Grand Theft Auto

When it comes to having an inventory of officially licensed cars, Grand Theft Auto will never be confused for Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport. Whereas the latter two take great lengths to license every car in the history of the world, GTA doesn’t do that sort of thing. Instead, it relies on its imagination and a few made-up names to bring some of the world’s most iconic cars to life. Take the DeLorean, for example. Grand Theft Auto Online’s latest update is called “the Doomsday Heist,” and it includes a flying car called the Imponte Deluxo that looks a hell of a lot like the Dr. Emmett Brown’s DeLorean.

I know what you’re all thinking. “There’s a Grand Theft Auto movie?” Well, yes and no. There is a Grand Theft Auto movie that’s based on the phenomenally popular video game franchise; it’s just not from any of Hollywood’s big time studios. It’s actually not even from any Hollywood studio, but rather from YouTube page Corridor, which is known for producing entertaining video game live-action shorts like the one you’re about to see.

This short film is, in a nutshell, a live-action film based on Grand Theft Auto V and it stars none other than Steven Ogg himself, the same actor who portrayed Trevor Philips, one of the three main protagonists of GTA V. Jarring as it is to see Ogg bring Trevor Philips to life, it’s nothing compared to watching him hurl out one curse word after another as if his ability to breathe is tied into the amount of curses he can spew in rapid succession. (Yep, this film is definitely NSFW.)

The film itself isn’t all about GTA V; it’s also about the potential of what virtual reality can do to our video game experiences in the future. I don’t know if it’s ever going to come to a point where we can literally act out video games with our lives, but this film does a nice job in showcasing the possibilities, one dead body at a time.

The whole thing lasts a little over seven minutes and if you’re a fan of Grand Theft Auto V, it counts for must-see viewing. Just make sure that you have your headphones on, otherwise, things might get uncomfortable.

And oh, by the way, Iron Man makes an appearance. Yep. Virtual reality, ladies and gentlemen!

If you thought that the sole purpose of Grand Theft Auto is to satisfy your carnal urges of running people over, prepare yourselves to be blown away by what a group of scientists from Darmstadt University in Germany and Intel Labs were able to do using the popular video game franchise. According to a video released by YouTube page Visual Inference, these researchers have been using the actual GTA game to import thousands of images and data from the game into computers with the objective of improving the way autonomous driving vehicles work on the road.

Yes, the words “Grand Theft Auto” and “autonomous driving vehicles” were just used in the same paragraph in a manner that could reinvent the way research is done in the development of the technology. According to the research, the scientists were able to gather visual data from Grand Theft Auto using a special software that’s capable of classifying different objects on the roads within the actual game. These data can then be used on actual roads and that the gathering of all the data using GTA is much faster than doing it in the real world.

For a little bit of context, gathering real world data and annotating all of the objects in a particular image could take anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes per image depending on how complex a specific image is. By comparison, using a road image from Grand Theft Auto takes no more than seven seconds on average. That has helped researchers extract over 25,000 images from the game with different weather conditions thrown in and at different times of a specific day. In total, annotation of all these images took 49 hours, or just a speck over two days.

The really interesting and potentially useful part about this exercise is that the annotated data generated from all the images from GTA can be used to help autonomous driving vehicles tell the difference between objects when they’re driving around in the real world.

The discovery isn’t going to help develop autonomous driving technology overnight, but it does point to the possibility of expediting the data-gathering aspect of the development. Of all things, who knew that something like Grand Theft Auto would actually have a role to play in the race to get self-driving cars on the road.

Continue after the jump to read the full story.

In a development that will come as a shock to exactly no one, Lindsay Lohan’s lawsuit against Grand Theft Auto V developer Rockstar Games has been thrown out by a five-judge panel in the Manhattan Appellate Division on the grounds that it lacked merit. In addition to Lohan, Karen Gravano’s similar lawsuit against the game developer was also thrown out for the same reason.

