You know the "rule." The rule that states "pornography or sexually related material exists for any conceivable subject"? A recent Suicide Girls spread is further proof of the theory, as one of its models, Bob, has taken Grand Theft Auto IV cover girl lust and turned it into an excuse to get naked. (Yes, Bob's a woman.)

This particular Lola looks to only have five fingers, so the fantasy may be blown for some of you. But for anyone looking for a NSFW thrill, carry on. Membership is obviously required, as we all know the internet doesn't give away its smut for free.

GTA A Tribute to Lola [Suicide Girls]

Wall Street Journal: GTA IV's No Godfather

First we have a thematic discussion on Metal Gear Solid IV in the New York Times, and now we have a thorough treatment of Grand Theft Auto IV in the Wall Street Journal by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Dìaz. Really exciting stuff, if you ask me.

Dìaz examines the art value of GTA IV, prompted by exultant commentary from the games press that calls the game on par with or exceeding film triumphs like Scarface and The Godfather - and, in an editorial well-supported by factual comparisons, he finds it comes up short:

Connecticut Senator Searching For "Rape Scene" In GTA IV

Connecticut Senator Gayle Slossberg (D) recently told The New Haven Advocate that the rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV, where you earn "points for rape," is so alarming that she'd like to see a law passed that features better warning labels.

Yeah, of course, there's no rape scene in GTA IV. But Slossberg appears to be pretty convinced she'd see it, if she could only play well enough to reach that point in the game. Or so she said during a Capitol press conference, according to the Advocate.

The article says she'd like "confirmation" that there is no rape scene in the game. I suppose this is another "write your representative" situation where she could use some (polite) information?

Connecticut State Senator Alarmed Over (non-existent) Rape Scene in GTA IV [New Haven Advocate via GamePolitics]

Spare A Rodent?

To: Last Brian Standing
From: Totilo
Re: Serious Question: GTAIV or MGS4?

When I was a kid, I ate all my beans before I ate my carrots, all my fish before I ate all my corn. These days, I eat all my fries before I eat my burger and I finish any console game I'm enjoying before I start the next one.

So if you are enjoying GTAIV and are as close to the end as you say you are, then forge on ahead and complete it. Remember, the next game you're going to play is a Metal Gear game, and, in order to understand one of those epics, you need to give it your full attention. One game at a time.

By the way, I think one of the hamsters that powers the Kotaku engine sprained a leg today or something. If you have a replacement rodent, you might want to send him scurrying in.

What you missed:
My Brief Surprise Visit To Sony's PS3 Home Beta
Skate It Wii May Get Skateboard Frame for Balance Board
ESA Responds To Crave Departure
Sporepedia A Million Strong And Growing

'Metal Gear Solid 4' And The Lack Of Sad Games

GTA IV "Beginning Of The End" For Next-Gen?

Over at GigaOM, Wagner James Au argues that the mammoth launch success of Grand Theft Auto IV is "the beginning of the end" for the next-gen. If a launch that universally successful can't budge hardware sales - and GTA IV really didn't - then "drastic changes" may be to come, says Au:

Expect to see games made for lower budgets, targeted at wider audiences (ones that aren’t fixated on high-end 3D graphics) and delivered over broadband with a micropayment program in place. Don’t expect a follow-up to the 360 or PS3 anytime soon, either. In other words, the days when so-called “next-gen” gaming reigned supreme are coming to end — instead, the industry’s future will be shaped by games like Rock Band.

Rockstar Patches GTA IV

Grand Theft Auto IV players logging in today for their daily fix will be greeted by a quick little patch that addresses several small issues in the game on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Highlights include increasing the frequency and reliability of leaderboard updates on the PS3 version, fixing Cops 'n Crooks so that players can no longer earn ridiculously high scores, and my personal favorite - fixing the countdown timer for multiplayer matches so it no longer resets every time a new player enters the game, causing the assembled players to call said newbie names I cannot repeat in this space.

Other than that, a few quick fixes to address hangs and such. Hit the link for the full skinny on the newly polished GTA IV experience.

