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Worldwide Grand Theft Auto V Previews

Posted: May 02, 2013 7:21PM | Author: R* Q

Earlier this week, you got the opportunity to get better acquainted with the trio of Michael, Franklin and Trevor via our triple set of brand new Grand Theft Auto V trailers.
Today, gaming sites worldwide that recently saw the game firsthand are providing their insights, impressions and new details including...
 
Los Santos and Blaine County:
Our largest open world yet - by far - and spanning vastly diverse cultural and geographical areas, the entire world of Grand Theft Auto V is open from the very beginning of the game to explore. Visitors to the greater metropolis of Los Santos and the countryside of Blaine County will encounter faded celebrities, meth heads, party people, violent gangs, hikers, bikers and every other manner of colorful denizen. You'll be able to traverse everywhere from the tops of the mountains, through the streets of Los Santos and to the depths of the ocean floor. Below is an excerpt from The Telegraph about their first view of the game's world:
 
"A helicopter hovers gently in the midday sun, the whumph of its rotor-blades blending into an ambient, dream-like score. A man stands in the open fuselage of the chopper, peering down on a vast expanse of dusty wilderness. Countless dirt tracks wriggling through green hills like snakes. Mountain peaks looming over the brush. The sea stretching out to a beautiful cerulean horizon. As far as the eye can see; a detailed, enormous, bewildering landscape.

This is Blaine County, a vast scrubland just outside of the fictional west coast city of Los Santos, a garish, hyperactive pastiche of Los Angeles, California... We were told Grand Theft Auto V was going to be big --purportedly enough virtual acreage to fit in the maps of Red Dead Redemption, GTAIV and GTA: San Andreas-- but being told doesn’t quite prepare you for the sheer scale of the thing. And this is a just a small chunk of brushland, a speck on a map that, for the first time in the series, is completely open to you from the very beginning."

 
Michael, Franklin and Trevor:
Three playable protagonists - Michael, Franklin and Trevor may live in different parts of town, have their own issues, attitudes, lifestyles, desires and goals - but they do know how to work together. They also each have their own unique skillsets to bring to the table when it's time to get the job done. From Destructoid's piece 'Grand Theft Auto V: Everything is Bigger and Better':
 
"It's important to note that the gameplay never stops while you're switching characters. You'll jump into whoever you've selected even if they're in the middle of driving a vehicle. All three characters have their own lives, own circle of friends, enemies, associates, and hobbies and they'll be living out their life while not in the player's control. When off mission, you can play as any of these characters or even just focus on one the entire time. It's up to you, but you'll want to play as all three if you want to experience everything possible as there will be things that only certain characters can do.

Each character has their respective roles. It was pretty cool to see the player shoot off the rocket as Trevor, and then switch down to Michael just as the rocket hit its target. You're going to want to switch between characters to take advantage of their skills as the enemy AI has greatly improved. Cops will try to flank you, get to higher ground, and communicate with one another, all in an effort to make for a fun challenge."

 
Heists:
Petty crimes, hustling and stealing cars can only get you so far in Los Santos. To score big, Michael, Franklin and Trevor will work together to pull off grand Heists - big, multi-part missions that require careful preparation, recruiting, and precise (and often explosive) execution. Cash is king in GTAV and while there will be plenty of ways to acquire and spend it - heists are the way to earn the big bucks. From GameSpot:
 
"What makes a good heist sequence so exciting? Not the kinds of elegant, stealthy heists that you might see in films like The Thomas Crown Affair… Think more along the lines of the bold, explosive heists that you see in films like Michael Mann's Los Angeles crime epic Heat. Sequences like these often end up involving gunfire, but that's not what separates a great heist scene from an average one. What really pulls you in to a scene like this is the sense of planning that the criminals have put into it, the awareness of all the coordinated, moving pieces that have to work together to pull the job off successfully, and the tension of not knowing if things will go off without a hitch, or if everything will fall apart. This is the kind of heist sequence that GTAV aims to let you experience…

