Tag Archives: theft
Grand Theft Auto V video preaches Epsilonism
It’s not really viral marketing when you just post the video on your official blog, but it is still really weird. Rockstar Games has uploaded a new video promoting Grand Theft Auto V through the cult–er–religion of Epsilonism. You can see it on on the Newswire, or watch the captured video below.
The video shows the 12 tracts of Epsilonism over some time-lapse footage of scenic in-game locales. If you’re interested in Kifflom and don’t mind mailing all of your money to an address in the Cayman Islands, you can learn more on a promotional website run by Rockstar.
Epsilonism has played a minor role in most every Grand Theft Auto released since San Andreas, but it looks like we’ll get a big sip of the Kool Aid when we return to Los Santos in GTAV. Could you be a descendant of Kraff?
Brazen theft from Parisian bridge baffles city
View of the Pont Alexandre III bridge on the Seine River and the Grand Palais exhibition hall in Paris August 26, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Jacky Naegelen
PARIS |
PARIS (Reuters) – The gilded Pont Alexandre III bridge in Paris has lost some of its sparkle after thieves made off with the historic monument’s bronze plaques in the latest theft from a Parisian landmark.
Despite the watchful eye of its elaborate statues of nymphs and winged horses high above the Seine River, two plaques proclaiming the name of the monument were seized by thieves this month, officials said.
While the bronze used to make the two stolen plaques sells at about 10 euros ($ 13.06) per kg, the city of Paris declined to comment on the value of the ornamental pieces stolen.
“We have no idea whether they were taken for their metal or by collectors,” a town hall spokeswoman said.
She said they would be replaced as soon as possible with identical copies.
“It’s not a question of metallic value but of historic value,” she said.
French police have struggled with metal theft in the years since the global economic crisis hit, with 5,800 hours of train delays caused in 2010 by the removal of copper from railways.
General metal theft in Paris dropped by about a quarter between 2011 and 2012, a police official said, meaning that whoever removed the plaques from the bridge were part of a die-hard few left targeting public monuments.
Thieves routinely hack bits of steel off the pedestrian Pont des Arts bridge further down the river, city officials say.
Several bronze busts — including one of composer Bizet — were looted in 2006 from Pere-Lachaise, the oldest cemetery in Paris and last resting place of luminaries including poet Oscar Wilde and Doors singer Jim Morrison.
Described by the French capital as its ‘most elegant bridge’, the ornate Pont Alexandre III was unveiled for the 1900 World Fair in the Belle Époque period that saw the construction of the Eiffel Tower change the Parisian skyline forever.
The name inscribed on the plaques was a nod to contemporary Franco-Russian friendship, cemented by Alexander III’s son Tsar Nicolas II’s role in laying the bridge’s foundation stone.
Historic weight is proving no protection however from thieves looking to pilfer materials or curios.
The skeleton of an elephant once owned by King Louis XIV was attacked in the Paris Natural History Museum in March when a man removed a tusk with a chainsaw and then attempted to flee. The tusk and the man were both found soon after.
“The animal fortunately suffered little in the attack,” the Museum said. ($ 1 = 0.7658 euros)
(Reporting By Tara Oakes, editing by Paul Casciato)
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German undertaker sues dominatrix for pain and theft
BERLIN |
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German court has ordered a dominatrix to pay 200 euros ($ 260) to a local charity as a penance after a client accused her of hurting and robbing him.
Cologne district court spokesman Dirk Esser said the plaintiff had accused the woman he hired for sex last month of holding a kitchen knife to his throat before demanding his debit card and PIN number.
The plaintiff, a 49-year-old undertaker, also said the woman had detained him against his will for five hours.
The court decided that it was impossible to know for sure what really happened because both parties had consumed too much cocaine during their encounter.
It dropped the charges but ordered the prostitute to pay the “penance money” to a charity that supports crime victims.
The 35-year-old mother of four has been in pre-trial custody for the past five weeks, but declined to be compensated for time spent in jail, Esser said.
The dominatrix denied keeping the man against his will, adding that he had also asked if a transsexual colleague could join them.
Four held over Spanish medieval manuscript theft
MADRID |
MADRID (Reuters) – A former church caretaker, his wife, son and another woman have been arrested in connection with last year’s disappearance of a priceless medieval text from the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in northwest Spain, police said on Wednesday.
The Codex Calixtinus, a 12th century collection of sermons and liturgical passages, vanished from a safe deposit box in the cathedral, the endpoint of the ancient pilgrimage route the Camino de Santiago.
The elaborately illustrated manuscript, considered an important part of Spain’s cultural and religious heritage, has yet to be found, though the police say they are close.
“I think we’re heading in the right direction to crack the case … The main objective is to find the Codex,” Spanish police chief Ignacio Cosido told national radio.
The key suspect is a man who was sacked after working for the cathedral as a caretaker, electrician and odd job man for more than 25 years, police said in a statement.
The force did not name the man but said his wife, son and another woman linked to the family were also detained.
Police said they had also recovered at least 1.2 million euros ($ 1.5 million), eight copies of the Codex and other ancient books that had also disappeared from the cathedral, during searches of garages, houses and storage rooms.
Officers also found documents and correspondence related to senior church figures and keys to various outbuildings.
Santiago de Compostela Cathedral is the reputed burial place of Saint James the Greater, one of Jesus Christ’s twelve apostles who, according to church tradition, arrived in Spain to preach Christianity.
