Rockstar Newswire

In one of the most nostalgic, throwback GTAIV fan-created mods we've seen yet, community members Blaster_nl and Flitskikker have put together this impressive blending of two Grand Theft Auto universes - importing the original top-down 2D map from the first Grand Theft Auto into the 3D of GTAIV PC creating a sweet isometric remix of that original game from nearly 15 years ago.

See it in action via the video above (here's an older one as well) - some of the highlights include:

• 1:07 - rocket launcher
• 3:00 - going boating
• 3:56 - gunshots
• 4:18 - flying in a heli
• 4:45 - ouch!

Also check out another video from a similar conversion done by Garju67, also on taltigolt's YouTube channel - bringing the Grand Theft Auto III Liberty City map into GTAIV PC. Additionally there's a separate project similar to that one that's been in the works a bit longer. And if you're feeling the urge to dig in the crates, don't forget, you can always download and play the original GTA as well as GTA2 and Wild Metal absolutely free, available on our Rockstar Classics page.

Related:
Tilt-Shift: A New Perspective on Liberty City (Found via YouTube)
Found on the 'Net: Incredible Grand Theft Auto IV PC Screenshots
Google Maps Powered Street View of Liberty City (via GTANet)shots

Update: The playlist and event have ended. Thanks to everyone that joined in, whether you were chatting, watching the live streams, playing or just stopping by to enter the sweepstakes...

In this week's scheduled live-streaming official Social Club multiplayer event, HEALTH, the band behind the original Soundtrack and score of Max Payne 3 including "TEARS", are primed to join you and the Rockstar devs for some online Bullet Time® and Shootdodge™ galore in Max Payne 3 Multiplayer June 22nd on PlayStation 3 from 5-8pm Eastern. Preceding the event will be a live video stream with our own MaxPayneDev5 on our Twitch page from 3-5pm, so feel free to join us there before HEALTH goes online at 5. When that happens, two MaxPayneDevs will be featured in the dual video stream on the Social Club multiplayer events page along with a chat and special leaderboards, so expect a full evening of action.

And during the day you can enter for your chance to win a Deluxe Prize Pack including a Max Payne statue, a brand new Hawaiian Shirt just like the one Max wears in the game, a bullet keychain and assorted stickers. Additionally, ten runners-up will receive a t-shirt and stickers. Fill in your details on this page under the 'Sweepstakes Entry' tab on June 22nd.

PSN IDs
Look for HEALTH's Crew in-game as the event rolls along:

• DEATH_MINUS (John Famiglietti) 
• tsutsu187 (Jupiter Keyes)

We may be announcing more band-member PSN IDs by event time so check back soon.

Keep an eye out for our official Rockstar players, marked with a special visible in-game dog tag logo:

• MaxPayneDev1
• MaxPayneDev2
• MaxPayneDev3
• MaxPayneDev4

If you can't join us for this one, don't worry as we will be going online several times this summer at times that we won't be announcing ahead of time. Sometimes we just like to jump on and play our games with the public, and when we do we always post a message on our Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Steam (for PC) pages...

INTERNATIONAL CREWS

With Max Payne 3 now on shelves across North America and Europe, we're seeing a virtual U.N. of killer CREWS lighting up the multiplayer leaderboards. Fighting for liberté, égalité et fraternité are the French Crew, who intend “Pour montrer a tous ce que nous valons” - to prove their worth to all. Over the border, the German Outlaws have amassed a force 20 strong and already have some experience points on the board; showing classic Germanic stoicism, they are prepared to “let the gun do the talking.” Further south, the Spanish Forces have a message for all Spanish-speaking Social Club members: "si entiendes esto, este es tu sitio! UNETE!". Meanwhile il Tricolore flys proudly for the Italians Inside whose motto makes their game plan clear: “bigger the guns, bigger the pain!”

