Well this was the most successful April Fools I've ever done, In roughly 24 hours, over 30,000 unique visitors saw the site, and over 40000 page views, a lot of them realising it was April, but hilariously, some of them didn't realise. It even managed to prompt some foreign GTA fansites to make a whole new section on their website for it!

So how did people know? Well firstly they will have noticed a somewhat poorly chosen font for the word "Chicago". Secondly you needed to be a little more knowledgeable about domain names - I had set gtachicago.com's nameservers to APRIL.GTACHICAGO.COM and FOOLS.GTACHICAGO.COM...

One site claimed they contacted Rockstar to confirm it was a hoax (this was at 2am on a Saturday...I smell a cover-up for embarrassment)...and it was amazing to see how one site analysed every little detail to prove it was false, some people obviously lose their sense of humour at this time of year...

Another thing we found particularly amusing were people commenting on the 'amateur source code' - it was copied and pasted from the Official San Andreas website when it first launched to make it look more authentic... Yeah it is bad but what the hell, it's not me your insulting, it's Rockstar!

Anyway I hope you all enjoyed it, and I know this is all over the internet now and is being linked on hundreds of websites and has been posted on virtually every gaming forum in the world, so no doubt you must have seen it somewhere. Below is the full April Fools joke as I wrote it...

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Amazing news! A few weeks ago I found the domains www.gtachicago.com and www.grandtheftautochicago.com had been registered and were parked at Register.com (see screenshot) which as you know is where Rockstar have also parked gta4.com. After contacting Rockstar they told me to keep quiet so I reluctantly did...

But now today, Rockstar Games have announced just one of the cities for the next instalment of the series, GTA4. Chicago, the windy city. Unlike previous GTA games where cities have been based upon real life one, GTA4 will take place in real life cities. The storyline from Rockstar sounds intriguing, the game will apparently span across three different eras.

Chicago, 1933. Since January 16, 1920, alcohol has been illegal to consume, gangs rule the streets, and homicide rates are soaring. Johnny Roselli has just escaped a lifetime prison sentence after being falsely accused of murdering his own family. He's now returned to lead his Mafia gang back with a vengance to bring an end to the prohibition, and by any means necessary, even if it means wiping out rival gangs.

The next two eras have been kept kind of secret by Rockstar, although we hear they are 1970 and 2010 from other sources, also, Rockstar have currently left the titles of these cities un-announced, probably to let all this hype circulate. We'll be bringing you more news on these exciting revelations as soon as we have it though, so stay tuned!

As you see by visiting the official website, it's almost the same as what the official San Andreas site looked like back when it launched. No flash intro yet, took a month for them to do one for SA so perhaps by the end of the month we'll have one for Chicago? The font they've used for the logo looks like a typical 1930's typeface, seems they're adamant on getting the atmosphere authentic.

Anyway enough of my excited babble! Get discussing this in our forums and let us know your wishes for the game!

Some suprising news is flying round the interweb today.

On March 21st Take-Two filed a paper with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the trademark "Vice City Stories".

The interesting thing is the 3 things they have trademarked. It includes:

1. Vice City Stories: Computer game programs, computer game software, computer game cartridges and instruction manuals included therewith.
   
2. Vice City Stories: Clothing, namely, shirts, t-shirts, sweatshirts, casual and leisure jackets; headgear, namely hats and caps; footwear.
   
3. Vice City Stories: Entertainment services in the nature of the production and distribution of motion picture films; production of prerecorded video cassettes, video discs and laser discs; entertainment services in the nature of a live-action and/or animated television program series and production of live-action, and/or animated motion picture films for television; entertainment services in the nature of computer games provided and played through a global computer network.
   

The first being the game itself, secondly the clothing, but thirdly, a TV series?

To see the trademarks for yourself, head over to the USPTO.gov website and search for Vice City Stories, you'll see three links there.

We'll have to see what comes of this. This could be a double bluff by Rockstar. They do own numerous other trademarks which have remained unused for years. This could be just an attempt to safeguard themselves. But you never know. We'll just have to wait.

Remember that Rockstar have said the next game will be "all-new". There's nothing new about VCS. It's just building off Liberty City Stories, and using the same name? I personally do not believe this will be the title of the game. Also it's worth pointing out that Take-Two didn't bother trademarking Liberty City Stories, so I must state this is not a solid fact that this is what the next GTA will be called.

We'd like to know if you'd buy Vice City Stories if it did indeed be released for the PSP later this year, a new poll is now available to vote in, so please vote in that honestly.

Thanks to Adriaan for the heads up though.

SA-MP today released several new screenshots of the upcoming multiplayer mod for GTA: San Andreas. They've also released a brand new video that shows off some of the new features. What I like about this mod is that during some infiltration type missions other players can't see you on the radar, and of course the other way round. This allows you to sneak up to someone and kill him "silently" with your knife and other enemies won't be able to hear you. By the looks of it, they've also created several of their own multiplayer missions.

