IGN has gotten their hands on the logo (above) and some screens from the episodic content pack Grand Theft Auto IV: the Lost and Damned.

Source: IGN

Rockstar has officially announced the episodic content pack that was detailed last night by the USA Today. In the press release, it mentions some new content coming with the pack.

Developed by series creator Rockstar North and set in Liberty City, The Lost and Damned features a new main character and plot that intersects with the storyline of Grand Theft Auto IV; new missions that offer an entirely fresh way to explore Liberty City with new multiplayer modes, weapons and vehicles; and a diverse soundtrack with additional music - all with the incredible production values that are the trademarks of Grand Theft Auto.

New multiplayer modes, weapons, vehicles, new music, and a new story? No wonder why Microsoft bought exclusive rights to the pack! The press release also mentions that the pack will be released February 17, 2009.

Source: Take Two Games

The USA Today has some exclusive details on the first episodic content for Grand Theft Auto IV

• The episode will be nammed "The Lost and Damned"
• You will play as Johnny Klebitz, a member of the biker gang The Lost
• Niko will have a small part
• No final price yet

A couple of quotes by Dan Houser

"Johnny is a very different character than Niko, with a very different background," says Dan Houser, vice president of creative development for Rockstar Games. "I can't go into too much detail on the story, because we try not to give away too much plot before the game is released. But I can say that the story will show you a different side of Liberty City."

"The story is not directly impacted by decisions you took in the main game, tons of details and mysteries from the main story get explained, so it will add a lot of color to the main story."

"We feel like we've only scratched the surface in terms of the depth and detail in Liberty City."

Source: USA Today

Rockstar has launched a new feature called Social ClubTV. You may have guess what it does already, it's the part of Social Club that lets you upload videos from the new video editor in Grand Theft Auto IV for PC.

In addition to the Social ClubTV site, Rockstar also launched the PC section of the Grand Theft Auto IV website. The section includes new screens and higher quality versions of older screens.

 Links: Social ClubTV & Grand Theft Auto IV

The same store that had the Midnight Club: Los Angeles back covers early now has the back cover for Grand Theft Auto IV early. Just like the MCLA back covers, this one is small too. We'll keep looking for a bigger version. However, that doesn't stop everyone from reading some information. If you look closely at the back cover, you will see this gem, "-32 person multiplayer with custom match feature for an optimized experience". Yes, that's right folks, multiplayer has been extended from 16 to 32 players!

Source: Wool Worths

Kikizo recently got a chance to sit down and play Grand Theft Auto IV for PC at Rockstar's NYC office. We have summed up the preview below.

• The game is being ported by Rockstar Toronto, developers of the GTA 1: London 1969 expansion pack and The Warriors. They have also ported some of Rockstar's top games such as Oni for the PS2, Max Payne for the PS2, and more recently the Wii versions of Manhunt 2 and Bully.
• Texture quality choices range from high, medium, and low.
•  Other things that can be changed are shadow quality, texture filter quality, reflection resolution, and water quality. They all have 4 different settings low, medium, high, and very high.
• View distance, detail distance, shadow density, light distance, and even  vehicle density (which was only set to 33 in the console versions!) can all be set from 1 all the way to 100.
• Rockstar's was not lying when they said the draw distance was much better than the console versions. The previewer stated that when they were in a helicopter they could see the entire map and even saw individual traffic. No paint filtering effect, no lighting cover up and no wobbling, just pure and sharp scenery.
• The textures have been improved greatly.
• The reviewer loved RAGE so much as he went on to say "It's further evidence that RAGE is one of the best bits of technology in gaming right now."
• Multiplayer now has custom search filtering. For example, you can filter out games that have auto-aim on and vice versa.
• The number of players for online games have been expanded, however, Rockstar didn't provide the new number.
• If you are used to video editors, you are going to love Rockstar's replay editor.
• The game will render out videos in WMV format ranging from 720p to 1080p resolution.
• New artwork at the loading screen

 The PC version comes December, 2 2008. Be sure to reserve your copy!

Source: Kikizo

Sad and good news today coming from Rockstar. It seems Amazon and Gamestop were right. The highly anticipated PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV has been delayed shortly. The new release date is now December 2, 2008. The good news? Rockstar has released the official system requirements for Grand Theft Auto IV.

Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
• Memory: 1.5GB
• 16GB Free Hard Drive Space
• Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended System Requirements

• OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
• Memory: 2 GB (Windows XP) 2.5 GB (Windows Vista)
• 18 GB Free Hard Drive Space
• Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870

It seems the specs that were posted on the Games for Windows website a couple of months ago weren't too far off.

Source: IGN

Rockstar and delays have been an ongoing issue over the past year, each game Rockstar has released and announced over the last year has been delayed by some extent. It seems the PC port of Grand Theft Auto IV may suffer the same fate, JoyStiq has discovered that online stores Amazon and GameStop have changed the release date on the games product page to December 2nd, which is different to the date announced by Rockstar back in August of November 18th.

For those who have put off purchasing the game on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 because they'd rather play it on PC, this no doubt will be disappointing. We are still unsure if this is official or not, but many large gaming websites have posted about this and Rockstar has not yet announced it true or false. We'll keep you posted.

Source: JoyStiq

Rockstar has just sent out a broadcast announcing that the "Infected" section on Rockstar's Social Club has launched. The section features statistics about how far the virus has spread, how many people it's claimed in the last 24 hours, and a break down state-by-sate(US). Also announced via the broadcast, Grand Theft Auto IV on the PlayStation 3 will be getting trophies this Monday (October 27, 2008). There will be a total of 51 trophies. The 360 version only had 50 achievements to we assume that a new trophy has been added. Also coming soon, the winners of the GTAIV Xbox Live weekend and more GTAIV PC news & media.

RockstarBroadcast: October 23, 2008