PRIVATE CREWS MAKING NOISE ON THE BOARDS

One international Crew is already proving to be a talking point on the Xbox 360 Max Payne 3 multiplayer leaderboards: with 28 members, French Crew Payne Capitale currently the highest placed private Crew on the Deathmatch leaderboards and 3rd Overall. Also impressive is Ten Knobs Crew, who with just 15 members, have taken to Payne Killer as their multiplayer game mode of choice and are currently showing as #27 in the worldwide Xbox 360 leaderboards. Proving the courage of their convictions, the New York City Kings are a tight-knight Crew of 5 and are placing a very respectable #40 as of now on the worldwide Team Deathmatch boards (and their Feud win percentage ain’t too shabby either at 71% of the time of writing). They say they are "looking for serious members only who will practice regularly and compete" - so if the shoe fits, hit 'em up…

Over on the PS3 leaderboards, Pick Your Poison and Pro Kill You are jostling for position to make a mark as esteemed private Crews cracking the overall top ten. With similar membership numbers currently in the 110s and similar XP, currently Pro Kill You is showing at #9 whilst Pick Your Poison are just behind at #10. While there have been no in-game Feuds yet between those two, we’re looking forward to the carnage when they eventually meet each other in Team Deathmatch. The brilliantly-named T BAGGIN YO MOMS are proving to be a force to be reckoned with amongst PS3 playing Crews, with the DireWolvesOfWinter also sniffing around the worldwide top 40 of Payne Killer and the top 20 of the Overall PS3 leaderboards. Elsewhere United Killers Inc, led by the tireless Soopaman_2k,  are representing well at #25 as of writing on the Deathmatch leaderboards - and we'd be remiss not to shout this troop that caught our eye in the top 50 there: the CBWA aka CAREBEARSWITATTITUDE.

FAVORITE EMBLEMS

The CAREBEARS have managed to match their Deathmatch prowess with their Emblem-making skills, creating one of our favorites on the site this week - when Ice Cube meets the Care Bears, everybody wins. Others include Rodsta94’s hilarious grouchy cartoon Mexican which will represent the Fansite Banditos (led by our homeboy SimpsonsFan007 from Team Xbox) around the site and in the game. Westley’s Crew have taken inspiration from an unlikely source, the 80's fairy tale The Princess Bride, in theming their Crew - complete with an impressive likeness of Inigo (“…you killed my father. Prepare to die.”) Montoya in their emblem. Two Crews acknowledging the city settings of the Max Payne series, NYC Soldiers and Sao Paulo’s Finest have thrown up some truly intimidating artwork to inspire fear into their foes online, while enemies of BasedGod will be reaching for the 3D glasses to get the full effects of their gallery of floating castles and chimpanzees.

DEADLY DUOS

Rather than use mad emblem skills to recruit a swarm of followers, some Crews out there have elected to keep their member list ultra-exclusive - opting for a Tango-and-Cash, Starsky-and-Hutch, Cagney-and-Lacey type approach to online warfare. The Gruesome Twosome have closed out their recruiting policy at (you guessed it) just two members, and have designed a pretty special emblem to honor their duet of death. Meanwhile, the enigmatic insist has taken a full week to warm to such ideas as teamwork and comradeship, taking a full week to recruit the second member of his clipboard-wielding crew of safety fanatics, the Risk Assessors.

OFWGKTA CREW

Finally, those following us on Twitter may have seen a surprise session on Thursday held with the OFWGKTA CREW aka Odd Future. Tyler the Creator, Taco, and L-Boy (who are Taynard, TacoTakesDumps, and JilScott at Social Club respectively) from OF swung by Rockstar HQ to throw down in some Max Payne 3 FFA and Team Deathmatch as seen in the snaps below. Golfwangers can apply for membership in the official OFWGKTA Crew at http://socialclub.rockstargames.com/crew/ofwgkta_crew. Stay tuned as we'll be hosting many more of these impromptu Max Payne 3 CREW sessions with friends of Rockstar all throughout the summer and beyond - follow us on Twitter to make sure you get the word.




Stay tuned for next week's Featured Crews report as we're keeping a close eye on the rivalries of Crews-to-beat 911 NYC and PCC Crew amongst many others...

