singleplayer, multiplayer, after the video editor the mod will also load every time.

Here are some mods by other authors that have already been updated to work with GTA IV v1.0.2.0:

• Player Selector v1.3
• Simple Native Trainer