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Grand Theft Auto Retrospective
Sadkey writes "In light of the release of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for the PSP, UGO has posted a retrospective around the GTA games. "Come take a trip through time, and see how a franchise went from a cult hit to a cultural phenomenon, set the tone for an entire generation, and made open-ended gameplay a buzzword of the early 21st century. It's a long, bumpy ride, but at the end, Grand Theft Auto stands tall as the game that changed everything.' ."
I remember playing the top down GTAs and just loving it. Great games.
Two words: Kill Frenzy!
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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But i've learned to prefer the 'from behind' view
Stop it stop it stop it! You are making me feel old! I am only 21, it was NOT that long ago damnit!
Ok so I did spend two entire days downloading GTA from a Warez site over dialup 2MB zip file by 2MB zip file.....
Ouch that was awhile back wasn't it...
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Someone already did that, it was called Mafia.
Ironically, with the huge surge in multiplayer games in the last few years, GTA is one of the few examples of the death of multiplayer in a series. The first two GTAs (the top down ones) had wonderful multiplayer. It easily is in my top 5 list of the best multiplayer games of all time. The shift to 3D, for some reason, meant no multiplayer. Yeah, there is a mod for GTA (MTA I think) which adds multiplayer, and it's good but its still in its infancy last I checked. I really would like to see Rockstar add multiplayer to the game.
I seem to recall a few obscure games from a company called Maxis! Sheesh, GTA3 is great, but they hardly invented or popularized the open-ended game.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
GTA 1/London/2 and GTA 3/VC/SA shouldn't be called the same game series. They're vastly different (in playing style and looks) to the point where they're almost polar opposits. It's like comparing the 3D sonics to Sonic on the mega drive. One was great and the other is good but it's just not the same.
I like muppets.
In my opinion, some things that they've added in Vice City and San Andreas do have value, but some others do not.
For example, I like how Vice City added planes and motorcycles and whatnot, as well as the extra mission types (pizza delivery, "property" missions). I also like how San Andreas was just so big -- unlike Vice City and GTA3, it actually feels like a world.
The thing I don't like about Vice City and San Andreas, though, is how the character has his own personality. With GTA3's "generic thug" character, it felt more like it was you in the game. It's considerably harder to suspend disbelief in San Andreas, since the character has such a strong personality of his own.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
One of the best bugs^H^H^H^H features of the first two GTAs was the fun-packed, sync-less net play! I remember playing it in my school's computer lab (which had a very laggy network) with other "students":
Player 1: HA! Burn, mother fucker!
Player 2: What do you mean? I just ran over you!
Player 3: Hey guys, will you stop walking towards the building's walls?
the good side was that everybody always won.
My other account has mod points.
I realize that GTA has fans, and that this game is unlike ANYTHING that has ever been on a portable platform (self-made portable PS2 hacks notwithstanding). But how can a game with such terrible flaws (read the reviews) as no difficulty difference between early and ending missions (except for the fact your weapons are terrible at the start), a bad camera and terrible targeting system, and mind-numbingly boring/anoying missions get 90+% grades?
Simple: no one wants to risk pissing off GTA lovers and losing them as readers/viewers/subscribers.
Don't get me wrong. I loved GTA 1 and 2. I played GTA 3 and found it fun to drive around but I didn't get far due to the terrible targeting. I loved Vice City even more (great soundtrack) and got farther, but I eventually dumped the game for the same reasons. The game was better, but it still wasn't there. I haven't played San An, and I don't intend to play LCS now.
Bugs and problems were OK for GTA 3, it was a first of it's kind (being a 3D world). Vice City was buggy and they should have done better. I don't know if the targeting was fixed for San An (I heard it was better) but I didn't care by that point. Then they release this game shortly after with all these problems. I realize it's the first on the platform for the series, and that the second analog stick is missing, but come one. You've made THREE OF THESE GAMES BY NOW, can't you fix some of this stuff?
They were rushing it, or they didn't care. Those are the only two reasons I can think of for having the same problems that put me off of GTA 3 four years ago this week.
The sandbox they created is fantastic. The stories and great, and the games have tons of replay value. But playing occaisionally makes me feel like I'm running towards $1,000,000 in a foot and a half of water. There is something great there, I can see it, but getting there is just so hard .
