Rockstar Games today announced a new feature for Grand Theft Auto IV, releasing April 29. Titled the Social Club, the website will act as a community hub for all things GTA IV related. Registration for the Social Club begins exactly two weeks prior to the release of the game on April 15. Either an Xbox Live Gamertag or PlayStation Network ID will earn you access to the Social Club, though the release wasn’t specific as to whether that means it will be open to all Xbox Live members or if it will be exclusive to Gold Tier users.

The list of features for the Social Club is as follows:

• LCPD Police Blotter -- A virtual map and tracker of single-player criminal activity logged in Liberty City from the aggregated data of millions of connected players - showing the most dangerous areas of town, most commonly used weapons and more.
• The Story Gang -- This special single-player leaderboard recognizes players who complete Niko Bellic’s main story arc of Grand Theft Auto IV - The leaderboard ranks players according to the total amount of playing time it’s taken to complete the story, as well as a historical rank by who has completed it first. Members of this club will receive special online widgets and merit badges marking all of their in-game accomplishments.
• The 100% Club -- Watch to see who will be the first to complete 100% of the game. The first ten people to be identified on the Social Club as reaching 100% will be sent an ultra-rare commemorative ’key to the city’ to mark their accomplishment. In the future, the 100% Club will then carry a historical leaderboard showing rankings of who has completed 100% of a game in the shortest span of playing hours.
• The Hall of Fame -- This area will dynamically recognize those singularly elite players who have reached the top of the hill on various statistical leaderboards, and will also contain a personal awards display of special in-game landmarks and successes in Social Club competitions.
• The Liberty City Marathon -- A ranking of special physical milestones achieved in the game - from the amount of miles walked, driven, or swam - to the number of bullets fired and stunt-jumps jumped. There will be additional special marathon-based competitions in the future from this area as well.

The Social Club won’t be limited to the list above, according to Rockstar the feature can be expanded with special competitions, leaderboards and new challenges to test gamers months after GTA IV’s release. It’s interesting to note that the press release continually called it the "Rockstar Social Club" indicating that the same functionality could be applied to future Rockstar properties as well.