A couple of weeks before Christmas we posted about a mod in the works that brings Vice City to the world of GTA IV. The Vice City RAGE team are now proud to announce that they have released the first public beta of their mod. Check out the trailer below:

Looks awesome! To play this you'll need an unmodded copy of Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City. Got that? If so, here's the official torrent of the mod. It's 3.35GB so best leave it running in the background while you do other things. Have you got this installed? Let us know what it's like in the comments.

Last week we showed you the Vice City RAGE mod for GTA IV that is looking very good already and due to be released next month, and if you've been following GTA IV modding news you may remember we reported on a similar project a few months ago, one which brought San Andreas into GTA IV. Today, the GTAIV: San Andreas team have finally released the second beta of their mod, adding new features including radio, a new HUD, improved map, new lights, plus many more. Here's a video of the mod

The download is a rather large 1.5GB, but there are a number of sites hosting it as well as a torrent available. Download links can be found on the GTAIVSA website. We'll have our own mirror up soon.

For over a year, a team of talented modders have been working on an ambitious project to bring Vice City into GTAIV using RAGE. Proving that the GTA IV mod scene is alive and kicking, they have kept up their work and have now reached a point where the mod is almost ready for release, the first beta apparently being 98% complete. To show off their mod the team have released a trailer, and we have to say, it looks pretty damn awesome. Take a look...

Impressive stuff don't you agree? We should clarify this mod is actually for Episodes from Liberty City rather than GTA IV itself, and is due to be released on 5th January. For more information see the GTAForums topic.

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of GTA IV's release on the PC. To celebrate, Rockstar are holding another special Multiplayer Event featuring themselves as well as various webmasters from some of the long running GTA fansites. The event takes place tomorrow, 2nd December from 4-7PM Eastern Time (that's 9PM to 12AM GMT) and both GTA IV and Episodes from Liberty City will be played. I myself will hopefully be playing a few games, my gamertag along with all the other webmasters participating is listed below, so feel free to add any of us and we'll try and get you into a game!

For more details including R* gamertags and information on the sweepstakes, head on over to the Newswire post. And don't forget, if you can't join in the fun, you can always watch the live stream of the event on the Social Club multiplayer page!

In honour of the GTA III anniversary weekend, Rockstar will be holding a special GTA IV multiplayer event tomorrow evening 5-8PM EST (10PM - 1AM GMT) on the PS3. You'll have the chance to enter to win the Grand Prize sweepstakes: a deluxe Grand Theft Auto III Anniversary prize pack including:

• Two hand painted, limited edition and individually numbered custom Grand Theft Auto PlayStation 3 controllers, complete with a laser-cut Rockstar insignia home button
  
• One GTAIII Anniversary Limited-Edition Claude Action Figure
  
• One Grand Theft Auto III mug, complete with brass knuckles for the handle
  
• Two Grand Theft Auto t-shirts
  
• Assorted Grand Theft Auto and Rockstar stickers

Rockstar have invited some of the old-school fansite webmasters to play as special guests, while this is a PSN event, some of us will be on Xbox Live. Our gamertags:

• G-WizZ from GTAwh.com - Xbox LIVE Gamertag gtawh
  
• adamcs from GTANet.com - Xbox LIVE Gamertag adamcsx
  
• Zidane from GTAGaming.com - PSN ID CaseyTheVA
  
• Psy from iGrandTheftAuto.com - PSN ID Psycopsy
  
• Chris from TheGTAPlace.com - Xbox LIVE Gamertag LazyPyro88

For more information about getting in game with Rockstar, check out the Newswire post.