Senior developers Lee Hutchinson and Matt Shepcar have left Rockstar Leeds to start their own independent studio, Double 11, to focus on smaller projects, like iPhone games.
“I think that a lot of developers are sick of huge all encompassing next-gen projects and want to get back to grass-roots bedroom coding like it was in the 80’s and is for a lot of iPhone developers today,” Hutchinson tells UK trade site Develop.
Hutchison in particular has worked on multiple Rockstar iPhone games, including the acclaimed Chinatown Wars and Beaterator. Shepcar, departing Leeds in a few weeks, worked on a number of Grand Theft Auto titles.
Asked about recent controversy over alleged quality-of-life issues at Rockstar, specifically at the developer’s San Diego studio, Hutchinson stressed his exit from Leeds was “very, very amicable” and not related to the working standards allegations.
“Rockstar Leeds and the spouse allegations had no effect on our decisions to leave,” he says, saying the departure of both himself and Shepcar is occurring on “very good terms.”
[This news item was written by Leigh Alexander and originally appeared at FingerGaming sister site Gamasutra.]
Tags: double 11, Industry News, rockstar
With little fanfare, Rockstar Games brought one of gaming’s biggest franchises to the App Store over the weekend. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars ($9.99) is an iPhone port of Rockstar’s most recent handheld entry in the GTA series, previously released for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable.
Chinatown Wars is a free-roaming crime drama set in the streets of Liberty City. Players take on the role of Huang Lee, a man robbed of a valuable family heirloom and left to die. Seeking revenge, Lee must gather information and build a reputation by doing odd jobs for the criminal underworld.
Of course, in GTA tradition, this involves creating all sorts of fun antisocial mayhem. Stealing cars, murdering pedestrians, and dealing drugs are all part of a normal day’s work in Liberty City.
The iPhone version of Chinatown Wars retains the overhead-view action of previous ports, and includes all of the touch screen sequences from the Nintendo DS edition. Players must complete touch-based challenges to hotwire cars and pay tolls at toll bridges, among other things.
App Store customer response indicates that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is every bit as big of a game as it was on the DS and PSP — an impressive technical feat, considering the wide variety of its featured content. Could Chinatown Wars soon find itself among the App Store’s top sellers?
Tags: Action, adventure, grand theft auto: chinatown wars, port, rockstar, sandbox
Grand Theft Auto series developer Rockstar Games has released its first iPhone title. Beaterator ($4.99) is a port of Rockstar’s formerly PSP-exclusive music making application, developed in cooperation with music industry producer Timbaland.
Beaterator allows users to mix tracks and compose original music using an included selection of beats and samples. Beaterator also includes a feature that enables users to share their creations online via the Rockstar Games Social Club — shared tracks can then be downloaded and remixed by other players.
While not strictly a game, Beaterator is a landmark release for Rockstar, and will help pave the way for future iPhone releases from the developer. Rockstar announced that it has at least one more iPhone app in development — a port of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars — but has issued no status updates regarding the title in recent months.
Tags: beaterator, Music, rhythm, rockstar
Rockstar Games announced today that it will bring a pair of titles to the iPhone and iPod Touch later this year. App Store customers can look for Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Beaterator this fall.
Chinatown Wars debuted earlier this year for the Nintendo DS. While it received ample promotion and widespread critical acclaim, the game ultimately failed to meet sales expectations, selling 163,000 units in its first two months of release.
Rockstar recently announced plans to port Chinatown Wars to Sony’s PlayStation Portable platform. Another of the company’s upcoming PSP releases, the music mixing application Beaterator, is also coming to the iPhone this year.
Co-produced by music producer Timbaland, Beaterator allows users to mix their own music tracks using an included selection of beats, loops, and samples. Beaterator is developed by Rockstar Leeds, the studio behind Chinatown Wars and the PSP Grand Theft Auto titles Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories.
No release date or price point has yet been announced for either title.
Tags: Action, beaterator, grand theft auto: chinatown wars, gta, Music, rhythm, rockstar
Many developers have attempted to bring the sandbox-styled Grand Theft Auto experience to the iPhone. Most, however, have limited themselves to cloning the franchise’s early years. Car Jack Streets mimics the overhead viewpoint from GTA 1 and 2, and even Payback has a severely limited scope in comparison to the latest entries in Rockstar’s crime drama series.
Enter Gameloft’s Gang$star: West Coast Hustle, which bears a striking resemblance to a modern-day GTA game. Its environments are fully 3D, there’s a lock-on targeting system for melee combat, and yes, you get to throw people out of their cars and drive off in them, to the irritation of the local police.
Gameloft has revealed little else about Gang$tar so far, but it probably won’t be long until more details are released. In the meantime, I can confirm from the screenshot above that the game allows you to jack a hamburger delivery car and use it to deliver fast food for extra cash. Probably.
Tags: Action, gameloft, gang$tar: west coast hustle, gta, rockstar
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