GRAND THEFT AUTO IV PATCH [Rockstar Games Social Club]

Real Niko Bellic Is Real Swarthy

Riccitiello: Take-Two Bid Focused On Holiday Season, Not GTA IV

Don't believe what the timing tells you - EA's bid for Take-Two was never about Grand Theft Auto IV. That's what EA CEO John Riccitiello told an audience of investors during William Blair & Company's annual stock conference, where he was a speaker today.

"For clarity’s sake, I think you’ve got a slight mis-remembering of what we said," Riccitiello told an audience member who asked about capitalizing on GTA IV's release value. "We were extremely explicit that there was no possibility whatsoever that we would be able to acquire the company or close the transaction prior to the release of GTA IV."

"What we said is we wanted to close the transaction in time to affect holiday sales for some of the games like Midnight Club, catalog for GTA and others. And so the reason we’re continuing to extend it, that was our plan all along and that was the way we described it at the time."

The questioner was probably prompted to the question by EA's recurring comments about the time sensitivity of their offer, but Riccitiello said that "the depreciating nature of the asset was not necessarily about GTA."

"It is that one more holiday period where we can sell more puts money onto the bottom line."

A report from Spiegel online points to someone who isn't that bright theorizing that Grand Theft Auto IV's designers were inspired by attacks from the Osama bin Laden lead terrorist group. Spiegel cites a member of a message board populated by "cyber-jihadists and al-Qa[e]da sympathizers" who contends that GTA IV's use of cellphone triggered bombs "shows the power and effectiveness" of, well, something Al-Qaeda related that is just too dumb to reprint.

The theory is fleshed out by evidence that things explode in GTA IV. Compelling stuff. You've given us a lot to think about this day, random internet moron.

Was Grand Theft Auto IV Inspired by Al-Qaida? [Spiegel via GamePolitics]

Analyst: Saints Row 2 Trailer "Pompous"

Have you seen the recent Saints Row 2 trailer that makes direct comparisons to Grand Theft Auto IVto show why it's more fun? It's more tongue-in-cheek snarky than truly nasty, but apparently it prompted one analyst to counsel investors to take it with a grain of salt.

Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey said that going toe-to-toe with GTA IV on content is "an unusually pompous position... considering GTA IV is estimated to be the highest grossing 1st week entertainment release of all time."

Hickey also nodded to GTA IV's Metacritic-leading score, and maintained his "conservative" estimate for Saints Row 2 sales, "in light of mediocre game previews and a delayed release in-part from quality concerns."

In general, it seems a bit of a risky strategy for any title to compare itself, even jokingly, to a sales record-smasher like GTA IV. When I spoke to THQ during their preview event, though, a rep told me the aim was to show what was different about Saints Row, not necessarily to make superiority claims.

Hickey: Saint's Row 2 'Pompous' To Attack GTA IV [Gamasutra]

Pachter: GTA IV So Did Not Drive Console Sales

GTA IV Killing Makes Will Wright Feel Kinda Bad

Will Wright feels "a bit of remorse" when he makes the choice to kill civilians in GTA IV, he said, speaking at the Vancouver Art Gallery for its "Krazy! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art" exhibition.

Gamasutra covered the event, during which Wright added, "but if it's to progress the story, then 'God told me to do it.'"

He covered a broad range of subjects during the talk, including whether games are perceived as an art form ("When comic book people are looking down on you as cultural refuse, you know you're at the bottom of the barrel,") and his vision of games as a "co-collaboration between player and designer."

Still, he thinks we have further to go:

Breaking: First GTA IV Episodic DLC To Come To Xbox 360 In Q1 09

The first installment of downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360 will be a full extra "episode," and is set to hit in the first fiscal quarter of 2009, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder revealed on the company's call to investors today. Take-Two's fiscal Q1 starts in November, which means the earliest the DLC can arrive is in November of 2008.

Feder declined to provide any further details, but now we know the DLC is forthcoming for Xbox 360. No mention was made of PS3 DLC.

