GTA4 Recommended System Requirements

Now that console gamers have had their fun with the epic Grand Theft Auto IV, it’s time for us PC gamers to have our turn. Of course, it’s still a ways off, and will be in your DVD drive on November 18.

Microsoft’s Games for Windows site just unveiled the Recommended System Requirements for the game (not the minimum ones, mind you), and they are:

OS:     Windows XP SP2
Processor:     Dual core processor (Intel Pentium D or better)
RAM:     2GB
Hard Drive:     18GB free hard disk space
Video Card:     512MB Direct3D 10 compatible video card or Direct3D 9 card compatible with Shader
Drive:     DVD-ROM dual-layer drive

Looks fine and dandy by today’s standards, but what is that I see? 18 gigabytes of free space? Pardon old uncle Zombie, but he’s still stuck in an era where 80 gigabyte drives were plentiful, Pentiums ruled the streets and the Allies fought Nazis.

As you can see, I won’t be trying this game anytime soon, at least until I get a damned new computer. Microsoft does have some info on what you can expect in the PC version:

  • Optimized controls
  • Expanded multiplayer
  • Matchmaking
  • High Resolution
  • Video Recording, Editing and Uploading

Looks like the usual console-to-Windows port features to me.

Should Rockstar Be Prosecuted For Thai Murder?

Cab from GTA4

The murder of a Thai cab driver at the hands of an idiot teenager in Thailand has stirred up a controversy that is to GTA4 what Hot Coffee was to San Andreas. With global response to the incident, Rockstar seems to have riled up a bunch of video game violence critics.

In the latest chapter of this story, we have Somchai Jaroen-amnuaysuk, deputy director of Thailand’s Welfare Promotion, Protection and Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups Office going against poor old Rockstar, developers of GTA4.

He says that when a player “copycats a crime he or she sees in the game”, the makers of the game should be prosecuted. Prosecutions will force the game makers to act more responsibly, the director says. This is a pretty much WTF kind of idea, because till now, I’ve only heard these critics go against publishers, distributors and the like.

The fact that Rockstar is in good ol’ America is consoling, seeing as if it were a Thai company, it would probably have been “prosecuted” already. And speaking of Thailand’s legal system, let me remind you that the 19-year-old kid who killed the cab driver may be sentenced to execution by lethal injection. Not good news for the game makers.

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!