[youtube rlX46Zix3O8]
Another day, another YouTube video claiming to show the intro to Rockstar’s upcoming blockbuster GTA IV. Weeks after one cheeky chappy claimed to have a copy of the game running on the PlayStation 3 yet another has crawled out of the woodwork with another rough film of the game running, this time on the Xbox 360.
The good news is that they are both different, which means at least one of them is wrong. Presuming one is the real deal, at least we won’t know which until the official release.
Being the compulsive I am I’ve gone over the new video with a fine tooth comb. Whilst it has a nice veneer there are four things that are making exclamation marks appear over my head and sending me into the alert phase.
First of all, the credits. The crew is EXACTLY the same as that from the introduction to San Andreas. I can imagine Rockstar is a relatively tight-knit family, and who would give up what for many developers would the dream job of working for them? But things change, San Andreas is four years old and I doubt there is a company on the planet that hasn’t changed just a little in the last 4 years.
Secondly, the style is exactly the same as that of San Andreas. The only difference is the artwork used; this video uses still images as opposed to the video clips in the SA intro. Furthermore, all the images included are from the already available promotional artwork, are Rockstar really cheap enough to recycle all that old imagery?
Third, the video refuses to show any gameplay footage. Anyone with the time and effort to waste could produce an authentic-ish looking introduction movie to the game, but the gameplay is one thing that would take some real skill to fake, so why bother? If I had the game and the will to spoil it for everyone, I would at least let my character spawn for a brief second before cutting the video.
And finally, the most obvious one. There’s no Xbox 360 security hologram (example) on the disc the camera man shows so proudly. The hologram is present on every 360 game disc to show the buyer they have purchased an authentic copy of a game, meaning the copy shown in this video is fake beyond any doubt.
There’s always the chance that all this is ruse from Rockstar, nothing gets the gaming community more excited than leaked info. In which case I am just a pawn in Rockstar’s game of marketing chess.
