Tag: GTA4

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!

MGS4 released – World didn’t end

After a huge amount of press and more hype in computer circles than GTA4, Metal Gear Solid 4 has been released almost everywhere. While the world didn’t end and life goes on there are still reviews and news stories to look forward to.
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GTA4 – The essential playlist

Grand Theft Auto has always been the best game series for custom soundtracks and while PC users cannot use their MP3s in the game there is still the option to use another device to play music while playing on your console to add your own soundtrack to the newest game. Be it in GTA4 or in a previous GTA title what do you consider the ultimate tracks for driving around the city murdering and breaking all the laws?

Here are a few of this journalists favorites organised by whats going on in the game at the time:
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What street date was that again?

gtaiv_logo.jpg 

No sooner has the great Grand Theft Auto 4 piracy scandal
past does another big issue come around for Rockstars
big title. UK supermarket retailer Asda has reportedly
broken the release date for the game. This has been
proven via a photograph of a purchase receipt on a
Playstation forum.
Continue reading “What street date was that again?”