Rockstar Newswire

As avid fans of cycling, we're proud to sponsor this year's Red Hook Criterium - a race series consisting of world class road racers, track specialists, bike messengers and urban athletes, which kicks off this Saturday at Red Hook’s Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

Lots of new insight into HEALTH's making of the Max Payne 3 original soundtrack and score can be found in this short film just released by The Creators Project, as seen below. Via interviews with the band as well as with Rockstar, you'll get the backstory on how the game's original music came together and the technical approach to its unique dynamic scoring...

Previously:
Watch HEALTH's Official Music Video for "TEARS"
Max Payne 3: The Official Soundtrack - Now Available on iTunes

Looking back on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the occasion of its recent mobile release is a pretty powerful double-hit of nostalgia for us. Not only are we here at Rockstar taken back to that wild year of 2002 when we labored to take the groundbreaking 3D GTA experience pioneered in the previous fall's Grand Theft Auto III into a direction that no one at the time expected - but it's also a time to revisit the fascination with 1980s pop culture that inspired Vice City in the first place. From coked-out debutantes, suave and in-control hit men, hot-blooded drug kingpins, egomaniacal movie directors... the larger than life attitudes of that "me" decade as served up in the films of the era served as perfect inspiration for the stories, characters and scenery that drove the world and vibe of Vice City...

Scarface (1983)

But of course. Largely dismissed at the time as an overblown, needlessly and gratuitously violent and profane remake of Howard Hawks' 1932 gangster classic - it has now, of course, transcended all of that and become one of the biggest and most enduring cult hits of all time - defining what a modern crime epic should be. An absolute top favorite of ours, we started paying homage to the film's legacy in GTAIII with Flashback 95.6's Scarface soundtrack heavy playlist and the casting of Robert Loggia as the sciatica-plagued Ray Machowski - but it goes without saying that Vice City owes much of its inspiration to the vivid characters, style, scenery and music of De Palma and Pacino's 1980s Miami gangster masterpiece.

Less Than Zero (1987)

Hands down the darkest movie of the 'brat pack' genre, this Robert Downey Jr. and Andrew McCarthy-starring movie is a stylish adaptation of the disturbing Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho) novel. A morality tale of excess following rich Beverly Hills yuppie kids caught up with living life in the coke-fueled fast lane of the 1980s social scene. Incredible style, music and oddly prophetic to the drug troubles that would plague Downey himself in the years to come.

Hit the jump below for the rest of our selections and be sure to recommend your favorites in the comments.

Take that holiday loot to the Rockstar Warehouse and score yourself the first official Grand Theft Auto V t-shirts now available for purchase (expected to start shipping by January 7th).

Sun-kissed beaches, glamorous night spots, sprawling mansions, squalid ghettos and the various vehicles you use to traverse them...
Creating the world of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City called for tireless and meticulous City Design in making its ambitious level of architecture, locations and modes of transport possible. Today's concluding Part 3 of "The Lab" - a rare behind the scenes look at the design of Vice City through interactive displays originally produced nearly a decade ago for an exhibit at London's Design Museum - has some very special glimpses of the modeling, interior design, and 3D rendering that brought Vice City to life. 

• “Buildings”- Rare rendering videos that show the Cherry Poppers ice cream factory, the Malibu Club, and the Diaz Mansion from wireframes through to 3D models and fully rendered locations in the game world.
   
• “Interiors” - 360-degree video tours of the inside of the Ocean Apartments lobby and dining room, the Malibu Club's dance floor, and Ken Rosenberg's stately office.
   
• "City Wireframe”- Focused around the city's Downtown area with its hi-rises and landmark Hyman Stadium, see the city come alive from wireframes to final city render with a view to the south.
   
• "City Renders" - Render images of various parts about the city both interior and exterior - living spaces, work spaces, playtime and outside vistas.
   
• "Vehicle Design" - 3D models, wireframes, final renders and damage models for a variety of vehicle types in the game - the Box Ville truck, the Faggio scooter, Squalo speedboat, Sandking rover, Hermes vintage sedan, and the Maverick chopper.