Both Lohan and Gravano, the daughter of mafia informant Sonny Gravano, accused Rockstar of using their likeness, persona, and image for certain characters in GTA V. In Lohan’s case, her lawyers identified a character named Lacey Jonas as having too many similarities with the actress. On top of that, Lohan also accused Rockstar of using her image in the game’s promotional material, specifically the bikini-clad blonde that has since earned the nickname “Red Bikini Girl” within Grand Theft Auto circles.

Unfortunately for Lohan and Gravano, their lawsuits didn’t amount to much as the court deemed Grand Theft Auto V “a work of fiction and satire.” It has also been revealed that the model Rockstar hired to be GTA V’s bikini-wearing muse was Shelby Wilander, who provided Nowgamer of the invoice she received from Rockstar for her work with the developer, further adding yet another layer of proof that clearly debunks the lawsuits filed by Lohan and Gravano.

And yet, according to Forbes, Lohan’s lawyers are planning to appeal the court’s decision while Gravano’s own legal team is said to “exploring other options.” It’s unclear how this will all play out when the appeals are filed, but rest assured, this issue is far from settled.

Continue after the jump to read the full story.

Grand Theft Auto V is a great game. In fact, some of my favorite past times involve playing this game. You know, things like pissing off the cops and seeing how long I can survive, beating little old ladies, running people over – the usual. In the past, people have shunned the game claiming that it provokes violence in young people and all that, but obviously it didn’t phase Rockstar games or the franchise in any way. Now, however, it isn’t all about fun and games or completing insane missions. A program known as Deep Drive is said to be using the game to develop source code for autonomous driving technology.

The program itself has brought together tech giants like Google with manufacturers like Ford and Toyota. According to CarBuzz and a video you’ll see later in this article, the program is using GTA as an actual test bed and has already developed a self-driving car that operates within the confines of the digital but wildly open world of GTA. For the record, that car is a knock off Audi and in the video, it appears to be driving quite well on its own.

For now, it’s hard to say what will come from this, but it makes perfect sense to use the game as a simulator for autonomous test code. Plus, I’m sure it was probably a pretty easy thing to integrate since the game already has a similar type of coding for the random drivers in the games and, more obviously, the taxi cabs players can ride in instead of driving.

Keep reading for the rest of the story

The “Director Mode” available on PC versions of Grand Theft Auto V was undoubtedly designed to increase the game’s creative appeal beyond finding new and more exciting ways to cause virtual urban mayhem. The fruits of this new feature, part of the built-in Rockstar Editor, are beginning to hit the web, including this carefully crafted “Furious 7” remake.

Put together by a fan going by the name of GTA Wise Guy, the video uses Grand Theft Auto V characters and cars to recreate the final scene of Furious 7, which was filmed after the death of Paul Walker as a tribute to the late star. Since you’re reading TopSpeed.com, chances are good that you already know Walker’s character Brian O’Connor was one of the central characters of the hit The Fast and The Furious franchise. The versatility of Grand Theft Auto V’s Director Mode is evident in GTA Wise Guy’s ability to remake the scene virtually shot-for-shot, even matching the camera angles used in the movie as closely as Grand Theft Auto V will allow. The music used is Wiz Khalifa’s musical tribute to Paul Walker, as well. It’s a sincere and fitting tribute to a fallen car guy.

The UK is currently revamping its national curriculum by introducing coding to children as young as five. In support of this new movement towards the computer sciences, the BBC has been busy stoking the interest of British youngsters through various campaigns, including the distribution of one million “micro bit” computers as a hardware supplement to students’ studies in software. 

But let’s be honest: kids aren’t really concerned with data collection and systems management, right? Start talking about coding to anyone under 20, and there’s usually only one direction you can go: video games.

With that in mind, the BBC is planning a TV drama based on the making of one of the least kid-friendly games of all time, Grand Theft Auto. Engadget is reporting the show will be a single, 90-minute episode to be aired on BBC 2, probably scheduled to run some time this fall. It will focus primarily on the personalities behind the game’s genesis, possibly similar to something like David Fincher’s The Social Network.

Rockstar North, which is based in Scotland, is responsible for the development of the GTA series, while three other Rockstar studios are spread across the island nation. 

Continue reading to learn more BBC’s future TV drama.