For the bigger jobs, you'll also be able to build out your crew beyond just the three core protagonists, perhaps hiring additional drivers or other specialists who have their own skill levels and who take a cut of the overall score that's proportionate to their skills. Will you go with cheap help who take a smaller cut but might botch the job, or will you put together a costly but skillful group of seasoned professionals? Instead of just playing through an action sequence that might remind you of a scene from one of your favorite crime films, you might get to do something closer to designing your own incredible heist sequence. Eat your heart out, Michael Mann."

 
'Recreational' Activity: 
The open world of Grand Theft Auto V is not just massive in scale, but will offer more to get into than ever before. For recreation, play a bit of golf or tennis, zen out with some yoga or cycle through the countryside... For adrenaline heads, parachute over the city, or customize your Cheetah and take it to the streets to race suckers for money... Or earn cash the old fashioned way, by taking it - whether by ripping off liquor stores or by buying and taking over businesses that will earn you dividends... Even minding your own business having a stroll you may meet one of Los Santos' weirdos, junkies, drunkies, or starlets and find yourself off on a wild misadventure you never expected... From CVG / GTAV O'Clock:
 
"And yet there's still more to tell... your cars can be given paint jobs, new wheels, window tints, grilles, spoilers, plus you can upgrade suspensions, engine and brakes - handy if you've pinpointed, say, an Infernus that you think could be a useful getaway vehicle.

You can customise weapons too, adding laser sights, scopes, silencers, and high capacity magazines. This is particularly relevant during the prep stage: you might find one weapon is good for clearing rooms, or another better for stealth, and as you earn more cash, you can develop and improve that weapon so that - by the time you head into the key heists - you have best, most specced-up firearm available for the job. Oh, and just to round things off, you can customise yourself as well, with haircuts and new clothes, or by dropping into a tattoo parlour between missions. (We spotted one on Vinewood Boulevard, close to the Chinese Theatre.)

It doesn't stop there. You can pick up hitchhikers, do stunt jumps and flying challenges, take part in yoga, golf, tennis or bike races, and - despite Rockstar being coy on this up until now - buy property too. Houses, garages and businesses can all be snapped up, providing a useful, additional revenue source that drip-feeds cash over time. Rather neatly, there seemed to be the suggestion that the men would remain true to their characters too: twentysomething Franklin will like the idea of buying a nightclub more than Michael, who might fancy investing in a marina."

 
Combat:
Game Informer's special series of previews today include individual pieces on The Art of the Heist, Touring the Open World and Putting Your Personal Stamp on Grand Theft Auto V - as well as some first details on the evolution of combat and gunplay mechanics via their story, Running and Gunning in GTAV. An excerpt:
 
"The core combat of Rockstar games has evolved quite a bit since Grand Theft Auto IV released in 2008. Red Dead Redemption streamlined the cover system first implemented in GTAIV, made gunfights more visceral thanks to the animations provided by the Euphoria technology, and introduced the slow-motion Dead-Eye mechanic. Max Payne 3 took the combat even further with destructible environments, kill cams, a last stand mechanic, and more natural feeling movement when you're running and gunning. For Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar is taking the lessons learned from all of its previous games to bring the combat into the future.

The first thing I notice when Franklin and Michael open fire during a heist gone wrong is the smoothness of the transition animations. The characters move effortlessly in and out of cover, while taking care to avoid exposing themselves to incoming fire. A library of new animations also introduces a combat-ready jog that makes it easier to shoot from the hip and even allows players to run, aim, and shoot at the same time. Players can also drop into a combat roll at the press of a button...

Melding these improvements together, Rockstar aims to offer the best gunplay the series has ever seen."


