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.

Comments

Top down was ok....

[austinpoet]

But i've learned to prefer the 'from behind' view

Re:Top down was ok....

[DeafByBeheading]

*raises hand*

I like the freedom and simplicity of the original; the unadulterated sleaze in the story and missions (III & VC seem so polished by comparison--haven't played SA yet); the announcer--including the total mayhem bonuses of GTA2 (I fondly remember being recognized as a "Cop Killer!" and causing a "Medical Emergency!"); GTA2's awesome fire truck--you know the one I'm talking about; the train station and frying the passengers; the car bombs (III & VC are nerfed); the multiplayer; the subtlety of the humor (III was pretty good still, but VC got really old after a while--its humor wouldn't look out of place next to the word "ham-fisted" in the dictionary).

On the other hand, the third game was an incredible leap to 3D; introduced free saves (God how I hated the total inability to save in the first GTA and the very very expensive saving in GTA2); gave us choppers, planes, and useable boats; introduced a more sensible health system (single-bullet-death sucks--never mind that you could dodge them); a real story (okay, so it's not epic writing, but the original games had about as much story as DOOM); the kick-ass jumps the 3D engine allows (the 2D "Insane Stunt Bonus!"es were nifty, but had no real substance); and the way the 3D aspect really opens up the world--I figured out how to get to the third island in Vice City before doing a single mission by jumping off a bridge onto a boat. I did this by myself by observing the game world, and not trying to "hack" anything. This wasn't cheating--it was a genuine trick that let you move bypass some of the roadblocks present and move to new sections of the city early. The thing is, I doubt the designers envisioned this. I think that this is possible because the engine represents the game world in such impressive detail that things like this just arise by themselves.

In short, the original has classic moments that the 3D games can't replicate (and some that they sadly just seem unwilling to bring back). The 3D games have addressed a lot of the problems of the originals and added incredible depth. I love both. I probably won't even *start* SA for a few months, but I got to 100% in Vice City and enjoyed every minute of it (well, almost every minute).

Re:The real question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone already did that, it was called Mafia.

Net play

[lampiaio]

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.

If you really miss top down that much...

[wo1verin3]

GTA 1 and 2 are free downloads now from RockStar...

Grand Theft Auto - Free Download

Grand Theft Auto 2 - Free Download

Re:Eh?

[RLiegh]

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. ;)

Re:Multiplayer

[Forum Joe]

When asked about Multiplayer in Vice City (and then San Andreas) Rockstar always said that it would have been a nice idea, but their engine doesn't support it, and it's too much work to rewrite the entire engine to a multiplayer-compatible one, or something. I thought it sounded like a load of crap (because of Multi Theft Auto) but they stuck to their guns.
However, for the first time in a 3D GTA game, Liberty City Stories has multiplayer. Rockstar haven't stated why they included multiplayer in this version. Perhaps it's because multiplayer was a major selling point of the PSP, and they wanted to take advantage of that. Perhaps it's because this time the first platfrom is a multiplayer native one (lets face it, all the other GTAs are PS2 ports. LCS isn't). If their earlier reasoning is to be believed, I think it's because they had to build their engine for a new platform from the ground up, so they decided to design it from a multiplayer perspective.
I'm predictin g the next GTA on a home console will be for XBOX 360 and PS3 and will include Multiplayer... Liberty City Stories is just practice. :)

Re:Exactly! I mean, go read the Bible or something

[AKAImBatman]

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.