There’s not a lot about Christmas that people can complain about. Maybe the time spent buying gifts is a little bit of a headache for some, but sometimes buying gifts is fun, especially if you know exactly what you want to get for a specific person.

This space is dedicated to people who love their video games, specifically those of the automotive persuasion. A lot of us know at least one person who is into video games, so finding somebody to appreciate a new game isn’t difficult. What’s a little tough is narrowing down the title of the game you’re going to buy. Each one has its own unique features so it’s important to understand what the recipient of the gift wants in a car game.

Is he into a mission-filled game with plenty of story lines? Is he into a game involving plumbers and princesses racing underwater or racing on an anti-gravity track? These questions need to be asked.

Fortunately, we’re here to give an insight on some of the best car video game available this holiday season. Hopefully, you get the picture on what each game has to offer, giving you slightly more understanding on what game to buy for your loved ones.

Click past the jump to read more about our car racing video game suggestions for the holidays.

Relying on a video game AI to play some critical role in any sort of coordinated plan can be a real downer. What usually results is utter failure- the car is crashed, the shot is missed, the timer runs out, and all the while your robot colleague walks into a wall repeating the same useless dialogue you heard an hour ago.

Well, for GTA Online fans, there should be none of that in the upcoming Heists update. After a very long delay, it looks like the much-anticipated content patch to Grand Theft Auto V will finally make it to consoles and PCs early in 2015 (an exact date has yet to be announced). As a free download, Heists should breathe new life into the game, with four-player co-op missions that have virtual criminals “plan, prepare and execute multi-tiered Heists across Los Santos and Blaine County,” according to Rockstar. This means robbing banks, hijacking planes, freeing inmates, and generally causing wreck and ruin across the pixelated landscape for profit.

In an interview with IGN, GTA Online producer and lead mission designer Imran Sarwar detailed the workings of the new gameplay. According to Sarwar, each heist requires four players of rank 12 and above, with one player taking on the role of “heist leader”. This leadership position comes with both pros and cons (hah): “On the upside, Lester contacts the leader directly when there’s news of a job and it’s up to the leader to invite players into the crew, assign positions, pick outfits and allocate each player’s cut. On the other hand, the heist leader will need to personally front the set-up costs in order to successfully pull off the heist.”

Rockstar wants to encourage players to try out the variety of roles available for play, with each offering a unique experience of the mission: “For example, one team may be stealing a getaway car from some gangsters while another team is attempting to sneak into a police station, all within the same prep mission,” Sarwar said in the interview.

The new content will entail 20 missions within five unique strands, which represent roughly 20 hours of gameplay. Expect new vehicles, new weapons, new clothing, and several disgruntled parent’s associations.

Grand Theft Auto V is one of the hottest games of the year, just like pretty much every other iteration of GTA since it debuted on PS One all those years ago. The game takes place in a fictitious city and follows the lives of three fictitious criminals as the go and raise all sorts of fictitious hell. Do you catch a common theme in that last sentence? If you did, then congratulations, the rational side of your brain is functional. If not, well, then you must be one of the 40,000 people who signed the petition to have GTA V pulled from Kmart and Target Shelves in Australia because of the violence it contains.

Specifically, the violence in question is on the women of the game — you know, violence on men is perfectly fine — and how it portrays women as prostitutes and strippers. I have never played GTA V — I am a responsible parent, so I can’t play it at home — so I cannot comment on what these folks are claiming, but as I recall, you can kick the ass of whoever you like, man or woman, in GTA. Additionally, not every woman in any GTA game is depicted as a stripper or prostitute. Some of them are, but most of them are simply random women roaming the streets.

In response to this violence and overall bad impression of women in the game three women who were subjected to violence in their lives decided to start the petition to have the game pulled from the stores on Change.org. The petition managed to gain 40,000 signatures, so Target and Kmart took action by removing the game.The petition states "It’s a game that encourages players to murder women for entertainment. The incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get ’health’ points," but what it fails to mention is that the game is rated R18+ in Australia (the same as the ESRB’s M rating in the U.S.) and is intended for adults, not children.