For video previews, don't miss the aforementioned GTAV O'Clock special preview edition as well as Rev3Games' video preview which is embedded below:




Look for more GTAV previews on gaming sites around the web and around the world today which also include a host of new screens from the game - including many international previews linked below. We'll have all of the newly released screens compiled and available tomorrow in high-res at www.rockstargames.com/V.
 

 

2664 Comments

Grand Theft Auto V Previews from Around the World including a Full Week of Features at IGN

Posted: November 13, 2012 12:45PM | Author: R* S

After Game Informer's preview last week, outlets around the world had their chance to check out Grand Theft Auto V. IGN's week of exclusive content kicked off yesterday with their impressions of the game so far:

“One thing’s for sure, the most exciting aspect of GTA V is not just the way it promises to shake up the open-world genre, but also the freedom and flexibility it promises… Grand Theft Auto V could be the benchmark by which all other games – not just open-world games – will be judged against.”

IGN's preview can be found here. Their editors also sat down for a roundtable discussion about the game, and they've got a full week of additional coverage planned - including a live extended Rewind Theater for Trailer #2. To see the full week of content as it unfolds, just click here. 

UK's Guardian newspaper also got an in-depth preview of the game as well:

"This is Grand Theft Auto V, the latest title in a series that has dragged video games kicking and screaming onto the cultural agenda. GTA has always been about possibilities. That is why it is so exciting to see the series return, amid the indie titles it has inspired, and the Triple A titles that have grown up in its shadow. Grand Theft Auto has always sought to push at what game worlds are, it is inarguably ambitious."

Read more at www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2012/nov/12/grand-theft-auto-v-preview-gta-5 and check out links to previews from a bunch of international sites below, as well as a roundtable discussion the guys at Game Informer conducted.
 

US, UK and Australia: IGN | The Guardian | Game Informer
Italy: Multiplayer
Belgium and The Netherlands: InsideGamer | Gamer.nl | NU.nl

2486 Comments

Game Informer’s GTAV Cover Story

Posted: November 08, 2012 12:06PM | Author: R* Q


 
Look for the full 18-page story to debut this afternoon via their digital app.
The print edition will begin landing in subscribers’ mailboxes this week and at newsstands next week Friday November 16th.

16233 Comments

Max Payne 3 PC: New Screens and Details Plus Exclusive Interview with PC World

Posted: May 25, 2012 10:27AM | Author: R* Q

Max Payne 3 for PC features a wide range of advanced graphics options, including scalable high-resolution textures and character models, as seen in this new batch of screens, each of which can be viewed in full 2560x1578 high-definition glory on-click or over at the official Max Payne 3 site.
 
Also check out today's brand new interview with PC World, where we discuss many fine points of Max Payne 3 for PC, including the excerpt below:
 

What are you doing to take advantage of the powerful hardware available in a PC?

As you can see from the specs list, we’ve worked hard to make sure the game will run smoothly on a wide range of PC builds. But it’s when you get towards the top end of that range that you can really push a game to its limits, and the game will look and run incredibly on the most advanced current machines around at the moment and well into the near future.

You’ll find that screen resolution is scalable, there’s triple and even sextuple monitor support which helps to run higher screen resolutions, there’s various anti-aliasing options, scalable water quality, scalable shadow quality, increased detail for characters and vehicles and a scalable texture filter that further increases visual quality. We’re also supporting DX11 with Max Payne 3, with features including Hull/Tessellation/Domain Shaders (which adds curvature to the character/vehicle models), Gather4 (for optimized shadow sampling / FXAA), Geometry shader / Stream Output and DX11 texture samplers to name a few.
 
As you can tell, there’s a lot for PC fans with higher-spec hardware to sink their teeth in to.


