Spanish Cabbies Want GTA4 Banned Too!

Grand Theft Auto 4

After being banned from Thailand, Rockstar’s infamous Grand Theft Auto 4 may also see a boot from another country: Spain. According to GamePolitics, the Catalan Taxi Federation’s secretary general Josep Maria Goñi has asked the government to ban the game.

Goñi states that the move has been triggered by the Thailand murder case where a loser kid wanted to know “if it’s as easy to hijack a taxi as it is in the game” and did just that. Kid will soon face execution by a lethal injection.

And GTA isn’t the only one on Goñi’s hitlist. He wants a ban on all games with “a high level of violence or which “celebrate” drug trafficking or prostitution”. Well, that isn’t something new, because there must be about a million people or more on this planet who want a ban on those.

Regardless, it should be noted that Goñi didn’t say anything about movies. Apparently, movies with a high level of violence and which celebrate drug trafficking or prostitution must be perfectly fine. But video games? Think of the kids!

While we don’t know how the Spanish Government has responded to this, we’ll just hope that they won’t. There must be more important matters in Spain that banning video games, dammit!

Lars Ulrich tries to be evasive about Guitar Hero: Metallica

Lars Ulrich

Who is he kidding now? If a game called Guitar Hero: Aerosmith could work, what’s going to stop a Guitar Hero game on Metallica: one of the most well-known Thrash Metal bands ever? While we have almost certain confirmation that the game will be happening, Lars Ulrich was still acting a little cagey when asked about the game.

Talking to MTV News, he was caught saying:

“Let’s put it this way, [Our next album] Death Magnetic comes out in September, and the day it comes out, it will be available in the ‘Guitar Hero 3‘ format, which we’re obviously super-psyched about. As I’ve born witness to in my house, its all about the next generation. My kids play ‘Guitar Hero’ every day, and to be able to get the Metallica record the day it comes out, that’s super cool.”

“There’s an Aerosmith game out there that’s super successful, and if somebody’s gonna follow that up…we’re talking, and its exciting, and the people at ‘Guitar Hero’ and Activision are rapidly becoming our best new friends in the world. You can put the rest of it together yourself.”

Here at StuffWeLike, we’re hard at work putting the rest of it together, but our extreme calculations show that the result will be a glamour-filled, guitar-screaming, drum-killing title called Guitar Hero: Metallica! Or perhaps a variant on that name.

GameTap for Sale

Looks like GameTap’s parent company Turner is selling the video game online service. I’ve always liked the GameTap service, but at the same time it has lacked greatly in original and mainstream titles. I reviewed American McGee’s Grimm a couple of days ago, which was a step in the right direction.

Ultimately, GameTap has always appealed on nostalgic gamers. Old games are great for some time, but playing console games on the PC kind of sucks. I need a controller in my hands if I want a nostalgic feel. I do like that I can play tons of retro games, ones that I never bothered renting at the old-school Blockbusters. Oh Blockbuster how I don’t bother going to you anymore. But that’s a different story.

It was also a shame to see GameTap TV axed from its service. Back in the day, I actually used to have GameTap on my computer only for their videos! I didn’t bother playing games on it. Mixing in videos with games is a perfect combo

GameTap should merge with either GameFly, or some film distribution place like NetFlix. Imagine being able to watch movies and play games on your PC with ease.

Hopefully GameTap is able to stand up on its own two feet.

QuakeCon: More on Rage, Rage Extended Trailer, Doom 4

Finally, with QuakeCon going, we can get some more dope on Rage, id’s flagship project for their much-touted id Tech 5 Engine, which appears to have been dubbed the Rage Engine now, albeit unofficially.i

Carmack clears the fact that even though their website claims Rage to be a “vehicle-based” game, the vehicular element is not the focus of the game, and it’s still a very first-person shooter. It won’t be a “mindless” open world game, and all its missions will be pretty story-based. Still, it’ll put quite a bit of focus on the open world aspect, seeing as that’s what id wants to prove with id Tech 5.

