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Grand Theft Auto IV is looking mighty fine with two new services revealed last week ahead of its April 29th launch, but beware of preorders. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 was supposed to be a shoo-in on the PS3 after its very strong predecessor but it has launched with online multiplayer problems, teaching early adopters a bit of a lesson in either crowd expectations or patience. Sony reveals that they've been toying with online services for about 11 years now, dating back to the PS1, and several high-profile games have been patched on the PS3 bringing them up to snuff.

In other news the PC is still going strong with Steam signing up Epic's slate of games and The Sims 3 announced for delivery next year. This and more in this week's Gaming News Roundup after the jump

PS3 and Xbox 360

Rockstar teams up with amazon to offer in-game DRM-free music ordering feature in GTA IV. You hear a song in the car in-game, dial the phone in-game, and the tune is added to a real-life Amazon.com playlist to be emailed to you. Back on your real-life PC, check out the playlist and buy the tracks you want in DRM-free MP3 format. Now why on Earth can't I do this in real life from radio stations in my car?

GTA IV is to become the anchor tenant of the Rockstar Social Club, a new cross-game service to house player profiles and game achievements and offer a way to have Rockstar reward its loyal players.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed will be coming from Capcom alongside the new Bionic Commando game and after an online poll allowed gamers to weigh in on the preferred price they've decided to price the game at ten bucks. The Xbox 360 version, originally thought to be lower resolution due to DLC limitations put in place by Microsoft, got an exemption from the behemoth to avoid getting the "poorer version" than the PS3. Competition is good.

PS3

Warhawk expansion Operation: Broken Mirror will be a free patch for the game adding new map layouts and an Armored Personnel Carrier along with some new infantry equipment like the repair wrench and healing-gas mine. It'll also have a new map and new layouts to all previous maps for using the APC. The wrench and mine have a flipside as well, sabotaging enemy vehicles and harming enemy troops with poison gas respectively. It's coming April 17th.

Looks like Phil Harrison's comment on Sony Japan just not getting behind online support for their consoles has some truth to it. Revelations this week included information on trial online services for systems as far back as the PlayStation 1. It's not crystal clear why these didn't come to fruition, but lack of strong support within Sony itself is mentioned.

Once again proving that preorders rarely make sense, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for the PS3 is having problems with its online play. The original R6V had some teething pains on the Xbox 360, it seems, and the PS3 is the one to get them this time around. You'll see commenters on the EvilAvatar story showing that some Xbox 360 owners of the game are likewise seeing problems, so I'm happy to wait for a patch for either system before jumping on this one. Plus I haven't nearly gotten all the mileage out of the first R6V I'd like.

Want some Master Chief in Unreal Tournament 3? Not only can this mod deliver what seems like sacrilege, but Microsoft is apparently ok with it given its pro-machinima terms of service. Since it's only calling attention to the blockbuster franchise owned by the 800 pound gorilla in Redmond this is rather magnanimous of them. More companies should be this friendly to having their IP get free promotion on other consoles. It's worth noting that that the Xbox 360 version of UT3 still doesn't have a release date yet.

Motorstorm 2 has a new name and it's slated to hit retail in Fall 2008. Motorstorm Pacifica aims to avoid the stigma of numbered sequels by implying this game, while having a broader and better feature set, could stick around at retail alongside the original without a hitch. While I have Motorstorm and think it's an impressive and very-well-supported racer I almost never play it online or off. There are simply too many other games I'd rather play first. For that reason I've also bought none of the pay add-ons for the game since I've barely scratched its surface. Ask any gearhead racer fan and they'll tell you differently, but this game while a good change of pace for online play with friends from shooter fare isn't enough to draw me in for single player play time.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is going to get a couple of new features patched in after launch. One of these is voice chat, and I'm willing to continue stating the rumor that voice chat via the XMB will require a patch for every game that wants to use it. The timing of voice chat and this game makes me think that Polyphony Digital is just waiting until Sony gets it out the door rather than code up their own for the game.

The Orange Box has finally been patched on the PS3. This somewhat revives my interest in this game. That said, I'm still stuck in Ravenholm in my PC version of Half-Life 2 and haven't even tried playing the demo of Portal I have. I just tried playing getting out of the cul-de-sac I'm stuck in in HL2 yesterday and couldn't get out. What do I do now?

PS3 Firmware 2.20 has arrived. BD-LIVE lets future compatible Blu-ray discs link to internet content, Remote Play now lets you output sound through the PS3 instead of just through the PSP allowing the handheld to be sort of a sound system remote control, and the web browser has been updated to let some sites load faster and allow certain media types to download direct to the hard drive. Sounds like an update to assist with the new PlayStation Store revamp coming in April.

Unreal Tournament III was patched six days early, on March 21st, and a new absolutely free map pack was released on the PS3 PlayStation Store the same day as for the PC version giving three new maps for the game on the 27th. Thank you Epic!

Wipeout HD is coming this summer, and even though I haven't even tried the new Wipeout Pulse demo on my PSP yet and the series isn't something I've played before these videos look delicious.

PC

The Sims 3 is headed to retail sometime in 2009. Not a big shock given the success of the previous iterations of the franchise, but I can't bring myself to play The Sims 2 despite having bought it for cheap some time ago and have never bought any of The Sims 2's expansions despite some interest in it. Call me weird but I just can't get into characters who constantly want to sleep together. The game also doesn't run that well on my pretty high-end laptop. I'm sure The Sims 3 will be an even bigger dog.

Steam continues to build momentum, signing the full slate of Epic games up for instantaneous purchase and delivery.