Check out our updated range of minimum to maximum tested system specs here and at www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne3/pc:

LOWEST TESTED SPECS
Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
Intel Dual Core 2.4 GHZ or AMD Dual Core 2.6 GHZ, or better
2GB System RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce 8600 GT 512MB RAM
or AMD Radeon™ HD 3400 512MB RAM

LOW RECOMMENDED SPECS
Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
Intel Dual Core 3GHz or AMD equivalent
3GB System RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce 450 512MB RAM
or AMD Radeon™ HD 4870 512MB RAM

HIGH RECOMMENDED SPECS
Windows 7/Vista (32 or 64 bit)
Intel i7 Quad Core 2.8Ghz or AMD equivalent
3GB System RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce 480 1GB RAM
or AMD Radeon™ HD 5870 1GB RAM

HIGHEST TESTED SPECS
Windows 7/Vista (64 bit)
Intel i7 3930K 6 Core x 3.06 GHZ
or AMD FX8150 8 Core x 3.6 GHZ
16GB System RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680 2GB RAM
or AMD Radeon™ HD 7970 3GB RAM


Max Payne 3 will be available for PC internationally next week Friday, June 1st - with our first PC Multiplayer Event kicking off the following Sunday the 3rd (and many more all to be announced all summer long).

If you have any specific questions about your gaming rig, please feel free to hit up our Support Team at http://support.rockstargames.com, http://twitter.com/rockstarsupport or via email at SupportTeam@rockstargames.com. If you have any general questions otherwise about PC version features, you can hit us up at mouthoff@rockstargames.com and we'll be happy to have a look.

Also stay tuned for the Official PC Trailer coming soon...
 
 
 

501 Comments

Latest Max Payne 3 Previews: A Multiplayer Bullet Time Primer, “After the Fall” Comic Book Interviews & More

Posted: May 07, 2012 4:43PM | Author: R* Q

As we get ready to countdown through this last week towards Max Payne 3's launch on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in North America, check out a roundup of some of the latest and greatest previews and interviews about the game and about the original comic book produced by Marvel that debuted last week...

As a supplement to their recent Max Payne 3 Multiplayer hands-on feature, Kotaku has produced a very helpful video to illustrate for fans how Bullet Time® functions in multiplayer. Check it out above and at http://kotaku.com/5907699/how-muliplayer-bullet-time-works-in-max-payne-3 for a nifty walkthrough.

NowGamer also talked with Lead Max Payne 3 Multiplayer Designer Charlie Bewsher about the fine details of the game's unique online modes. Below is a brief snippet...
 
"Getting this much detail into Max Payne multiplayer was vital to Rockstar. It has succeeded... Through GTA4, Red Dead Redemption and now Max Payne 3, Rockstar has fast become a multiplayer force to be reckoned with...

Bewsher explains, 'I think so much of what makes Max Payne 3 feel fresh simply comes from the core game, in that it’s a state-of-the-art shooter, with incredible movement mechanics, Bullet Time and Max’s unique gritty feel.'"
 
 

A sketch-to-ink page layout from "After the Fall" by Fernando Blanco.
 
And finally, with the release of the original comic Max Payne 3 Issue #1: “After the Fall” on Friday, co-writers Dan Houser of Rockstar and Sam Lake of Remedy discussed the genesis of the project, their formative comic reading experiences, Max's tormented past and more in a series of interviews with Kotaku, MTV and Mashable.

Stay tuned for news of Issue #2 in the original comic book series - as well as for more previews over the coming week. Also make sure you're following us on Twitter and Facebook, where we often retweet and share previews as they happen.
 
 
Previously:

138 Comments

Max Payne 3 Special Episode of GTTV Now Online

Posted: May 04, 2012 11:55AM | Author: R* S

For those who weren't able to catch it last night when it initially aired, GameTrailers has posted the entire GTTV Max Payne 3 special online. 
 
Featuring exclusive interviews with members of the Rockstar creative team as well the voice and face of Max Payne, James McCaffrey, this special episode of GTTV includes new story info, more details about Max Payne 3 Multiplayer and new exclusive footage from the Nightclub level.
 