The new screenshots and video shows that we'll be able to go gambling and enter all sorts of interiors that you could only have entered during certain missions in the single player mode. Head on over to the SA-MP site to view the new screenshots and download the latest video.

SA-MP Media Gallery: Click Here

Rockstar sent out their latest broadcast via email earlier this morning, those of you who actually scroll to the bottom of emails (thanks for reminding me Adriaan) will know that the LCS competition winners have been announced.

Quoted from the email:

Big, big shout out to all the winners of our latest sweepstakes, the Liberty City Stories Fully Equipped Giveaway. Especially, grand prize winner, Catherine Bourne of The Woodlands, TX who won a Liberty City Stories outfitted PSP™ complete with skins, hardshell case, and lanyard carry tag - plus a limited-run Liberty City Stories t-shirt.

Ten runners-up got all the said trimmings, just without the hardware.

By popular demand, the top selling PSP title, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, is also coming to PlayStation 2 this year. So all those that insist on resisting the handheld movement can nevertheless look forward to returning to the unwelcoming streets of the good old LC. Stay tuned for release date announcement and first media.

Rockstar telling us to "stay tuned" for the release date announcement and first media... So I guess that means sometime this month they will release all the information. I'm pretty sure there will be some sort of big announcement very soon anyway, so definitely stay tuned for the latest GTA news right here.

The MTASA team will soon be releasing version 1.1 of their acclaimed multiplayer mod for San Andreas. Race 1.1 will feature many improvements and bug fixes and should be available within the next few days.

If you're a server admin then you can download MTASA R1.1 and get it set up on your server ready for when the client is released for the public to play.

Details from the MTA Blog:

Here is a list of changes in Race 1.1, we've also fixed some crashes and minor bugs:

- Added: Automatic server browser refresh on open

- Added: New map nomination voting system

- Added: Respawning during map

- Added: GTA 1.0 EU/US version check

- Added: Vehicle special-state sync

- Added: Map timelimit added in map files and server config

- Added: Player animation sync

- Added: Admins can PM players from remote admin

- Added: Pings in the admin client

- Fixed: Vehiclecolors.conf file not properly formatted

- Fixed: Hydra fire rate increased back to default

- Fixed: Invalid rotation error in some maps made by the map editor

- Fixed: RCON say does not work if admin server is disabled

- Fixed: Client says you've timed out if you connect to a server that already has a player with your nick

- Fixed: Server 255 maps limit

- Fixed: Admin client stability fixes

You can download the server from http://light.mtavc.com

Here's an update on the two big multiplayer mods for San Andreas, seeing as there's nothing else interesting to post about, yet.

First of all MTA. They've been working on hard on Race 1.1, and also the long awaited DeathMatch, and while the latter is still being worked on, Race 1.1 is apparently nearly ready for release, the QA team are ironing out the remaning bugs. New features include respawning, improved anti-cheat, and replay last map, amongst other enhancements

Meanwhile over at the SA-MP camp, they're working on porting as many single player features as they can to multiplayer.

They include Pay 'n Sprays, Ammunations, gambling, vending machines, buying food, and car mod shops (Car mod shops will probably make it into the final cake). Some of the aspects are not fully synced, such as the animation of the clerks handing you food, but that's going to be worked on.

You can read the latest news on these on the MTA Blog and SA-MP Blog.

Earlier today Take2Games published their latest press release, and the conference call has just finished.

In the press release, we can confirm Liberty City Stories has an almost certain release date of 28th April, an exact date wasn't given but...

...and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for PlayStation 2, planned for release in late April...

Take2 also re-confirmed that a new GTA PSP title is due out this year, presumably in October, it still remains titleless.

And in 2007, sequels have been confirmed for "several of Rockstar's most successful franchises". We can presume one of these would be another Grand Theft Auto title, at least that's what we're all hoping for.

We'll keep you posted on any further announcements on a next gen GTA game.

In the past week, various retailers posted release dates of Liberty City Stories for the PS2. It's a well known fact that many retailers make up release dates in order to encourage people to preorder the game. However, PSXtreme claims that retailers received an e-mail from the publisher, Take-Two Interactive, revealing a release date of April 17 and a price tag of .99.

Seeing as it's Take-Two's First Quarter results of 2006 tommorow, it is highly likely that Take-Two did infact send out the information to retailers first of all, to put up before they make the official announcement tommorow. During these results Take-Two also like to reveal information about their upcoming games and make announcements pertaining to release dates. Earlier today the company announced two new titles, a Table Tennis game for the Xbox 360 and a game based on the popular TV-series: Family Guy.

We'll be listening (and I know most of you also) to the conference call tommorow and waiting for the press release. EGM said last month that they'll be posting an exclusive preview about the game that'll include information and screenshots of the PS2 version of Liberty City Stories. The magazine is said to be out before the end of this week!

We'll keep you posted.

Source: PSXtreme

Take-Two 1st Quarter Results: Click here