These days I'm getting less and less time to play games. My backlog is piling up. I just finished Pyschonauts (Great game, but the framerate on the PS2 version was a JOKE), and I'm in the middle of Sly 3 now (better than Sly 2!). If I was a freshman in highschool and had the time to commit, I may be able to play it. But at this point I don't need to fight a game to play it. There are a couple of games I've got RIGHT NOW that I know will be good that I won't have to do that for.
Sorry Rockstar. Try harder, huh?
-- A guy who wants to love GTA
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
GTA 1 and 2 are free downloads now from RockStar...
Grand Theft Auto - Free Download
Grand Theft Auto 2 - Free Download
Jeez, pull the stick out. Wether it's GTA3, Doom or Custer's Revenge the appeal of anti-social games is simple: Catharsis. The whole idea isn't that you're doing things which you wish you could do; the idea is that you're getting an oppertunity to do things which you'd never do. It's closer to primal scream than anything else. But if you take gaming that seriously, maybe you should stick to mario 64. ;)
Final fantasy once you get the airship, the "Secret of..." games from the same company, the Legend of Zelda games (moreso than the Squaresoft games). Mario 64?
Because the Bible glorifies "sinful" acts? Ok, whatever.
I already addressed your "point" here. I have to say that it's rather disturbing that so many people can equate containing certain themes to glorifying those same themes.
Taking the Bible as an example, what happened when David slept with Bathsheba, then bumped off her husband? The profits certainly didn't show up and start yelling, "You da' MAN! Those moves are the shizzle!" Try opening the Old Testiment sometime. It shouldn't take you long to find something along the lines of, "Yet XYZ did not turn from their sinful ways, and God's wrath poured out upon them." (The New Testament is a heck of a lot more lenient due to the coming "grace" talked about in Galatians, but it still didn't glorify ugly behavior.)
Or moving onto more complex literature. Was the point of "Gone with the Wind" that Rhett Butler was such a great lady's man? He was manuvering Scarlett O'Hara toward the bed the entire book, but when she finally consented he merely said, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." Why do you think that was, hmmm?
Is there any part in GTA where your character suddenly realizes the toll his lifestyle is taking and wants out? No? Why not? After all, isn't GTA like fine literature, chock full of lessons to be learned and humanities to analyze? Or perhaps it's just one big, antisocial, utterly meaningless, and depraved wankfest? "Look! I slept with the chick and bumped off her boyfriend! I'm the shizzle!" Great.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Have to disagree. Fido (Claude?) was perfect as is. By being silent, he allowed GTA3 to be a true RPG. You never had his backstory, his personality, or any sort of character development intrude into your imagination of what sort of character he would be.
And the missions were perfect. If you avoided the rampages, you never had to kill innocents. So you could easily be a 'noble' mobster who doesn't endanger the lives of bystanders. You save the gun, baseball bat, grenades, rockets, etc., for the people who are soldiers: other gangsters or the police.
That was what was perfect about GTA3: you could make your own moral choices. Even though the game let you play sniper, run over pedestrians, or kill prostitutes for their money, you didn't have to. You could even be especially moral and only steal parked cars or police cars, thus endangering innocents even less.
I liked Vice City and San Andreas, but the games lost something when the main guy started to talk. San Andreas lost extra points by having missions where you had to kill innocents in order to advance.
I enjoy so called "open ended games" for a few minutes to a few hours, after that I feel that it is a waste of time.
All respect to Rockstar, the game is kickass, I just cannot help it but it leaves me all the time with the game unfinished and me bored to hell of it.
What I find interesting is that the type of games you mention above strike me as incredibly boring! I don't feel like I'm getting anything done, more like just trying to run a race fast enough.
It gets boring very quickly. But, with the "open ended" games, I get the feeling like I can do whatever I want. If I want to break into an airport and steal a plane and fly around, I can. Or, drive a car, or swim across the ocean, or go look for shellfish, or whatever.
Typical gameplay might go something like this:
I do missions for a while, and get bored. Then, I grab a bike, and try to see how much money I can get for an "insane stunt bonus". After a while of that, I drive the bike into a lake, and start mowing down cops just to see what kind of gun I can get. Then, I buy a house and save game to shed the wanted level. (wouldn't it be neat to be able to mix/match Sims2 with GTA?) Do a mission or two. Grab a boat and do some jumps. Then, be a cab driver and try to get 5 people delivered before having to bail the cab. Etc.
