Just 2 days after the release of the first Grand Theft Auto 4 trailer, the game has already struck a nerve with local politicians. NYDailyNews are reporting that political leaders are outraged, although other than voicing their concerns, no action seems to be being taken.

City Councilman Peter Vallone had this to say:

"Setting Grand Theft Auto in the safest big city in America would be like setting Halo in Disneyland,"

While the article goes on to spread misinformation (don't you just love the media?)

In previous incarnations, players advanced through the game by killing cops, selling pornography to children and killing prostitutes. Details of the latest version have not been released.

"The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers," said Jason Post, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg.

Selling pornography to minors and killing prostitutes have never been required to advance through any of the GTA games, the former is not even possible due to the fact children never have, and never will be included in the series according to Dan Houser. Earning points for killing police officers is another inaccuracy.

You can read more about this at GamePolitics and Slashdot.

GamesRadar have been busy posting a few articles on their website regarding the trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV and the subsequent speculation and rumour spreading that has been going on in forums since then.

The first article of interest is about the level of realism Rockstar seem to be aiming for. In the article GR compare seven stills from the trailer with their real life counterparts. It's quite interesting especially if you don't know much about New York, and it will give you a good idea of what you can expect to see from New York replicated in the game.
The second article has GamesRadar's thoughts on 9 different rumours which they've spotted around the web. While many speculative things are also being posted and commented on in our own forums, it's interesting to read their take on them. Rumours include multiplayer, destructible buildings, additional cities, the main character and more. Let us know your own thoughts, opinions and speculation about GTA 4 in our own forum.

Just like they did 3 years ago with San Andreas, the folks behind GameInformer magazine have managed to acquire a world exclusive first look at Grand Theft Auto IV. Issue 169 for May will contain ten pages of screenshots and details.

That's all they're allowed to say for now, we'll have to wait until the issue is released before we can find out what the juicy details are. If you're going to be able to get a copy of it, let us know.

Link: GameInformer

Thanks to raooul_duke at GTAForums for the news

It's here, the moment you've all been waiting for! Rockstar Games have just released the first official trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV! Grab it from the official site while you can.

Information

• The game takes place in a modern day New York (Liberty City) setting
• The main character appears to be Eastern European, possibly Russian
• He speaks the line "Life is complicated - I killed people, smuggled people, sold people. Perhaps here, things will be different." towards the end of the trailer.

Trailer Mirrors:
See our trailers page for a complete list of both high and standard definition versions. Or if you're eager to see it, here's a quick mirror I've uploaded of the HD version:

• Mirror #1 (thegtaplace.com)
• YouTube link

Screenshots:
For now I have taken some screen caps of the trailer, keep an eye on our screenshots page though, as we hope to have some official, and actual screenshots soon.

Impressions: From IGN and GameSpy, as well as these topics on our forums.

A lot of the discussion revolving around news of the trailer we posted about earlier this month was about whether or not this would be a short teaser, or a full length trailer. An article on GamesRadar has removed our collective worries with word from Rockstar that we will indeed have a proper trailer. The article itself has GR's thoughts on the Top 7 Things GTA IV Needs, however the part you're most interested in is the following.

The official trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV is only a few days away as of this writing, and publisher Rockstar has promised that it won't just be some infuriatingly quick teaser. Instead, it'll offer up the first substantial look into what the game is all about, and internet speculation over what that might be has kicked the rumor mill into high gear.

Great news for everyone who is anticipating tomorrow's release.

From past experience, most notably with San Andreas trailer releases, we've found that due to the sheer popularity of the game, and the fact that every GTA fan site, every gaming site on the planet is so hyped up about this, the official site will get so much linkage it is highly likely it will go down pretty quickly, or at least be excruciatingly slow loading. Within minutes of the trailer's release we should have both hi-res and low-res (assuming that's what we're getting) versions of the trailer mirrored here on our temporary trailers page. Our server should grab it quickly enough to allow us to do this, so those of you who do have trouble accessing the site won't be left out.
We'll also be analysing the trailer very carefully and posting about every important detail we can grasp from it, as well as any interesting screen caps we can get from it.