(Reporting by Teresa Larraz Mora, Writing by Sarah White; Editing by Paul Day and Andrew Heavens)
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Android | Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition Review
There’s a certain novelty to playing a game on a mobile that was as widely lauded on consoles as Grand Theft Auto III. The sheer scale of the open world, the complex narratives, and the excellent voice acting are all as great as you remember. And it’s all right there on a device that’s as much for telling your other half to pick up some milk as it is about games. Yet, while GTAIII was a seminal and highly influential release for the PlayStation 2 and PC back in 2001, the same cannot be said of its 2011 incarnation on the iOS and Android. Yes, it’s as clever and action-packed as ever, but it’s hampered by touch-screen controls that sap the fun out of your on-the-go crime sprees, so you’re likely to be as frustrated as you are enamoured with the beautiful mobile version of Liberty City.
For the uninitiated, GTAIII is a 3D open-world action game set in a fictional metropolis known as Liberty City, which is loosely based on New York City. It’s not the kind of place where you’d want to wander the streets alone at night or even in the middle of the day. Crime is widespread, fuelled by a corrupt police force and government that turns a blind eye to the city’s vast criminal underworld. You play as a small-time criminal who is betrayed by his partner in crime in a bank heist. After being freed in an explosion-filled action set piece you’re set loose on the city, looking for work and aspiring to rise up the hierarchy of the criminal underworld.
How you go about that is largely up to you. Scattered throughout the city are missions in which you take on tasks for a criminal gang. These include performing simple fetch quests, tailing rival gang members in a car, and assassinating foes. Though there’s some repetition in the latter half of the game, there’s a huge variety of missions on offer, with excellent narrative and voice acting that’s as much about love and romance as it is a gritty crime drama. You won’t be working for just one gang, either. Multiple crime bosses seek out your skills as you progress, and you can complete their tasks in whichever order you please, giving you a host of options. The story does a fine job of keeping the disparate missions tied together, with your job as a gun-for-hire giving you an inside look at how each gang operates and the mounting tensions between them.
You need to play through certain missions to unlock other sections of the city or new items, such as guns and vehicles, but because this is an open-world game, you can choose to ignore them and simply use Liberty City as your destructive playground. Fancy jacking a car and mowing down a bunch of helpless pedestrians? How about grabbing a rocket launcher and watching stuff burn? Or maybe you’re just in the mood for a quiet drive through the city, watching its many citizens go about their daily business as you listen to the excellent radio? It’s all yours for the taking, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It can be even more fun when the fuzz gets involved. Outrunning the cops or revelling in a five-star wanted rating and watching an ever-increasing squadron of tanks and helicopters attempt to chase you down is immensely satisfying.
Sadly, enjoying these elements to their fullest is hampered by the touch-screen controls. While the solution Rockstar has implemented tries to make the best of the situation, it highlights how easily a great game that wasn’t designed for a touch interface is made less enjoyable. Overlaid on the action are virtual touch-screen buttons, which change depending on whether you’re driving or on foot. Each action is represented by an icon, such as a car door for jacking a car or a bullet for firing your weapon. On foot, there’s a virtual analog stick for controlling your character. When driving, it changes to simple left and right buttons for controlling your car. It’s straightforward enough, but in the heat of the action, the lack of physical feedback makes completing missions unnecessarily difficult.
For example, in one mission, you have to chase down a gang member, shunt his car with yours, and then get out to finish the job with a pistol to the face. The multiple button presses required mean you have to take your eyes off of the action to see what you’re pressing, which more often than not results in crashing your car into a wall (a problem exacerbated by the floaty handling of GTAIII’s cars) or taking too long to fire your weapon. The lack of an extra analog stick for controlling the camera is also a problem, particularly in a firefight. While you swipe across the screen to position the camera, you have to take a finger off of the analog stick or fire button (or perform some mightily impressive finger gymnastics), making it difficult to keep your eyes on the action in the middle of a shoot-out. The system does offer some flexibility in that you can customize the position and size of the virtual controls to make things more comfortable, but it’s not enough to make up for the game’s shortcomings.
Android users have the added benefit of being able to use certain USB gamepads, the Xperia Play controls, or even a keyboard and mouse. But there’s no definitive list of what exactly is supported, so getting them to work is a matter of trial and error. And, obviously, the bulkier solutions take away from the game’s portability.
The quality of the visuals can vary considerably, depending on the device you use. High-end devices like the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy S II run the game admirably well, with crisp visuals and bags of detail that still hold up well today, along with a smooth frame rate. On the officially supported Xperia Play, though, it’s a completely different story. The frame rate ranges from fine to juddering slide show, while the texture resolution takes a noticeable drop, so there’s much less detail. Even worse, there are numerous graphical glitches, ranging from your character suddenly gaining the power of invisibility to random green screens that require a hard reset to fix.
These issues keep this GTAIII from achieving the same level of greatness as its console predecessors. Sure, the underlying game still holds up extremely well, but that’s not enough to make it a great mobile game. The touch-screen controls keep you from fully enjoying everything it has to offer, while varying levels of performance mean you’re aren’t guaranteed to have a smooth or good-looking experience. The novelty is great while it lasts, but you’ll be craving a controller long before you’ve settled into Liberty City.
