Five new Grand Theft Auto IV screenshots

Rockstar has just sent out five all new Grand Theft Auto IV screenshots, as a special Christmas surprise. While the game is still at least 3 months away, the images are starting to look better and better by the month. No official release date has been confirmed but the game will be in stores before the end of April 2008 on both Xbox 360 and PS3.

[TheExecutive]

Although this game isnt graphically impressive, it can even be called unimpressive or drab, it seems as though it is adding enough new things in it to make it interesting. The gameplay looks fun as he!! It looks like March, April, and, May will be consumed with playing GTA.

[CeruleanSky]

Gimped to run on the 360.

Thanks Microsoft!

This is what happens when you force developers to have 1.5gigs LESS disc space than last gen for their games like Rockstar is facing with the nightmare of supporting the 360.

Last gen the PS2 had 8.5gigs per dual layer DVD.
Last gen the Xbox had 8.5gigs per dual layer DVD.
This gen the 360 has 7gigs per dual layer DVD.
This gen the PS3 has 25gigs single layer or 50 gigs dual layer per BluRay disc.

Just imagine what a real next gen GTA game would look like right now with Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, or Lair scale graphics if the POS 360 didn't exist...

You have to have nothing but pity for the Rockstar engineers who are faced with dealing with the 360 that:

1) Is the first console ever to have LESS disc space than a previous gen

2) No standard harddrive to rely on

3) And is massively weaker than the PS3

It is time Microsoft just put out a new Halo game for Vista every couple of years for all the Xbots to play and leave the console market alone. Gamers are tired of Microsoft gimping next gen games.

[Jinxstar]

While you have a few valid points. If they used all 25-50 gigs imagine how much further off it would be with Delays. Prolly wouldn't even see it til 09... It will be a fun game no matter what dude. No worries.

[DevastationEve]

ps3 does have limits.

if your going to put the blame on anything put it on not having more memory.

[InMyOpinion]

I wish they made it as big as Heavenly Sword. *sigh*

[Close_Second]

Just because the PS3 has vastly more storage space on a single disc does not necessarily mean better graphics. The PS3 still has RAM limitations whhich means only so many polygons and textures can appear in a scene concurrently. Sure, blu-ray provides the ability to stream more textures off the disc without having to change it but how much longer would such a game take to develop???

Every PS3 game I have seen so far features so many repeating textures that it makes you wonder if Blu-ray for gaming is really needed.

Anyway, get off your f**king Sony soapbox and stop looking at it from your point of view all the time. Games take time to develop and developers want to maximise profits. Spending an additional year to further tweak the PS3 version may not equate to twice as many units sold so why bother?

[CeruleanSky]

"The PS3 still has RAM limitations"

Oh god...

[Hydrollex]

Too many jaggies and they look foggy. I'm happy that these screens are on Xbox 360. When you put 20GB in a 9GB that happens

[InMyOpinion]

Yeah, cause we all know what platform that usually gets the worst version of multiplatform games.

[vloeistof]

wow they dont look that hot . wonder why lol

[Jinxstar]

GTA was never about impressive graphics guys... Its about Scale and fun. This game looks to have both.

edit: whoever is disagreeing with me is a moron. Try comparing God of War with GTA. They didn't even have fingers in GTA... Faces were always bland and lifeless. Seriously at least have the balls to rebuttle if your gonna disagree.

[fresco]

stop being so concerned about graphics.. its still a huge leap from the ps2 version.. look you can see his fingernails! lol
i dont think they even had fingers in gta3/vice city

[Fr0ZzZeN]

...

thats just awful. look at the textures on his jacket, it would be acceptable for a random NPC but as the main character? surely they could of put in a little more effort.

[Polluted]

It doesn't look mind blowing, but it's certainly not "last-gen" either. if they're using a lot of processing power to make the city feel more alive at the expense of the graphics, that's okay with me. I can't wait to see what kind of characters we'll be running into in Liberty City this time.

[gamesblow]

I don't blame the xbox 360 for this... It's CPU is still pretty impressive and can pull off some pretty amazing tricks... maybe not "AS" powerful as the ps3's CPU, mind you. No... I blame Rockstar... always have. They're not that talented. They're just the ones who beat most everyone to the punch in this genre and they get all the fame and notoriety for it.

They can do no wrong... So, don't blame the 360's slight lack of CPU power and don't blame ps3's complex nature. Blame the dev's. They're terrible.

[Polluted]

Give these guys some credit. It can't have been easy to get San Andreas or Midnight Club running on a PS2. They're also some of the only devs around who can throw together a story and characters people give a sh!t about.

