A few months ago commemorated the 10th anniversary of Grand Theft Auto III.  It was by far and away one of the most epic game of its time and ushered in a new era of gameplay as well as graphical bliss.  Now the game, the full game, not some watered down version, is coming to iOS and Android devices on December 15th.  That said, you’ll be able to control Claude using a set of on screen controls and engage in the same level of mayhem you enjoyed on the console.

But that’s not all the coolness that Rockstar has in store.  For $149.99 you can pick up this fully articulated 1:6 scale action figure of Claude, who comes dressed in his original attire.  It also includes a Liberty City Prison-issued jumpsuit along with a complete arsenal of weapons from GTA III that include a bat, knife, grenades, pistol, sniper rifle, submachine gun, pair of fists, baseball hat, one trigger hand and assault rifle.   The 12-inch figurine will see a limited production of just 1,500 pieces and as far as well can tell they’re still available for purchase.

Is the Grand Theft Auto series dead? Rockstar doesn’t think so and today issued a trailer for, you guessed it, GTA V.

The latest installment in the long running series seems to occur in Los Angeles, a town chalk full of greed, deception and, what else, crime. So there probably isn’t a more appropriate setting for the game to take place.

Our hats are off to Rockstar, since based on what little we’ve seen in the trailer, the game’s environment appears to accurately depict Los Angeles, minus the copious amounts of trash. The main character, who is unnamed at this point, can travel to downtown’s Skidrow district, which like the real world version, is full of drug addicts and the homeless. You’ll also be able to head west towards the beach and cruise around Venice, at least based on one location which is home to the Chinese restaurant Mows.

Unfortunately, Rockstar hasn’t issued an official release describing the game or its mechanics, so we’re left to our own devices to infer what they’ve got in store for us. Hopefully, they’ve done away with all the shortcomings of the previous games and by that we mean the repeative missions.

Release date? Probably sometime at the end of 2012 if we had to guess.

5 out of 5 stars

Red Dead Redemption is easily the game of the year. Excellent writing, memorable characters, a wondrous desert landscape and generally great gameplay make it a step above the competition. Recent downloadable content has been limited to multiplayer add-ons, but then developer Rockstar Games announced Undead Nightmare, a play on this year’s love affair with the unholy zombie apocalypse sure to be upon us any day now. And, just like both add-ons for Grand Theft Auto IV left me in awe, Undead Nightmare does not disappoint.

Pure Rockstar, one could say. After throwing great characters into a giant, well-known environment (after playing through the regular campaign of RDR), something happens that throws these characters –staples like John Marston and family, Marshal Johnson, grave-man Seth and plenty of others – into a seemingly impossible situation: the dead rise up, and they’re hungry for brains.

The company’s promotions for the add-on pack use a conniving, dark tone that ridicules 80’s horror films, because they know no one should take the situation seriously. The story of RDR is a serious one: John Marston has to track down and kill his old friends to save his family. Funny moments pop up, and it’s certainly not a drama, but the tale is of a moral man making right. Undead Nightmare follows a similar path: Marston’s wife is bitten, and she in turn bites their son, and in John’s manly way ties them both up and leaves to find a cure to their “ailment”. The difference here is that it’s the funny moments that override the larger plot, and the fast-paced combat that keeps players on their toes.

In fact, Undead Nightmare is far giant step away from what players should expect considering RDR. Combat is almost the opposite. Instead of gun battles taking place behind cover and aiming for any hit, zombies run at Marston and any still-alive townsfolk without abandon. Shoot them and they’ll keep going. Only a precise shot to the head will put them down, or better yet, something that blows them up entirely. This sort of combat has its advantages: some areas zombies can’t reach because they’re too high or barricaded. Most can’t shoot you, so distance is a player’s greatest ally. But he game engine was originally built for gun battles, not the first person shooter knee-jerk response typically found in zombie games. Combat can be very awkward. Fighting from a horse was always difficult, but accuracy at high speeds is next to impossible.

Even with such a dramatic change, shooting at hordes of zombies is pretty darn fun. The pace is devilishly different, but Dead-Eye, the in-game bullet time mechanism, is enhanced and becomes so useful that it could make a Mastercard commercial. A variety of zombie types, as well as mission types involving staying in the confines of certain areas keeps combat challenging without getting stale, though after completing the full game, I certainly had my fill of the undead.

The craft and care put into making Undead Nightmare is absolutely visible. Every aspect of the game has changed in one way or another. From undead wild animals to towns under attack to packs of zombies scattered around both Texas and Mexico (and congregations near local cemeteries, of course), there is almost nothing in the world that remains unchanged. Only the personality of finer characters, like Mr. Nigel West Dickens, remain constant, even in the world’s darkest hour.

Dozens of new missions, both following the main plot and surrounding subplots, are included in Undead Nightmare, many of which are hilariously disturbing. There is easily a dozen hours of gameplay available, and more for those who actually search out secondary missions and travel on foot (as opposed to teleporting between cities). For just $10, this isn’t a great buy, it’s a steal. Anyone who owns Red Dead Redemption owes it to themselves to immediately, and I mean immediately, download the Undead Nightmare pack or buy the Undead Nightmare Collection in-store, on its own disc, for $30. That includes all of the multiplayer add-ons and Undead Nightmare, without requiring the original RDR disc. Heck, what better way to spend the holidays than keeping the world safe from a zombie invasion?

Grand Theft Auto ChinaTown Wars has finally arrived on the iPhone.  I’m not a big iPhone gamer, but based on the user reviews it appears to be worth its $9.99 price tag.

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Apparently the highest rated DS game ever, Chinatown Wars is making it’s way over to the PSP on October 2oth.  Receiving added graphic polish in terms of textures and lighting, the bulk of the features found on the DS will make the translation to the PSP.

What I don’t see making it, obviously, is all the touch screen elements that made the DS version so unique and innovative such as scratch tickets and dumpster diving.  What I would really like to see is GTA: San Andreas make it to the PSP. Check out the debut trailer down below:

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‘Grand Theft Auto: ChinaTown Wars’ is set to be released this October for the PSP Go and it now looks like Rockstar will launch an iPhone version around the same time.  Despite Apple’s strict and rather stringent app store policies, Rockstar says the game will go unedited and include all the phallic language and sexual content Grand Theft Auto players have come to expect and love.

Control of the game will come by way of an onscreen analog stick.  Based on my experience it takes sometime to get use to, and although it’s a viable way to control the onscreen action, it’s still is a far cry from having a set of physical buttons.  So if anything, this version will appeal to the casual gamer who wants to try their hand at Rockstar’s most popular game.

There’s no word on a launch date or price, but Rockstar says they also plan to release Beaterator, an app that lets you make “world-class beats and songs.”

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Is Grand Theft Auto coming to the iPhone?  There is no way to know for sure, but coming-on-iphone.com has a teaser video that indicates just that.  Of course, this could just be a knock off GTA game and by adding a dash of anonymity they figured they could leverage the GTA brand equitity.  Or some kids on summer break had nothing better to do with their time than get our blogosphere panties in a ball.  Nonetheless, the video says it’s coming this summer, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Of note: Reghardware said they reached out to Rockstar UK and they wouldn’t confirm or deny the game.  And of course the URL registration info is set to private, but the domain was just registered on May 25th.

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