Previously:
Enlistment Roundup: The First Days of CREWS at the New Rockstar Social Club

*** THANK YOU: This weekend's debut Social Club Multiplayer Events for Max Payne 3 have concluded, but there are a lot more in store. Join us next weekend Friday May 25th at 11AM - 2PM Eastern on Xbox LIVE, and Saturday May 26th from Noon - 3PM Eastern on PSN. We'll have more great giveaways, plus the live-stream, chat, leaderboards and more. Stay tuned also for announcement of who won our first pairs of customized CREWS controllers soon.

Get ready for the very first of many official Max Payne 3 Social Club Multiplayer Events lined up, kicking off this weekend in grand fashion - this Friday May 18th from 4-7PM Eastern on PSN and this Saturday May 19th from 1-4PM Eastern on Xbox LIVE (with many more dates to follow into June and to be announced all summer long and beyond).

This is your first chance to rally your CREW to face off with and against the ROCKSTAR CREW of Max Payne 3 developers from Rockstar Studios worldwide on the live streamed broadcast (now with a double-stream as announced last week). For the first time ever, there is now a special in-game Social Club Multiplayer Event Playlist that you'll see in your Multiplayer menu of playlists active only during the scheduled event times. Just jump into that playlist to look for the Rockstar Crew (Gamertags and IDs below) in lobbies or to start your own game - there's also now a Social Club Event Leaderboard for players and CREWS to show and prove at each event.  

Plus we're giving away a truly unique special grand prize - on both Friday and Saturday during event hours, we'll have a sweepstakes open at the Event page to enter to win a pair of PS3 or Xbox 360 controllers customized with your ID and your CREW emblem. These bad boys will be blacked out, hand-painted with a serious matte black finish and solid black buttons and your CREW emblem proudly tailored on. 10 runners-up each day will also win a Max Payne 3 Prize Pack with an official tee, bullet keychain, pill box and deluxe sticker pack.

You can also join the live Social Club chat on the Events page to spectate, comment on the action, and talk about your favorite Max Payne 3 moments and modes. The Social Club chat has also been enhanced with new features to show which of your Social Club Friends are logged in so you can call out your mates and Crew members at will.
 

GAMERTAGS AND IDs
Official Rockstar players are marked with a special visible in-game dog tag logo:

• MaxPayneDev1
• MaxPayneDev2
• MaxPayneDev3
• MaxPayneDev4
• MaxPayneDev5
• MaxPayneDev6
• MaxPayneDev7
• MaxPayneDev08
• MaxPayneDev9
• MaxPayneDev10
• MaxPayneDev11
• MaxPayneDev12
• MaxPayneDev13
• MaxPayneDev14
• MaxPayneDev15
• MaxPayneDev16

And don't forget that in addition to our live streaming scheduled Social Club events, members of Rockstar Studios worldwide will be online playing Max Payne 3 Multiplayer every single day through June 15th - a non-stop month of Max Payne 3 Multiplayer with the folks who all helped create the game itself. We'll be playing about 2-3 hours each day with devs from Leeds, Lincoln, London, New England, New York, North, San Diego, Toronto and Vancouver taking turns to show you how it's done on both consoles seven days a week (and on the PC version beginning May 29th).

Make sure you're following us on our Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Steam (for PC) pages to get the word each day of exactly when we're loading up, Loading Out and heading into Gang Wars, Payne Killer, Team Deathmatch and FFA Deathmatch along with info of which Gamertags/IDs we're using for that day.
 

Big thanks to everyone that helped kick-off a full weekend of Triple XP for Red Dead Redemption: Game of the Year Edition with our Social Club Multiplayer Event held on PSN  Friday April 20th.

This was the last event on the Spring calendar before we properly inaugurate Max Payne 3 Multiplayer - complete with multiplayer Crews, Bullet Time® online, and non-stop Gang Wars and Payne Killer action beginning in just two weeks on Friday May 18th. In addition to that first live streaming weekend of official Social Club events, we'll also be online including players from all across Rockstar Studio and playing the game every day into June beginning on midnight Eastern of May 15th. We'll be announcing Gamertags and PSN IDs for that shortly beforehand - make sure you're following us on Facebook and Twitter for the word each day..

