GTA4 may have taken the world by storm, but the PC world is still yet to enjoy the latest installment on their preferred platform. It is the task of modding to breathe the magic back into the classic GTAs, and what better way than to add the originally intended multiplayer functionality to them? After the successes that were SA:MP and MTA comes a complimentary alternative, Project Andreas Reloaded.

Like its counterparts, PAR is designed as a plugin to San Andreas that will allow the user to connect to a server and play other connected users via the internet or a network. I asked its creator, Pixels^, a few questions:

What is your inspiration and/or motivation behind the mod?

Mostly what details that SA:MP and MTA don't work on. Such as modifying the HUD or controlling special vehicle items like lights. Also the lack of updates, I plan on making less big releases and making the releases much smaller and faster, sort of what Apple does for Mac OS. This mod although, is no way meant to compete with SA:MP or MTA. I myself am a very strong SA:MP supporter and this mod is just meant to be an alternative to the Apple and Microsoft of San Andreas multiplayers. There is no telling exactly what features we will build on, time will tell.

How long have you been working on it?

Well I started on it around 2 weeks ago. It was buggy and didn't work then, I forgot about it for a few days, and when I was bored like around a week ago, I recoded the packet transfers and the connection manager, and managed to get Seif to help me test. I was actually surprised how good the sync was working.

What other aspects of modding have you explored in the past?

I used to be a txd modder, I would make my own textures and load them into the game and make all my vehicles look good. I also did some minor game mission coding.

What features do you have planned for the mod once you have the basics completed?

A must for most developer is to see how much RAM & CPU they use when they are playing, we are planning to include a cpu & ram meter ingame so you can see what is going on. One feature I love that, is already added, is the ability to see who connects/disconnects and who chats, all while your loading the game. We plan on special commands to control the color of HUD. For example turn your health bar color to blue. Then maybe a keybind for controlling vehicle lights and such. As we go along in the development, we'll receive lots of suggestions from players and testers and we hope to build on them. We really can't say all of the features that will be in 0.1, since we don't really know yet.

Can you give an estimate as to when a public release might be available?

2-3 months from now. That's not a rough estimate ether. We have a small progress list for testers and developers to see and so far most of the things on the list are done.

• Foot Sync - Done
• Vehicle Sync - 10%
• Weather System & Sync - Done
• Ram & CPU Usage Monitor - 20%
• Chatbox - 98%
• Swim Sync - 20%

We have lots of screenshots and videos for a preview of the multiplayer. The second youtube video is a little dark because of chinatown's dim lighting. Next videos will be shot in a much brighter environment. In some of the videos, you can see the custom HUD colors. I spend atleast 3 hours of coding a night on this mod, so we should be spitting out videos atleast once a week.

» Click here to view Project Andreas Reloaded's GTAGarage modpage.