170 Comments

Special Max Payne 3 Episode of GameTrailers TV Coming Next Week

Posted: April 27, 2012 1:00PM | Author: R* Q

Those in the US, mark your calendars to tune in next week Thursday night May 3rd at 12:30AM on Spike TV, when GameTrailers TV will devote an entire episode as a special preview of Max Payne 3. Featuring exclusive interviews with Rockstar and James McCaffrey plus never-before-seen footage of the game, Max Payne fans and everyone getting excited for next month's game release won't want to miss it.

For international fans, no worries - the episode will be posted online in full within a few days following the broadcast at www.gametrailers.com/show/gametrailers-tv.

361 Comments

Max Payne 3 Previews: Kotaku Praise Multiplayer as ‘Essential’, Plus Interviews with James McCaffrey and More

Posted: April 23, 2012 1:20PM | Author: R* Q

There's less than a month to go til the release of Max Payne 3, and the world's gaming press are continuing to serve up lots of great features, interviews and preview impressions of their own hands-on experiences with the game's single and multiplayer modes. Here's a look at some choice cuts from an assortment of articles that have hit over the past few days...

Kotaku have just posted an in-depth hands-on impression of Max Payne 3 Multiplayer, calling it "Essential, and Rockstar's Boldest Move in Years". An excerpt:

"The changing objectives in Gang Wars matched well with the nimbleness of Max Payne's multiplayer characters and the deviousness of its many perks. Many of the rounds were based on needing to get somewhere fast and be unhittable, whether to seize territory or move a bag. If the game merely let you run, that'd be nice, but it is letting you shoot-dodge in slow-motion out of the line of fire as you reach a goal or finish grabbing some turf. That makes brief moments of multiplayer mayhem feel like some sort of bullet-filled ballet. It feels grand and crafty, as does using the right burst at the right time."

Read the full piece at http://kotaku.com/5904303/max-payne-3-multiplayer-is-good-essential-and-rockstars-boldest-move-in-year

In the new Hit Points video from GameTrailers (embedded below), GT touch on many of the need-to-know Max facts about Bullet Time®, Multiplayer Bursts, and the game's story - check it out...

And G4TV and Videogamer recently interviewed the inimitable James McCaffrey - the voice of Max Payne; here's a couple of excerpts from each of them...

G4TV: "It will have been nine years since we last heard/saw you as Max Payne when Max Payne 3 arrives next month. How did it feel to be back in Max’s shoes after all those years? Did you find they still fit, or had you/Max grown a bit in that time"?

James McCaffrey: "It was surprisingly comfortable. The guys at Rockstar have done a fantastic job at creating a story that fits perfectly with where Max might wind up in his life after so much time. So Max still fits, probably more so now after having to do much more work for the character this time, in terms of having to do all the motion capture work, which was all brand new to me. Ultimately, that makes the character more believable, but it’s also more of my own performance that winds up as part of the game"

Check out the full transcript on G4TV

Videogamer: Given the change of setting, do you think Max Payne 3 still feels like a neo-noir story? And if so, how much of your performance as an actor do you feel contributes to the feeling of the game?

James McCaffrey: There are definitely still noir elements to the story, and that will come out when people finally get to play the game. In terms of how that feeling comes across, a lot of that comes down to the character, but I'm really just saying the dialogue. So much of the work has been done for me by Rod Edge (production director) and Rob Nelson (art director) and the Rockstar guys, who really help make the Max that you see on the screen.

Read the interview at Videogamer

Also check out more Max Payne 3 impressions including coverage of Multiplayer and more by Digital Trends and Warp Zoned - and stay tuned for lots more coverage in the weeks ahead...

Previously:
Max Payne 3 at PAX East Recap
Max Payne 3 Video Previews and Interviews at IGN, G4, GameTrailers and Destructoid
“Welcome to the Delightfully Chaotic World of Max Payne 3 Multiplayer”: Hands-On Impressions from GameSpot, Vox Games, CVG and More...

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