Eff Seven

This won’t be out until this Friday - or possibly even later - but I thought I’d put it up now. Not much else around, and there won’t be for a couple more weeks while I finish the last project of the year. Ah, well. What follows is an exclusive look at the new GTA downloadable content. Check it out, my friends.

GTA IV has been a cash cow waiting to burst open with the money-milk for some time now. Downloadable content featuring entire cities had been mooted for ages, and I’m pleased to say that Felix has seen and played the first city release, and it’s just as brilliant as you might expect.

First, let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way - yes, it’s set in London. We don’t have any screenshots to show you, so the pictures that adorn this page are only mockups, but London was Rockstar’s choice for the first release and it’s a good one too.
We played the expansion for around two hours, as well as being shown sneak peeks at later content too, and we’re ready to spill as many of the beans as we can to you - we’ve got a good feel for the story and the locales, as well as the characteristic GTA charm that you’ve come to expect from the missions and so on.
You play Len Kivingstone, a disgraced political candidate who’s been voted out and left for dead by a rebel faction led by John Borisson (voiced by Ian McKellen). We only saw the humble beginnings of the promised eight-hour storyline, but Rockstar say that it’s about “Len’s fight to regain his power and take revenge on the man who murdered his reputation.”
But it won’t be an easy fight. When you start out, you’ve got few friends and many enemies. People spit at you in the street and regular newspaper releases mock you with cutting words that eat away at the newly-introduced ‘Feeling Of Self-worth’ meter.
Crucially, it’s still GTA IV. The taxi service is retained and looking lovelier than ever - although in-car radio is now replaced with a complex conversation system which takes some time getting the hang of. At first we just hammered the racial insult button, but found that the drivers just talked for even longer - watch out.
The beloved mobile phone system is carried through too. Now you can choose from a huge range of phone models and service providers - 3, for instance, has almost no service connection wherever you are in London, or you can sign up to O2 which allows you act like a tosser whenever one of their adverts comes on the TV.

Ah, TV. Rockstar went to great lengths to license huge amounts of authentic British viewing. One channel shows reruns of the same four episodes of Only Fools And Horses over and over again, one just plays a loop of Ant and Dec laughing, and the other has Jeremy Paxman asking a red-faced man to ‘answer the question’ for four hours.
“We originally recorded a whole bunch of programmes for the city, but playtesters found this unrealistic.” my guide explains, “We think we’ve got the television spot on now.”
They have indeed. Right down to the way Ant and Dec blend into each other as they speak. Animators worked for eight months in order to turn motion-captured actors into the lifeless goons that ITV viewers know and love.
Guns are a controversial point in the new pack. Because of their dedication to realism, no-one has a gun in the game. Lead Designer Tim ‘Mitch’ Mitchens explains, “We experimented with a few different loadouts, but we think our approach now works best - you never see anyone with a weapon, you just hear about it.”
It’s a step away from the violence of GTA IV, but that’s not to say they haven’t lived up to the mean reputation some parts of the city have.
“Yeah, the insults had to be there. It’s quite graphic, some of it, and we’re expected more complaints than with the original. We drop the f-bomb a lot. People insult your choice of clothing. Some of it’s pretty close to the mark, but we really wanted to convey the grittiness of living in the big smoke.”
To demonstrate this, he takes the controller off me and takes a taxi up to Hampstead. There we find an artist sitting on the heath, sketching passers-by. He hits a shoulder button.
“Your use of colour is mediocre!”
There’s an awkward silence in the room, as he knows that I haven’t seen anything like this before in a game.
“We’re known for pushing boundaries.” he explains, “There’s more that opens up as you go along. You can throw bottles at people and spit in the street. We think it’s good to have that kind of freedom.”
The storyline is a mix of mission styles. At first, Len’s mainly small time, giving interviews and hosting radio shows from time to time. The media seems to be a big thing - the more listeners you have, the more respect you’ve got.
Later, though, the storyline picks up. After our two hour play session was over, we were shown future missions including hanging around outside the Newsnight studios to face off with Jeremy Paxman, mano a mano.
“Jeremy was great fun to work with. He really got into it and even agreed to do a little motion capture.”
It shows - he sneers and cocks his head around in the cutscenes, relentlessly asking the same questions with a dead facial expression.
“We can’t do dead like Jeremy can. Our animators have forgotten how to do contempt.”

The final mission - an impromptu debate during the Olympic opening ceremony - looks positively electric. “It’s all about how well you’ve grasped the insult system, the anecdote-telling. There was originally an option to headbutt Konnie Huq [during the ceremony] but Konnie requested not to be a part of the game.”
Even with our extensive look, we know we’ve seen very little. The promised story time is just the tip of the iceberg - you can buy shares in Transport For London and eventually incite industrial action, you can file complaints with the Metropolitan Police about the noise generated by your various neighbours, you can even take a stroll around Imperial itself, which operates as a hideout during the series of missions that sees Len gain an honorary doctorate.
All in all, a solid-looking release from a game that was already pushing the boundaries of taste and quality in videogames. There are plenty of changes, but plenty to look forward to, and there’s no doubt that residents will thoroughly enjoy bombing down the London streets in a stolen taxi, on their way to purchase the expansion pack when it’s released next month.
Where next for Grand Theft Auto’s winning formula?
“We’re thinking GTA V may actually be set in Slough. It’s pretty rough. I went there once and someone actually called me a tosser.”
“We’ve interviewed Bloods before, gone with cops on the beat in New York City, but that really cut. you know? In here.”
He touches his chest and looks mournful. This is a developer with an understanding of the modern world, and the emotional rollercoaster it can be. The future’s looking good for both Rockstar and their runaway gaming success story.