[InMyOpinion]

Thank you. We have seen amazing games on both the 360 and on the PS3 so pointing out one of the consoles as the reason for this game being insufficient(in ways I cannot see) is ridiculous.

[THE TERMINATOR]

Yeah the graphics do look a bit crap. But M$ got there way and thats all they are bothered about, they dont give a damn about how the game will turn out or there 360 fan base at all. They have really f@cked this game up and should leave the console market alone. Not including next gen dvd media or hard drive as standard proves they are only in it for the money and dont care about innovation. I will never by a Microsoft console.

It is also the fault of Rockstar, they didnt have to make this game multi-platform.

[Hydrollex]

Super Mario on nintendo 64 or something like that sh!t. why you lie to your self ? These graphics are ugly as sh!t PERIOD

[supermandead666]

Agree, GTA series is all about game play and not about graphic, anyone a fan of GTA series would know this.

[InMyOpinion]

Judging it from screenshots is retarded. Wait until you have played the damn game. Look at the history of the franchise. When was the last time you were disappointed by a GTA game?

People don't take the scope of the game in perspective. There will be tons of stuff going on at the same time and guess what? That consumes a lot of memory and processing power. Not like programming a confined, linear fps or a fighting game with only 2 characters on screen at once.

I can't wait for this game, it's the biggest title for me in 2008(though there might be surprises).

[vloeistof]

will just have to see how la n.o.i.r is going to look .

[THX7168]

GTA IV is going to be loads of fun AND the graphics are gorgeous. Probably not the best graphics imaginable but still looks amazing.

[poeo]

graphics are very impressive for sandbox game. anyone who doesn't see that doesn't really understand anything about videogames or programming.

when this game hits, no true gamer will complain about the iffy framerate, or the textures on a jacket, or pop-in, or any of that crap. we're just gonna play it and enjoy every moment of it. but of course you all know that already.

[Tommie]

I will speak to you all in 4 months when everybody has gotten a chance to play this game. Let's see how you all will talk then. GTA IV will be the best game of 2008 PERIOD

[jinn]

not enough to be put on N4G

[GITPWNED]

Looks good to me. And we all know the game is going to look a LOT better once we actually sit down and play the damned thing.

To the braindead droids,

All other 360 games look a heck of a lot better than this, and better than 99% of PS3 games. So how can you claim 360 gimped the PS3 version? Incase you forgot, ram is what counts, not storage space. And we all know PS3 has less available video ram than 360. Why do you think they downscaled the texture resolution on the PS3 version of DMC? Is it because they couldn't fit them on a 50 gig Blew-Ray disc? Nope. It's because PS3 has ram limitations that 360 does not have:

"The higher-rez normal map detail on his red hoodie, not to mention cleaner all around on 360:

--
http://img210.imageshack.us...
--

And the red design on his shoulder and sharper detail all around, not to mention the insane amount of jaggiez on the PS3 gun and blade, nowhere to be found on the smooth 360 version:

--
http://img152.imageshack.us...
--"

Oh, yeah. PS3 is definitely better than 360. Not. Rockstar have already stated that they are having issues with the PS3's lack of available video ram. I guess you droids forgot that part.

[zonetrooper5]

Can't wait for this game, I've still gotta decide whether to get it for my 360 or PS3 tbh. I do love the art style though and the graphics are pretty good for an open sandbox game.

[rushbd]

Let's see what getaway 3 has to offer. I hope they'll improve the gameplay ( A LOT) . I hope they'll match the graphics from the GDC07 demo.

[makingdamage]

I´m a bit sad. I loved the previously gta-games and even bought my ps2 because of gta 3. But I really can´t see this new iteration of gta become that great and I also like other people think it´s the limited storage that´s going to hold back this game from being as great as it could be. Rockstar said that they pushed the dvd-format to the limit when they released san andreas so that must means that this game will become smaller and probably more boring than san andreas.
It feels to me like the great era of gta has reach the end.
I hope I´m wrong but nothing I´ve seen has proven that.

[ChefDejon]

then explain uncharted

[GITPWNED]

Uncharted makes use of Cell to provide higher poly counts for its impressive vistas. We are talking about next-gen pixel shaders. Uncharted is irreverent to this conversation.

[Idmpc]

Let's talk about the 3 trailers they released... It can't be just me that noticed the MASSIVE SLOWDOWN / low framerate on every single trailer they released, was it? if the whole game will be running that bad, I'm not really sure I'll buy it