News for October, 2002

In case you're wondering what happend to gta.sky-scraper.net, they've gone over their bandwith limit for the month. Fear not, it will return by the first of the month when their bandwith limit resets, if not before. Let's hope it comes back as soon as possible, because ElBazo' has an exellent site with lots of juicy inside info.

In case you haven't yet noticed, GTAVice.com, the newest addition to our network, has launched.

Go check the opening news post there, and from now on you'll find all your GTA: Vice City news from there!

Gamespot.com has posted yet another mini-interview about Vice City, this time with Rockstar's art director Aaron Garbut. The article goes over some of the hard work involved in designing a game world the size of VC, such as flying off to Miami for research and whatnot. [sarcasm]Kind of makes me glad I'm just an amateur level designer.[/sarcasm]

There are a number of intersting bits in the article about the many new locations in the game. There are mentions of 7-11 type stores, jewelers, and even a single building that's almost as large as Chinatown and the Redlight District from GTA3 combined! Here's a quote from the story which I found quite interesting:

"We drew everything and made it work from every conceivable distance or height, allowed you go on top of buildings, go inside them, and even in some cases blow them up."

There also a couple of new movies, and five new screenshots to take a look at, so head over there now before they get locked away! Oh, and is it just me, or is anybody else extremely curious as to whether or not we'll get to drive that giant crane?

I was planning to hold this off as a 'launch bonus' for GTAVice.com (what am I like, eh?), but instead I'm posting it now. RockStar sent this exclusive screenshot to me, which shows a hooker and two people inside a Virgo in the early evening (or early morning).

Enjoy. Thanks to Richard @ R* for sorting it out.

In the August preview video (high/low) from ViceCity.com, there's something rather special swimming around in the first boat scene. At first I thought it was the outline of the bridge pillars making it look like a shark, but after a closer look it became clear; there was a shark in the water!

It's not as clear in a still screenshot, but if you take a look at the movie, you'll see it moving forward slowly at the pillar of the first boat scene - it almost looks like the sharks dorsal fin is above the water. It's quite challenging with the camera moving from right to left, but now you know it's there it should be easier.

Will these sharks attack? Can we feed them? Will blood fill the water as someone is eaten alive? I wonder...

Thanks to Ryan for his good eye work.

The popular movie web site, IMDB.com (owned by Amazon.com) has information on 5 confirmed voice actors that will be appearing in ViceCity. What's odd is the resemblance to the actors who do their voices.

• Gary Busey (FBI detective from Point Break, and Private investigator from The Firm) is the voice of Phil Cassidy
• Luis Guzman (Short, Stocky, United States FBI agent in the movie Traffic) is the voice of Ricardo Diaz
• Lawrence Taylor (former Linebacker for the NY Giants) is the voice of B.J. Smith
• David Paymer (Funny looking, Jewish, character actor in City Slickers, City Hall, American President, State and Main, and many other films) is the voice of Ken Roseburg
• Danny Trejo (Desperado, Con Air, Heat, The Replacement Killers) is the voice of Umberto Robina

Also Listed at IMDB.com are Toni, Fernando, and Lazlow, 3 of the DJs that were in GTA3 that will also appear in Vice City. Thanks go to Jaker for his finding and the image. Sorry for the lack of news over the past few days - as you can probably agree GTAVice.com is our main priority at the moment.

Over the weekend we were working on GTAVice.com and so this news comes a bit late, but at least I've now been able to get my hands on the article.

The new article from IGN gives us a look at the interiors in the game. Here are the main points from the article, and as I said before, if you're smart you'll find the article yourself!

• A new dimension of the game is opened up to us, with the ability to walk into buildings. (Remember in GTA3 the only indoor areas were Ammu-Nation and the subway)
• You cannot walk into every building, but there is a large variety of indoor areas for you to explore. (A few examples being small stores, airport terminal, hardware stores, laundromats, police stations and bars)
• There will be certain people and objects that you will be able to interact with in these locations.
• There are many different styles of interiors, ranging from shiny marble floors in a hotel to dance clubs with dance lights and a range of different elevations.
• Certain missions will take place inside buildings.
• Safe-houses are more integrated into the game.

Enjoy the screenshots from the article, and the indoor locations look simply amazing. I do have to say that the one with the wine, and three chairs around the table looks like a render. It's hard to believe we are going to be getting something like this in the game.

Also it turns out numerious sites (Gouranga, GTA-VC.tk, GTACenter) were sent an exclusive GTA Vice screenshot. We were not. So that's it from the site that doesn't get supported :(

Is it just me, or do they only update the site in the middle of the night? Anyway, there's a few new screenshots up there, including one of a pizza restaraunt, and a food-court inside a mall. Both of those are (obviously) in the 'food' section of the site. Make sure to check out the reflection mapping used on the floor in that mall pic, as it looks just lovely. There are also a couple of new e-postcards available which show off some of the new peds, another mock site for the 'Degenatron', and the 'timeline' section has been updated as well. Oh, and here's a link just in case you need it.

I imagine this will be one of the last updates of the KentPaul site, since they only seem to work on it the first of each month, and the game comes out in 28 days...