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GTA San Andreas Official Site Launched
Oshuma.Shiroki writes "Rockstar Games has launched the official site for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This is particularly notable because it comes complete the very first trailer for the game, as well as some new screenshots. In any case, GTA:SA is due out for PlayStation 2 on October 19th. Head on over and take a look."
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I can't be the only European who thinks the GTA series of games is rather US-centric?
This is one of the great things about the GTA series. Americans think it's clearly a home-made product, the rest of the world is sometimes put off by its Americocentric theme, but what neither realise is that GTA is a thoroughly European product. Yes, various Americans work on the game via Rockstar's head office in New York, but the game itself is made by Rockstar North (ex-DMA Design) in Scotland.
This is actually readily apparent if you pay attention. GTA as it is perhaps could not even have been made by only Americans; it is the result of how Europeans experienced American crime through US film, TV and music. The entire plot of the games is one crime cliche after another, where you can often pinpoint the film whence it came from, but what makes it work is that is not considered "real". There is no real crime in GTA. It's just a movie. Similarly for the stereotypes, these don't mean as much to Europeans as they would to Americans. As a result, in the US you can expect a lot of ruckus over both the stereotyping and the violence in this game, whereas most complaints in Europe will be only about the violence. The stereotypes are the same we've seen a hundred times before in US films.
...I can't ever seem to finish one. I loved GTA2 for the PC, then got GTA3 and played it a long time, got bored, never finished. GTA3:Vice City was the same way, though the plot was more interesting. I'll probably pick this up (and a playstation 2) when it comes out, but I probably won't beat it :(
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I wonder who is more excited about this release. Game players, or lawyers?
I don't see how you can cry "racist" here simply because the lead character is now black. In fact, Rockstar seems to have gone to great lengths to make this lead the most complicated and deep of any of the three games... probably just to ward off uneducated knee-jerk reactionists like yourself.
Yes, it is US-centric. Sorry that seems to make a difference to you. When I played Tomb Raider, it didn't matter to me that Lara Croft is English, had a butler, and a big countryside mansion for the training level. Nor did it bother me when Mario adventured at the Caribbean-inspired Isle Delfino. For you to relate to a game, is it absolutely required that it take place in your parent's basement? We're talking escapist video games here.
If they produced a Continental European GTA that continued their string of quality and depth, I would eagerly snap it up with no complaints. Although - and you wouldn't know this, since you get your entire GTA info from crappy, one-paragraph /. articles - the GTA games have all used heavily fictionalized cities, so I'm not sure how you would specifically identify a European location, aside from using local accents and a tourist area of 1000-year-old buildings.
This is actually readily apparent if you pay attention. GTA as it is perhaps could not even have been made by only Americans; it is the result of how Europeans experienced American crime through US film, TV and music.
Well, you're oversimplifying, as many people out there do when it comes to Rockstar and Rockstar North. I was part of the "New York production team" (that's how we're credited) on various Rockstar games and since I'm not currently working on SA (no longer with the company, by choice), I have enough time on my hands that I feel like saying something about this, and finally have the freedom to do it.
I don't want to name names (check the game credits if you like) but the big names working on the GTA series are about evenly split between born and bred New Yorkers and born and bred British (not necessarily Scottish - a lot of English people work on the GTA series as well, both in New York and in the UK). The scripts are not written through the eyes of someone experiencing the US through crime movies - they're written through the eyes of someone who's lived in New York in some cases for many years, in other cases for their entire lives.
The programming is done in Scotland. The production (which includes screenwriting, character design, art direction, sound recording, soundtracks, package design, etc.) is split between NYC and Scotland depending on the job but is mostly done in NYC. The series is very much collaborative between nationalities and I do not want to take anything away from what's done in Scotland at all. I'm just saying there's this misconception out there that this series is actually coming from a European perspective and that's not really true - it's a collaboration between the Scots, British-born long-time New Yorkers, and born-and-bred New Yorkers.
Another little piece of trivia for you: Rockstar and Rockstar North are the same company. It's not just an ownership thing; Rockstar and DMA were inextricably linked for a long time, but the purchase many years ago now (prior to GTA2, if I remember right) made the two companies one. It's not a case of "Rockstar North makes the game, Rockstar is just the publisher"... Rockstar and Rockstar North are the same company, and both offices work on different aspects of the game. Some things traditionally in the developer's court are done in New York, some things traditionally in the publisher's court are done in the UK. There's no clear split between them.
