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History of Grand Theft Auto

Posted by Zonk on from the back-to-the-top-down-days dept.

jasoncart writes "With the launch of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas this week, Ferrago has taken a look back at everyone's favorite non-linear series."

13 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Site is slow by zebs · · Score: 2, Informative

    Was slow when reading it as a /. subscriber. Took a copy and its here

  2. Um... by Intellectual+Elitist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The author thinks that the "mute mothafucka" (thanks, C.J.) from GTA3 and Tommy Vercetti from GTA:VC are the same guy. That should give you some idea of the overall worth of the piece.

  3. lame article text by whiteSanjuro · · Score: 3, Funny

    privateer was *my* favorite non-linear series...

    1. Re:lame article text by horsebutt · · Score: 2, Informative

      And Pirates is jut about to be re-released. It is being done by Sid Meier, so isnt going to be a dodgy remake by someone else.

  4. GTA2 by NereusRen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Am I the only one who loved GTA2? I still play the multiplayer occasionally with my dorm friends. The balance of power between various weapons and powerups makes it quite strategic, with lots of room for improving your game through intelligence and skill.

  5. Lots of info missing! by Jagasian · · Score: 4, Informative

    You would have figured that they would point out that the first GTA released in 1997 included Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas all in the same game. Most gamers who even played the first GTA when it was released never got past Liberty City. I personally never got past San Andreas. The original GTA was far more difficult than GTA3, mainly do to the fact that messing up a mission was a far bigger set back in GTA. You couldn't just do the mission over again, and it would also reset your score multiplier making even harder to raise enough money to get to the next city.

    1. Re:Lots of info missing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, I was able to get past San Andreas and into Vice City, though I must say, I liked the layout of San Andreas the best of the three maps.

      If I remember right, there were 2 sets of missions for Liberty City, 3 sets for San Andreas, and 2 for Vice City. I only finished 1 in Vice City before getting tired and moving onto other things.

      And one good thing was that if you did screw up all your missions (like I did once), you could turn to other methods of raising revenue - e.g. stealing cars (then selling them at cranes), and the ever popular "Guaranga" :-)

      There were a lot of secret areas - some only accessible via bike (or even super bike). I highly doubt I managed to find them all!

    2. Re:Lots of info missing! by caustiq · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Did anyone else ever line up as many cars as they could, as close as they could get together ... and then blow one up with a rocket launcher causing a chain explosion, and resultant score multiplication? This is how I got to Vice City, by doing this in one of San Andreas' large parking lots. I've never seen this mentioned anywhere, but I remember racking up HUGE scores like this. Would make for a nice screenshot too, my explosions were gigantic, (so large in fact you would have to make sure the explosions wouldn't spread off the screen, as you wouldn't recieve any cash...)

  6. Re:GTA remakes? by HAKdragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    For what it's worth, Rockstar relased GTA as freeware a while back. It wouldn't hurt to try to get it to work under Wine.

    And for the record, other than the opening movies, Vice City works perfectly under Cedega.

    --
    "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
  7. Number One Question.... by fm6 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Why does the AI in GTA3 suck so thoroughly? Don't get me wrong, I really like the game. But my enjoyment is slightly spoiled by non-player characters that literaly can't find their way out of a corner. Makes it much too easy to avoid the police. What makes it really sad is that the advanced hype for the game promise the most sophisticated AI ever. Not what we got.

    I guess my question is rhetorical, 'cause I know the answer. Whoever was assigned to write the AI just totally underestimated the difficulty of the task. Almost all programmers make that mistake -- they don't appreciate the difficulty of emulating human behavior. The exceptions are all serious computer scientists.

    So, RQ2: why didn't they hire some of those? They had the budget for big name actors to do the voices, to render a couple hundred buildings in detail, and to develop the VR engine to make it all work. Surely they could hire an AI expert or two. Answer: they just didn't know any better. Too bad.

  8. Non-linear? by Elkboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would hardly call GTA non-linear. It displays the old split between dynamic simulation and linear narration well because they are there side-by-side. They don't come together very much at all though, despite being combined quite expertly. At least GTA doesn't feel like half a film like some other games, but don't tell me the main story progression isn't linear. You can crash all the rides you want and cap all the bitchassmuthas you want, but you still go from A to B and then C if you want to experience anything more than a complex sandbox.

    I guess to bridge the gap between simulation and narration you'd need some kind of story engine, but considering the trouble game developers have with simple AI I'm guessing that's far off.

  9. LOL AI is not budget, it is impossible by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Each and every FPS or similar game promises revolutionary AI that will stun you. It never happens. The problem is that while moving out of a corner is easy for humans it isn't for computers. Even realising that something is in a corner is a complex piece of programming.

    Only with very thight scripting and severely limiting the available options can current AI be made to look at least slightly as smart as a concussed kitten.

    The reason? Two fold, AI research is just bloody complex and expensive. If they can't do it with purpose built robots costing billions then why should a game company be able? Second is that AI takes a lot of CPU power and the fast majority of users are still stuck on the old 1 cpu crap that intel been pushing for decades.

    A game company has a simple choice, spend money on flash graphics and be sure it will look pretty or spend it on AI and risk it still being dumb as shit but also ugly looking.

    If you don't believe me that AI is difficult just try to write a path finding routine in pseudo code. Your in an artificial enviroment so you don't need to worry about how you detect wether you are in front of a wall. The detection always works. BUT it is not a simple maze. Walls are at odd angles, some are wide some are small and walking down the middle of them is a no-no.

    Just try it. Then you will have your answer. Oh and if you manage, now add objectives like having to chase a randomly moving object while avoiding other moving objects. That is after all what is happening in GTA.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  10. GTA by ledow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As someone who owns EVERY PC GTA game, including the london add-ons etc., I think the original GTA was the best. It wasn't the storyline, that was just humour especially with the London addon, but the freeform play, especially when networked.

    When I got bored of trying to play it properly (which was much harder in the original GTA than in the 3-D versions), my brother and I would network and that was just fantastic (albeit very buggy in DOS and unplayable on Windows with my machines at the time). Trying to line up a screen full of cars and then rocket-launchering and trying to surf over the top of the cars as they exploded was great fun.

    Skidding around on a bike in the middle of machine-gunning gang was just right and if you were quick and smart you could set up booby traps with some cars and blow them all to kingdom come.

    The multiplayer was simple but effective, leading to some good car chases and using the local terrain and traffic to avoid each other's bullets.

    GTA2 was a bit too much like another add-on, just a graphical overhaul and a slight change in mission structure, and I never really got into that as much. The graphics were also too dark and the "lighting" was just there to be eye candy and nothing else.

    GTA3/VC, although good and groundbreaking, just doesn't rock my socks... it's fun to mess about in but you get bored and the missions are just of the save-and-retry type, along with some impossible ones like controlling the remote control choppers.

    All of the games, though, have that right balance of freeform and mission-led play. When you ran out of missions in GTA1, you could go selling cars for a while until the police came and you had to make a quick getaway.

    GTA2 had a marvellous idea for missions where you have to keep in with a local gang to get more, or defect to another gang to get theirs. GTA3 has been a good translation to 3D and it keeps the same style, I'm just not sure that it's as good.

    The fact that you can load up any of them, load in any saved game and just piss about for a while is a major attraction, especially when you can't do that next-to-impossible mission and want to relax.

    What I want to see is basically OpenGTA1... same game, same style, loads of new capabilities and missions.