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Previously:
Part One: Animation | Part Two: Sound

In our latest look about the world of Instagram, we've seen impressive #GTA homages decorating the flesh and steel of some pretty hardcore fans, as well as race and chase grannies, Vice City mobile highlight reel shots and more. If you stumble upon any other fun user pics whether from GTA or any of our other games, send them our way via Mouthoff and remember to follow us at instagram.com/rockstargames to always see our latest official pics.

VC to SA to MAN. Salford tattoo artist @mrjackart hooked up this sleeve for @jamespanayiotou in a tribute to #ViceCity, #SanAndreas and 'sunny' Madchester.		There's been lots of choice IG photos posted by fans returning to #ViceCity via their iPhones, iPads and Droids. Doing an insane stunt jump in a bus while rocking 2 stars? Impressive, @wupreme666.
Spotted on the streets of Berlin - this guy took Pay 'N' Spray to a whole new level (via @canbaba)...		And in the UK - this one found in a Tesco parking lot by @ryanpanayis.

Part two in of our special three-part series in honor of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's 10th anniversary, "The Lab" - a set of interactive tours through the game's design elements that originally appeared nearly a decade ago as part of an installation recognizing Vice City at London's Design Museum - focuses on the painstaking work poured into the game's sound design.

From the attention paid to the Vice City radio dial which hosted an unprecedented soundtrack of licensed music from the 80s plus original 'talk radio' stations, to the intensive sound design that helped make the game's open world come alive, today's edition of The Lab has some glimpses behind the scenes that have never been published online til today:

• “Radio Stations”- Tune in to audio from all 9 original radio stations from the Vice City radio dial: Fever 105 (soul hosted by Oliver "Ladykiller" Biscuit), Radio Espantoso (latin hosted by Pepe), Emotion 98.3 (ballads hosted by Fernando Martinez), Wave 103 (new wave hosted by Adam First), Wildstyle Pirate Radio (rap hosted by Super Rockin' Mr. Magic), V-Rock (rock hosted by Lazlow), Flash FM (pop hosted by Toni) and talk stations K-Chat and VCPR. For the 7 music stations, you can hear snippet mixes of selected excerpts whilst for the 2 talk radio stations, "The Lab" contains the station audio in its entirety for a full streaming listen.
   
• “SoundFX” - A special breakdown of just one small element of Vice City's sound design - helicopter sound effects. As the section explains, the total amount of space available at the time for sound effects would hold less than 12 seconds of music from a CD, therefore all of the sounds created for the city needed to be very short. Each sound has to be produced in isolation so that it can be controlled independently depending on how the player interacts with the game. Listen to the various individual sounds used and then check out a video demo of the final product in action as Tommy Vercetti lifts off in the chopper.
   
• "Pedestrians”- Wherever you go in the streets of Vice City - from the beach to the shopping mall to the airport - you're sure to overhear tons of colorful dialogue from the city's resident peds. Strutting playboys, lecherous pervs, blue collar slobs, glamorous fly girls, and more - have a look and listen to a sampling of the vast audio recorded in populating Vice City's ambient world.

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Previously:
The Lab Part 1: Animation

Here’s a special treat from the archives. Nearly ten years ago, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was honored by London’s Design Museum as an annual design award nominee recognizing the ‘biggest contribution to design in 2002’ alongside such other newfangled technology as Apple’s iPod. Part of the award festivities included a special installation at the museum for which we produced an exclusive set of interactive kiosks to give visitors a glimpse of how Vice City was created – specifically focused on the game’s Animation, Sound, and City Design architecture. In honor of Vice City's 10th anniversary and release for Android and iOS, we’ve dug up the original files from this digital display not seen since the original museum exhibition and for the first time are publishing the entire three-part series online – starting with today’s Animation chapter seen above. Enjoy rare footage and sketches including:

• “Motion Capture”- a rare video showing a cutscene between Kent Paul and Tommy Vercetti going from motion-capture through to 3D model wireframe to finished product.
   
• “Sketch Book” - a progression of original character sketches through to final models and now-iconic illustrations of such folks as Lance Vance, Avery Carrington, Ken Rosenberg and more. 
   
• “Tommy Moves”- a set of clips showing the genesis of Tommy’s animations whether jumping into a Comet sports car, dive kicking a biker off his chopper or running with a chainsaw...

Embed code is provided below for anyone who’d like to re-post – and be on the lookout for Parts Two and Three quite soon.