KJAKLIVE

Awe. Grand Theft Auto. In the late 90's GTA was nothing more than a top-down-view, car-driving, gangster shooting, short-lived-enjoyment game. Today, the GTA brand has much more meaning and has established itself as one of the most influential series of the past decade.

We are on the horizon of another GTA game. The ninth game in the series (GTA, GTA2, GTA:London, GTAIII, GTA:VC, GTA:SA, GTA:LBS, GTA:VCS) will release on April 29, 2008 as GTA IV.

GTA is popular for it’s expansive open-world environments, excellent voice acting and writing, and overall explicit content. The world is all-to-familiar with the infamous “Hot Coffee Scandal” that developed when a hacker released documentation on how to unlock a hidden sex mini-game in the PC version of GTA:San Andreas. It was later discovered that the hot coffee mini-game could also be unlocked in the Playstation 2 version of the game as well.

Now that the heat has cooled off the coffee, developer Rockstar North is ready to blow the lid off of their latest masterpiece. I won’t go into details about the game, but there are many places where you can check out coverage. Here are a few sites where you can gather info:

• Gamespot
• IGN
• Xbox
• Playstion

As the release date gets near, fans of the series are on the edge of their seats in anticipation.However, many are unaware of a major business move by Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive. Rival publisher Electronic Arts has proposed a $2 billion buyout of the company. The catch; T2 has until April 18 to make a decision on whether they should sell to the publishing giant.

What does this mean for fans of the GTA series?

A take-over by EA would mean that there is a possibility that EA will further delay GTA IV to bring the release date closer to the holiday season in an attempt to boost sales. Therefore, the people who have pre-ordered and who have been collecting cash for the game will be left waiting a few more months before they get their hands on the sure-fire hit.

Secondly, a take-over by EA could mean that some changes could be made to the game. Once of the most annoying trends is to slap the EA logo on as many screens as they can when one of their games boots up. On top of that, most EA games do not allow you to skip the logo screens. Add to that the advertisement heavy games EA has released in the past and we could see billboards all over Liberty City plastered with “real-time advertisements.”

Finally, EA tends to put their developers into overdrive so that they can turn out sequels every year. This has hurt many of the intellectual properties that EA has bought by degrading the quality of the game in order to ship each year by the holiday.

The debate continues on whether an EA buy-out would be a good thing or a bad thing, but one thing is for sure: Gamers are not going to be able to rest easy until the deal is done.

Personally, I’m trying to not stress over the deal too much. I believe that there must be some reason that T2 is holding off on the EA offer. Plus, there isn’t too much EA could do to the game that would ruin this experience for me. I'm more worried about how the next GTA installment will turn out.

Outside of that, I am still very hyped up about the game. Heck, I’m blogging about it, so you know it’s on my mind. I’ve got the cash stacked up and I’m ready for a fun ride. I have been planning out how I am going to sneak in game time without letting my two children see it. I also have been working out how I am going to get my wife to let me take some personal time with the game. She will likely play on her computer and observe while I play. I’m sure she’ll enjoy the in-game radio commercials and fantastic dialog as much as I do.

It will be interesting to play the game on an Xbox360. I have played every game since GTA III on a Playstation branded console. I don’t expect there to be any issues with it. Especially since the previews all point to the game running smooth on both the PS3 and Xbox360.

April 29^th can’t come fast enough for me.

How are you preparing for the release of GTA?

Late,
Kolobear