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Keshav Verma
Playing the new Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on my iPad (it’s coming soon for Android) made me nostalgic for other GTA games. Not so much for the gratuitous violence, but for the radio stations that have become a hallmark of the series.
Indeed, these in-game stations play not only a huge variety of commercial tunes (in GTA IV alone, you’ll find everything from Count Basie to Genesis to Kanye West), but also some crackling DJ banter and hilarious fake ads. (The Public Liberty Radio station is bust-a-gut funny.)
If you’ve ever wished you could listen to those stations without having to fire up your game console, now you can. GTA Radio puts Grand Theft Auto’s radio stations on your Android phone.
This free app streams stations from Grand Theft Auto III, Liberty City Stories, Vice City, Vice City Stories, San Andreas, and Grand Theft Auto IV. Not all the stations from GTA IV are available yet, but the developer says more are coming soon.
Just pick one of the games and presto, the app starts streaming one of the available stations. You can use the shuttle controls to cycle between stations, though it would be nice if the app gave you a pick-list instead of making you shuffle around the dial, so to speak.
Although the audio quality could be better — it sounds about on par with real FM radio — GTA Radio works like a charm and delivers a truly entertaining blast from the GTA past.
Of course, this is clearly not a Rockstar Games-sanctioned app, so it remains to be seen whether it will stay available. So if you’re a fan of those awesome stations, you may want to have at it while you can.