As for the Red Dead event on 4.20, each of our dev players got in there to mix it up with players in fan-favorite modes including Stronghold, Gang Shootout, Grab The Bag and Undead Overrun. Special shout to longtime Social Club multiplayer event participant ahetFIN who captured a great session of Grand Prix horse racing on video as you can peep in the below clip. Check the slideshow a bit later in this recap for a freeze frame from our vantage taken during the same race.

Later on, RedDeadDev3 was picking off enemies during Grab The Bag in Tumbleweed dishing out deaths to Easy--B, Mike_2472 and Koren-98-2011. But the reign on top didn't last long as JulianM44 came in and blasted the opposition away with some incredible gunslinger skills. Julian capped RedDeadDev3 with a Schofield Revolver a couple of times during this round, leading to agonied cries of defeat this side. Strong work there.

As the afternoon rolled on, we entered Chuparosa for some more Grab The Bag. RedDeadDev3 stepped in to save ol' ahetFIN by burying a few extra rounds into luis_arturo12. Least we could do, mate. By the way, everyone should check out LarsDK and ahetFIN's collab video post where they combined their perspectives to come up with a great video from a round in Thieves' Landing, viewable here. Also thanks to GTALAD4EVA for capturing the entire events page, to ferguson99 for this capture of gang match action and SOMETHINKDARK for this video showing some Grab The Bag. Thanks again to all of you that contribute these videos - they're always awesome to see.

• Shootout - MacFarlane's Ranch: http://youtu.be/m6OPtqIVLZY
• Grab The Bag - Chuparosa: http://youtu.be/Rn3c09jwRBE
• Hold Your Own - Las Hermanas: http://youtu.be/Ozx9Vbg8luA
• Gang Shootout - MacFarlane's Ranch: http://youtu.be/LTROW9R8CGI
• Stronghold - Thieves' Landing: http://youtu.be/5tVIa21hONk
• Gang Shootout - More MacFarlane's Ranch: http://youtu.be/snBUDIK58C4
• Grab The Bag - Tumbleweed: http://youtu.be/1NOQ9a9S1Xs

SWEEPSTAKES WINNERS

From this event's giveaways, Josh Ward, aka The_Infection, is the big winner of our two customized Red Dead PS3 controllers and our 20 runners-up that will each receive a Rockstar t-shirt, Red Dead playing cards and stickers include Agamer2006, Averryy, Retsphe, Jimminy_Billybob, GuidoTKP, Kuya_Ed, Ninja_Legend_D, Marston_Bellic, longlyload, stnickbond, scareface1970, Bash_Thordstrom, Timmy458, alo1992, MissKitty5678, MLDCAproductions, KingSB, GTA313, xRSLxMuSiCmAn and JohnWayneReborn. Enjoy the gear, all. 

Check out some more moments we captured from the event here in the slideshow - and we hope to see you all in the Max Payne 3 Multiplayer events starting in just a couple more weeks!

Hit the jump for a full list of participants from the event on April 20th...

Update: The event and sweepstakes have ended. Thanks to everyone that joined us, and enjoy Triple XP all weekend.

Following up an afternoon with Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition on April 5th, we continue our month on PlayStation Network Friday April 20th with a Red Dead Redemption: Game of the Year Edition multiplayer event from 4-7pm Eastern, the latest in the Rockstar Games Social Club Multiplayer Events Series. Triple XP will be live for both consoles.

Next up after this event ends: a month with Max Payne 3. Beginning Tuesday May 15th, we'll be playing every single day into June, including several multiplayer events with live video, chat and big prizes. Have a look at the official Spring calendar for full details.

For Friday, head over to the Social Club multiplayer events page where we'll have a video stream and live chat, plus we're giving away two hand-painted Red Dead Redemption controllers. Additionally, 20 runners-up will win Rockstar prize packs, each containing a Rockstar shirt, Red Dead playing cards and stickers.

And for those of you playing, not to worry if you don't own the Game of the Year Edition. Any version of Red Dead or Undead Nightmare is compatible with Game of the Year Edition multiplayer.

OFFICIAL ROCKSTAR PSN IDs

Hit the jump for more details, including information on how to get in on a game with us...

