Two weeks ago, Max Payne & Rockstar Games fansite webmasters were flown in from around the world for a weekend of Max Payne 3 action. Held in Rockstar's backyard of south-central Manhattan, this was the largest fansite event that the R* team has ever hosted.

We're extremely grateful for the opportunity to check out the game and meet other fansite webmasters. (Thanks, Rockstar!) We're psyched for the release of Max Payne 3.

We've posted a rundown of our impressions on our new sister site, PayneForums.com. It covers our experiences during the event, and our impressions of the game - specifically system performance, gameplay, Max's abilities, game visuals, multiplayer, and our hopes for the future of the game (including DLC and online community).

Check out our hands-on impressions of Max Payne 3

Last weekend, Rockstar Games kindly invited illspirit, Jevon, Andy and I to Los Angeles to experience L.A. Noire first-hand ahead of its release next month. We stayed at the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (which happens to feature in-game) where we met up with various other fan site operators and contest winners. At previous events hosted by Rockstar, we played together in a single room, but because of the nature of L.A. Noire's gameplay, we were each given our own console to play individually (and at times in groups) in our hotel rooms.

The event consisted of a mini-tour of Los Angeles, a Black Dahlia crime bus tour (which did a good job of describing the period in which L.A. Noire is set), watching fellow webmasters cockblock themselves at the party by the pool, and last but not least, game-time with L.A. Noire. Speaking of the party, there were some rather interesting.. characters to laugh at there, such as the guy from Montreal claiming to be a music video producer—wearing a white dress jacket and jeans—who we took to calling "Canada Vice". But that story is worth an entire chapter by itself!

You can read our general thoughts on the game below, but as we don't want to give away too much about the game (it's really something that should be experienced first-hand) we have refrained from mentioning specific details concerning case and gameplay elements...

Rockstar Games today announced that the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is now available for the Macintosh. It is available via TransGaming's GameTreeMac.com Mac gaming portal for 30 days starting today and at retailers across Europe. It will be available at retail in North America starting November 22.

Related Link: Take-Two News Release: "Rockstar Games Brings the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy to the Mac."

The first trailer for Rockstar Games' 1940's-themed detective thriller L.A. Noire is here! Watch the first L.A. Noire trailer over at our partner site LA-Noire.NET and let everyone know your thoughts in the LA Noire Forums.

Where does this tie into GTA, you ask? Fingers crossed we'll see L.A. Noire's impressive new motion-capture technology used in Grand Theft Auto V.

Not GTA related, but may be of interest to some fans:

Rockstar Games has just announced that the first L.A. Noire trailer is coming this Thursday, November 11th. The trailer will be shown on the Rockstar News Wire and on an updated version of the L.A. Noire site.

Check out our partner site, LA-Noire.net, for a summary of everything we know about the game so far, and be sure to join the forum.

Amazon is advertising "Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete" - the complete edition of Grand Theft Auto IV that includes the game itself (Grand Theft Auto IV) plus the two episodic expansion packs (The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony).

According to Amazon, Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete will be released on October 26, 2010 for $39.99. Rockstar has yet to confirm this.

(via Kotaku)

Rockstar Games has revealed that the classic GTA trilogy (Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) will be released on Mac "most likely later this year." Rockstar has promised more information and a proper announcement soon.

In other news, Rockstar has said they'll be releasing info on the long-awaited L.A. Noire very soon. "The game is truly groundbreaking and we will have more information very soon. We may even try to steal a screenshot and sneak it out here [on the R* News Wire] or on Twitter..."

Link: Rockstar News Wire - Asked & Answered.

This modification, created for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV, enables us to see what the game would have looked like were it a first-person shooter.

You can find instructions on how to install the mod on the original YouTube page.

(via Kotaku)

Rockstar Games has revealed that Social Club services (both on the web and in-game) will experience some downtime on Thursday 26th August at 1:00 AM Eastern (6:00 AM BST).

Grand Theft Auto IV fans should be aware that the following services will be affected:

• Matchmaking
• Leaderboards
• Video upload (PC version)
• Login to Social Club App (PC version)

The downtime period is expected to last between 6 and 12 hours, so services should resume no later than 1:00 PM Eastern (6:00 PM BST) on Thursday.

Related Link: Rockstar News Wire - Scheduled Maintenance this Thursday Morning

So we've hit that inevitable slow-news period after a game is released and the excitement dies down. And since there's not much else to talk about, we may as well start speculating on the next GTA (which Rockstar has now undoubtedly began working on). Visit our new GTA 5 site (GTAV.NET) for all the latest news, rumours and updates concerning the next GTA. If any solid info arrives, you'll find it there first.

Today, rumours emerged that the game will be set in LA. It began with a slightly bizarre report on VG247 and was later followed up by an article on Eurogamer which claimed that Rockstar was "definitely" researching locations around Hollywood. It could (like most rumours) be a load of bollocks, but at least it gives us something to talk about. Register at the GTA 5 forum and post your thoughts.