The Christian set has a message-filled, re-skinned doppelganger of almost every form of entertainment these days. The most recent, relevant to our interests? Guitar Praise: Solid Rock, the Guitar Hero knockoff with a positive message from Digital Praise, maker of all things fun and biblically inspired.

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The new issue of Nintendo Power contains first official details on Rockstar Games' youth corrupting Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, reported to be a cel-shaded, M-rated 3D journey through Liberty City with an isometric view. According to NeoGAF poster botticus, Chinatown Wars looks to adopt GTA IV's use of a cell phone for portions of the game's UI, with a PDA controlling your "email, contacts, map, music player, GPS, [and] stat-tracking." Those stats can be uploaded via Wi-Fi to the Rockstar Social Club, supposedly, to keep obsessive-compulsive track of your in-game progress.

Gameplay-wise, Chinatown Wars will feature D-pad aiming and auto targeting via the R button, as well as "tasteful" mini-games — no lap dances? The arsenal is said to include a flamethrower and chain gun, and the wanted system looks to be modified to maybe shun GTA IV's "out of sight, out of mind" mechanic for one that requires the player to "disable police cars any way possible."

More details after the jump.

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And here we go. That's 19 year-old Ryan Chinnery. He stands accused to committing two sex attacks, which were supposedly inspired by Grand Theft Auto. According to British tabloid The Sun, Chinnery drove the streets looking to attack women he thought were prostitutes. None of the women he attacked were. A DNA sample found on his latest victim matched his, but Chinnery apparently claimed he was at home playing video games until he broke down and confessed. Says the case's prosecutor:

There may be some connection with the defendant admitting spending a lot of time playing that game.

A copy of GTA (not specified) was found at Chinnery's residence by police. Before you jump to conclusions about this story, jump to conclusions about this "exclusive" being from The Sun.

Sex beast copied Grand Theft Auto [The Sun via VG247]

With Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars coming to the Nintendo DS exclusively, does that pave the way for a Wii release? After all, the Wii is the best selling console in North America right now and Take-Two and Rockstar Games don't shy away from bringing mature content — Manhunt 2 and Bully, for example — to the little white wonder. And Grand Theft Auto IV is making Take-Two big bucks. Sounds like a profitable relationship on par with the perfection of chocolate and peanut butter.

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Our nation's youth will be corrupted on the go, Grand Theft Auto-style, as early as November of this year and as late as January of 2009, according to today's Take-Two Interactive investor call. CEO Ben Feder pegged Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS as a fiscal Q1 '09 release, putting it in the same quarter as GTA IV's Japanese launch date.

Feder wouldn't confirm that the title would hit before the holidays, despite requests from callers to clarify.

If rumours are right, Chinatown Wars will hit in the same three month window — November 1 to January 31 — as GTA IV's Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable episodes. If that GTA three-way does happen, it could make for a very happy group of shareholders. And a lot of virtual bystander corpses.

Thailand's Ministry of Culture, fully swept up in the hysteria that has followed an allegedly Grand Theft Auto-inspired murder, has officially banned five "dangerous" games, according to a report from CNET. The Technology Thailand blog writes that the following titles are no longer to be sold or distributed under the threat of legal action: Hitman, 300: The Video Game, Killer 7, Hitman: Blood Money and 50 Cent: Bulletproof.

Curiously, Grand Theft Auto titles don't appear to be on the "banned" list. It cannot, however, be imported or distributed due to its dangerous status.

The Thai government is also spearheading a vague 90-day effort to protect impressionable youth from "dangerous games" and establish regulations for pay-to-play gaming centres that feature such titles.

Thai Ministry of Culture wages war on gaming [CNET via GamePolitics]

While we've seen countless stories regarding children using Grand Theft Auto as their inspiration to do wrong, it's extremely rare that we see news about GTA being cited as a cause for good. It happened on August 27th around 9pm, as the Norris family of five was heading to Diamond, Illinois to visit relatives. Their 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee swerved off the road, hitting a guardrail and flipping four times before coming to a stop, caving in the roof and smashing out the back window. With her mother hanging upside down and her father pinned against the steering wheel, 11-year-old Audrey Plique climbed out of the back window and helped her parents and two younger siblings escape the car. The motivation for her heroic act, according to her mother Karen Norris?

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Back in my days as a teen, my parents weren't afraid of anything as far as I was concerned, but not all 15-year-olds are 6'6" with a goatee. Today's parents have plenty to worry about in fact, though a recent survey performed at the family-focused consumer game site What They Play seems to indicate their priorities are a bit out of whack. They asked a series of asked over 1,600 respondents what they'd fear the most if their 17-year-old were to participate in a sleepover. The results, picked from single answers only - no multiple choice here - indicated that while 16% were concerned about pornography and 14% about beer, 19% voiced concerns that their child might end up playing Grand Theft Auto.

Proving that parents haven't gone completely crazy, the vast majority - 49% - were worried that their child would smoke a little chronic with their pals and then...I dunno, giggle for 8 hours straight, like we did back when i was a teenager. That's the real danger folks.

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There's a stirring editorial at Destructoid over the recent murder of a taxi driver in Thailand by a youth who cited Grand Theft Auto as his inspiration. While the piece focuses on violence and its (non-existent) link to video games, I feel the logic applies to other issues (say, drug use) as well:

Grand Theft Auto has nothing to do with depravity. These acts of violence are the direct result of the decisions that these people choose to make. It's been said countless times before in a long list of editorials by the games industry, but it needs repeating for the unconvinced of the world. Videogames are not the enemy.

Why do people choose to do the things they do? Who the hell really knows? Blaming things on violent videogames is not the answer though. I'll admit that games like Grand Theft Auto or Gears of War may have the propensity to give an ill individuals ideas, but these cats are already toast. Some other flame has burned them before fantasy indoctrinated them.

Violence in games doesn't translate to real violence [Destructoid]

According to a report from newspaper La Vanguardia, by way of GamePolitics and Google's Spanish to English translator, Spain's cabbies are calling for a ban on Grand Theft Auto — Grand Theft Auto IV, we presume. After a Thai teenager was arrested on suspicion of murdering a taxi driver, claiming to have been inspired by GTA, the game was pulled from shelves in Thailand.

Now, Josep Maria Goñi, secretary general of the Catalan Taxi Federation, is asking the Spanish government to do the same, citing the Thai murder case.

We're going to make an arse out of ourselves and assume that Mr. Goñi knows as much as the Grand Theft Auto series as just about everyone else in his position and hope that cabbie murder hysteria blows over before it gives the series a bad rap. We can't have our games being scapegoated for society's ills, now. What a horrible precedent that would set.

Spanish Cabbies Want GTA Banned in Wake of Thai Taxi Murder [Game Politics]