GTA fans from around the globe joined in for the April 5th Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition Social Club multiplayer event on PSN - tearing up Liberty City online, watching the video stream and entering the sweeps to win coveted prizes.

The hundreds in Social Club chat witnessed lots of action via the session's live broadcast - with players in multiplayer modes from the original GTAIV, The Lost and Damned as well as The Ballad of Gay Tony. Thanks to all who joined us for some pretty awesome TDM, GTA Race and of course fan-favorite Cops n’ Crooks (special shout to Flight666, PlayRockstar10 and Dinobrunio for a particularly memorable car-flipping, and epic shootouts bit of C&C).

Check out fan-captured footage here of some Deathmatch shoot-em-ups courtesy of cahill7777 - a longtime Red Dead Social Club multiplayer vet who joined us for his first GTAIV event. Good stuff.

And some additional videos from the day captured by some other dedicated Social Club members:

• Lone Wolf Biker, GTA Races and Free Mode (GM-Shenmue)
• GTA Race with some epic bus-on-bus pileons (ahetFIN)
• Stars in Your Eyes (InsectOverlords)

Cheers to all that joined in (see the roll-call below), and congrats to all the winners in the sweeps. Each will receive a Rockstar T-shirt, GTAIV license plate and a selection of collectible stickers. The lucky winners include 1337Pilot, Cheezy-Duz-It, D.E.LB, DeathStreak_UK, GalaxyxD, Jchandler, madman_chadman, MCKing, MichaelK, N9ne0sBaby, Pike187, Rafioso, RestNP1eces86, scareface1970, Scottendo, SOULLESSGING3R, Spongerob, StuntmanSeth, WolfRogers and xRSLxMuSiCmAn.

Here's a collection of screens from some of great moments during the afternoon, and hit the jump for a list of those that participated according to our records...

Special shout to longtime Social Club multiplayer events veteran GermanScientist who captured and edited the Blackwater Stronghold match seen above from our March 23rd multiplayer event. Check it out and don't miss some great moments when GermanScientist works with his posse to defend the safe in Dutch's Gang and earns the 'Avatar of Death' Achievement for not dying in the second round. Plus some pretty amusing running commentary throughout from players scheming on the elusive RedDeadDev5.

The event kicked off a full weekend of Triple XP in Red Dead Redemption on Xbox LIVE and t'was awesome to see a lot of our dedicated Social Club legends (all names below) in the turn out in addition to all those on the multiplayer events page chatting, watching the live video broadcast and entering the sweepstakes. As with the previous event, GTALAD4EVA was kind enough to record the entire thing, and even captured snippets of the chat in the video. Nice one.

Also congrats to our sweepstakes winners lucky enough to have their names randomly drawn from all the entries, including Grand Prize winner Jchandler who will be receiving two custom hand-painted Red Dead Xbox 360 controllers, and to all 20 runners-up. They are Co2-UK, Fan1wwe, peteeee007, AAT71FALI, JuggaloMemnoch, AnimeGuy2308, Rollaw, Olsky1, B-Dawk, PyratRum, emilegoss, YMe369, XRatedLegend, treedee71, Dogbone7, UFG_KingRomulus, 100indecisions, bhgabe, Mannylude and cdman17.

While RedDeadDev3 was killing and being killed on the live video stream, our other Rockstars were scattered across several other multiplayer modes. Early on in the afternoon, RedDeadDev6 entered Myths and Mavericks Free For All Matches in Cochinay where ADX Scarlett took down everyone in the opening Standoff, but it was GGretski ANBU who dominated, winning the round. Also, props to TWLWeeperReaper for an epic win of Gold Rush and to all others that came out on top in matches throughout the day.

The next multiplayer event is happening next Friday April 20th from 4-7PM Eastern when we'll be playing Red Dead Redemption: Game of the Year Edition on PSN. Check out the Spring events calendar for more information, and as a bonus you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Steam to get the word when we'll be jumping online to play other than the ones we pre-announce...

Below check out a few screens from March 23rd...

And hit the jump for a full list of participants from the afternoon...