If I could do this multi-player, it would just so rock. Also, it'd be way cool if the map could be edited. Can you imagine how lost you'd get if you could make buildings with arbitrary graphics, sorta like the WAD or PUD files of old?
But, whatever you do, don't give me a boring, linear, mono-topic game where I just run around and shoot people. Ayugh!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
"But if you take gaming that seriously, maybe you should stick to mario 64. ;)"
That is all well and good , till someone jumps on your head , flattens your family and steals all your gold coins .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
if it was as influential as the article states, then why are the only games I can find now that are vaguely based off the GTA formula horribly inferior ripoffs with the same criminal motif?
Because very few developers are as good as Rockstar - it's hardly Rockstar's fault that their imitators lack the necessary vision and inspiration...
The Fast & Furious game idea you mentioned could actually be played out within GTA: San Andreas, which features many street racing events and car modding - all you'd have to do is ignore the rest of the game. Admittedly it's only a sidegame, so the depth isn't that great, but it's there, and it's a great example of why the GTA games are to be celebrated. There are two separate rhythm action games in San Andreas (one based around dancing, one around car hydraulics). There are casinos. Paperboy-style delivery missions. Shooting galleries. BMX stunt courses. Articulated truck simulations... the list does go on. This is what the imitators can't match, and it's why GTA's cities are a lot deeper than Shenmue's, if you give them a chance - and I love Shenmue (thanks to Shenmue, I can't walk past a forklift in GTA without going for a spin).
You're absolutely right that the copycats are by and large atrocious, or at least dull, because they're copying what's on the surface of GTA and missing the depths completely. But that's no reason to criticise GTA itself; if fifty percent of developers/publishers cared as much about making a decent game as Rockstar clearly do, we'd be in a true golden age.
Only a matter of time till someone takes this and runs with it. I mean, christ, think how amazing it would be to play online against 5000+ other people trying to steal your car. Driving along, heading to do a mission, and BAM, your radio, pants, wristwatch, and anal virginity get stolen.
I don't really get it when people say the game hasn't grown. I mean, sure, they didn't add yet another dimension to make the first 4d game or anything, and they didn't break new ground by turning it into an underwater high-crime baking sim, but they took the stuff that worked and expanded upon it, and fixed the stuff that didn't. Hell, in San Andreas I could break into the airport, steal a 747, and fly twenty minutes in any direction. There's a frigging Harrier jet.
Personally, when I first got that game, I spent the entire day riding a mountain bike through the countryside north of Los Santos, finding paths and doing jumps. I kept getting lost, though. I think San Andreas' map was six times the size of Vice City, at least. Los Santos proper is probably bigger than the entire area in the last game.
Personally, while I agree GTA3 was pretty generic, Vice City and San Andreas really had decent stories. They're not oscar contenders or anything, but compared to most insane video game plots, they're quite well-written and keep my attention. I liked the characters I was supposed to like, hated the characters I was supposed to hate, and was appropriately outraged whenever I was betrayed. A popcorn flick at best, but that's still high praise in the game industry.
Of course, it depends on what you're looking for in a game. As another reply states, there are a lot of games that do specific things GTA does and does them better, but that's obvious. I like it because I have this large area, the open-ended feeling, and all these possible choices. Sure I could grab a game where I'm Bike Man and do crazy bike tricks, or Nameless Racing Person in a car with better graphics and courses, or Heavily Armed Guy In Space Armor that specializes in running around and shooting stuff, but it loses the experience that GTA has. I like being Tommy or CJ, with the silly little catchphrases and the outfits, going through my town and wreaking havoc or playing relatively harmless games as I choose.
That's the one other thing. The violence was hardly the focus for me. I mean, sure, I'd run down gang members when I had the chance, and I hated drug dealers, but I'd swerve to avoid the elderly and some of the more likeable citizenry. In San Andreas, when you were given the option to chat with passers-by, I was very polite to people that complimented me. It just made the game more interactive. That was why I played. It's a city sim from the little guy's perspective. And you can do whatever the hell you want with it.
[insert witty quote here]
Incidently for those that may have missed the 'original' series. Rockstar released updated versions (support for recent hardware) of 1&2 some time ago as free downloads. Enjoy!