Men Free Blog

Rolling around jacking up innocents and tossing Molotov cocktails is pretty enthralling on your vanilla 46-inch HDTV, but can you even imagine the rush of swiping a hot dog, burning out in someone else’s whip and then snagging a new pair of kicks on this? Researchers (and gamers, obviously) down at UC San Diego have re-engineered their middleware to enable such masterpieces as this to be played on the big monolithic HIPerSpace screen, and needless to say, we can’t imagine much real work getting done with this new functionality coming to light. Head on down to the gallery to see what you’re missing — science, research and 4.0 GPAs are such beautiful things.

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Each week, X3F tips gamers to the tricks of the trade of Achievement hording in Points>Life. Every week a new achievement is unlocked to help you continue your unhealthy obsession with the Xbox 360 meta-game.

This week Points>Life has been carjacked by Grand Theft Auto IV and we bring you a tip that is both hilarious and informative. Utilizing the easter egg found at the heart of the city, we show you how to nab the achievement for a surviving a 6-Star Wanted level for 5 minutes. Check this one out!

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Hey, remember those ridiculously high Grand Theft Auto IV sales estimates Chart-Track provided for the UK? It looks like they weren’t ridiculously high enough, as the final numbers have now been released. Sales for the first week of GTAIV availability in the UK reached a whopping 926,000 copies (approximately) with 631,000 being sold on the first day, handily topping the original day one estimate of 609,000. Of the 926,000 copies sold during the first week, 514,000 were for Xbox 360 with the remaining 413,000 going to the Playstation 3.

The game also managed to drive console sales, raising Xbox 360 sales by 125 percent and PS3 sales by 127 percent from the previous week. Perhaps most impressive of all, in its first week of sales GTAIV has already surpassed all but the top three UK titles of 2007 (FIFA 08, Brain Training, and Call of Duty 4). Just to clarify, that’s one week sales versus total sales for 2007. One last statistic: GTAIV is now the record holder for one week sales for a multiplatform game in the UK.

[Via Joystiq]

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New Zealand’s Office of Film and Literature had to reiterate this week that store clerks can’t sell Grand Theft Auto IV to parents purchasing it for their children. The New Zealand Herald reports the office had to repeat itself after receiving calls from clerks who didn’t know what to do when a parent “demanded” to buy GTA IV with their 14-year-old in tow.

GTA IV is rated R18 by the New Zealand government and it’s illegal to make it available to anyone under that age. In New Zealand, even if it’s their own kid, the adult could be jailed for 90 days or pay $10,000 fine; however, the law has never been enforced.

[Via GamePolitics]

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Talk of Grand Theft Auto IV possibly hurting Iron Man’s opening was clearly wrong. According to Variety, the movie made $104.2 million during its opening weekend, proving Paramount’s Rob Moore right when he said that young males can carve out two hours to see Iron Man.

Variety did explore GTA IV’s impact on the home video market recently, which showed no major releases targeted at the young male demo for the week. Probably the best comparison would be to see how the Iron Man video game did in sales when NPD comes out next month, and we know we’re going out on a limb on this one, but we’re pretty sure GTA IV won that battle.

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We realize that many, many Grand Theft Auto fans have already perused the contents of their shiny, new Special Editions of Grand Theft Auto IV — which includes an actual safety deposit box, among other things — but there are also plenty of gamers out there who opted to grab the vanilla edition instead. It is with this in mind that we point you to 360Sync’s unboxing of the Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition (it’s the Canadian version — note the “Édition spéciale”). Grab your smoking jacket, pour the Courvoisier, and savor the images.

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Is it all that surprising? Xbox 360 director of product management (and all around snappy dresser) Aaron Greenberg told Reuters that it wouldn’t be surprising to see Grand Theft Auto IV snag the top position on Xbox Live. While most Xbox Live gamers know that shooters like Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 are generally the major competitors for the number one slot on Xbox Live, Greenberg said of GTAIV, “The multiplayer in this game is so well implemented that I can’t imagine anyone owning a copy without trying to play it on Xbox Live.” Greenberg is probably right about that. After all, he forecasts (correctly, we’d guess) that GTAIV will be the highest selling game of 2008, so there will certainly be plenty of players ready to go online. The question is whether or not players will continue to play once they’ve given multiplayer a try.

Will GTAIV take the top spot? We’re going to go out on a limb and say yes. Will it stay? We’ll have to wait and see.

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Between the comprehensive in-game map, the GPS-imbued minimap, and the TomTom-esque functionality of certain vehicles, we’ve yet to misplace ourselves within Liberty City’s digital boroughs. Still, if you find yourself lost whilst playing Grand Theft Auto IV, we guess this Liberty City map application (mapplication?) using the Google Maps interface would come in handy.

A number of user contributions have already been made to the map, showing the location of hidden items, easter eggs, pigeon locations, stunt jumps, and yes, even hookers, whom we assume were fitted with GPS locaters by trained prostitute handlers before being released back into the wild. It makes for a useful cartographical companion for those with a laptop near their console of choice — if you don’t mind ruining the fun of exploring the nooks and crannies of Rockstar’s intricately crafted metropolis for yourself, that is.

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This probably best sums up our weekend plans. Here’s hoping the Xbox 360 above doesn’t suffer from any technical issues. (Via Flickr) Check out the highlights for today:

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A forum poster at GTAForums that goes by the name oPg^ has uploaded a seven pictures of what looks like the Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition box, opened to reveal the metal tin and subsequently the game itself (it’s the PS3 version). The setting is a nondescript factory or retail backroom, where you can also see shots of Mario Kart Wii being poised for Sunday’s release.

We hope their hands aren’t easily identifiable, as Rockstar will probably want to crack some skulls with a baseball bat in a faux-urban environment after partaking in a health-boosting car ride with a prostitute over all this.

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