Similarly for the stereotypes, these don't mean as much to Europeans as they would to Americans.
I can tell you this is not the reason why the stereotypes are in there. The stereotypes are in there because they mean so much to Americans. To a large extent, Rockstar likes to thumb its nose at political correctness; the GTA games are satires, occasional parodies. A lot of people (including you, apparently) have missed this fact and take the stereotypes at face value. They're there with the intent that they should be questioned. They're there self-consciously.
Although - and you wouldn't know this, since you get your entire GTA info from crappy, one-paragraph /. articles - the GTA games have all used heavily fictionalized cities, so I'm not sure how you would specifically identify a European location, aside from using local accents and a tourist area of 1000-year-old buildings.
Well, you're technically right about them being fictionalized cities, but come on. Vice City is Miami, Liberty City is New York, San Andreas is a cross between San Francisco and Los Angeles. That's not really a big secret. The only reason real city names were/are not used is that Rockstar/Rockstar North feel it limits what you can do - people expect you to be faithful as much as possible to the real city. So you spend all this time trying to mimic reality even when reality doesn't really lend itself to quality gameplay - it just wastes a lot of time. Having fictional cities lets you have a little more fun with the design of the cities, and lets you customize them for the best gameplay. But it's obvious what cities the GTA cities are based on, and it's intended to be.
Not to mention, there was GTA London, you know. This was the only GTA featuring a real city. It didn't do too well in the marketplace so it was never tried again; the thinking afterwards was people don't seem to much care about real cities in their games.
One side note - it may seem a bit of a contradiction what Rockstar San Diego does with the Midnight Club series, which does feature real cities and they're not entirely faithful to reality. But a) Rockstar really had nothing to do with the original Midnight Club (whereas many people who worked on the original GTA still work at Rockstar and Rockstar North), and b) the cities do not have to feature as much variety in Midnight Club as they do in a GTA game, since all you need to do in MC is race. There need to be a whole bunch of different types of areas and things to do in a GTA game, all spaced fairly close together (so you're not wasting too much time just driving around, and to fit in the system's memory and storage constraints). So it's really a different type of game.
Site is 1.1mb big (bout 3-4 mins loading time) and on my pc, using Opera, nothing appeared until it had fully loaded.
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GTA 3 had the Liberty Tree. Vice City had Kent Paul's 80s Nostalgia Zone! Both of these sites were launched and continuously updated a few months prior to the release of their respective games. Does San Andreas have one of these yet? If not, it's no big deal. We've still got I love bees to keep us entertained.
When is the PC version coming out? I'm not interested in aiming with a dual shock 2, I want to use the mouse. Being able to use a combination of my driving wheel (actually the original logitech wheel for the PS2, but it works on PCs and Macs as well because it's a HID-class device) and my mouse (also a logi) :) along with the keyboard is the only way I want to play.
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As much as I salivate at the prospect of even more features, more weapons and larger areas, I feel that GTA is running itself into a rut now. Rockstar, obviously concerned, have started introducing features such as 'eating unhealthily makes you fat' or 'jogging frequently makes you run for longer.' This conjures up worrying memories of The Sims or even Tomb Raider's latest incarnation.
This is one of the few directions they can take the game, I guess, since the missions are going to get stale eventually. GTA3's addition of a stronger narrative and side missions really helped but even by Vice City the side missions were boring and I felt something was missing.
Not that the game wasn't fun - it was - but GTA4 obviously can't continue down this path of 'bigger is better' without adding something cool. GTA:London was the first to have an actual city, GTA2 added real gangs with different loyalties towards you, and GTA3 obviously added a whole slew of features alongside the 3D - quite ambitious and impressive, looking back at it.
I think that GTA4 should either have multiplayer (although GTA3 sorta has it) or a real gang structure, or maybe both. Imagine starting up your own gang and sending out orders, or having the police enter your territory and get shot down by your goons. You could do drugs on the side, Dope Wars-style, and arrange bribes with the cops to let it happen. Then spend the money on plastic explosives and rob a few banks.
With the asset-buying and bank-robbing side mission in VC, I definitely think this is where GTA4 is going - not just a bigger area, but more freedom as well.