Weebl’s inside man at Rockstar Games has leaked a few tantalising titbits about the upcoming Playstation 3 launch title, GTA 4. As the game is still in development any of these details may have changed by the time of release, so if this turns out to be wildly inaccurate then you’ll know that we were telling the truth.


As long rumoured, GTA4 is set in England. As the Rockstar team hail from over here they said that they’re determined to avoid all the usual UK clichés and create something appropriately English.
The majority of the missions take place in Churchill City, a fictionalised version of London. Rather than map a huge area as in the previous game they have decided to put the same amount of detail into one city, producing an area with a massive scale, and buildings that can all, in one way or another, be entered.

Plot

• You play Chaz Talbot, a black cabbie and part time hit-man who starts out trying to wipe out a rival mini-cab firm and ends up (if you play your cards right) Prime Minister. In between you kick-start an East End gang war, orchestrate a series of Soccer riots, help track down a top-hatted serial killer and negotiate a peace accord between two rival Pearly Kings. Using a bit of the old bamboo.

Gameplay

• As in San Andreas your weight is controlled by exercise but in an interesting twist you have to stay flabby by eating lots of pie and pork scratchings, otherwise your mates call you a girly wanker.

• San Andreas’ Gang sign hand signals have been replaced with rhyming slang rhythm games, using the PS3 controller’s inbuilt microphone. Similarly the Respect meter is replaced with a dial showing how much you love your old mum.

• You can now happy-slap passersby using the PS3 controller’s motion sensor, getting a picture stored on your memory card every time.

• Instead of just getting in your car, prostitutes have to be contacted using the numbers found on cards in phone boxes. You then arrange a time and a place to meet. Half the time you’ll probably just get robbed at gunpoint by a 7 foot tall Russian man in a tracksuit, just like in real life. I imagine.

• Rather than being immediately released from jail every time you’re caught you need to figure out a new way to get out, from performing a dirty protest in the centre of the cell, to contacting a political leader that you’re blackmailing with necrophilia photos.

• After a lot of consideration and the recent Hot Coffee debacle, Rockstar have decided to remove the minigame where a bee stings the Queen’s clitoris and you have to suck the poison out.

Vehicles

• To reduce the main story’s ‘Sod this, I’m just going to nick cars’ factor, for the first 15 missions the only other vehicles you will be able to steal will be unicycles and sit-down lawn-mowers. Later on you have access to over a thousand cars, bikes, boats, and alternative transport solutions. (If you’re lucky you might get the elusive Golden Segway)…

Graphics

• GTA4 will use the graphics engine that was developed for Rockstar’s recent Table Tennis game, Actua-Pong. Clothes, rather than form fitting skins, will be separate items that hang realistically on your walrus-like frame, staining with use.

• Everything in the city will be covered in realistic layers of bird crap and nicotine.Sound
  

Sound

• There will be 10 radio stations in the game but you will barely be able to hear any of them as the signal disappears if you go into a tunnel or near any tall buildings, and when you do get them they’ll only play the same bloody song 20 times an hour. James Blunt, you ruined my life you

GTA4 is out on October the 17th 2007 on the Playstation 3, and then about 3 hours later on the PC.