The engine which Rage will be showcasing is pretty much near completion, according to Carmack. It’s been in development for some three years, and id still has some polishing to do, such as working on the animation system and some tweaks to the big-time MegaTexture system. But all the biggie stuff is done and the engine is almost ready.

While Rage will showcase all the large world environments in the engine, the real meat should be “the next Doom” game, which is to you and me, Doom 4. According to Carmack, Doom 4 will have 3 times the horsepower of Rage, but will have to run at 30 FPS, which is half of that of Rage.

Doom 4 will also be significantly better on the “creative aspects” and “level design”, which isn’t surprising since Doom 3 blew everyone else out of the water for level design. As for what it will feature, Carmack merely says that we’ll have “guns, blood, demons, and gibs” which is a shocking departure from Doom‘s tradition of magical pixies, fairy dust and ponies.

Still, details on Doom 4 are pretty bleak, so we’ll head back to Rage.

Rage

Rage will be delivered for the Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Mac. On the Xbox 360, however, id seems to be coming across some problems. The game will fit on 3 DVDs for the Xbox 360, which seems to be a limiting factor. Due to royalties, the cost of a third DVD would go into millions. This would mean that id would be forced to compromise on textures and compress them into 2 DVDs. Darn you, Microsoft!

The PS3 goes sailing smooth with the Blu-Ray discs and the game should come on both DVD and Blu-Ray formats for the PC and Mac. As for when it will arrive, ask any id fanboy and you will get the curt reply of “when it’s done.” id isn’t really sure, but denies it would take as long as 2011. I’d place my bet on early 2010 then, with Doom 4 later that year.

And finally, id played an extended trailer at QuakeCon, which the folks at Shackvideo caught. It’s almost the same as the one at E3, but has some extra stuff. Check it out!

QuakeCon: Quake Live, Quake Arena 2 and more

Quake Live

We reported on Quake Live some time ago, but now we have lots more, since QuakeCon is on! For the lazy, Quake Live is a project from id, where they are going to take the classic Quake III: Arena and turn it free, tournament-style and browser-based. Just hit the goddamn link above already.

Quake Live was originally titled Quake Zero at last year’s E3, but its name was changed not long after to Quake Live. Now we know why: shortly after the announcement, a domain squatter registered domains around Quake Zero, demanding good cash for the names. id being the smart asses that they are, decided to change the game name itself, seeing as it wasn’t so deep into development.

Carmack also hinted at the possibility of a Quake Arena 2, or essentially, a full-fledged sequel to Quake III: Arena. But he says that it’s possible only if Quake Live ends up being unsuccessful. Not a bad idea, to be honest, if you ask me. If it ends up being really good, it might even give Epic a run for their money. But Carmack also notes that not many publishers out there are looking for a multiplayer-centric game right now. Hmm.

Meanwhile, it looks like id actually got around to updating their Quake Live website since our last update. Right now it looks like a standard official game info site, but if all goes well, it will be a huge tournament centre with detailed stats, charts and well, you get the idea.

The Beta idea still seems to be on, so drop in your e-mail address and you might be the first in your neighbourhood to be in on this whole thing!

Wallace & Gromit the Episodic Game series!

Wallace & Gromit game

Wallace & Gromit, two of my most favourite animated characters, will be converted into video game form by Telltale Games, the guys behind the great Sam & Max line of episodic adventure games. The series will be titled “Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures” which sounds like a pretty decent, yet generic title.

The game will work along the lines of Sam & Max, but knowing Wallace & Gromit, it should be an easy adaptation. It will also most likely involve a lot of building and zany contraptions. We still have no clear details on this game, but I’d expect it to be an adventure game. I mean seriously, you thought it would be a first person shooter?

Telltale will be really working on this one to give it the clay look. Hell, I didn’t think the screenshot you see above was CG! It’d be really nice to interact with Wallace & Gromit in their native medium! Interestingly, while the claymation in Wallace & Gromit is pretty simple, Telltale is still working hard on it:

“Clay presents a challenge if you really get into the detail of it. For example, adding fingerprints in a medium where there aren’t any is one of the discussions of how far we should go with the game’s detail.”

No idea on the whens and whats of this game, but a good guess would be that the game wouldn’t come around anywhere this year.