Yesterday marked the release of one of the most anticipated games in recent memory, the eagerly awaited most recent entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto 5. Even though it’s quite early, initial signs on aggregate rating website, Metacritic, are that Grand Theft Auto V is on track to be the highest rated game of all time, right now second only to its predecessor Grand Theft Auto IV.

As things stand currently, Grand Theft Auto V has a Metacritic rating of 98 for its Xbox 360 version, and a 97 for its PlayStation 3 version.

Grand Theft Auto 4 currently hold ratings of 98 across both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Grand Theft Auto’s rating, however, is spread out over many more reviews than that of Grand Theft Auto V. Only time will tell who the truly higher rated game is.

Which do you think will assume the throne of best game of all time?

Suorce: Metacritic

At their presentation at the ThinkEquity annual Growth conference, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick revealed that the 2008 title, Grand Theft Auto IV, has shipped over 22 million units worldwide now, taking the franchise’s shipment numbers to 114 million units since its introduction in 1997, now even higher in the highest selling franchises list.

This is after it was reported in March that the game has shipped 20 million. This puts GTA IV’s sales on par with those of the amazing GTA: San Andreas.

Lifetime shipment numbers for other titles and franchises were also revealed:

* Midnight Club franchise: 18.5 million
* NBA2K franchise: 17 million
* Red Dead Redemption: 12.5 million
* Civilization franchise: 11 million
* BioShock franchise: 9 million
* Carnival Games franchise: 8 million
* Max Payne franchise: 7.5 million
* Mafia franchise: 5 million
* Borderlands franchise: 4.5 million
* The Darkness: 1 million

“Once we do the core development, which takes a long time and is pretty hard, doing the development related to the DLC in a high-quality way is a lot easier and a lot quicker,” Zelnick commented. “At the time we put out Red Dead Redemption in May, we didn’t even have a fantasy that we’d be putting out a zombie title [the Undead Nightmare DLC] for Halloween. But we [did], as it happens.”

Take Two recently announced a GotY Edition for Red Dead Redemption. Go over the details here.

[Gamasutra]

Janco Partners’ Mike Hickey believes that Take Two will ship the next GTA game in its 2012 financial year, which is April 2012-March 2013.

The title, whatever it’s going to be called should sell around 16 million copies and earn about $750 million, according to him.

The next in the series is rumoured to be taking place in Hollywood.

Hickey also told that Bioshock Infinite should release around the same timeframe which Gamespot seems to have confirmed aswell. The title should sell around 4 million units, he believes.

Hickey also thinks that Take Two’s financial prospects are bright for 2011, with L.A Noire and Max Payne 3 slated for that period. The two games will be accopanied by Duke Nukem: Forever.

GTA IV which released in 2008 has sold 15 million units in its lifetime.

Online retailers Amazon.com have listed Grand Theft Auto IV: The Complete edition, which contain all the games in the GTA IV saga, including GTA IV< Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and the Damned.

Amazon has priced it at $39.99 and have scheduled it for a late October release.

We will keep you posted as more info comes our way

“Take-Two’s share price has taken a battering recently, reflecting investor disappointment that there has been no update on the next Grand Theft Auto, which appears to have potentially slipped to 2012,” he said.

However, Pachter agrees on the speculations on L.A Noire being released in 2011. “Game delays have become the norm at Take-Two and we expect the company to announce a shift in release dates for LA Noire out of 2010 and into 2011.”

Ah, screw it, I’m gonna go play GTA IV and steal some cars.

This prompted me to share my view on recent games I have played and of course my take on MW2. I was never a COD series fan, before I played COD: World at War which had a fairly good length of single player campaign. I then decided to buy COD: Modern Warfare and I played the multiplayer first on XBL and also kept playing the single player campaign in parallel knowing that it was short on length. I played it in bits and parts and one fine weekend I completed the left over game of 2-3 hours in one sitting, however when I compare the multiplayer experience in MW2 to MW1, it is way better and offers more perks and weapon unlocks, okay so on the single player missions for MW2 I am doing the same i did playing MW1, going slow and about the SpecOps I am okay with this mode being included, because if I just want to pin down NPC’s without playing online or Co-op it’s good for me, Co-op is more fun.

Gamers can get irritated with the length of the game script which could sway in both ways either being too short, and it’s actually not having a  long game play length but the overall game play that gets repetitive which makes the gamers feel it’s too long and boring. While playing Wolverine X- Men origins I noticed that even that game could have being much short on game play length if Africa Missions were not filled in to the game script which was similar to movie story. After playing the initial missions in the game as you enjoy ripping apart baddies with your blades, jumping on helicopters, lunging, executing charged blade attacks, you start feeling bored of the same action, the only difference being the wave of NPC enemies keeps increasing just to get you into intense button mashing mode.

I completed Prototype after a long time I purchased this game. I just lost interest in the game during the levels where Alex Mercer keeps coming with new missions to and from from Dana’s safe house. I forcibly completed the game, without playing side-quests which got activated during different levels, while i looked at the achievement guide for this game on the web. It further pissed me off, the count of killing infected population to unlock one achievement was ridiculous, well i don’t have that kind of time ripping apart infected zombies.

