GTA IV Freeze Problem Quick Fix

You're speeding down the crowded rush-hour streets. Suddenly the blare of a siren and the glare of blue and red lights appear behind you. "Hey, that light was yellow." you curse. You take an evasive left-hand turn and run over some pedestrians. Now the city's entire police force is hot on your trail and that's not the worst of it all. Your not playing Grand Theft Auto IV, you're just trying to get your spanking brand new copy of the game home to your Playstation. As the law surrounds your house and helicopters buzz overhead, you slip the disc into the game counsel and everything goes into slow motion as it locks-up, crashes, and FREEZES!

Many GTA junkies preordered 30 days in advance and waited in long lines to get their copy of Grand Theft Auto IV on April 29, only to be NOT shot down in a hail of bullets. Certain Playstation 3 game counsels freeze up during the game's introduction, never allowing Niko's feet to hit the streets.

Although there are reported lock-up problems across the PS3 hardware spectrum, the most "busted" offender is the 60GB version of the PS3 hardware. The Game Reviews broke the news early on the release date, "a large number of Playstation gamers were complaining that Grand Theft Auto IV was freezing up after the first cut scene or after the mandatory install to the Playstation 3 HDD."

Videogamer.com was the first to endure the drone of on-hold tech support, as well as seduce an acknowledgement from the phone tech, "A patch is being worked on around the clock to address the issues. It's bound to be. That's how they address this sort of thing. It is being worked on. We're looking into it. You will hear from us if a patch is released. A patch is usually the way it's been done." Which roughly translates into, "Aw, crap. This is bad. This is bad."

A number of gaming websites have provided suggestions including Play Station Universe, and Kotaku.com, a news site for gamers, stemming from conversations with Take Two customer support suggesting the following quick fix.

Play without access to the Internet. The majority of problems seem to stem from the Playstation 3s automatic connection to the Playstation Network. By simply disabling the network connection prior to loading the game, most players will get past the cut scene freeze, which occurs after the introductory movie.

Take-Two Interactive's tech support site details the process, "Disable your Internet connectivity for the PS3. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Settings' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Network Settings'. Now scroll down to the Internet connection option and press x, now select the disable option. Once this has been done unplug the Ethernet cable if you are connecting to the Internet if using this."

From the ShackNews.com forum, Mok explains, "I must disable my PSN account to start the game. Then re-enable it by going into Multi-Player if I want my Rockstar Social Club thingy to work right."

A visit to Rockstar GTA's parent company, Take-Two Interactive tech support site, had posted an extensive array of suggestions on how to fix the problem. As of May 6, the official response has mysteriously disappeared, but frustrated PS3 players can still find the step-by-step process here on the GameSpot.com website.

These elaborate remedies, either individually or in combination, have allowed dedicated GTA gamers access to Liberty City by killing key features such as graphics resolution, auto save, and the online multiplayer mode.

While Rockstar coders are frantically developing the patch, Take-Two customer support still promises to try to walk would be Liberty City immigrants through these temporary fixes.