I've had this wallpaper sitting in my inbox for ages but today I finally got around to posting it.

1024x768

Submitted by The_Expert

Check out more wallpapers here.

Yep, I finally have got around to posting the second version of tnk's awesome fake map. This one has taken ideas from all of the community, and put them all into one super-map that is the most accurate with what we know so far. tnk has watermarked this version from the start, and there is also a very handy copy detection system that is just about impossible to get through. Anyway, this is the most accurate fake map on the info we know, so enjoy, and be sure to give tnk credit.


Submitted by tnk

and just incase you didn't see tnk's first version of this map, here it is, you can see it has a few mistakes which is what caused all the commotion about it

If your tired of waiting for San Andreas then why not take part in our ad campaign. The Hype Council is currently promoting Toyota's 'Put it in Play' campaign and there are some cool flash games you can play on their website, just click on the image below or or the banner in rotation above to get there (you'll be supporting us too).





you can sure waste a lot of time playing these games and make that wait til San Andreas go a little bit quicker. Have fun!

Following the news of the release date of GTA Advance, Dale Massey has created some fake boxart for the game and it looks pretty good. He has even made a full version which you can print out and make the box for it.



Click the thumbnail to see it in full

If you would like the whole box which you can cut out, Click here to get it, its already at the exact size so just print it out and cut it out.

A little message in my inbox today was informing me to check out two webstes, and sure enough they are both teaser sites for San Andreas - Finally!
Check them out:

EpsilonProgram.com  
Maccer.net

First off, Maccer.net
This is about the guy called Maccer from Madchester, Rockstars version of Manchester, the 'mad for it' quotes are still there
interestingly you can contact Maccer via email, not sure what you'd ask him or what he would say in reply though

EpsilonProgram
Very strange content on here, if you visit the Testimonials page you will see quotes from previous gta characters, including Jezz Torrent from Love Fist and people from Carcer and Liberty City, its great how Rockstar tie in all their previous work.

Remember these are just teaser sites, they dont contain information on san andreas itself, they just give the characters and/or in-game companies more depth and humour us

Gamespot and Nintendo have confirmed the release date of Grand Theft Auto Advance.
Coincidentally it has the same release date as San Andreas - October 19th, Rockstar seem to be keeping quiet about this one like they did for a while with San Andreas. We'll have more info on it as we get it.

Link: Nintendo's Fall Schedule @ Gamespot

PSM2's latest mag confirms a lot of information on San Andreas, i'll try an dpost it all here. This is all 100% confirmed by them, they had a hands on preview of a playable demo. Some of it we already know but i'll post it all anyway. I've basically picked out all the important stuff.

Music
Radio Stations: SF-UR, Flash FM, Hit Radio and K-Jah West FM
Genres: Country, Rock, Funk/Soul, Reggae House, Alternative and Hip Hop

Vehicles
FCR 900 bike
Monster Truck
ZR350 Sports Car
Dodo (full winged)
Quad Bike
Tanker
School Bus
Golf car
Low Rider Mustang
Trains
Dinghy
Boats
Suprises!
BMX
Cement Mixer
NRG 500 bike
Tow Trucks

Weapons
Knuckle Duster
12 Gauge Shotgun
Rocket Launcher
Katana
Uzi 9mm (twin handed)
Colt .45
M-16 Assault Rifle
AK-47
Ingram Mac 10
Chrome Shotgun

Misc Cool things
Unlike previous gta games where cars would magically dissappear, the cops will sometimes impound your car however you can go and steal it back if you want it
You'll end up having garages all over the map
You can hijack Tow Trucks and tow peoples cars around whether they like it or not

Mission Names
Countryside:
New Model Army
Back to School

Los Santos:
Menace!
Reuniting the Families

Map
There will be a large desert

Misc
Rockstar have already revealed some humourous puns:
The airline called "Juank Air" (pronounce it with an English accent and you'll get it.... Wan kair... Wanker) If your still lost go and learn English
The car customization garage called "Transfender" meaning to change fender(Transgender if you still dont get it...)
Shop called "Hippy Shopper" (Happy shopper used to be a Newsagent here in England)
Motion blur is on the cars when driving fast round corners
100+ missions
it takes over 150 hours to complete

Garages
At Transfender you can customize the following:
Car colour
Exhausts
Front Bumper (costs 0)
Rear Bumper
Roof
Spoilers
Wings
Wheels
Nitrous Oxide

it doesn't make your better performance wise but it will boost up your respect meter, although the Nitrous can be activated by pressing X and O.

Combat
Each city will have its own unique gym
Los Santos gym is like a traditional boxing club where you can practise punch combos and hit the bags
Las Venturas gym is where you can learn roughneck street fighting moves
Cobra Martial Arts is a Japanese style dojo where you can learn new moves, in San Fierro and is the home of martial arts
drop heel kick is one of the moves you can learn here
you can also learn a running front kick and a roundhouse kick

The Triads
For a start this gang seems to be the only 'real-life' gang in the game so far, the others are just based on other gangs
Wu Zi Mu (Wuzi to his friends) is the leader, he is blind, hence the guy holding his arm in the artwork
One of his missions 'The Da Nang Thang' involves freeing some immigrants trapped in a tanker by the bay.