I have got GTA IV from last year when it launched. I have still not completed it, just because in spite of this game garnering rave reviews. I got bored riding in cars and bikes, doing tasks for in game characters just to tread along a storyline, meeting up girls may sound exciting and the following invites to their place for a coffee which ends up in a vibrating controller, may make you happy for some time, but while you play the game, you sometimes end up running away from the police, getting involved in wild car or bike chase which becomes tiring after some time, which diverts you from the main gameplay just increases game play time for the sake of it. I found similar problem with Prototype where in spite of using stealth and disguise on some levels you just cannot complete it fast, because you are going to get detected under your disguise and alert the army, and then get into a chase to evade the strike ops team.

Mass Effect and Fallout 3 also fall in this genre of more talking, interacting, shaping the story of the game based on your choices. Well i am not interested doing that, I prefer following a storyline high on action, even if it’s dumb and does not offer any interactivity. I surrendered to the hype of Assassins creed series watching AC2 trailers and got AC1 game, only to realize it was the same stuff of going on pre-assigned missions, hiding, stealth, playing the detective, getting in and out from animus, Ii don’t say it’s a bad game but there’s a lot to do before you actually get into some action.

On the other hand I loved playing both Gears of Wars installments, John Woo’s Stranglehold, Halo 3 (to some extent, I am not a Spartan Cheif Fan), Batman Arkham Asylum, Army of Two, I have got W.E.T game now, which I read has not got so many positive reviews, well it does not matter to me, I love that kind of action, so I prefer it short and sweet with loads of action. So tell me what’s your gamer type?

In Lost and Damned you will play as Johnny Klebitz, from a gang named The Lost. He is not a very loveable guy as he does things not very likeable. Although L&D takes place in the same timeline as Niko’s adventure in GTA IV but both are essentially in different worlds as all the new weapons, cars or other gameplay found in L&D cannot be transferred into GTA IV. It would have been cool if we could do this.

Boom Boom!

Story here is not a strong point. Whether it’s main plot or the subplot, both feel rather under-developed specially when compared to GTA IV. Also there is nothing special about the characters. Other thing bad about L&D is the default grain filter, which makes the whole city look drab. But you can turn-off this grain filter. Turning it off makes the whole experience lot better.

Thankfully other than this everything else in L&D is up to the standard. Various gameplay tweaks make it an overall superior experience. For example all the bikes handle way better than they do in GTA IV plus there is a better variety of bikes on offer here too. And even better it’s almost impossible to be thrown out of your bike unless to hit the walls head-on.

One hell of a ride.

Some awesome new weapons also make their way into L&D. These include assault shotgun, auto-pistol, pipe bombs and grenade launcher among others. These weapons are damn powerful and hell lot more fun. The presentation here is top-notch. Voice-acting and soundtrack is again amazing. There are plenty of side missions on offer too which include bike races, 50 seagulls to kill, theft missions, new mini-games etc.

L&D also offers a superior multiplayer. Various GTA IV modes are included in addition with plenty of new modes like lone wolf biker, chopper v chopper, witness protection etc. All these new multiplayer modes and slight gameplay tweaks make L&D an amazing new experience. Aside from weak story and main character, L&D is an excellent piece of DLC, one GTA fans would love and is easily recommended to everyone even remotely in love with GTA franchise.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

You play as Luis Lopez partner of, you guessed it, Tony Prince a.k.a. Gay Tony and no they aren’t that kind of “partners”. Tony owns the hottest gay and straight clubs in the city, but as he puts it, “I did a deal with the wrong devil man.” Needless to say Luis will have his hands full keeping both Tony and the clubs safe from the cities lowlifes. Luis is an excellent character and is definitely the best of the three. He is a former drug dealer/underground fighter who is trying to straighten out his life, by ending the lives of those in his way, the Grand Theft Auto way! In all seriousness Luis is a character for whom you will feel his hardships as he always battles with his own good judgment and his need to protect those who matter in his life.

Nothing here looks Bahama like, or like a mama would want to be here.

Throughout the story you will meet one of the best casts of characters Rockstar has put out. Each character has his or her own special charm and contrast to Luis adding greatly to the overall experience. All of the characters, unsurprisingly, are voiced to perfection with all of the over the top and deep heartfelt lines delivered without flaw.

Missions will take you all over the city doing every thing from dealing drugs to seducing women, all bases covered. The best new addition to the mission list is the base jumping missions. Essentially these missions require you to get to a really high spot and jump, landing safely to the ground with the finally added parachute. The parachute also factors into some missions making for some unique experiences that you’ll definitely want to tell your friends about.

There is a lot of this in The Ballad of Gay Tony.

With all of the makings for a top of the line GTA game there can’t be anything wrong right? Unfortunately The Ballad of Gay Tony has its share of faults, darn and we were doing so well for a while there. The game engine is beyond “showing its age”; it was showing its age later in 2008. The oil painting Esq. graphics do not hold up to today’s standards. Also, there isn’t much in the way of new content other than what was mentioned above. Sure there is some new music (if you buy the disc based Episodes from Liberty City) and multiplayer base jumping…and the APC (TANK!) but nothing else. The Lost and the Damned added a lot more content to an already content rich game, but Gay Tony is just satisfied mooching off of that, then again who every really got bored of it?

The Ballad of Gay Tony is well worth your 1600 Microsoft Points ($19.99). Those tired of the LATD or the original GTA IV story will find a thrilling new experience but those looking for tons of new content will feel disappointed though far from ripped off. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up either by itself or at retail for $39.99 bundled with The Lost and the Damned, then you won’t need your old scratched GTA IV disc to play or to take up over a gig of hard drive space. You could easily do worse than Gay Tony but it’d be hard to do better.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.