"The 2009 release of this highly anticipated episode will provide better balance among top titles," said Feder. When questioned by an analyst, Feder said, "The reason we moved it is more about portfolio balance than anything else... the delay is not about development issues."

Take-Two Surges In Second Quarter, Spent $5.3 Million Fighting EA

Grand Theft Auto IV's all-time record-breaking launch drove Take-Two to $98.2 million in profits during its fiscal second quarter, the company announced today. This represents exponential year-over-year growth for Take-Two, who saw a loss of $51.2 million during the same period of 2007.

The company more than doubled its net revenues for the quarter, reporting $539.8 million as compared with $205.4 million in the second quarter of 2007, even while the company spent $12.4 million on the stock-based compensation plan it recently approved for its Board.

Notably, results also reveal that Take-Two has spent a total of $5.3 million in legal fees over the last six months, the lion's share of which have been spent fending off Electronic Arts' acquisition bid.

As for BioShock, which now heads for both the PlayStation 3 and the movie theatres, Take-Two said it has shipped 2.2 million units to date.

Board chairman Strauss Zelnick emphasized the company's overall value:

Grand Theft Auto IV has sold 8.5 million units to date, with 11 million shipped to retail as of May 31, the company's second quarter financial results revealed today.

In its first week, GTA IV sold 6 million units, to the tune of $500 million in net sales.

As for BioShock, Take-Two said it had shipped over 2.2 million units since its late August debut, though GTA IV sales were the primary driver to $98.2 million in profits on the quarter for the publisher.

Liberty City Citizens Demand Tougher Law Enforcement

The Onion has been having a complete field day with Grand Theft Auto IV, producing some of the best material they've written in years since the game's release in late April. Today they report on Liberty City citizens' growing dissatisfaction with local law enforcement, citing not only their ineffectiveness in dealing with the recent crime wave, but also difficulties in keeping their priorities straight

"I was buying a hot dog from a street vendor in Hove Beach yesterday when I saw someone run a red light, barrel down the sidewalk, careen into a garbage truck, exit his vehicle, steal a nearby convertible, and drive away," one Broker resident reported. "A nearby police car didn't even react. But when the car behind him nicked his fender, the officer shot the driver through the windshield and walked away."

"That is not the kind of law enforcement we want for our community," he added.

Speaking as a recent immigrant to Liberty City, I have to disagree. This is exactly the type of law enforcement we need. Someone go run over that resident for me.

Liberty City Police Face Allegations Of Incompetence, Brutality [The Onion - Thanks Daria!]

You're looking at a pic of Star Junction — I mean, Times Square. One thing you might not realize if you've never visited New York City is the just-a-little-off-kilter accuracy of the geography in Grand Theft Auto IV. For example, the Yahoo! ad you see here is located in the same spot as GTA IV's "EyeFind" search engine billboard, and it blinks and flashes just as bright.

I headed down there on Sunday so that I could pick up a Darkrai for my Pokemon game at Toys R Us (did you guys get one?), and since I live further uptown, I hadn't been there in a while - like since picking up and getting into GTA IV

I wasn't expecting it to be such a strange moment. Bright lights scrolling by, taxis everywhere, flashy cars to steal — I mean, admire. I've been floored by the grandeur of Times Square, tourist crowds and all, ever since I moved to New York City back in 2002, but this was the first time I got a little rush of surreal giddiness as if I'd walked into a video game.

And then, just when things couldn't get any weirder, I saw this:

A pretty blonde mob princess, bound and gagged, is taken kicking and screaming raw-throated curses out of the trunk of the player’s car. Tied to a chair in the hideout of the gangsters who hold her hostage, the player’s asked to snap a photo to send to her Mafia father.

She screams muffled protests through the rag between her lips, the image on the camera phone screen reflecting her tormented, terrified eyes. As the player centers her face in the frame, she offers a desperate moan, a wracked sob.

“Smile for daddy,” the player tells her.

Click.

Is Grand Theft Auto IV an expression of hate towards women? Are those who enjoy it misogynists?