"Things Will Be Different" - Another ominous piece of marketing coming from Rockstar, if you're a subscriber to the Rockstar Games mailing list you will have seen this earlier today. This is bound to spark off an almighty amount of discussion regarding what exactly is going to be different, are Rockstar taking the game in a whole new direction? Have your say in the forums.

A screenshot of the email

Many people are reporting on various forums, namely NeoGAF, that they have seen the countdown to the GTA IV trailer on FX in the early hours of this morning. The "advert" lasted for a whole 30 minutes from 2:00-2:30AM and appeared to mirror the countdown which we have been staring at on the official site for the past few weeks, with the only difference being a sound playing for each second counted down.

If you turn to the FX channel right now, there's a big black screen with "IV" in the Grand Theft Auto font, along with the word "trailer" and a countdown leading up to next Thursday, March 29 at around 6 p.m. EST. Then there's Rockstar's GTA4 Web site listed below with the Rockstar logo.

With each second that counts down, there's a KA-chung, KA-chung, KA-chung noise that resembles the "24" countdown noise, but with less clang and not so much beep. It's annoying, until you've been listening to it for a few minutes and it just becomes hypnotic.

This begs the question of whether or not we'll see a simultaneous web and TV release of the trailer, or if it was simply to increase awareness and give more exposure to both the game and the website. Thanks to Jordan over at PlanetGTA for this interesting piece of news.

We now have a short excerpt of the advert for those of you who didn't get to see it:

Thanks to gta-xtreme.de for the video.

Rockstar have made a small update to the official VCS website, adding a new PlayStation 2 section to the screens page. Seven shots have been posted, 5 of which are new. You can check out our gallery for more screenshots of the game, or click the thumbnails below to see the full size images.

The official site still has no word regarding the release of the soundtrack on iTunes, it is beginning to look like this won't actually happen now. We'll report more on that if we get any updates though.

IGN have today given us their thoughts on Vice City Stories for PS2, they seem to pick up on the fact that many of the bugs which plagued the PSP version are still apparent, though there are a few technical improvements, namely the framerate and graphics. Having said that, the game doesn't really take advantage of the PS2's stronger hardware.

IGN's review seems to take quite a negative stance on the game, however it concludes with more positive points, which thankfully outweigh the drawbacks. They gave the game 7.5 out of 10. In addition to the review, IGN also posted about 12 in-game screenshots which you can view by clicking the links below.

Link: IGN Review, IGN Screenshots

Vice City Stories has now been released to North American gamers, European gamers will have to wait an extra few days until the release this Friday March 9th. The PS2 version is a near identical copy to it's older PSP counterpart, minus the multiplayer features. It is retailing for just .99, a bargain for any GTA fan.

Check out the Vice City Stories section of our website for anything you need for the game, including cheats (same as the PSP version), a 100% check list, and a complete walkthrough. We'll be adding more content to the site over the next few days.

With the current discussion of the upcoming GTAIV trailer overshadowing all other news at the moment, some of you may have forgotten that in the next week Vice City Stories will be released on PlayStation 2. Rockstar have recently released the official trailer for the game, and SPOnG seem to have an exclusive on it at the moment, hit the link below to check it out.

SPOnG.com - Official VCS PS2 Trailer

Some exciting news for you here folks, Rockstar have updated the official site with a countdown to the first trailer! The URL has changed to end in "IV", and an improved logo is now in place with the time underneath counting down to the 29th March at 11pm GMT (you can work out from this what time it will be for you).

Could "IV" be something more significant than just '4'?

Check it out at http://www.rockstargames.com/IV and discuss this exciting news in our forums.

Last night Take Two reported their Fiscal 2006 Financial Results. If you're familiar with these press releases you'll know that Take Two like to talk about the games which they sold during the year, as well as upcoming products which are in the making. A small mention of GTA4 revealed that the game would receive episodic content some time during 2008, rather than being available from the initial release.

Starting in 2008, Rockstar will introduce exclusive episodic content downloads for Grand Theft Auto IV.

That was all that was said about the matter. There's still no confirmation on whether the PS3 version is going to get any content, or exactly what the content is. Stay tuned as we'll have more updates on this as they are released.