The women then went on to say "To see this violence that we lived through turned into a form of entertainment is sickening and causes us great pain and harm." That statement irks me greatly, as I want to simply say "then don’t watch it..."

A counter petition was launched to keep the game on shelves, but Target and Kmart chose to ignore that one. So to our poor Aussie fans of GTA V, you won’t be able to buy you GTA V and Underoos at the same place any longer.

Click past the jump to read more about this topic.

Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V was one of the best-selling games of all time when it hit the market last year. Now the company is prepared to re-launch the game on the new-generation consoles and PC, but it is bringing more than fancy graphics to the table.

Rockstar has added an entirely new way to play the game with a first-person-view mode. Before you ask, yes it works in cars as well. So now instead of a high camera, third-person view, you can be immersed in all the mayhem, fun and speed that comes with playing in the Grand Theft Auto universe.

The first person mode will also work in multiplayer, which now supports up to 30 people, so you can race your friends around the city of Los Santos from the cockpit of your favorite car. Not only does this new view make the game more immersive, but it should dramatically increase the fun and excitement of driving around the city. The in-car view should give you a better forward view and sharper control of your movement.

If you already bought the game last year on your Playstation 3 or Xbox 360, Rockstar has implemented a system that will let you move your GTA Online character to the new consoles.

If you didn’t experience the game last year, Rockstar has given you plenty of reasons to make the jump this time. The new game comes out next week on the Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC.

If you didn’t pick up the latest and greatest Grand Theft Auto game when it arrived late last year it seems that your patience is finally paying off. Rockstar has announced that the open-world, car-filled game will make its way to the Xbox One, PS4, and PC on November 18, 2014.

Best yet, this isn’t just some direct port over. Rockstar has been working hard over this last year to make GTA V look better than ever on the new-generation systems. Included in the upgrade is higher resolution, new weapons, cars and missions, more traffic and wildlife wandering around, and a new foliage system for plants. Rockstar even redid the damage and weather systems for more realism, and added 100 songs across the game’s 17 different radio stations.

Experts have heralded GTA V as the best game of the franchise, and now it’s getting better. If you want to run around the world swiping, crashing, racing and driving some of the coolest cars that have ever been a part of a Grand Theft Auto game, you can pick up your new copy just in time for the holidays. If you are feeling generous, I’ll take a PC copy. Just let me know if you need my address.

If you are curious to see how the game looks with its upgrades, we have included a new trailer after the break.

Click past the jump to read more about the Grand Theft Auto V.

If you’ve been a fan of the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise, you might recognize this sports car. Why yes, it’s the Bravado Banshee, the getaway car that made its debut in the opening moments of Grand Theft Auto III. The Banshee was always treated simply as a video game car that ultimately became one of the mainstays of GTA.

All that’s about to change now that a real world version of the Banshee has been built, thanks to Rockstar Games’ collaboration with West Coast Customs. It’s only a one-off machine, yet it makes good use of state-of-the-art fabrication technologies to turn it into a true sports car befitting its stature as a bad-ass in the GTA franchise.

One look at the Banshee and you can surmise that it was based on a past version of the Dodge Viper — a 2006 model, to be precise. WCC used molds for the exterior, and cut and machined piece-by-piece to recreate the high-performance look of the video game sports car. And as an added treat, the Banshee’s iconic metallic-blue exterior complete with ice white racing stripe, ensuring that the sports car’s video game looks translated perfectly into the real-world car.

Additionally, the interior is also a sight to behold with the seats upholstered and embroidered with the "Banshee" name and insignia. Likewise, carbon inlays were used on the dashboard, door panels and center console while a multi-speaker premium sound system was installed.

But the best part about this Banshee isn’t so much it’s appeal; it’s the fact that GameStop raffled it off as part of its Epic Rewards Giveaway back in 2013.

Updated 06/02/2014: If you want to drive the Bravado Banshee for real, you will be happy to know that one unit is currently on sale on eBay. The only problem is that it is listed at $170,000

Click past the jump to read more about the 2006 Banshee.