Swimming
You press X to crawl and O to dive (the screen goes all wobbly when you do so)
You have a breath meter which increases as you practise more

Abilities
Silent stealth kills
Dangling from ledges and pulling yourself up
Hopping over railings
blocking moves

Finally some proof that Rockstar read message boards and listen to the fans, a quote from Rockstar's US PR Chief Jeff Castaneda when interviewed by PSM2

"Their priority is the fans... They love reading message boards and getting feedback."

There are loads of screens in the mag sogo out and buy it (£3.99) im not sure which ones are new but i'll post them later maybe.

Whilst shopping around online I was pleasantly suprised when I found one shop having GTA San Andreas PC version for sale, with a release date.

According to SpecialReserve the PC version is due for release on February 1st 2005 which I myself think is wrong because the PC version usually comes out later than that.
Anyway here is the link http://uk.special.re...eft_auto_s.html, they're selling it for £24.99 (About ) which is usual for a decent PC game.

I assume this is just a presumption of when they think it will arrive but its interesting they have a release date.

Over the next hour or so i will re-structuring  the directories that files are in to make it easier to manage, so if links become broken and images arent displaying then wait a while until i fix them all

Sitting in my inbox today I found a non-expected, but great email from someone calling themself tnk. This tnk said that he looked around at all of the rough map sketches that various magazines had drawn, and created his own, taking small ideas from all the others. Add to this the fact that the town of Blueberry is supposed to be situated in the center of the map. All of this together leads to the following, which I think is one of the best and most accurate fan map drawn on the new info released. Goto the Fanart page or just click the following image to see this map.

Submitted by tnk

You may have seen other sites posting stuff they have extracted from the .swf file but we aren't, thats because Rockstar told us not to

We've worked really hard to make the San Andreas site as great a destination as it could be, and we would really appreciate it if you could help us out to ensure people go to the site to see these assets as they were meant to be seen - in the proper context, resolution, display and experience.

However the regular screenshots that open as jpegs we are allowed to post so I will add these later, expect updates to the Screenshots and Scans page later

Well done Rockstar. They have updated the official website and its awesome, theres some high quality versions of the trailer, some news screens, maps and loads of new art.

Check it out - http://www.rockstarg....com/sanandreas

Later I will probably add the screens and videos to the site.

Rockstar reassured us last night that a trailer would be released on MTV later and it was.

as our biggest supporters, I have a little more inside info for you tonight. For all you in North America, be sure to check out MTV news starting tomorrow morning and throughout the weekend

It is available to watch on the MTV website here.

They also said:

Also, be sure to keep an eye on http://www.rockstarg....com/sanandreas.

so maybe the trailer will become available or maybe even a whole site update kind like vicecity.com has, with the Flash stuff. That would certainly be nice.

On tonights "On the Spot," Gamespot's weekly live gaming show, Nancy Bueller announced that Rockstar has set the date for the Official Trailer to be released. That day is tomorrow, and we all will be waiting on the web for this priceless gem. So, stay tuned and we'll let everyone know when the trailer is released.

No big updates but Rockstar have made a minor update to the official website - http://www.rockstarg...com/sanandreas/
They have added 7 screenshots, however all of which we have seen before and are already on the screenshots page.

Rockstar have sent us 5 new screens exclusive to fansites on their webring. They will be doing this each month until San Andreas is released. Theoretically only sites on the webring should have these screens. Thank you R*, i must say they look amazing.

Hey guys,

We have something very special for you this week. To show our appreciation of your continued support and hard work we have gotten you a group of 5 fansite exclusive screenshots. That's right, this is just for the fansites for the next 24 hours. We are planning to do this monthly until the release of the game so watch out for more fansite exclusives in September and October.

Enjoy!
Webmaster@R*

We have added the screenshots you saw in the Gamespot and IGN articles. Thanks to Richard Kruger for sending them out as soon as he could.



Check out the rest of them on our Screenshots Page. I will be redesigning this page shortly to speed up loading times and may add a slideshow type gallery or nicer viewing.

Thanks to Neil for notifying me of this. It seems later this week the first official trailer for San Andreas will be released according to EuroGamer.net

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is due for release on October 22nd. Check out the official trailer later this week, with more first-hand impressions and chats with Rockstar in the coming weeks.

So there you go, only a few days to wait until we get our first real glimpse of San Andreas in action

Well as you may have read, our awful host - www.ukhost4u.com had massive server problems and three weeks of MySQL data was lost. I found a 2 week old backup which we have restored but still its not good.

We are looking to move to a host which actually has good uptime so please tell me if you know of one.

The data we've lost is:
2 weeks of news
any members who registered after 30th July
all downloads that were added after 30th July
all the poll votes after 30th July

So we can learn something from this. Never get hosted with UKHost4u.com
ok but I mean that. They are hopeless. Stay away from them.

And whats more, they didnt even notify me of what happened, they still havent told me about this loss of data, the guy who owns it hasn't been online since it happened.  <_<